Just Another Batman Blog

There has been much written in the news lately about our police force. The stories of excessive force, militarization, and racial profiling, and seeming lack of meaningful discipline have exposed a dark side to the thin blue line. It turns out that the police are less like  Dragnet , and more like  The Shield . There is no villain that better embodies this idea of the two sided nature of lawmen than Two Face.  Created in 1942 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Harvey Dent/Two Face was inspired by Dr Jekyl/Mr Hyde and the pulp character Black Bat. Harvey (Kent) Dent is the city district attorney turned villain through an unfortunate assault. He enters the Gotham legal system as the Court's champion. Harvey Dent is the incorruptible attorney using RICO to clean up Gotham's streets. However, during a court case, he is scarred with acid while prosecuting organized crime boss Sal Maroni . This incident psychologically ruins Harvey Dent, ripping his personality in two. This dual pe...

Ra's Al Ghul [pronounced Raysh , Rash , Raz ,or Rays al Gool depending on who you ask] is a character developed and debuted in Dennis ONeal and Neal Adams' run on Batman in 1971. His name means The Gallu's Head in Arabic. A Gallu is one of seven demons from Babylonian mythology. He appears to be based on Hassan-i Sabbah, the Isma'ili Arab who founded an order of Nizari Ismailis in 1080 known today as the Hashishin, the first assassins. Most of the history of the order has been lost, or never existed in the first place, and what we do know about them was written and shared by their enemies. not your typical comics villain The Ra's Al Ghul character is very intriguing, as it allowed for Batman comics to expand from noir crime dramas into mysticism, and gothic horror. Batman moved from fighting crazy costumed criminals with gimmicks in one city, to confronting a worldwide centuries-old demonic order capable of mass genocide. And this may be the first time a c...

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...

Dr. Hugo Strange (not to be confused with Marvel's Doctor Strange, or Nedor Comic's Doc Strange) appears in Detective Comics months before Batman #1 (the first appearance of the Joker and Catwoman). Dr. Hugo Strange is also very much like another early villainous doctor, Dr. Death. Their physical appearance, and their use of science to create weapons may lead one to question whether the two early characters are that much different. They appear six months apart and are nearly identical. This character was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.  Strange originally operates as the leader of a gang, and uses science to create fog machines and super strong 15 foot mutant henchmen. He is also the first villain to deduce Batman's identity, and attempts to auction off the information.   Strange gets reinvented in the early '90s as a psychiatrist obsessed with the Batman, and tries to become the Dark Knight. In the Prey and Terror storylines, he works with the GCPD...

Bet you can't guess the next Batman villain to be featured on my stupid blog. I'll give you some clues, it'll be a game like 20 questions. Some may even call it a riddle... Created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang (best name in comics history!) in 1948, The Riddler first appeared in Detective Comics #140. Edward Nashton, sometimes named Edward Nigma (E. Nigma being a synonym for mystery), is unlike other villains, as he rarely kills anyone, however, his obsession with solving puzzles and proving his superior intellect puts him right in the same ballpark with all of the other obsessed Batman villains.   Unlike some of the other campy Batman bad guys who were able to be rewritten by contemporary writers into scary villains, The Riddler has always been, and probably will continue to be, a joke. There is something far too silly about a criminal who leaves clues that will lead to his arrest. His modis operandi does not allow him to be taken too seriously. A criminal t...

This latest installment of Batman Villains is going to be all about nostalgia. Most of the time, I complain about squandered opportunities back in the day to make villains more than two dimensional crooks with a theme, and celebrate the recent adaptations, and reimaginnings that have revived characters like the Joker , Mr. Freeze , and the Mad Hatter . But, there is at least one character that has gone the other direction. What happened to Bane? In 1993, Bane makes his debut in the Knightfall story arc. Created by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench, and Graham Nolan, Bane was supposed to be both a physically imposing villain, and an intelligent criminal mastermind, influenced heavily by the famous Doc Savage character of 1930's pulp. Bane's character is made famous in Knightfall for physically crippling Batman, breaking his back after besting him in hand to hand combat. This is definitely one of the most iconic images in Batman history, right up there with the death of Jason Tod...