Batman will always definitely be the hero we deserve, but after headlining ten films
in the past three decades, he's not the hero we need right now. Let's take a look at all
the other Batman characters who deserve their own movies.
If you want a villain who's begging for a solo movie, Clayface's origin story is basically
already the plot to an amazing horror film. The original version is set around the filming
of a slasher movie called Dread Castle, but whenever it's time to film a death scene,
suddenly the lights go out, and the actor playing the victim mysteriously dies for real.
Those who catch glimpses of the fleeing killer see that he looks like "Clayface," a famous
fictional monster from another old horror film.
Eventually, Batman intervenes and discovers that the "Clayface Killer" is actually horror
actor/makeup artist Basil Karlo, who played both the movie monster Clayface and the killer
in the original Dread Castle. Karlo claims he committed the murders because he didn't
want anyone replacing him as Dread Castle's killer. He'd apparently played so many fictional
monsters that it turned him into a real-life horror movie villain.
A version of this story, with or without Batman, could be an awesome horror flick, like Scream
set in the '40s. And since he can look like anyone, there's no guarantee that they got
the right guy. How's that for a third-act twist?
Usually, the only Batman villains who make it to the big screen are the truly threatening
A-list masterminds like the Joker and Ra's al Ghul. That's all well and good, but a wonderful
thing about Batman is that he has so many villains that go beyond just the household
names. Gotham has an extremely deep roster of B-list baddies, so we'd be remiss if we
didn't include at least one of Batman's minor, more comedic enemies.
"Okay are you making some of those up?"
"Nope, they're all real!"
Somewhere far down towards the bottom of the roster, you'll find an obscure Batman villain
known as "the Eraser." His real name is Lenny Fiasco, and he's our pick for a point-of-view
character in the world of Batman's many forgotten foes.
The Eraser has found an interesting niche in Gotham's criminal underworld, in that he
works as a fixer for other villains, helping them "erase" the evidence of their crimes
in exchange for a 20 percent cut. A film centered on the Eraser could be a low-stakes crime
comedy along the lines of The Big Lebowski. Whenever another Batman villain botches one
of their supervillain plots, the Eraser, a shy put-upon everyman, dons his giant pencil
costume and does his best to clean things up. How great would it be to see the working-class
side of supervillainy, with cameo appearances from the different Batman villains who need
to call upon the Eraser's services?
We've had many different actors play Batman over the years, but every cinematic version
of Batman has been Bruce Wayne underneath the cape and cowl. The 2009 comic by Grant
Morrison and Frank Quitey simply titled Batman and Robin, however, could be adapted pretty
much directly into an excellent film about someone trying to fill Bruce Wayne's big black
boots.
When the story opens, Bruce Wayne as been killed by Darkseid, and Dick Grayson, the
first Robin who had more recently been the hero Nightwing, decides to take over the role
of the Dark Knight to keep things safe in Gotham City. He also takes on Damian Wayne,
Bruce's son with Talia al Ghul, as his Robin. Because Damian was raised by an order of assassins
without ever knowing his father, he grew up rebellious, arrogant, and violent, and he
has no respect for Dick as his partner.
Needless to say, Dick and Damian's first few missions don't go particularly well. At one
point, Dick tells Alfred that he feels like a kid doing a Batman voice, and that it was
foolish to even try to replace Bruce Wayne. After Alfred encourages him to treat the identity
of Batman as a performance in which he's playing a role, Dick stops trying to be Bruce Wayne,
and he learns to be Batman in his own way. And after Damian's recklessness almost gets
him killed, and Dick has to save him, he starts to realize that maybe this new Batman actually
knows what he's doing.
Perhaps no single Batman character has had a wider array of comic book portrayals than
Pamela Isley, better known to Gotham City by her highly evocative, plant-based criminal
codename.
"And you are?"
"Poison. Poison Ivy."
She's been everything from a thief to an eco-terrorist to a superhero in her own right, with powers
that range from being a nearly normal human with an immunity to toxins and a serious knack
for gardening to a living avatar of plant life itself who can take over the entire world
with hypnotic spores. It might seem like that inconsistency could hurt her as a character,
but really, it just means that there are a lot of different options when it comes to
bringing her to film, including putting them all together in one.
It would be easy enough to tell a story that followed the example of a movie like Captain
Marvel, where Pamela's control of her plant powers would slowly ramp up over the course
of the film. There's even an option to show her as more than just a costumed criminal,
but as a defender of a planet in dire need of help against very relevant issues like
climate change. She could even work in the absence of Batman entirely by pitting her
against bad guys like Jason Woodrue. Sure, they already did that in Batman & Robin, but
it's not like anyone would notice. Plus, her romantic relationship with Harley Quinn has
made her a fan favorite, giving her a ready-made connection to the current run of DC movies,
one which Harley Quinn actress Margot Robbie has said she wants to explore on screen.
There are a lot of origin stories about bad guys who learn to be good. But what about
one where a good guy turns bad?
"Alright everyone...chill!"
There are numerous versions of Mr. Freeze's origin story, but typically, Victor Fries,
who's actually a doctor, not a mister, is a brilliant scientist whose wife, Nora, contracts
a terminal illness. Fries searches for a cure, and in order to buy himself some time to look,
he puts her into cryonic stasis.
Later, an accident in the cryonics lab alters Victor's body chemistry, leaving him unable
to live outside a subzero environment. He turns to crime to fund his increasingly expensive
research, not to mention his presumably massive air conditioning bills, so he makes a freeze
gun and starts stealing stuff.
Beneath all the wonderful campy nonsense, the tragedy of Mr. Freeze holds a surprisingly
touching message about love and mortality. Because of Victor's unwillingness to accept
his wife's impending death, he ends up squandering both their lives trying in vain to change
her destiny, when he should've just enjoyed what time he and Nora had left together, fleeting
though it might be.
Or to put another way, after a dire diagnosis, a brilliant yet cash-strapped scientist invents
a criminal alter ego to help get money for his family. It's basically everything you
like about Breaking Bad, except that instead of making meth like Walter White, Victor Fries
invented a freeze gun and started fighting Batman while making ice puns.
Gotham Central began in 2002 as a comic book series with an interesting hook: it's a Law
& Order style police procedural set in Gotham City with an ensemble cast, focusing on the
normal people who try to keep law and order in a city dominated by superheroes and deadly
costumed villains. During its 40 issue run, it was a critical darling, and features a
number of stories that could be adapted into an excellent noir detective movie.
Perhaps the most famous story from Gotham Central was "Half a Life," in which Two-Face
puts into motion an elaborate plan to destroy the life of Renee Montoya, one of Gotham's
best detectives, by hiring someone to out her as a lesbian. It then turns out that this
is just step one of his plan, giving Montoya a motive, because later, Two-Face murders
the person he hired and frames Montoya for it. Montoya ends up in jail, and the rest
of her colleagues on the GCPD need to catch Two-Face and clear their colleague's name.
Another way to go would be a story like "Dead Robin," which is a fascinating look into how
the criminal justice system of Gotham intersects with the world of superheroes. In this tale,
Gotham police find the dead body of a teenage boy in a Robin costume with no identification.
They're not sure if he's the real Robin or just a kid dressed up like him, but they have
to attempt to identify the body and figure out who killed him while navigating a world
of secret identities. It's an excellent hook for a murder mystery, and it only gets better
from there.
You'd think we'd have seen a Batgirl movie by now. Joss Whedon was writing one for a
while, but has since left, claiming he "didn't have a story." Currently, Christina Hodson,
the writer of Bumblebee, is attached to a potential film, but "potential" is all it
has right now, as the project still lacks a director.
Maybe the reason it's taking so long is because Barbara Gordon's history is more than a little
complicated. Here's the quick version: she was Batgirl. She got paralyzed by the Joker,
so she became Oracle, a super-hacker information broker for superheroes. Some readers liked
this because it was cool to see a disabled superhero, but some didn't because they thought
she never should've been paralyzed in The Killing Joke to begin with. Then Barbara's
paralysis went away thanks to the universe being rebooted, and she became Batgirl once
more. And again, some readers liked this…and some didn't.
With all of that to deal with, how do you make a movie about Batgirl? You could make
it a dual timeline story, with some scenes taking place during Barbara's days as Batgirl
and others during her time as Oracle. Then again, maybe it would be better to tell a
breezy, continuity-light story and not mention the paralysis at all, but that would mean
ignoring almost 30 years of her history and some very important representation. It's a
tough problem to crack, but if anyone deserves to have the effort put in, it's Barbara Gordon.
If you haven't heard of Catman, we don't blame you. From his earliest appearances in the
1960s, he's been mostly just a punchline. Between a costume that's goofy even by Silver
Age DC standards and his use of "Catarangs," Catman has the somewhat unique distinction
of being a fictional character who's accused in-universe of being a ripoff of other, much
cooler characters.
"Magnificent, isn't it?"
Although he languished in obscurity for decades, Catman came back in the mid-2000s in the pages
of Secret Six, a sort of spiritual successor to Suicide Squad, but without the part where
they were working for the good guys. Instead, this was the the story of a type of super-team
that hasn't been seen much in the movies so far: super-mercenaries. The Secret Six are
superhuman muscle for hire, and as such, their morality is somewhat flexible.
Perhaps the Six's most film-worthy adventure occurs when they gain possession of a mystical
item known as a "Get Out of Hell Free Card." As the name implies, it's a little metal rectangle
that allows its bearer to rescue any one soul from Hell and return them to the world of
the living. Needless to say, once it becomes widely known that the Secret Six possesses
this, every supervillain in the world starts coming for them. A film adaptation about Catman
and the rest of the Six during this time could be a madcap, Guardians of the Galaxy-style,
dirty action-comedy with a heart of gold.
Sure, Catman might be a dumb name, but come on. Is it any worse than Star-Lord?
Simply put, Batman Beyond is one of the greatest superhero cartoons of all time. It takes place
in a futuristic cyberpunk Gotham, where Bruce Wayne has retired from his life as Batman,
and now he's a bitter, jaded shut-in.
Enter Terry McGinnis, a rebellious teenager with a good heart who accidentally discovers
the secret identity of Batman. When Terry's father is then murdered, Terry steals a Batsuit
from Bruce Wayne and sets out to bring his father's killer to justice.
Although Bruce tries to stop him at first, once he realizes that Terry is a good kid
with pure intentions, he decides to take Terry under his pointy cape and serve as the guy
in the chair, doing research and giving him advice.
There's so much to love about the idea of a Batman Beyond movie franchise. The cyberpunk
setting would look gorgeous in live action, and there's an entirely new rogues' gallery
of creepy villains like Inque, Blight, Spellbinder, and more. And you know what? Michael Keaton
is just about the right age nowadays to play a retired Bruce Wayne. Just sayin'.
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