Just Another Batman Blog

The Gotham mafia may be one of my favorite Batman villains. No one else seems to fawn over them the way fans do for any of the other Batman villains. Looking up Falcone or Maroni fan art on the internet is useless. I can find a billion awful Harley Quinn pieces, but Carmine Falcone turns up just a few scans from comic pages. Batman's origin always included becoming Batman to fight crime in Gotham, a city with a high crime rate. Miller, I think, wanted to ground his Batman in reality, and historically big cities had organized crime problems. Gotham, being the culmination of every corrupted, dark, and dangerous part of every city everywhere, should have organized crime. Bob Kane, Sheldon Maldoff and Bill Finger created Lew Moxon as the crime boss responsible for Batman's parents' murder, Sal Maroni as the mobster responsible for disfiguring Two Face, and Tony Zucco as the racketeer who put a hit on Dick Grayson's parents. But organized crime didn't take a fron...

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...

The Scarecrow was created in 1941 and appeared in World's Finest Comics #3. Another character created by the Bob Kane/Bill Finger combo that brought us many of the early Batman characters, Scarecrow makes two appearances in the '40s but is almost unrecognizable from the character used later. This original Jonathan Crane is a university professor with a case of bibliomania, and has obvious parallels to the Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow. This professor dresses up as a scarecrow to commit crimes to earn money to afford more books. He also apparently has a hat fetish, and leaves clues like the Riddler . In 1967 Gardner Fox reimagined the character as a psychology professor. This Dr Crane specialized in anxiety and phobias. He becomes obsessed with fear and mass hysteria and often conducts unethical studies and experiments. The character and his origin, like most older comics characters, have been amended and tweaked to include a history of abuse and ridicule, job expe...

Comic book characters are usually created around themes. Sometimes these themes are seemingly childish and ridiculous, like clowns or Alice in Wonderland, until they are applied to realistic crime, and then they become true horrors. Maxie Zeus, I think, could qualify as having a villainous theme on par with the Joker , and the Mad Hatter.  There is so much potential with this character that hasn't been explored in Batman comics or other media. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #483 in 1979. Created by Danny O'Neil, Maxie Zeus seems to be based on the King Tut character from the Batman television show from the '60s. He is delusional, sporting an ancient Greek theme, and believing himself to be Zeus from mythology.  Originally, he was written as an ex high school history teacher who loses his family through tragedy and builds a criminal empire (sound familiar to any Breaking Bad fans?). This in itself would be interesting enough for Gotham City,...

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...