Just Another Batman Blog

Recently, the new Bruce Timm Batman animated series dropped. There is so much to like about this new Batman series. It takes place in a noir setting somewhere in 1930s to 40s America, but without the systemic racism and misogyny. Its packed with Batman Universe easter eggs, like a Killer Croc cameo and a Carrie Kelly appearance. Most of the show seems to be a carefully crafted universe with an adult noir theme. However, one episode stands out as a little off... The first episode introduces this new Gotham City universe. Reeking of corruption, full of intrigue ready to be uncovered by a detective, this Gotham seems to be grounded in a sense of modernity despite its obvious homages to a gritty past. And then... super weapons and overt terrorism? Given the rest of the show's detective noir mystery feel, the first episode is more Batman 60s Camp, than Prohibition-era gangster Batman.  The episode, however, is the premier, and events in this episode set the stage for the rest of the se...

Jaina Hudson, the White Rabbit, was created in 2011 by David Finch and Paul Jenkins for Batman the Dark Knight vol 2 #1 . This storyarc is a rewrite of the early 90s Vengeance of Bane and Knightfall storylines . Jaina Hudson appears to be a gun for hire, and assumes the roles of Zombie and Bird from the original story, working with Bane and several other villains to run Batman ragged so Bane can break him.  This character has a strong upside. Like Bruce Wayne, Jaina Hudson is a rich socialite. An Indian American daughter of a diplomat, and heir to her mother's Bollywood money. She has some kind of condition that allows her to split herself into two separate entities, forming a second persona, the White Rabbit. The character hasn't been developed aside from this. Her motives are a mystery, the origin of her powers are also undisclosed. How she is connected to Bane in the first place is also vague. She has only 24 appearances in the comics, usually in cameo.  The White Rabbit p...

  Another in a short list of compelling female Batman villains, Natalia Knight, Nocturna, was created in 1983 by Doug Moench, Don Newton, and Gene Colan for Detective Comics #529. I am surprised I hadn't heard about this character more, or why she hasn't been used more frequently, as she ticks off a lot of boxes character-wise.  An orphan, like our hero, Batman, Natalia Knight is adopted by a Gotham mobster. She attempts to turn away from her criminal family and becomes an astronomer, working at Wayne Enterprises. Another in a long line of science-based Batman villains, Natalia is a victim of a lab accident (obviously), which essentially turns her into an albino. After this, she rejoins her adoptive brother Anton Knight and his inherited crime family. The two of them start a career of breaking and entering, and burglary. So, to recap, Nocturna is a female thief, and gangster, a scientist, and an accidental monster, and creature of the night. On the surface, she appears to be a...

 Tell me if you've heard this one...  "the only good criminal is a dead criminal". This idea of a character going on a crusade to rid the world of the criminal element can be found all over. It's the plot of The Boondock Saints. Kick-Ass is built around this premise. In Gotham there are a few characters that attempt to be vigilante killers. The Red Hood kills. Anarky kills. The Clownhunter kills. Nobody kills. This Batgirl villain, The Spoiled Slaughterer, Daybreak, the Butcher Brat herself, Knightfall also kills.  Created in 2012 by Gail Simone and Alitha Martinez for Batgirl #10, Charise Carnes has an interesting origin story. Daughter of a shady Gotham real estate mogul, Carnes is betrayed by her first boyfriend, forced to watch him torture and murder her family, and then gets framed for it.  While in Arkham, Carnes befriends Jim Gordon Jr, Commission Gordon's serial killer son. She decides certain criminal minds can't be rehabilitated and should be termin...

  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...

  Earlier I wrote about the Terrible Trio . This gang of three white collar criminal dudes hide behind animal motifs, The Great White Shark, the Vulture, and the Fox. Gotham also has another threesome criminal gang, all women, all arthropod aliases, all criminal.  Created in 1966 by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff, these three vamps debuted together for a Poison Ivy driven story. The Silken Spider, Tiger Moth, and Dragonfly made such a name for themselves criminally, that they became known as the World's Public Enemies, and went by the aliases Public Enemy Number 1, Number 2, and Number 3. They appear to be high stakes thieves in their original incarnation. Poison Ivy apparently is jealous for some reason and wants their fame.  Later, they are rebooted as members of the League of Assassins. I'm a fan of this idea, I don't think you can have enough agents for the League. Kevin Smith gives Tiger Moth a cameo in his unfinished Batman run.  This Tiger Moth incarnatio...

  This is one of the newest Batman villains to be introduced. James Tynion IV and Jorge Jimenez created Punchline seemingly as a replacement for Harley Quinn following her upgrade to anti-hero status. Punchline's first appearance is in Batman #89, February 2020 as part of the Joker War storyline.  Punchline could have been just another Harley Quinn clone. Harley Quinn, after all, has become enormously popular, even before the Margot Robbie portrayal made her a household name and a cosplay staple. Aside from the Joker connection, their stories diverge greatly.  Alexis Kaye (no clunky name allusion this time) develops a crush on the Joker all by herself, and seeks him out. This reminds me of Charles Manson fandom among young people, even up to his death in prison, including  this story of Star from Missouri  from 2013. Unlike Harley Quinn, the Joker doesn't need to manipulate Alexis Kaye's emotions to twist her into a psychopath. She already is one, and the Joke...

This character will be forever attached to a few other characters. However, Talia is as important to Batman and his character arc as the Joker, the Riddler, and Bane. She is Talia, daughter of Ra's al Ghul, who has his own post here . Sometimes she is given the surname al Ghul, or Head, but that doesn't seem to be necessary, as her father's name is more of a title than a formal name anyway. Also, mononyms are way cooler. Created in 1971 by Dennis ONeil, Dick Giordano and Bob Brown for Detective Comics #411. She actually appears a month before her father, and returns in Batman #232 during Ra's Al Ghul's first appearance. Writers early on attempted to make her the next Catwoman, a femme fatale character worthy of Batman's new global, mysticism, macabre storylines. While her relationship with Batman is never truly romantically reciprocated, they are mostly amicable to each other. Her character is tied up pretty closely with her family. Throughout her publica...

Comics, like most western media, has had a diversity problem. With origins in the late 30s and early 40s, born of pulp fiction magazines, comics character creation relied heavily on stereotypes. Asian characters were treated particularly badly. We still have trouble today creating Asian characters who are not martial artists, or wise old Eastern mystics (also kung fu masters somehow). However, a martial arts based character, depending on the martial art, probably should be Asian. Richard Dragon was one of those characters, with his own title, in the early 70s. In 1975, Lady Shiva made her first apearance in Richard Dragon #5, created by Dennis ONeil, and Ric Estrada. Like most stereotypical Asian characters, Lady Shiva is a master martial artist, an assassin, has a mentor/teacher named O'Sensei, and has a daughter with a dude named King Snake, and has aliases that include names like the Paper Monkey, and the Jade Canary. Over time, the Lady Shiva character has been refined a...

The more into this Batman villains blog thing (I'm not really sure what this is) I've gone, the more I realized there are so many evil dudes in this rogues gallery. There aren't very many women though. Aside from the big 3 ( Catwoman , Poison Ivy , and Harley Quinn ), Batman's female adversaries appear to be next generation versions of older male villains (like Clayface , or the Ventriloquist ), assassins from the League of Assassins ( Talia , Cheshire, Lady Vic, Lady Shiva ) or henchmen (henchwomen?) for male villains, which is how Harley Quinn started (Query and Echo, Dollhouse, Lark, Fright), or throwaway villains that either get killed off, or taken advantage of by other male villains.   This post features the Magpie, whom I believe has been misused and done wrong. Created in 1986 by John Byrne, Magpie debuted in Man of Steel #3 , and was the first villain to be apprehended by the Superman/Batman team up. However, she continued to be a villain primarily for...

Batman has been featured in comic books since his creation in 1939. As a consequence, an 80 year old hero has a large number of similarly aged villains. Most of the villains I've already posted about here were created between 1939 and 1971. A theme to these blog posts have been the evolution of these old characters into less campy, scarier, more realistically terrifying villains. However, more recently created characters come already fully realized as completely evolved nightmares. In 2007 Grant Morrison introduced Professor Pyg . Before that, Dan Slott and Ryan Sook created Jane Doe. In 2003, Slott and Sook wrote the miniseries Arkham Asylum: Living Hell . They introduce several new characters, some more interesting than others, but Jane Doe is one of only a few that would continue to appear in other DC mediums. Jane Doe is also one of a few female villains who aren't sidekicks. Jane Doe's true name is unknown. In fact, other than being distinctly female, she has n...

She is DC's Bonnie Parker. She is Gotham's Mallory Knox. She is Mary Brunner in clown makeup, and a murderous Esther Greenwood. Harley Quinn is the most unlikely star of the Batman villains rogues gallery. Considering how mostly male and mostly sexist the comics industry was (and still is, although it has become better) in the 90s, the development of Harley Quinn is pretty interesting. As you scroll down, I have added additional Harley Quinn art, which shows the evolution of the character's costume, from completely covered catsuit, to almost nothing. Pretty indicative of the male dominated industry. Initially, she was created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for the Batman Animated Series as a sidekick and foil for the Joker in episode 22 "Joker's Favor". Arleen Sorkin should also get credit for creating Harley Quinn as well, as her blueprint for the character was used by Paul Dini. Harley Quinn initially was supposed to be a one act character. She fits i...

I began playing Arkham Asylum again after reading a bit about the new Batman Arkham Origins game set to be released in October. Although the Joker is clearly the main antagonist (as he ought to be in a Batman game), I had forgotten how many other villains had substantial importance to the plot. Some of the supporting villains in this game were reimagined, saved from the borderline ridiculous reputations created in earlier incarnations. Poison Ivy is one of these characters. Almost doomed from the start, Poison Ivy was created in 1966 by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff and debuted in Batman #181. She is a reaction to the growing feminism and environmentalism of the time and fit right into the "campy villains with a theme" trend of the 50's and 60's. Connected with plants and ecology, Poison Ivy becomes a vengeful Mother Nature type of character, extracting revenge on people for abuses to the environment. JT Krul was instrumental in developing the character...

Awhile ago, I started writing pieces about Batman villains. Today's post is about Catwoman, most recently portrayed by Anne Hatheway, although not ever named Catwoman in the film, the character has similar traits, appearance, and modis operandi, and shares the same alter ego, Selina Kyle. Selina Kyle, The Cat, or Catwoman, debuted in 1940 in Batman #1, the same issue that debuted The Joker . Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Catwoman appears as a cat themed cat-burglar (clever) wielding a whip. A femme fatale character, Selina Kyle seems to have similarities to several film noir actresses, and Irene Adler from Sherlock Holmes. Her original origin cast her as a former flight attendant with amnesia who began a life of crime. Later stories have her recant this statement, admitting she lied. In 1987 Frank Miller rewrote the origin, casting Selina as a reformed prostitute, turned cat burglar. In Jeph Loeb's Long Halloween/Dark Victory saga, there is a strongly hinted, but...