Before we begin, here’s a quick disclaimer: There are mild spoilers for The Batman in this article, so proceed only if you have watched the movie, or don’t mind spoilers.
Anyway, with The Batman currently being a critic’s darling and tearing up the box office at the same time, all eyes have now turned to a potential sequel, which director Matt Reeves and star Robert Pattinson have been talking about quite a bit.
Reeves’ film has also been the talk of Batman fans thanks to his take on The Riddler, a Golden Age slapstick villain that got a darker, more sinister and brutal reimagination. The, er, question now is this: If Reeves were to make a sequel, who would be the villain?
There have already been the usual rumours about the Joker, of course, and there’s also been talk of a revamp of Mr Freeze and Poison Ivy, whose last big screen appearances in Batman Forever (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman respectively) didn’t exactly do them justice.
So we thought it’d be fun to list out some of Batman’s weirdest villains and see how they could fit into Reeves’ darker Dark Knight series. Note: Batman has had A LOT of weird villains over the years, from Calender Man to Kite-Man, and even a guy called Calculator.
“There’s a bad guy in the animated series called Condiment King,” Pattinson said during a recent interview. “I just think it’s the greatest idea. It’s a guy who sprays mustard and ketchup at people, and I just think it’s such a great idea for a bad idea... They just get covered in mustard.”
Created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini for Batman: The Animated Series, Condiment King first appeared in Season 3 of the show as a guy who holds up a restaurant with ketchup and mustard guns.
Condiment King made his comics debut in 2002’s Birds Of Prey, having moved on from just spraying condiments (though he still does that) to creating deadly poisons and bombs from food. He learnt how to do that while working in the Arkham Asylum kitchen, with the help of a certain Pamela Isley, who taught him all about “peppers, grasses, roots and radishes” and how to use them to concoct deadly recipes.
Will it work?: Well, it’s certainly a left-field choice for a villain, but he could certainly help spread some spice onto the otherwise dark tone of the movie. Who knows, maybe this Batman’s weakness is spicy food?
Another villain created for television first, but this time, the 1960s Batman series starring Adam West. Edgar Heed was a criminal genius who had a bald, egg-shaped head (a Hercule Poirot reference, maybe?), wore garish white and yellow suits, and had a penchant for egg puns.
The original Egghead was played by none other than the legendary horror actor Vincent Price (you may recognise his voice as the narrator in Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video), and he made his (rather obscure) comics debut in 1992’s Batman: Shadow Of The Bat #3.
Will it work?: Sure it will, especially if he’s played by Nicolas Cage, who is interested in joining Reeves’ Batman universe and claims to have an idea for a “terrifying” version of Egghead.
Heck, with his assortment of egg-themed weapons and gadgets, he could hatch plan after plan and catch Batman with yolk on his face. That would be most eggs-cellent.
“Mister Camera was so-named because of the curious camera-lens helmet he wore – and because he employed all sorts of photographic devices in his criminal raids.”
Hey, he was created back in 1954 (by David Vern Reed and Sheldon Moldoff for Batman #81) after all. Back then, cameras were still pretty rare and were the size of microwave ovens.
In fact, Mister Camera was such an obscure and pointless villain that he didn’t even get a proper story – he was relegated to a second story in Batman #81, and even then he was only used as a set-up for a story where Batman has to prove he is not Bruce Wayne by creating a Snow-Batman decoy.
Yes, we know.
Will it work?: Considering the fact that cameras are everywhere now, and there is one in every other person’s pocket, Mister Camera could conceivably make a comeback as a media mogul who uses his extensive network of cameras and satellites to trick the United States and China into a war so he can have exclusive broadcasting rights to the ensuing war. Oh wait, that’s the plot for Tomorrow Never Dies.
With a mysterious identity that remains unknown, Mister Bloom was a villain who used stolen “seeds” to turn himself into a mutated meta-human who can manipulate his body, becoming giant-sized and even turning his fingers into giant claws. He uses these seeds to give others superpowers that can kill them, hoping to destroy Gotham and rebuilt it from the ground up.
Will it work?: Considering how wet the ground gets at the end of the movie, we’d say this is fertile ground for a plant-themed villain to grow roots and spread his branches. Though our money would be on Poison Ivy rather than this flower-faced fellow.
Created for 1960’s Batman #134 by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, the Dynamic Duo encountered the Rainbow Beast in a South American country (they were there to help the president fight a rebel dictator).
Batman soon realises that after the creature has used a power, that section of its body turns white, and it must then absorb that colour again to get it back.He also notices a pattern to the creature’s attacks (it only uses blue against projectiles, red against structures, green against people and for some reason, yellow against vehicles), and in the end, defeats it by tricking it into using all its colours (thus turning completely white) and them ramming it with a log, which shatters it into pieces.
Will it work?: OK fine, this will probably be a little too far-fetched for Reeves’ Batman movies, not to mention a little too colourful as well. Still, did you know that Batman once had a rainbow coloured costume in the comics? What we would give to have him don that costume in a movie and fight the Rainbow Beast!
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