10 HARVEY DENT While Batman may have very little respect
for Two Face, Bruce Wayne did have respect for the man the villain once was, Harvey Dent.
Yes, we are starting out our list with one of those numbers.
Harvey Dent, before his incursion with mob boss Sal Maroni and acid, was once an upstanding
citizen of gotham, the Gotham City District Attorney, who could not be corrupted, and
fought for justice with the same kind of relentlessness that Batman incorporated into his crime fighting.
Except, you know, he did it the legal way.
As you can imagine, that pissed off a whole lot of criminals in the underbelly of Gotham
who couldn’t buy Dent’s compliance.
Dent was a man that Bruce highly respected, which makes facing off against Two Face particularly
difficult at first for the dark knight.
9 MR FREEZE When Mr Freeze aka Victor Fries first appeared
in the comics, he was known as an ice based criminal called Mr Zero, debuting in Batman
issue 121 in 1959.
He wouldn’t become Freeze until the character was adapted to the 60s Batman tv series starring
Adam West, and later, in Detective Comics issue 373 in 1968, Freeze showed up as Freeze
in DC’s panels.
A cryogenics expert who lived in Gotham, Victor was attempting to cure his terminally ill
wife Nora when an accident occurred that lowered his body temperature to sub zero levels, causing
him to wear his cryogenic suit in order to keep living.
At the end of the day, depending on the version of the character you’re looking at, Freeze
didn’t turn to crime because he wants power; Freeze committed his crimes out of necessity,
to save the woman he loves, or his crimes are a reaction to the tragedy of his loss.
Still bad, but at least it’s for a noble reason.
Sort of.
Freeze in recent years has been portrayed as a character in rehabilitation, one that,
despite being in Arkham, has admitted that he’s trying to be better.
And that’s something that Batman can get behind.
8 THE RIDDLER You gotta give it to the Riddler; dude is
a next level genius when it comes to elaborate schemes and puzzles.
Edward Nigma, one of Batman’s most enduring criminal mastermind foes, first appeared in
Detective Comics issue 140 in 1948, and prides himself on his intellectual superiority.
And while Bruce may despise him, may constantly find himself fighting against the villain
and besmirching his name, at the end of the day, he’s gotta respect anyone who gives
his brain something to think about, and can manage to puzzle him; that’s not something
any old villain can do.
Tricking Bruce Wayne may come at a price, but it’s definitely a feat that the Riddler
is proud of, and something that Bruce can acknowledge.
7 TALIA AL GHUL Talia is Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter, a villian
who was first introduced in Detective Comics issue 411 in 1971 who quickly became a love
interest of Batman’s.
She’s also the mother of his son, Damian Wayne, the fifth Robin.
But aside from that connection, she’s also saved Bruce’s life on multiple occasions,
helping him from time to time.
And another reason why she’s often more respected by the dark knight than other villains
is due to the fact that her crimes often are in the name of her father rather than her
own personal gain.
Talia is often morally ambiguous, but in more recent times, she’s become a bit more of
a villain, even leading the league of Assassins.
6 LEX LUTHOR Lex Luthor is traditionally a superman villain.
He’s the man of steel’s arch nemesis, first appearing in Action Comics issue 23
in 1940 as a mad scientist.
Over time, his character became more complex, making him a wealthy, power hungry business
mogul and a well known public figure who sees Superman as a threat to the existence of humanity.
But despite all this, Lex and Bruce share something in common, aside from being absolute
geniuses.
They both understand the dangers Superman poses.
Lex is obviously a bit more extreme about the whole thing, whereas Bruce is like, yeah,
I’m just gonna secretly carry around kryptonite and have a bunch of back up plans established
just in case the man of steel ever loses his sh*t.
Which, to be fair, has happened, multiple times, primarily in alternate universes on
alternate Earths in the DC multiverse.
Bruce is just more low key about the whole thing, whereas Lex constantly whips up evil
schemes to take down Superman.
And despite their methodologies varying wildly, it’s without a doubt that Bruce has an understanding
of Lex that others may not, and may even secretly respect him for it.
5 POISON IVY Poison Ivy has always been a villain with
a point.
She has a noble purpose; she wants to protect the environment and safeguard it.
Except, the way in which she does that is arguably extreme.
Like, eco terrorism extreme.
Over the years, her and Batman have had their fair share of conflict and sexual tension,
but at the end of the day, Batman knows she’s not a villain who threatens humanity in the
ways that others in his rogue gallery do; he’s come to her aid in the past, like during
the No Man’s Land story arc, and the two even worked together in the 2004 story Poison
Ivy Cast Shadows to take down a criminal attempting to frame Ivy.
By the end of the story, Ivy returns to Arkham for rehabilitation, and Batman has sent a
bunch of flowers to her cell as a gift.
She’s even helped him withstand toxins from other villains, like making him immune to
Scarecrow’s fear gas.
These days, Poison Ivy is actually pretty good; she’s an anti-hero of sorts, working
alongside her girlfriend Harley Quinn, often aiming to do the right thing although their
means of getting there is somewhat questionable.
Speaking of,
4 HARLEY QUINN Batman and Harley Quinn have worked together
a handful of times.
One of the most recent times comes in the form of the animated film, aptly titled, Batman
and Harley Quinn.
The film follows their attempts to stop a scheme of Poison Ivy’s and the Floronic
Man’s of turning humans into plant-esque monsters like the Swamp Thing.
Funny thing is, when Harley isn’t working with the Joker, Batman has had multiple oppertunities
in which he could’ve had her locked up in Arkham.
But he didn’t act on them.
Maybe that’s because he sees her as harmless without her homicidal love interest.
Or perhaps he sees the potential for good in her.
But regardless, he seems more inclined to see her rehabilitated than anything.
The two even worked together in the Injustice universe, with them being major allies by
the time Injustice 2 rolls around.
Plus, for good measure, there’s been times where Harley has chosen to let Batman go,
or not to get in his way.
And that’s something he can at least nod to.
3 CATWOMAN Dude almost married her.
So yeah, kind of goes without saying that he respects her.
So let’s backtrack for a sec.
Traditionally, Catwoman aka Selena Kyle is a villain.
Her first appearance in a Batman comic was Batman issue 1 from 1940, and ever since,
she’s had a major love hate relationship with the broody hero, their romantic attraction
always being a struggle for Bruce in the early days before the comics code authority cracked
down on that (he would occasionally let her get away, and flirting with someone who was
villainous or a criminal is something the code was no bueno about).
Her anti-hero days arguably began in the 90s, with her actions often being described as
her doing the wrong things, but for the right reasons.
Like robin hood, but in a cat suit and with a whip.
You can see why she’d earn the Dark Knight’s adoration.
2 RA’S AL GHUL Ra’s and Batman have a complicated history
with one another.
Ra’s has done things like attempt to commit mass genocide by releasing deadly viruses
in Gotham.
He once exhumed the corpses of Bruce’s parents to distract Batman in JLA tower of Babel,
and he also once left his other daughter, Nyssa, in a Nazi concentration camp.
All in all, he’s pretty darn bad as far as villians go.
In Detective Comics issue 411, from 1971, after Batman falls in love with his daughter,
Talia, Ra’s begins to see him as a possible heir, figuring out Batman’s secret identity,
puts him through tests.
While Bruce rejects his offer of being his heir (since you know, he isn’t a fan of
genocide and Ra’s is), the two still managed to share a mutual respect for one another,
mostly because of each others intellectual prowess.
But most importantly, Ra’s is a villain who knows Batman’s true identity, and has
never exposed him, or threatened to reveal that information, since it goes against his
code of honour.
That being said, he’s used that knowledge to fight Batman and gain an advantage in certain
ways, none of which threatened to expose him though.
1 BANE Bane is one of Batman’s most relentless
adversaries.
For starters, he’s brilliant, and we all know how Bruce respects foes with intelligence
that rivals his own and gives him a challenge.
Bane is also a foe who has followed through on his threats, and even managed to break
Batman’s back; a near fatal attack that Bruce eventually recuperated from, after a
whole lot of story arc drama, that is.
On occasion, Batman and Bane have actually worked together.
In the Arkham City comics and the game they’re based off of, Batman and Bane actually work
together to track down shipments of chemicals.
In the comics, issue 738 of Detective comics sees Batman and Bane working together, during
the No Man’s Land event.
Lex Luthor almosts ‘buys’ Gotham, and hires Bane to work for him, until Batman shows
up and convinces his hulking foe otherwise.
And that’s something Batman can respect; Bane may be a villain, but he’s not beyond
logic - something that he proves time and time again to the Dark Knight.
He also once went after Ra’s Al Ghul and his Lazarus Pits; not because Batman asked
him too, but because he had his own beef with Ra’s.
But the foe of a foe is a friend, right?