| “ | Failed me? You've destroyed me! Without the heat from that bomb, how long do you think I'll be able to survive like this?! | „ |
| ~ Zander to Kairi Tanaga. |
Zander is the main antagonist of the Batman Beyond two-parter episode "Curse of the Kobra".
He is the genetically-engineered leader of the Kobra terrorist organization, who created him so he could be their ideal and perfect leader upon growing up. As part of his training, Zander becomes a pupil of Sensei Kairi Tanaga at her dojo in New Gotham, leading him to cross paths with Terry McGinnis and his friend Maxine Gibson, catching his eye on the latter just as he carries out Kobra's newest domination plot.
He was voiced by Alexis Denisof.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- Studied military strategy and genetics since childhood to learn how to drive Kobra to success. In one ocassion, Zander experimented with a kidnapped man under the supervision of his caretaker Dr. Childes and the devious Dr. Abel Cuvier, likely torturing and/or mutating the poor subject.
- Even before revealing himself as evil, Zander was already shown to be a lethal individual at Kairi Tanaga's class, decapitating a training dummy during a session.
- Disproportionately beats up J-Man and his Jokerz gang when they harass him, Terry McGinnis and Maxine "Max" Gibson at the Dan's Cheez Pit arcade where they had gathered to play video games and eat pizza. While the Jokerz deserved it for provoking them, even Terry points out that Zander went too far as he nearly punches J-Man to death.
- Abducts Max to make her his mate out of an obsession for her beating him out in a VR game at the arcade, threashing her apartment in the process.
- Shoots missiles at Batman and has one of his men beat him up accross New Gotham's skyline when he tries to rescue Max from his clutches as he escapes in his flying car, causing Batman to injure himself really badly due to his henchman ripping out his suit's wings.
- Attempts to drop a R-12 thermal bomb stolen by his men into a dormant volcano that goes halfway to the Earth's core so he can make magma rise and superheat the Earth to the point no humans would be able to survive, planning to have human-dinosaur hybrids created by Kobra's splicing experiments (which they developed by stealing ancient dinosaur DNA from the Gotham Natural History Museum doctor Padu Banjahri), among them himself, Max and his fellow terrorists, inhabit the planet then, much to Max's horror.
- The splicing transformation people endure upon becoming dinosaur hybrids is shown to be quite painful, and while his test subjects voluntarily let themselves be experimented with, the same cannon be said for Max, whom Zander tries to have spliced against her will even after she refused his offer.
- Threatens Childes to not lecture him and warning him that maybe Max is gonna rule over him someday, proving he doesn't care at all for his caretaker and for most of his underlings in fact, given how his handmaidens tell Max that no one ever says no to Zander.
- Asks one of his servants to splice Max by force.
- Brutally beats Batman up when he tries to stop the bomb, nearly succeeding if not for Kairi's timely intervention.
- Despite bieng told by Batman why he is evil, Zander declares that all positive things in life are weaknesses and that he doesn't care for them.
- Tries to kill Kairi himself for ruining his plans even though she trained him.
- His actions indirectly lead Kairi to sacrifice herself to buy time for Batman and Max to escape from Kobra's burning ship, a sacrifice that affects both friends and Bruce Wayne, Terry's mentor and Kairi's old friend, giving him some personal villainy.
- Though he was raised since childhood to be evil and was never taught concepts like family, friends or love, Zander is capable of making bonds, like he did with Terry and Max, apologizing to the former on behalf of his harsh bodyguard and prompting him to kidnap the latter due to coming to like her, which proves he isn't Made of Evil. Fittingly, Kairi admits that she tried to teach him the Bushidō code so he could choose over what's right and wrong to no avail, so Zander has no moral agency issues.
- While one can argue that his friendship with Terry isn't subverted due to him never realizing Terry was Batman, the fact that he was planning to wipe out humanity heavily implies that he didn't really mind what happened to Terry.
- Although other villains in the DCAU try to wipe out humanity like the Imperium, Lord Orm and Vandal Savage, all of them have either more advanced resources (or in the latter's case, did wipe them out unintentionally but in an alternate timeline that was later undone), allowing Zander to stand out, especially with his unique methods and the fact that it's his own species he is trying to wipe out under the pretext that "mammals" had their chance and blew it.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- Despite how catastrophic and inexcusable his crimes are, Zander is still tragic and sympathetic to a degree: he was conceived through an artificial womb by Kobra and raised under their ideals, only eating what they wanted him to eat, learning what they wanted him to learn and often being surrounded by mindless automatons, without family, friends or love, which is why he obsessively tried to have all of this upon meeting Terry and Max, even though he did it wrong and later dismissed them as weaknesses. Although his death doesn't make him a scapegoat, it does give him a little sympathy as he didn't know what to do other than obeying Kobra, with Kairi apologizing for failing to teach him how to take the right path.
Trivia[]
- In the DVD commentary for "Curse of the Kobra", Batman Beyond co-creator Bruce Timm expressed his regrets over not exploring Zander's humanity and his genuine friendships with Terry McGinnis and Maxine Gibson seen in the episode's first part, feeling that such side of the character disappeared in the second one. Had Zander's human side been further fleshed out, it's possible it could have affected Zander's Near Pure Evil status.
External Links[]
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 Near Pure Evils
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Comics Other Earths Theatrical Movies Direct-to-video Movies Television Novelizations Video Games See Also | ||
 Animated Universe Near Pure Evils
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Batman: The Animated Series: Scarecrow | Sewer King | Professor Milo | Thoth Khepera | Arkady Duvall | ||