I just finished an excellent 3 part podcast about rats. The Radiolab talked all about New York City rats, the history of people's perception of rats, rat control, rats as pets, etc. We have been studying rats and rat behavior for quite some time. Rats can remember, make decisions, and have pattern recognition. They also display empathy. While it has been inconclusive whether they can pass the mirror test, recognizing themselves in a mirror, they do show abstract and emotional intelligence. This includes responding to their own name, learning tricks, and learning how to find things, like drugs, and cadavers. In fact, cadaver rats are cheaper to train than dogs and have a better success rate. The downside, rats have a lifespan of 12-24 months. Most wild rats don't survive past a year with a 95% mortality rate.
On the other side, rats have a terrible reputation in urban areas. They reproduce at a high rate. Five litters a year per female can produce around seven pups each totaling around 35 a year. This prolific rate can triple a population every two months. Rats are rodents and chew everything to keep their teeth filed down. They're droppings are jelly bean size, and their urine gives off a strong musky ammonia smell. They shed, and leave behind grease marks called sebum over well traveled areas. Rats are also carriers for fleas, and can spread Weil's Disease, Q Fever, and Hantavirus.
Rats are pretty interesting, and our relationship with them is complicated. Keep all of this in mind as it sets the stage for the next Batman villain, the Ratcatcher.
Created by Alan Grant, John Wagner and Norm Breyfogle in 1988, the Ratcatcher debuted in Detective Comics #585. Otis Flannegan, the former Gotham rat catcher, turns villain after a bar fight goes bad and he's incarcerated for murder. Upon release, he becomes a sewer dwelling terrorist, I guess. Calling himself the Ratcatcher, he spends years experimenting on and training rats. The Ratcatcher uses these rat friends to commit kidnapping, chemical warfare, burglary, and terrorism.
This character shares
Poison Ivy's eco-terrorist MO, and shares the "thief with a theme" trope of many 60's era villains. Sometimes he's a petty thief, and sometimes he wants to blow up Gotham and free the rats. The sewers of Gotham are a location shared by a few other villains, including
the Killer Croc, and
Deacon Blackfire. He has yet to bump into these other characters. Ratcatcher has appeared 135 times in the comics, mostly in cameos. 13 times he was featured in Batman titles since his debut. He was also part of the
War Beneath the Streets arc in Robin in 1999.
Other Batman villains have had trained animal sidekicks, seen mostly in the animated series.
The Joker sometimes has hyenas, the
Penguin has various birds (sometimes actual penguins),
Catwoman has cats (obviously). In some continuities, even
Batman has a dog, Ace the bat hound. Animal sidekicks are a novelty.
For the Ratcatcher though, his sidekicks are essential to his entire identity as a character. His reliable, intelligent army of minions not only terrifies and disgusts society, it is cheap, efficient, and inexhaustible. There is a videogame, Plague Tale, that takes place in the mid 14th century. It relies heavily on rat hordes, and I think really illustrates how a rat army can be a devastating weapon. I think the Ratcatcher deserves another look, and a chance at an A-list spot in Batman's villains gallery.
