Fans of comics know that throughout the history of Batman’s existence, he has had enough enemies, both funny and downright creepy. We’ve chosen the eight most favourite freaks and ranked them from weird villains to absolute maniacs.
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Johnny Karaoke
Perhaps, it is not the best idea to include little-known characters who appeared in only one or two issues. But it is somehow impossible to resist and not to write about Johnny Karaoke — a villain who may not have become too popular, but he’s silly enough to mention. So, Johnny is the head of a Japanese criminal group, but it is difficult to call him scary or even dangerous. Instead of extraordinary abilities, he has, ahem, a good voice and instead of super-gadgets — a pickaxe that he uses as a microphone. But Johnny has a good education — it is known that he received a degree in business administration from the University of California in Los Angeles.
Kite Man
Poor Charles Brown is on every list of the worst criminals in the Batman universe. It is not surprising — what other place can you deserve if even a tree defeated you? And it was, officially, on the pages of comics. We don’t know how Bill Finger invented the character, but it’s still surprising that the hero has stayed in the DC world until now. Over nearly 60 years, he regularly lost to Batman, Hawkman, and Zatanna. And although Brown’s only strength is his inhuman love for kites, one day, Deathstroke even invited him to the Secret Society of Supercriminals. However, Chuck refused, as a result of which he was thrown from the window. The character has appeared in so many memes that Tom King, the current Batman writer, gave him a major role in the recent The War of Jokes and Riddles arc, not forgetting to poke fun at the character.
Onomatopoeia
In general, onomatopoeia is a technique often used in comics. It is the name given to all the inscriptions “BOOM!”, “KRAK,” or “CRASH!” which are supposed to convey the noise of hits, gunfights, or other events. Kevin Smith (yes, he is not only a director but also a comic book author) decided to call this a villain who does not speak to his victims but only imitates the surrounding sounds. Not much is known about this character — only that he kills non-superpowered heroes and takes their masks as trophies. At the same time, Onomatopoeia manages to lead a completely normal family life and hide his nocturnal entertainment from his wife and children.
The Polka-Dot Man
Okay, here’s an example of how weird comic book characters were in the 1960s. The Polka-Dot Man is famous for wearing a spotty suit… in which each dot is somehow transformed into some sort of gadget. He’s also very fond of puns and regularly makes some dubious jokes about (yes, you’ve guessed it right) dots. It would seem that such a frivolous villain should be forgotten forever, but they say that he still has a long way to go. The Polka-Dot Man is one of the central characters in James Gunn’s Suicide Squad, where his role is played by Iranian-American actor David Dastmalchian. Who knows, maybe this villain will soon get a deep, tragic backstory and become more popular than the Joker?
Ratcatcher
Ratcatcher is an example of what obsession with work can lead to. Before becoming a villain, Otis Flannegan did work as a rat-catcher in Gotham, but very soon, he discovered the gift of communicating with rats and understanding them. Flannegan engaged in robbery and kidnapping, managing his pack of rats. While behind bars, Otis used rodents as little spies. It is not difficult to guess that training rats helped him more than once to find a way to escape from prison. Ratcatcher cooperated with other villains many times — he helped Bane escape from the Blackgate, tried to poison Gotham’s reservoir together with Catman, and worked with Mr. Freeze.
Doctor Hurt
Who is Simon Hurt? The Joker himself considers this antagonist to be Satan or, at least, an extremely powerful demon. Batman suspects that Hurt is a minion of Darkseid or even Darkseid himself in human form. Hurt himself calls himself Thomas Wayne, but this in no way simplifies the story because there were two of them — Batman’s father and his ancient Satanist ancestor. Only one thing is clear — the mysterious villain is ready to do anything to destroy Gotham and the rebellious Bruce Wayne. For example, he tries to create his own version of Batman, pumps the real one with heroin, erases his memory, and fills the city air with drugs. Oddly enough, the villain Joker won — when Hurt slipped on a banana peel and broke his neck, he injected him with poison and buried his enemy alive. Yes, it sounds bizarre, but the story of this character was written by Grant Morrison — the main lover of occultism, mysteries, and black humour in the comic industry.
Mad Hatter
Jervis Thatch first appeared in comics back in 1948, though only in one issue. The 60s were the star time for the Mad Hatter. Then he finally took shape as a mad scientist who created a mind control device and used it with a fanatical devotion to Lewis Carroll and his Alice in Wonderland. Fortunately, the screenwriters had the nerve not to involve Alice directly in this story. Poor Jervis constantly suffers from the fact that his genius invention does not protect him well enough but is very popular in the “villain market.” So most of the crimes in the comics weren’t committed directly by Thatch but by other villains who used the Hatter as technical support for his technology.
Dollmaker
In the comics universe, it is not uncommon for an antagonist to act as an enemy of several superheroes in a different guise. It is also true with Dollmaker. He is a serial killer and a talented surgeon who creates “dolls” from the skin and limbs of his victims. As a child, Barton witnessed his father kill and cannibalized a man. Little Matis will be in the foster family for only a year, after which he will disappear, having already appeared in the form of the Dollmaker — a maniac whose mask is partially made of the skin of his late father.