Just Another Batman Blog

  I've said it before on this blog, and I'll say it again, good villains in fiction need good criminal motivations. Good Batman villains need to be more than obsessed with beating Batman. The idea of a villain plotting and scheming to take down Batman, like some Western gunslinger kid looking to out shoot the most notorious outlaw, is only really good and compelling maybe one time. We had that one time in Batman comics, it was called Knightfall . After Bane's storyarc, we didn't need to revisit a personal crusade to tear down and ruin Batman for no other reason than bragging rights. However, comicbook writers continued to do just that. We got Bane, followed by Hush . The Joker  has done it multiple times. This is getting out of hand.  Simon Hurt was created by Grant Morrison in 2008, based on an unnamed scientist character created by Sheldon Maldoff and Charles Paris for a one issue story in Batman #156 in 1963. His backstory is a bit of a crazy retcon, but stay with...

  This character is actually an antagonist of Batwoman, but since all these heroes are connected, Red Alice is also a Batman villain. Alice, or Red Alice, is very much like the Mad Hatter , in that not only does she use the Lewis Carroll theme (also like the Wonderland Gang ) but she also speaks only in Alice in Wonderland quotes. Created in 2009 by Greg Rucka and JH Williams for Detective Comics #854, Alice is in fact Kate Kane's twin sister Beth. She also, despite the similarities, has no affiliation with the Mad Hatter, or the Tweedles.  Being a Kane, both Beth and Kate are Colonel Jacob Kane's daughters, and Martha Kane's nieces. And Martha Kane is also known as Martha Kane Wayne, Bruce Wayne's mother. This makes Kate and Beth also (drumroll) Batman's cousins. In addition to Batman, the Flamebird/Bat-girl character Bette Kane is also a cousin, which means Jacob and Martha had another brother.  This origin story has issues, just like every family character that i...

 Throughout Batman's publication history, there have been several Alice in Wonderland themed characters. The Mad Hatter appeared on this blog before. There are several others, and in 2008 Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen brought them all together for a crossover event, creating a few characters in the process. Below is a membership breakdown:  The Mad Hatter was created in 1948 by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. His full write up is here .  The Tweedles : TweedleDee and TweedleDum, created in 1943 by Don Cameron and Jerry Robinson, are a pair of nearly identical mob bosses. Together they mastermind the crimes they commit, and direct others to implement them. During War Games, the original TweedleDum is killed, and his twin takes his place... which is a writer's ploy to undo another writer's dumb decision and make continuity work. Obviously. The Tweedles have this weird obsession with Lewis Carroll's Alice books, independently from the Mad Hatter, and a few other characters who ar...