With news that there’s a brand new Batman film in the works, starring Robert Pattinson
as Bruce Wayne, fans everywhere have a whole lot of questions concerning what we can expect
from this new cinematic adaptation.
Will it be more like the Christopher Nolan trilogy?
Will everything be completely rebooting?
And who will Batman’s foes be?
That latter question is one we aim to break down today by the process of hypothetical
elimination with our list of the top 10 villains too scary for the batman!
10 Victor Zsasz Victor Zsasz is a
serial killer that we’ve only see adapted into live action once; in the Gotham series.
And to be frank, he’s really not all that scary compared to his comic or even video
game counterparts.
Every time Zsasz kills a victim, he gives himself a new mark on his flesh; his skin
is covered in scars, one for each of the lives he’s taken.
And by the looks of it, he’s arguably one of Gotham’s most efficient killers.
He had been born wealthy, but after his parents died, he gambled all of his money away, and
fell into a depression in which he realized that life was pointless.
So he decided that he’d go around murdering people for fun; something that became a full
time job of his.
9 Jason Todd For us to see Jason Todd exist in the world
of The Batman, that would mean we would have to witness something else; one of Batman’s
robins be murdered, in one of the most brutal ways thanks to the Joker - with a crowbar
after experiencing a severe beat down from the clown prince of crime’s thugs.
That would definitely be a bold move.
And seeing Jason Todd come back from the dead would be quite frightful.
While we don’t think Jason as Red Hood would make for a terrifying villain, it’s all
about the context in this case, and when it comes to Jason Todd, his backstory is one
we don’t want to relive any time soon up on the big screen.
8 Mad Monk The Mad Monk, also known as simply the Monk,
is one of Batman’s early foes, having first appeared in Detective Comics issue 31 back
in 1939, created by Bob Kane and Gardner Fox.
Initially, he was depicted as a vampire who wears a red monk outfit.
Later on, it’s established that Batman believes the monk isn’t actually a vampire, but rather,
uses hypnosis to manipulate his victims and foes.
The monk was later reinvented decades later, who was a post civil war plantation owner
in New Orleans who was subjected to a voodoo ritual by his vengeful ex-slaves.
He ends up transforming into an undead version of himself, and later, when encountering batman,
would turn the dark knight into a vampire, causing Batman to have to be ‘exorcised’
thanks to a serum.
7 Scarecrow The Scarecrow’s jam is literally fear.
He uses a toxin that caused his victims to see their worst fears, their most dreadful
nightmares, as if they were real and right in front of them.
While the Scarecrow has appeared in previous adaptations, specifically Batman Begins, there’s
always the chance that he could return to this new franchise.
But we’d hope that this time around, the scare factor would be amped up.
Christopher Nolan did a good job with the character, but Scarecrow’s abilities could
really be pushed further on the big screen, even to the likes of some of the terrifying
images we saw in the Batman Arkham Asylum video game (which may be one of the best boss
battles that series has ever seen.)
6 The Court of Owls While we think that the court of owls would
make for a fantastic and captivating antagonist in the new Batman film, we also think that
their corruption that lurks around every corner of Gotham may be a bit too intense for a film
that relaunches the Batman franchise.
The Court of Owls first appeared in the New 52 back in Batman volume 2 issue 3, and led
up to an insane conflict in which they held Batman hostage and the hero had to face his
inner most darkness while going mad when trying to escape their labyrinth.
They are an organized crime group and secret society that have existed in Gotham since
colonial times, kidnapping children performers from the circus and transforming them into
assassins.
They’ve got their own army of assassins known as the Talons, who can even be brought
back from the dead.
5 The Batman Who Laughs The Batman Who Laughs is arguably one of the
Dark Knight’s most threatening foes.
He’s essentially the combination of the joker and batman; all of the Joker’s desire
for chaos, destruction and insanity mixed with Bruce Wayne’s intellect, strategizing
and technological savvy.
It’s a killer combination, one that occurs in the dark multiverse when Bruce kills the
Joker and the Joker’s body lets out toxin that our hero then inhales.
He begins to lose his mind, kills off the members of the bat family, enslaves his robins,
turning them into rabid dogs, then kills off the rest of the justice league before teaming
up with an evil demonic entity to take out the prime timeline batman and destroy the
regular multiverse.
Yeah, dude is an ambitious villain.
He was so popular amongst fans that after the Dark Nights Metal event in which he first
debuted, he stuck around for a solo series that pins him up against Batman in one of
the most intense conflicts Bruce has ever faced.
4 Doctor Death Doctor Death is by far one of the most physically
terrifying villains to ever hit the panels of a Batman comic.
He’s also one of the oldest.
Debuting initially in Detective comics issue 29 back in 1939, the character was Batman’s
first reoccurring foe, who back in the Golden Age developed a death chemical agent from
pollen extract.
He uses this chemical agent to try to extort money from the wealthy citizens of Gotham.
He gets real scary though in the new 52, when a new version of the villain appears in Batman
issue 25 as part of Batman Zero Year.
This time, he was a disgruntled scientist employees by Wayne Enterprises who ended up
murdering several people with a serum which causes uncontrollable bone growth.
It’s with this retcon that he gets his new, upgraded horrific appearance, which is a result
of him having tested the serum on himself.
Just imagine coming face to face with that in the middle of the night.
Yikes.
3 Cornelius Stirk Stirk is very similar to the Scarecrow in
the sense that he uses fear to manipulate his victims.
His abilities allow him to make others see him as someone else in order to trick them
and get close to them; he creates hallucinations via telepathy.
But here’s where it gets creepy.
Stirk believes that he needs the nutrients and hormones of human hearts in order to stay
alive, and the best way to consume human hearts is to prepare them with norepinephrine, which
occurs by inducing fear into the victim prior to their death.
He was first sent to Arkham Asylum at the age of 16 for trying to kill a classmate,
but manipulated his way out of the asylum after being certified sane thanks to the use
of his powers on his doctors.
2 Professor Pyg Professor Pyg is one nasty fellow.
First appearing in Batman issue 666 (actually) back in 2007, he’s been described by creator
Grant Morrison as being one of the weirdest, most insane characters that’s ever been
in Batman.
Morrison also stated it was their intention to make him seem geniuely disturbed and disconnected.
And that they definitely did!
Pyg’s name is a play on the play Pygmalion, in which the protagoniost has a desire to
transform people into an idealized state.
Pyg strives to do that, wanting to make people perfect, attempting to release an addictive
identity destroying drug via his Dollotrons; an army of genderless lobotomized humans with
masks fused to their faces.
He’s a skilled surgeon and talented scientist and chemist, and in order to make these dollotrons,
he goes to horrific extents; the process is implied to involve brain surgery, genital
mutilation and a cocktail of mind altering drugs.
He’s also got hundreds of them.
So yeah, dude is messed up.
1 The Dollmaker Barton Mathis aka the Dollmaker is one of
the most f-ed up villains to appear in DC comics.
Debuting in the new 52 Detective comics issue 1, the dollmaker was influenced as a child
by his father who took him on hunting trips, in which he witnessed daddy dearest killing
people and then eating them.
He would then witness his father’s arrest, which he resisted, causing him to be shot
by a young James Gordon.
Barton was put into foster care, but disappeared after a year, later resurfacing as a criminal
called the Dollmaker.
His mask is made of his dead father’s skin.
You might see where this is going- his whole schtick is creating dolls out of the skin
and limbs of his victims.
He’s a serial killer.
And he’s also the one responsible for cutting off the Joker’s face; an eerie element from
the beginning of the new 52 in which the Joker had his face skin removed.
He may not be the most frequent villain of the dark knight’s, but he’s still really
disgusting nonetheless, and a character that would, unfortunately, be really easy to believe
as a realistic villain in this new cinematic adaptation.
There we have it friends!
What villains do you think will make it into this new Batman film?
What do you think about Robert Pattinson playing Bruce Wayne?
Give us a shout in those comments below and let us know your thoughts!
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