Just Another Batman Blog

  The first Batman villain based on a philosophy, Anarky was created in 1989 by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle. Grant created the character around the ideas of anti-statism and populism, but eventually his philosophy turns more toward rationalism, atheism, and free market capitalism.  Lonnie Machem is a child prodigy, based on Chopper from Judge Dredd, V from V for Vendetta, and Spy vs Spy. Heavily influenced by radical philosophies, he calls himself Anarky and begins a violent vigilante campaign against the "corrupt system" in Gotham. Naturally, Batman stops him, and realizes Anarky is only 12 years old.  The character could be interesting, he appears to be built as an anti-hero from the start. Grant had admitted he created the character hoping he'd become the next Robin. That obviously did not happen, and instead, he becomes symbolic of misguided leftist terrorism, much like Poison Ivy .  There have been several attempts to make this character stick. He had his prim...

Science fiction, and comics especially, have played with the idea of a string theory multiverse concept for a very long time. Some authors/writers are better at it than others. HG Wells, Philip K Dick, Philip Roth, Harry Turtledove, and Robert Harris all play with these ideas of alternate histories and multiverse concepts. This idea of an infinite multiverse was first introduced by Erwin Schrodinger in 1952. Creatively, the nature of an infinite multiverse allows writers/artists to come up with a seemingly endless line of what-if scenarios. Marvel just made an award winning Spiderman movie on this very concept. Creators were allowed to create Spiderman if he were a Japanese girl with a robot, or a cartoon pig. Into the Spiderverse scratched the surface of what is creatively possible (spoiler: everything is possible in this scenario). This is not a new thing for DC comics, or Batman in particular either. I wrote before in my other blog about the DC Elseworlds imprint. Batman has ...

Phil Cho's commission Another in a list of stupid villains that could be cool and scary under the right writers, Killer Moth was created in 1951. Bill Finger, Dick Sprang, and Lew Schwartz created the character for Batman #63. Introduced as a common criminal already in prison, Killer Moth has no original identity. He sees Batman as a vigilante resource for the police, and upon release, decides to set himself up as an "anti-Batman", a resource for criminals. He becomes a grifter, and creates for himself the identity of Cameron Van Cleer, a wealthy businessman and philantropist. As an alter ego to his alter ego, he also becomes Killer Moth, a henchman for hire with a moth motif, complete with workable wings and a spiderman webslinger-esque cacoon gun. Now, the premise of a Batman for criminals, a gun for hire that anyone can call with a beeper, is a pretty cool idea. Later on, other mercenary/hitman characters get created, but Killer Moth had the idea first. However, ...

The 12 issue miniseries Hush was published in the regular  Batman monthly title in 2003. It was amazing, and really got me hooked on Batman stories. The title character Hush, created for this particular story is one of those retconned characters that don't feel forced and helped to give Batman's infamous backstory a bit more foundation. Tommy Elliot, first appearing in Batman #609, was created by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee as one of Bruce Wayne's childhood friends from the same social status. Elliot is a sociopath, murdering both parents for the family fortune, jealous of Bruce Wayne for losing his parents first, and devoting a life to plotting revenge, for some reason. Eventually he returns to Gotham, partners with the Riddler and puts together a scheme involving many Batman villains with the goal of taking down Batman/Bruce Wayne. This makes the 12 issue Hush storyline great, as it incorporates a large portion of the Batman villains gallery, mixes it with a who-dunnit my...

Remember when I constantly complain about goofy gimmicky comic book villains? The subject of this Batman Villains post is the worst (or best?) example of a crazy gimmicky character that really doesn't need to be crazy or gimmicky in order to work. Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot first appeared in Detective Comics #58 (1941) and is another one of the older Batman villains. Like many of these first villains created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, the Penguin has evolved as a character. At first, the Penguin is portrayed as a Gotham outsider specializing in art theft.  He dresses in tails and uses a tricked out umbrella as a weapon. Over time, the Penguin changes into more of an organized crime boss character from an old Gotham family. He launders money through his night club, and, for a time, turns informant for Batman. During the watered-down 60's, his bird and umbrella themes would be accentuated to the point of comedy, and overshadow his potential to be a ruthless criminal entre...

There has been far more interest and emphasis put on Batman villains as gang leaders and organized criminals than as petty criminals and thieves with silly motives.  A need to make the villains believable and grounded in realistic crime grows from the Christopher Nolan films, and also the comic arcs written by Jeph Loeb, Grant Morrison, and of course Frank Miller. Two Face and the Penguin have been reimagined as mob bosses, and The Black Mask has become a better, more compelling villain because of this refocus.   The Black Mask was a villain recently resurrected from obscurity and pushed to the top tier of Batman adversaries. Filling the need for interesting gang leader/mafioso type characters, Black Mask bridges the gap between ordinary organized crime characters like the Falcones , and the more colorful deranged crazies like the Joker and Scarecrow . Roman Sionis first appeared in Batman #386 in 1985. Created by Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake, Roman Sionis appear...