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Andrea: They took everything, Bruce! My dad, my life, you! I'm not saying it's right or, or even sane, but it's all I've got left. So either help me or get out of the way! Batman: You know I can't do that! Andrea: Look what they did to us! What we could have had! They had to pay! Batman: But Andi... What will vengeance solve? Andrea: If anyone knows the answer to that, Bruce... it's you.
„
~ Andrea Beaumont explaining her motives to Batman.
She is a former lover of Bruce Wayne turned deadly vigilante, who targets Salvatore Valestra and his mob crew, including the Joker, for the death of her father, Carl Beaumont. She also fights Batman for getting in the way. In the main DC comic universe, Andrea is considered a rival to Catwoman.
Vengeance blackens the soul, Bruce. I've always feared that you would become that which you fought against. You walk the edge of that abyss every night, but you haven't fallen in, and I thank heaven for that. But Andrea fell into that pit years ago, and no one, not even you, could have pulled her back.
„
~ Alfred, explaining to Bruce that Andrea Beaumont is beyond redemption.
Andrea was kind, sociable, charismatic, and somewhat quirky. Despite the death of her mother, she retained an optimistic outlook, and had a close relationship with her father, Carl Beaumont. Even though it was an abnormal location to begin flirtations, when she met Bruce Wayne at the cemetery - due to visiting her mother's grave - she was able to playfully tease him and spark his initial interest in her. While Bruce resisted his feelings at first, Andrea was able to completely seduce him, thus creating a strong bond despite the relative brevity of them knowing each other.
Her good nature was so strong that she managed to ease the immense grief that Bruce carried for the deaths of his parents, which made him consider reevaluating his vow to avenge them. However, Andrea's loyalty to her father was perhaps stronger, since when Carl provoked the wrath of the mobster trifecta, she reluctantly yet faithfully joined him in fleeing Gotham. While done out of misguided kindness, she rejected Bruce's proposal by returning the ring he gave her, along with a note that read a lie designed to avoid making him worry, but it was still a devastating blow that broke his heart, making him return to his original plan of vigilantism; her desire to avoid hurting Bruce ended up hurting him perhaps worse due to he vagueness of her reasons.
A few years before her return, the mobster (who would become the Joker one day) was sent by the mob bosses to murder Carl, even though he had repaid their money because they held a grudge for his prior deception. Losing a married life with Bruce, and then the death of her father - her last close relationship - broke Andrea, changing her from a compassionate and loving person into a vengeful and hateful one. Much like how the death of the Waynes had driven Bruce to extreme measures to reach justice, Andrea's losses similarly instilled a single-minded and essentially ruthless mind set; however, unlike Bruce, Andrea's rage pushed her towards lethal ends. She likewise created a new persona to instill fear into her targets, thus donned the mask of the Phantasm.
When she returned to Gotham 10 years later, she displayed a hostile and insulting attitude against Batman during their first proper reunion, however, when he left, she broke down in tears, revealing she was still using deception in an attempt to protect him, yet again didn't quite consider the end results. Regardless of this sentimentality, as the Phantasm, she embodied a cold and sinister atmosphere; when tracking and isolating her targets for revenge, she opted to prolong their torment, forcing them to feel terror before brutally executing them; this displayed her strong sense of vengeance, since she preferred to make her targets suffer, rather than just kill them immediately.
Despite the hostility with Batman, when he was chased by the police due to the mistaken belief he was guilty of the Phantasm's crimes, she risked her safety to save him; there may have been a factor of guilt for her crimes being pinned on him, but another element was clearly still strong feelings of love. Even though she returned to town for vengeance, she found herself reigniting the relationship she shared with Bruce. Yet the pain of her grief and lost time with Bruce was too strong for her to overcome, thus she remained committed to completing her bloody revenge. When Batman tried to convince her to stop, she admitted that her actions were likely unjustified and certainly insane, however, she rejected his pleas, arguing that from the death of her father and losing the years she could have had with Bruce, then vengeance was all she really had left.
She allowed herself to remain within the self-destructing hideout of the Joker, so she could keep him, her last target, trapped in the inferno, which showed that she accepted sacrificing her life to finally find a sense of revenge, an perhaps atonement for hurting Bruce. While she and the Joker survived the explosions, Andrea chose to leave Gotham for good. Yet in the Batcave, she left her locket with the picture of her with Bruce for Batman to find, in a gesture that was likely to tell him that survived, but also to express a definitive farewell; the former was to ease his conscience if by a bit, and the latter to help him move on from her, so a lingering remain of her old compassion because moving on could allow him to actually find happiness with someone else (although, he never did).
When Andrea was departing Gotham on a cruise ship, a party-goer attempted to flirt with her, until he realised she was wearing a black grieving veil; he apologised for bothering her, and asked if she wished to be left alone, to which she solemnly answered that she already was, indicating that the weight of her grief couldn't be eased by the revenge she took, and knowing the harm she did to Bruce left her with remorse. While she had created the Phantasm to seek vengeance on specific targets, the lack of any other kind of life made her commit to the role as a hired assassin. Andrea was generally heartless, however, she did have a shred of morality left, since she refused to participate in Amanda Waller's scheme to recreate the deaths of the Wayne family to "inspire" a new Batman; while a motivation for abstaining was a refusal to kill innocent people, another strong element was due to knowing how Bruce largely became Batman to prevent other children suffering loss like he had, therefore displaying that even though estranged forever, Andrea still carried respect and consideration for Bruce.
History[]
Bruce Wayne was visiting his parents' graves at a Gotham cemetery when he met the beautiful Andrea Beaumont. They quickly fell in love and began spending time together.
At the same time, Bruce was also beginning to fight crime as a masked vigilante, but no one was scared. He decided that bats were scarier and attempted to be 'Batman'. After stopping a street robbery, Bruce gets hurt and Andrea is frightened.
Bruce returns to his mansion, angered, as he replied "I can only have one or the other, I can't have it both. I can't go out doing this if I have someone waiting for me to come home every night!" Deciding to choose love over crime fighting, Bruce proposed to Andrea.
Although initially accepting Bruce's proposal, the next morning, Andrea returns the ring before leaving Bruce and Gotham behind, apparently out of the desire to not let anything keep him from avenging his parents' death. Saddened, Bruce ultimately donned the mask of Batman. Ten years later, a mysterious masked figure (who would become known as the Phantasm) begins slaying various mob members related to Salvatore Valestra, starting with Chuckie Sol and later Buzz Bronski.
Because of the dark appearance, the Phantasm is mistaken for Batman and the Caped Crusader is put on the run from the police, attempting to clear his name. Valestra went to The Joker and pays him millions of dollars to kill Batman after Buzz Bronski's murder, although Joker would end up killing him instead. The Joker learns that Andrea is the Phantasm. Andrea is killing the gangsters for the following reason: Andrea wanted to marry Bruce, but Salvatore and his gang were pressuring Andrea's father to give them the money he embezzled from them.
He knew he would be unable to do so and unwilling to ask Bruce for help, so he and Andrea moved away to the Mediterranean Coast of Europe to hide. His father eventually paid them. However, they want payment by blood for lying to them and when Andrea returned home after buying groceries one day, she found her father had been murdered (by the unnamed hitman who would later become the Joker). She was unaware that her friend Arthur Reeves had sold her father out when he refused to fund his campaign.
She became the Phantasm and killed Valestra's gang as revenge. While visiting her mother's grave, she spotted Batman (investigating the scene where the Buzz Bronski was murdered) watching her, and when he left she noticed he was standing next to the Waynes' tombstone, and realized Bruce is Batman. Despite this knowledge, she snubbed him when he showed up at her hotel room to question her, since he saw her father on the photo with the gangsters. Though to hide the truth, she claimed that her father is the Phantasm, and she came to Gotham to stop him; but Batman finds out from a Jokerized Arthur that he sold out her father to the gangsters.
Later when Andrea went after the Joker, Batman confronts her and asks her "what will vengeance solve?", Andrea responds "if anyone knows the answer to that Bruce, it's you!" A battle then ensues between Batman, Joker and Phantasm. Joker vanishes into the night, laughing as it happens, and Batman escapes an explosion, using a waterway below.
Batman thinks that Andrea died in the explosion, however, in reality, she escaped to a cruise ship where one of the passengers notices her standing alone at the rail. He starts to introduce himself, but notices her rather cold greeting, and mourning veil. When he apologizes and asks if Andrea wishes to be left alone, she answers that she already is. Although she did leave her locket with a picture of the two in the Batcave letting Bruce know she's alive, but is saddened that he lost her again forever.
Years later, Andrea was hired by Amanda Waller to murder Terry McGinnis' parents so that he would follow in Batman's footsteps. However, Andrea could not bring herself to do it, as the cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians represented everything that Batman stood against. When she returned to Waller, Andrea angrily berated her for planning the attempt at all, arguing that they almost violated everything that Batman stood for. Even though Waller was narrow minded and ruthless, Andrea was able to convince her to abandon the project to prevent any further attempts on Warren and Mary McGinnis's lives. Since Andrea spared Warren and Mary, they would later have a second son and Terry would later become the new Batman through a different set of circumstances.
Gallery[]
An elderly Phantasm and Amanda Waller.
The Phantasm in Batman/Catwoman.
Trivia[]
In many ways, the Phantasm is considered the dark reflection of Batman, an example of what Bruce Wayne would have become had he lost all who loved him and sought revenge rather than justice.
The producers of the movie were so impressed with Dana Delany's performance as Andrea Beaumont and enjoyed working with her so much that they cast her as Lois Lane for Superman: The Animated Series. Ironically, Lois also goes to date Bruce Wayne, but unlike Andrea, they parted on good terms.
Before the release of the film, a toy line was unveiled, which included a spoiler as to the true identity of the Phantasm: The package had included Andrea Beaumont and with the Phantasm costume right next to her.
Phantasm also made a few appearances in the DCAU comics. One of which reveals how she and the Joker survived the explosion in the climax of the movie.
Whenever Bruce reminisces about his past loves in Batman Beyond, Andrea is left out, presumably because he only sees her as a "killer" in one of the DCAU comics and according to Paul Dini. Weirdly enough, however, this makes Bruce a bit hypocritical, as Talia al Ghul is seen among his former loves even though she was a killer; although unlike Andrea who cares more about punishing evil, Talia is more focused on making the world a better place. He may have been more forgiving of Talia considering she was raised and groomed to be a killer, whereas Andrea chose to engage in murder.
