Top Ten… Batman Villains!
Firstly, apologies for the delay in posting anything new, but I’ve started a new job and the hours have wiped me out leaving little time to do anything other than sleep and work. Anyway, I was thinking about comics today when I should’ve been paying attention at work and it occurred to me that a list of the top ten Batman villains might be interesting, so let’s take a look. Oh, one last thing, when possible, I’m gonna use pics from the sixties Batman show for no other reason than the fact that I absolutley love it. Onward!
10. THE PENGUIN
Any love I have for the Penguin comes soley from Burgess Merideth’s brilliant comic performance as the big nosed, umberella carrying waugh waugh waugh-ing badguy. Nothing in comics makes me laugh more than when writers try to paint the Penguin as a geniune threat to Batman, retconning his origin story to make him a martial arts expert. A martial arts expert? You’ve gotta be shitting me. As a comedy bad guy I like the Penguin, but as a serious threat to Batman? Come on.
9. RA’S AL GHUL
Created by the great comics team of Denny O’Neal and Neil Adams, Ra’s al Ghul is an international terrorist who doesn’t mind too much who gets in the way of his mad plan for environmental perfection. One of the very few villains to have worked out that Bruce Wayne and Batman are one and the same and founder of a vast criminal empire (not to mention discoverer of the Lazarus Pit), Ra’s al Ghul’s name when translated into Arabic means “The Demon’s Head.” That alone earns him a place on the list.
8. BANE
After DC had Doomsday kill the Man of Steel in the 90s, the next logical step was to have someone “kill” the Dark Knight – and who better than Bane? Introduced for the Knightfall arc, Bane – despite his misuse in Batman and Robin – is one of Batman’s most intelligent foes and is certainly his most physically powerful. Remembered forever as the man who broke Batman’s back and forced him to hang up the cape (at least for a while.)
7. THE SCARECROW
Created during the Golden Age by Kane and Finger, the Scarecrow is undoubtedly the most physcological of Batman’s rouge’s gallery, Dr. Jonathan Crane uses something he decribes as “fear gas” to cause his victims to hallucinate, seeing their worst nightmares standing before them. It’s awfully easy to rob a bank when the security guards are fighting off imagined snakes and the tellers are surrounded by imaginary spiders.
6. HARLEY QUINN
The first female to grace our list and the only character not to originate from a comic book, Harley Quinn was created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for Batman: The Animated Series and proved so popular that she was introduced to the comic book continuity. The on again-off again squeeze of the Joker, Harley was Mr. J.’s psychiatrist in Arkham who fell for him and turned to a life of crime. As you do. Voiced by the inimitable Arlene Sorkin, Harley was just one of the many reasons B:TAS was fucking awesome.
5. MR. FREEZE
Sometimes the best villains are the tragic ones, and they don’t come much more tragic than Mr. Freeze. Ignoring the original conception of the charcter, his apperences on the sixties TV show and Arnold Schwarzanegger’s gurning performance in Batman and Robin, and instead concentrating on the mythology created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, Mr. Freeze is one of the more pitiable villains in comics. After his wife is killed in a cryogenic freezing experiment gone wrong, Victor Fries tries to kill the man who caused his wife’s death, but Batman intervines. Fries takes on the name Mr. Freeze and swears vengance on Batman and everything he loves.
4. CATWOMAN
First introduced in Batman #1, Catwoman is one of the best female supervillains in comics, thanks in no small part to her oh-so-awesome costume. Created by Kane and Finger but made iconic by Julie Newmar and Lee Meriweather in the sixties TV show and movie, Catwoman serves many different roles in Batman continuity. First and foremost, of course, she is a criminal, but in more recent years she has taken on a sort of Robin Hood role, as well as providing an on/off/on/off love interest for Batman and Bruce Wayne. Just pretend the Halle Berry movie never happened.
3. THE RIDDLER
Riddle me this, riddle me that… Obsessed with riddles and puzzles and compelled to warn Batman about the crimes he intends to commit by leaving complex clues, the Riddler is the most egomaniacal of the Batman rogue’s gallery and one of the few who isn’t a psycopathic killer. Frank Gorshin’s Emmy winning performance in the TV show is yet to be bettered, but Jim Carey did a decent job in Batman Forever. Word on the street is that Christopher Nolan is planning to include the Riddler in his next installment of his “let’s make Batman boring” film series, so let’s live in hope that he doesn’t fuck him up as badly as he’s fucked up almost every other character he’s included so far.
2. TWO FACE
Harvey Dent was once the handsome Gotham DA, friend of Bruce Wayne and ally of Batman but fate conspired against him and made him the conflicted and deformed Two Face. Letting fate make his descisions for him, Two Face flips a double-headed coin to decide his actions; one side of the coin is unblemished, the other is scarred. If the clean side comes up, it’s safe to walk the streets, but if the scarred side comes up, blot your fucking doors, lock your fucking windows and switch on the fucking Batsignal.
1. THE JOKER
Anyone who knows me knows my feelings towards the Heath Ledger interpritation of the Joker, but the character is so great and so iconic, that I can overlook his performance and appreciate that, despite his best attempts to fuck the character up, the Joker is the ultimate comic book bad guy. His origin story has been retconned more than almost anyone elses and he has more facets to his character than any other comics villain. Sometimes he’s little more than a shrill nuscance, sometimes he’s a brutal and vicious killer and sometimes he’s somewhere in between – and that’s what makes him great. His mental unstability makes him truly dangerous and the intriguing dichotomy of a clown who kills makes him truly iconic.
Honorable mentions to Man-Bat, Clayface, Poison Ivy, the Cavalier, Egghead and Film Freak. But anyway, leave a comment if you have anything to say. End transmission.
Comments
Comment from James Tyler
Time February 20, 2010 at 1:39 am
That Catwoman movie was woeful. I thought Phifer, or however you spell the chick from Dangerous Minds name, was good in the role. She has a nice sexy, insane thing going on.
When it comes to the new films, I think the Scarecrow was the best character to fit in a more realistic light – and I was surprised it was pretty much the same character, with the same(ish) background, motivation and method.
The Joker’s only real ‘Comedy Killer’ thing was the pencil trick, though despite similar feelings on Ledger – I was surprised to see that guy from Ten Things I Hate About You and that film about a junkie could actually pull off the character (Well, that version anyway) and spent a lot of time on it.
It’s just a shame we’ll never see him develop the Joker from insane, to comedy killer.
Everyone else… Harley has become way too iconic. That’s not a bad thing though. Penguin… the books were laughable, but the camp 60′s performance was great, and the movie performance by Danny D was better than anything I’ve read. It fit the character more than the retcons did.
Riddler in Nolan… can’t be good. Considering the world they’ve created, you’d think he’d choose a more fitting character.
Comment from Marty Michaels
Time February 20, 2010 at 4:36 am
I hated the treatment of the Penguin in Batman Returns. The fact that Burton chose to include the Penguin at all shows that he knows fuck all about the comics. Two Face would’ve been a better choice since Dent appears in the fist movie and since that character fits into the Burtonverse without nearly as much fucking-about-with than the Penguin.
As for the Riddler and Nolan, I think as a mathematician or computer programmer gone a tad bit nuts might work. We’d have to lose the green suit (or at least darken the shade of green) and make him less manic, but I can see it happening. I don’t want to see it happening, but I can see it. Lazy writing has made the Riddler a sort of Joker Lite at times, and that’s the last thing I want, but since TDK’S Joker was fuck all like the Joker anyway, they could make the Riddler more like the comics Joker and the bovine masses wouldn’t know any better. My pick for the next movie? Other than not making it at all, I’d put a super-dark Mad Hatter in there. Timm and Dini hinted at a pedophillic side to his character in B:TAS, which would work in the Nolan movies. Failing that, I’d want to see Mr. Freeze portryed more realisticly. Interestingly, in Freeze’s first apperance on the TV show he’s written and played reasonably straight. The white skin and orange hair came later, but in his first apperance he’s a German guy in a business suit who can’t stand the heat and steals diamonds (“ice” – geddit?) with nothing hugely over the top about him. Hell, he doesn’t even set up an elaborate death trap for the dynamic duo – he pretty much just shoots them (with a freeze gun, admittedly, but yeah, no giant slot machines or shark tanks). He does has to wear a survival suit thing when he’s outdoors, but you could Nolanise that without too much trouble. Man-Bat could be interesting too as some sort of genetic mutation. Goddamn it, I should be writing these fucking movies.
Comment from James Boyd
Time February 21, 2010 at 7:41 am
Good list, i was thinking of villians for the next movie and two that could fit into the realism factor are the black mask, ventriloquist and the great white shark…
Comment from Glen Dunbar
Time March 7, 2010 at 2:03 am
What about Harley as a Nolan-villian? You’d have to rewrite her as like a Mickie James style obsessed fan instead of Joker’s psychologist, but that could work? What about an Ivy film? That definitely easy enough to Nolan-ise. The problem with a lot of Batman villians is that they tend to be very “gimmicky” case in point, the Mad Hatter, and they wouldn’t make sense in Nolan’s realistic take. Hence why i am very very worried about a Riddler movie, i think he’ll get sanitised.
I think the movies have always tended to favour the villians that at least have some small part of the public conciousness, which is why Joker/Riddler/Penguin have always been considered for inclusion first (The only reason Scarecrow got chosen for the first one i think is because the character pretty much writes itself).
Comment from Marty Michaels
Time March 8, 2010 at 12:08 am
I dunno that you’d have to rewrite Harley’s character at all for a Nolanised movie featuring her. We’ve all seen the way Ledger’s Joker charmed the masses, is it so far fetched a notion that he could do the same to his doctor, all the while telling her he’s an innocent victim and Batman’s the real badguy? Of course, it’s all moot unless they re-cast the Joker.
Comment from Alan Sharpe
Time March 16, 2010 at 7:33 am
I think Killer Croc could be in line for the Nolan treatment. The form in the “Joker” Comic book (A Huge black canibal with a disease making his skin reptilian) is realistic enough. Scarecrow and RA’S AL GHUL were picked for the first movie so that the villans didn’t overshaddow the hero, which happened in Dark Knight.
Comment from Randy Pena
Time February 19, 2010 at 2:55 pm
I just stopped by your blog and thought I would say hello. I like your site design. Looking forward to reading more down the road.