As a character, Bruce Wayne/Batman owes a lot to Don Diego de la Vega/Zorro. Created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley, Zorro served as inspiration to Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, who specifically cited the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro as an influence when sketching out their famous detective. However, while there are many specific connections between the two, there's one that's quite accidental, as 1998's The Mask of Zorro is basically a swashbuckling version of 1999's Batman Beyond.

Both The Mask of Zorro and Batman Beyond look at the retirement of the original versions of their titular heroes and their replacements. The Mask of Zorro begins with Don Diego imprisoned and thus into retirement, while Batman Beyond's Bruce Wayne has quit crime fighting due to old age. The Mask of Zorro and Batman Beyond both then jump forward about two decades.

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image of Terry McGinnis as Batman from Batman Beyond

In The Mask of Zorro, Alejandro Murrieta -- who replaces Diego -- is a brash, young man focused on getting revenge against captain Harrison Love for the death of his brother. However, Love is the right-hand man of the villainous and powerful Don Rafael Montero, making things much more complex. This thus leads Alejandro to become Diego's protégé, as the older man hates Montero, who killed his wife and abducted his daughter.

Batman Beyond has some pretty close similarities to The Mask of Zorro in its overall plot. In that TV series, protagonist Terry McGinnis' father is murdered by Mr. Fixx, the right-hand man of the villainous and powerful Derek Powers. For his part, Powers merged his company with Wayne Enterprises at some point after Bruce retired as Batman. Powers then used his new company, Wayne-Powers, to develop a biological weapon. This leads Bruce to train Terry to become the next Batman.

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Terry and Alejandro even meet their mentors under shockingly similar circumstances. At the start of The Mask of Zorro, Alejandro attempts to steal a stallion resembling Tornado, the titular hero's stead. Terry, for his part, tries to steal the Batsuit. Both are then beaten to a pulp as a result of their attempt, and over the course of their respective outings they learn the responsibility that comes with their new identities. Along the way, the two titles tackle such themes as corruption and legacy.

Overall, there's a ton of overlap between The Mask of Zorro and Batman Beyond, and the stories have some pretty major similarities. Both involve the training of a new generation of heroes looking for vengeance and inheriting the legacy of a powerful, retired hero. Over the course of those stories, the new heroes make and learn from their mistakes, coming to truly earn their inherited legacies. There are certainly some differences in how certain elements play out -- Diego, for example, dies in The Mask of Zorro -- but the general bent of the stories is remarkably similar.

The resemblance between The Mask of Zorro and Batman Beyond is likely coincidental and the result of following certain tropes related to a younger hero inheriting the legacy of their mentor. Plus, although Batman Beyond released after The Mask of Zorro, the long production time associated with animated series means the two were probably in the works around the same time. Still, the plot of The Mask of Zorro and its shocking similarities to Batman Beyond mean it's absolutely the closest fans have gotten to a live-action adaptation of the latter property.

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