Characters / Batman: Rogues Gallery (Part 2)

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Gagsworth A. Gagsworthy

First Appearance: Batman Vol. 1 #186 (November, 1966)

A circus acrobat with dwarfism whose act was replaced by the Flying Graysons', forcing Gaggy to become a clown performing for a freakshow. The embittered Gaggy was recruited by the Joker to his gang, but they were stopped and jailed by Batman and the Dick Grayson Robin. The Joker forgot Gaggy when he made Harley Quinn his new sidekick, and Gaggy has hated Harley ever since. He's gone back to work with the Joker occasionally once Harley left the Clown Prince of Crime.

• Alliterative Name: Gagsworth Gagsworthy.
• Arch-Enemy: He thinks of Harley as his, but Harley mostly feels pity for him.
• The Bus Came Back: Disappeared after his Silver Age debut, and wouldn't return until decades later, when Paul Dini brought him to his Gotham City Sirens run.
• Depraved Dwarf: A midget who used to work for one of Gotham's most infamous criminals.
• Evil Counterpart: The Joker thought of him to be his own version of Robin.
• Punny Name: His full name is Gagsworth A. Gagsworthy. His initials spell GAG.
• Repetitive Name: Gagsworth Gagsworthy.
• The Resenter: He hates Harley for being more popular than him.
• Undying Loyalty: Probably the most loyal henchperson the Joker's ever had.
• Villainous Friendship: With the Joker in the Silver Age. In the Modern Age, Joker treats him as just another pawn.

Dr. Bella Garten

First Appearance: Batman Vol. 3 #107 (June, 2021)

Bella Garten's parents died when she was young, causing her to be raised by the groundskeeper of a military-base. On this base, Bella developed a keen interest in botany. With a government backing, Bella became a student of Hudson University where she studied experimental botany under one Dr. Jason Woodrue. Bella was kicked out due to creating experimental plant/animal hybrids. She would become an environmentalist eco-terrorist known as the "Gardener" alongside her girlfriend, Dr. Pamela Isley AKA Poison Ivy, another of Woodrue's students. Eventually, Gardener broke up with Ivy due to believing her to be too much of an extremist in her violence and hatred of humanity.

• A Lighter Shade of Black: An environmentalist willing to restort to unethical procedures and terrorism to protect ecosystems, but disapproves of Poison Ivy's disregard for the non plant parts of the biosphere and Ivy's many plans to bring about human enslavement or extinction. The Gardener still ends up being the villain, or at least the antagonist, when she shows up in Harley's and Ivy's books, however.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: The Gardener likes to dress in men's suit.
• Eco-Terrorist: Is an environmentalist eco-terrorist.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Part of the reason for her falling out with Poison Ivy is that Pamela doesn't respect the non plant parts of nature like animals and humans like she does.
• Mad Scientist: A mad botanist to be precise.
• Meaningful Name: Bella Garten could be translated as 'Beautiful Garden' ('bella' is Italian for 'beautiful' and 'garten' is German for 'garden').
• New Old Flame: Is a former lover of Poison Ivy.
• Planimal: Bella can create plant/animal hybrids to serve as her loyal pets. Most notably are large, dog-like plants.

Nathan Finch

First Appearance: Detective Comics #712 (August 1997)

An engineer who kidnapped his boss' daughter for ransom. Batman found him and they fought on a frozen lake which cracked and he fell to the wáter. An underworld doctor replaced his frozen limbs with interchangeable body parts, and the newly dubbed Gearhead sought vengeance against Batman.

• An Arm and a Leg: Due to ravages of frostbite, the Back-Alley Doctor removed Finch's arms and legs and replaced them with cybernetic arms and legs.
• Cyborg: Gearhead possesses an arsenal of cybernetic weapons in his arms and legs, as well as spare limbs that he can swap out on the fly. He has physically attached himself to his car on at least one occasion.
• Harmless Freezing: Averted; he lost his limbs due to frostbite.
• Malicious Misnaming: He likes to call Batman "vermin".
• Swiss-Army Appendage: He can change his bionic limbs to others with different weapons and attributes.
• Who Needs Their Whole Body?: Gearhead has been shown crawling after Batman (or away from him) with most of his robot body destroyed.

Anthony Paul Scarano

First Appearance: Detective Comics #491 (June, 1980)

As a child, Anthony Paul Scarano was always obsessed with the military and wished to become like them, particularly with famous generals and leaders. Scarano enlisted at a young age only to come to the realization that he couldn't achieve his goals of becoming a famed general within the ranks of the military as it was set-up. Crafting the alias of General Scarr, he decided to use his military knowledge and training for crime where he believed he could flourish and achieve notoriety. His schemes would however make him an enemy of Batgirl who foiled his plans at every turn, making him obsessed with revenge on her. General Scarr would go on to team up with fellow militaristic villains Colonel Sulphur, Major Disaster, and Captain Cutlass to found what they called the Army of Crime.

• Dangerous Deserter: When he realized that he couldn't achieve his plans within the system, Scarano deserted and turned to crime, becoming a crimelord using his knowledge in military protocol.
• Dueling Scar: Scarr has a jagged scar across his face, which he received during an accident in bayonet training in the army.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Scarano deserted from the army, turned to crime, and became a crimelord using his knowledge of military protocol.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: General Scarr's face is bisected by a jagged scar.
• Named After the Injury: General Scarr takes his name from a jagged scar across his face received during an accident in bayonet training, combined with his real name, Anthony Scarano.
• Never My Fault: Scarr refuses to accept any responsibility for the failure of his military career, blaming it on the jealousy of his superiors.
• Phony Veteran: Scarr's generalship is entirely self-appointed, never having made it past the rank of private.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: General Scarr takes his name from a jagged scar across his face received during an accident in bayonet training, combined with his real name, Anthony Scarano.

See Hawkman

Getaway Genius I

Roy Reynolds

First Appearance: Batman #170 (March 1965)

Roy Reynolds was a criminal from Gotham City, who specialized in creating complex getaways and escape plans for his henchmen, which earned him the alias of "The Getaway Genius". Reasoning that Batman and Robin were undefeatable, he focused instead on devising foolproof escape routes for each crime. Following his death from cancer, his daughter Olivia adopted the Getaway Genius identity.

• Alliterative Name: Roy Reynolds. (Also Getaway Genius.)
• Badass in a Nice Suit: His 'costume' consisted of a business suit.
• Boring, but Practical: Roy's not especially crazy or even interested in fighting Batman. He just focuses on getting the goods and getting out clean - but that ultimately keeps him safe long enough to die a natural death, which is more than can be said for quite a few supervillains.
• Cool Shades: Always wore sunglasses, even at night.
• Crazy-Prepared: Reynolds' escape plans took into account every possible contingency. The first time he was captured, it was because a screw-up on the part of his henchmen.
• Fedora of Asskicking: Always wore a fedora while committing his crimes.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: His trademark Cool Shades sometimes had extra features, such as acting as night vision goggles.
• Killed Off for Real: Died of cancer.
• Only in It for the Money: Unlike most of Batman's foes, he is only looking for jobs that make a profit and has no interest in tangling with superheroes.
• Only Sane Man: Often comes off as this in a gathering of Batman's Rogues Gallery.
• Porn Stache: In the 1960s, Reynolds sported a pencil thin mustache. When he returned in the 70s, he sported a badass set of muttonchops.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: His entire philosophy of crime was based on having the perfect getaway and avoiding entanglements with the law or heroes.
• Sunglasses at Night: Always wears a pair of Cool Shades. Sometimes they double as night vision goggles.
• Technical Pacifist: Considered fighting cops and superheroes to be a waste of time and energy. He had no problem setting traps to stop his pursuers, but drew the line at inflicting actual harm on anyone.
• Tragic Villain: His last crime involved stealing medicine for his cancer symptoms. Batman, who knew he really needed the medicine, let the Genius make one last getaway.

Getaway Genius II

Olivia Reynolds

First Appearance: Batman #703 (November 2010)

Olivia Reynolds is the daughter of Roy Reynolds, the original Getaway Genius. After her father died from cancer, she took up her father's criminal identity and began a crime spree in Gotham City with a new high-tech powered suit that allowed her to hide and adopt any appearance.

• Affirmative-Action Legacy: Replaced the original male Getaway Genius.
• Chameleon Camouflage: Her suit allows her to blend into any environment.
• Clothes Make the Superman: All of her powers come from her high-tech suit.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Took over her father's criminal identity after he died.
• Legacy Character: Is the second Getaway Genius.
• Master of Disguise: The holographic projectors on her suit allow her to adopt any appearance.
• One-Steve Limit: Olivia Reynolds is also the name of a supporting character in Green Lantern.
• One-Way Visor: The helmet of her suit has an opaque red face plate.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Like her father, her crimes center around making the perfect getaway.
• Stealth Expert: Her suit allows her to blend into any environment.

Hammond Carter

First Appearance: Detective Comics #840 (March 2008)

A villain obsessed with maps who "plots crimes by latitude, longitude, time zones and the shape of landmasses."

• Biting-the-Hand Humor: He largely exists as a send-up to the more outlandish gimmick villains of the Silver Age, and his brief fight with Batman functions as significantly sillier and more pun-laden break in the midst of a more serious run before the story moves on without ever mentioning him again.
• Fat Bastard: He's pretty globe-shaped himself.
• Idiosyncrazy: He commits crimes themed after geography.
• Stout Strength: He's built like Kingpin and has the strength to match.

George "Boss" Dyke

First Appearance: Batman #75 (February, 1953)

Mobster George "Boss" Dyke was executed in the gas chamber, but had his brain transplanted into the body of a gorilla. The Gorilla Boss of Gotham City fought Batman twice. Later, the alien villain Sinestro stole the Boss' cerebellum, expanded it to planet-size, and used it as a power source. This unnatural abomination was destroyed by Superman. Somehow, the Boss' brain was returned to his gorilla body and he was used as a pawn by Gorilla Grodd. He has since appeared in the post-Flashpoint universe.

• Badass in a Nice Suit: A Killer Gorilla dressed in a pinstripe suit.
• Brain Transplant: Gorilla Boss is a mob boss who had his brain implanted into the body of a gorilla.
• Killer Gorilla: Gorilla Boss is a mob boss who had his brain implanted into the body of a gorilla.
• Maniac Monkeys: Sometimes uses gun-wielding monkeys and chimps as henchmen.
• The Speechless: Gorilla Boss can't speak, but he can communicate with his henchmen using a pen and paper.
• Talking with Signs: Gorilla Boss can't speak, but he can communicate with his henchmen using a pen and paper.

Warren White

First Appearance: Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1 (July 2003)

Sentenced to prison for creative accounting practices, financier Warren White tried to slip through the cracks by pleading insanity, in the hopes of being committed to a modern psychiatric care facility. Instead, he wound up in Arkham Asylum, where the inmates ritually tortured and abused him for being the "new fish"; Killer Croc went so far as to carve gills in the sides of his neck.

After being locked in a freezer for several hours during a riot, Warren emerged a changed man: his hair had fallen out, his lips and nose had shriveled away in the cold, and his skin was now chalky white. His mind now decidedly twisted, White has since traded off his appearance and business acumen to become one of the premier mob bosses in Gotham City.

• Alliterative Name: Warren White.
• Animal Motifs: Sharks, of course. He was a corporate shark, he was nicknamed the Great White Shark (which he uses as his supervillain name), he looks like a shark after being disfigured, and even before he was disfigured, his password was hammerhead/tiger/mako (three different species of sharks).
• Appropriated Appelation: 'Great White Shark' was the media's nickname for Warren White back when he was merely a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• Asshole Victim: Don't think he didn't work hard to earn that Humiliation Conga.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Ironic that a man with the nickname, "the Great White Shark", would end up resembling one after an unrelated accident. That only applies to his lack of a nose, lips, and ears: he filed his teeth down himself afterward to complete the look.
• Bald of Evil: Lost his hair in Mr. Freeze's cell, along with his sanity.
• Black Eyes of Evil: His eyes are often colored black, making him look even more like a shark.
• The Chessmaster: After Black Mask's death, he briefly managed to oust the Penguin from Gotham and control the city's rackets from inside his cell at Arkham.
• Color Animal Codename: An interesting example of this trope as the animal he is named after is already called... well, the great white shark.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Gained his nickname for his ruthless and cold-blooded business practices.
• Corrupted Character Copy: He bears resemblance to Tobias Beecher; both are new inmates from wealthy backgrounds who find themselves abused by their fellow prisoners until they finally (and violently) snap, and finally become respected as a result. The difference is that Beecher is a good man who regrets his crime and keeps his morals for the most part, while White is an amoral scumbag right out of the gate.
• Covered in Scars: He accumulates a lot of wounds and gashes in Arkham from the other inmates' attacks, the most noticeable being those on his neck that look like gills, which he got courtesy of Killer Croc.
• Didn't Think This Through: Uses the insanity plea... in Gotham, which ensures he will be thrown into Arkham with all the city’s psychotic villains and serial killers.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": When Batman confronts him in Face the Face for framing Harvey Dent of murder and driving him back into villainy and madness, White nonchalantly tells Batman that he no longer goes by Warren White, but the Great White Shark.
  Batman: Warren White.
  Warren: That's not my name. Not here, not now.
• Driven to Madness: After spending some time in Arkham being mocked and used as a punching bag by all the other inmates, barely escaping a murder attempt by Jane Doe, getting scarred by Killer Croc, and finally, being locked in Mr. Freeze’s cell, which causes his skin to turn white, his hair to fall out, and his nose, lips, ears, three of his fingers, and one of his thumbs to fall off, he ends up going insane.
• Embarrassing Nickname: In Arkham, the other inmates called him Fish, because he was the new fish. Although, after getting his new look and going insane, they call him Great White Shark now.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He's on the receiving end, and it's Played for Laughs. Gotham's supervillains may mutilate and murder innocent people for the funsies, but even they wouldn't "steal their kids' college funds", as Joker puts it. To wit, many of the rogues may be insane or evil, but White is just an overall asshole.
• Facial Horror: He lost his nose, lips and ears to frostbite.
• Faux Affably Evil: The Shark is quite the charmer and very charismatic, but there's always an undercurrent of sleaze to him.
• Freudian Excuse: Warren was always a terrible person and a Jerkass, but he went through horrific torture in Arkham that the staff did nothing to stop. It's no surprise that he snapped and became even worse than he already was.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Went from a Butt-Monkey for all the other Arkham inmates to one of the most influential mob bosses in Gotham City after his transformation.
• Gone Horribly Right: White tried to weasel out of fraud and embezzlement charges by pleading insanity. He succeeded. Which earned him being committed to Arkham Asylum...
• Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Downplayed. He was already guilty of embezzlement and fraud, but his stay in Arkham and the abuse he endured wound up turning him from an ordinary white-collar criminal into a bonafide supervillain and a feared crime boss.
• Hated by All: Everyone hates him before his Sanity Slippage; the closest thing he had as a friend was Humpty Dumpty, who wished to dismantle him and put him back together in a way that he wouldn't be such an asshole.
• Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: He dresses like one in Batman: Streets of Gotham issue 4.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Not only did his insanity defense send him to Arkham, but his fraud hit the asylum's budget so he has to share a cell with a Serial Killer. Oh, and he's on Jeremiah Arkham's shit list since he stole his retirement pension.
• Humiliation Conga: When he arrives at Arkham for the first time, he seems pretty pleased with himself that his Insanity Defense worked, and smugly declares that he would soon buy out the place and turn it into a restaurant. It didn't take long for him to be disabused of that belief when he finds himself the Pariah Prisoner for both being a white-collar crook and a "new fish", and gets regularly abused by the other inmates.
• I Was Quite a Looker: When he arrived at Arkham, he was a good-looking guy. Now, he doesn’t even look human.
• Karma Houdini: He's worked out a deal with the Torture Lords of Hell that will enable him to escape any punishment for his life's misdeeds in the afterlife. He’ll even get to torture the inmates that bullied him as a bonus. Etrigan is actually impressed.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: After his arrival in Arkham, he immediately became the low man on the totem pole and was treated like a punching bag by most of the other inmates. The abuse and mutilations took their toll, and Warren eventually snapped and became a supervillain himself, making himself invaluable to his fellow inmates by providing them with supplies for their various schemes.
• Lack of Empathy: When he was a businessman, he got rich by ruining the lives of countless people.
• Lip Losses: Lost his lips to frostbite after being left for dead in a freezing cell.
• Loan Shark: Quite. He asks for fifteen percent of Riddler's crime revenue in exchange for a helicopter with a question mark.
• Locked Out of the Loop: He didn't know what Arkham was, he didn't even know who Riddler was before being sent to the asylum. All he knew was that Gotham was the only city with people stupid or corrupt enough to buy his insanity plea.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: In most stories he's in, he operates his criminal activities from his cell in Arkham Asylum, as it provides him with an alibi.
• Never My Fault: When asked why he thinks he is at Arkham, he says that it's because he was negligent while doing his fraud job (which was the biggest in the history of the DC U.S.A.), and tries to justify it to Humpty Dumpty by saying it's not his fault no one read the fine print.
• No-Respect Guy: When he was sent to Arkham, the other inmates beat the crap out of him for the hell of it and gave him the mocking nickname Fish, and Jeremiah Arkham and the guards treated him with contempt and did little to protect him from the other inmates. Humpty Dumpty was the only one who treated him with decency.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: He started off as a Smug Snake and Butt-Monkey, but after being driven insane, the Shark became a much more dangerous threat. He's both familiar with the rogues and Batfamily and has an objective view of their idiosyncrasies, making him very good at manipulating them to his advantage.
• Pet the Dog: He saves Humpty Dumpty from his abusive grandmother's vengeful ghost and comforts him afterwards, reassuring him that the things we fear can be overcome and drastic changes are sometimes for the better
• Phrase Catcher: In Arkham Asylum: Living Hell especially, Warren White is the worst person you have ever met.
• Prison Changes People: Prior to his stay in Arkham, he was an ordinary if despicable white-collar crook clearly out of his depth, and the resident Butt-Monkey of both staff and guards. By the end of his stay, he's a disfigured lunatic just as dangerous as the rest of the rogues gallery.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Warren gets a job flipping Two-Face's coin when Two-Face injures his hands and can't do it himself, for no other reason than that he's desperate to be under anybody's protection at first. One Arkham staff member is actually impressed how a white-collar criminal can climb up the hierarchy.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to his accountant's vengeful spirit, saying that happened because the guy was weak and could not handle the pressure, so he killed himself then Warren strangles him saying that's how he destroys someone's life.
• Scary Teeth: White files his teeth into points to resemble shark teeth.
• Shark Man: He’s not actually a Fish Person, but he still has the look as a result of his time in Arkham.
• Smug Snake: When he gets into Arkham, Warren is very confident and smug, clearly thinks he's better than everyone else, and is convinced that his stay in Arkham will be a breeze. He's quickly disabused of that notion and winds up driven insane, though that ironically helps him fit in and become just as much of a threat as the rest of the rogues gallery. In Face the Face, when Batman confronts him about secretly masterminding crimes and causing Harvey Dent’s downfall from his cell at Arkham, Warren acts quite smug while pointing out Batman doesn’t have any proof.
• That Man Is Dead: In Face the Face, when Batman calls him by his real name, Warren White, he says that he was Warren White, but living in Arkham turned him into the Great White Shark.
• Too Dumb to Live: Really, when you plead insanity in Gotham City, you gotta be. He only held his trial there because he knew people would be dumb or corrupt enough to believe his plead. He was so out of the loop that he mocked Riddler for being a guy in spandex.
• Unexplained Recovery: Downplayed. The event that caused his transformation into the Great White Shark also cost him three fingers and a thumb to frostbite. However, White has all his fingers intact in his later appearances, even if his facial disfigurement remains.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Believed that he could fake an insanity defense and ride out his 'sentence' with ease, only to find that he had horribly underestimated what the other patients were capable of.

Liam Hawkleigh

First Appearance: Detective Comics #674 (May 1994)

A master sniper who turned to a life of crime following tours in Panama and Lebanon in the United States Marine Corps. Gunhawk is devoted to three things: money, guns, and his partner Bunny.

• The Alcoholic: Following his defeat by Az-Bats, Gunhawk crawled into a bottle and stayed there. His descent drove Bunny away. Although he has since sobered up, defeats will still push him Off the Wagon.
• Cold Sniper: Gunhawk doesn't care who his target is. The only person he shows any affection to is his partner Bunny.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Say what you will, but his affection for Bunny is genuine; he jeopardizes a clean getaway from the gun convention robbery to get her medical attention when she gets shot, and even when he’s caught at the end he just wants to know if she’ll make it.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Gunhawk was a sniper in the USMC before becoming a mercenary and assassin.
• Gatling Good: Azrael's final Batsuit upgrade (mostly ditching the cape for wings) is the result of Gunhawk firing a minigun at him.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Gunhawk's goggles grant him low-light vision and act as a targeting scope for his rifle.
• Gun Nut: Gunhawk is extremely obsessive when it comes to firearms; in his first appearance he holds up a gun show to steal a one of a kind military prototype one-man machine gun.
• Outlaw Couple: He and Bunny form one, with Bunny acting as his spotter and back-up.
• Perky Female Minion: Gunhawk is almost always accompanied by a female spotter nicknamed Gunbunny.
• Poor Man's Substitute: In-Universe, he is regarded as one to Deadshot. It has been mentioned that he will often be hired by clients who cannot afford Deadshot's fees.
• Professional Killer: Gunhawk does not formulate his own villainous schemes. He just takes on contracts from other people.
• Replacement Goldfish: After Bunny is killed by Deadshot, Gunhawk acquires a new female accomplice. They share the same romantic relationship, and Gunhawk even calls her Bunny.
• Semper Fi: Master sniper who turned to a life of crime following tours in Panama and Lebanon in the United States Marine Corps; he has the “eagle, globe, and anchor” emblem tattooed on his chest.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Hawkleigh's military records indicate that he was one before dishonorable discharge; this led to conflict with Slade Wilson of Army Special Forces in Lebanon when Hawkleigh sniped a terrorist cell informant Wilson was bringing back to camp.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Gunnery Sergeant Liam Hawkleigh.
• Supervillain Packing Heat: It's in his name.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Gunhawk's costume includes a US flag bandana.

First Appearance: Detective Comics #823 (November, 2006)

Harvest is a creature of sentient vegetation used by Poison Ivy. It was created when a carnivorous plant that Poison Ivy fed her victims to absorbed the personas of the people it ate. In this form it was able to rapidly regenerate and transform itself into any plant-life it chose to. Harvest is driven by an intense hatred for Ivy, and has attempted to kill her multiple times, forcing Batman to save her.

• Fangs Are Evil: Harvest has a mouth full of wicked sharp pointed fangs.
• Flesh Golem: Harvest is a monstrous amalgamation of the bodies of past victims of Poison Ivy.
• Green Thumb: Harvest is able to control all plant life in its immediate vicinity.
• Healing Factor: Harvest regenerates incredibly quickly.
• Mind Hive: The bodies, minds, and souls of Poison Ivy's victims are inside Harvest.
• Plant Person: Harvest is a creature of sentient vegetation used by Poison Ivy.
• Revenge: Harvest seeks only one thing: to kill Ivy for killing the people it once was.
• Rubber Man: Being composed of vegetation, Harvest's form is elastic and can extend, bend, and twist.
• Soul Eating: Harvest absorbs the souls of those it consumes.
• Voice of the Legion: The multiple people who make up Harvest's personality often all speak the same words at the same time.

Telman Davies

First Appearance: Detective Comics #355 (September, 1966)

Telman Davies was a newscaster on a local television channel in Gotham City. He decided to adopt the masked identity of the Hooded Hangman as a way to become the number one masked fighter. He became a member of a wrestling company in order to test his mettle. His fighting techniques were not entirely legal, but he always managed to defeat his opponents. Eventually, he tried to defeat Batman by luring him into apparent crimes.

• Fad Super: Wrestling was very popular in the late 60s.
• In the Hood: He wears an executioner’s hood as the Hooded Hangman.
• Long Bus Trip: First appeared in 1966; next appeared in 2010.
• Serial Killer: Telman reappears as a serial killer in an issue of Superman/Batman. He kills 12 people before Batman catches up with him.
• Victor Steals Insignia: Planned to defeat Batman in a wrestling match and take his cowl.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Became a member of a wrestling company in order to test his mettle. His fighting techniques were not entirely legal, but he always managed to defeat his opponents.

Hugo Strange

First Appearance: Detective Comics #36 (February 1940)

• Actually a Doombot: Used robotic decoys in a couple of stories. These schemes also contained a fake Robin, Alfred, and Thomas and Martha Wayne.
• Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed in that all of his appearances in non-comic media have him as a credible threat due to his status as an Evil Genius, but none of them include his bodybuilder's physique (he's of average build in Gotham, Batman: Arkham City states that he is "trained to physical perfection" in his character profile but never really takes it anywhere, and he's a grotesque Fat Bastard in the DCAU and The Batman (2004)), meaning he's purely a mental challenge for Batman and not a physical one as well.
• Arch-Enemy: In the early years, he had arguably a better claim to being this than The Joker, who was Put on a Bus shortly after his debut since the writers didn't want Batman to look impotent by letting the clown rack up a ridiculously high body count. Strange was a more frequent villain, and predated him.
• Awesome by Analysis: His usual MO, and how he figures out at least one Secret Identity.
• Badass Bookworm: Inverted. His obsession with bodybuilding and physical perfection means he is all muscle. The inversion is that he almost never actually uses them; it's largely for show.
• Bad Boss: Has a nasty habit of brainwashing his own men and turning them into drugged-up mutated brutes who will do his will. He once had a devoted Indian manservant named Sanjay, who worked for him for years in return for Strange trying to save his brother’s life- Strange fails, so he secretly experimented on the brother, too.
• Bald of Evil: He is always depicted with a clean-shaven head, to highlight his villainous nature.
• Beard of Evil: Originally modeled a classic "villainous" goatee; he boasts a shaggy chinstrap in most recent appearances.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Averted in one Pre-Crisis story. You want to know how he originally found out Batman's secret identity? He took his mask off while he was bound and unconscious. It was later changed to be a little more complicated than that, but you still have to admire his prudence.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Monster Men; Quincy Sharp.
• The Chessmaster: Naturally, Strange's intelligence and ego means he loves to weave plans and manipulate others for the sheer joy of displaying his intellectual superiority.
• Classic Villain: He's one of Batman's oldest villains and is made in the iconic villainous archetype of his day.
• Costume Copycat: Since he wants to Kill and Replace Batman, he sometimes wears a replica of the Batsuit.
• Defiant to the End: Though he ultimately returns, even when being tortured and brutally beaten to death by Rupert Thorne, Strange refuses to cow to Thorne's demands for Batman's true identity, and takes the truth with him to the grave.
• Diabolical Mastermind: Strange is a genius, but only interested in using his smarts for evil ends.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He successfully deduced Batman's identity but he is convinced that Bats is driven by a power fantasy, not by actual heroism. This says more about Strange himself since that's why he wants to be Batman.
• Evil Genius: He's a sadistic villain who is a genius in psychology, chemistry and biology as well as a very cunning manipulator and strategist and is an intellectual match for Batman.
• Evil Is Petty: In Batman and the Monster Men, he had a couple of rich socialites at a charity gala kidnapped and fed to his experimental monsters simply for making fun of his appearance and genetic theories.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Under the reasoning that a man in his line of work would have a compelling hypnotic voice, in adaptations he tends to sound like either this or a Shout-Out to Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove (sometimes a combination of both). Corey Burton in particular seemed to be channeling Christopher Lee.
• Evilutionary Biologist: His "Monster Men", and his obsession with Batman.
• Expy: Originally of Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes, to the point where his final confrontation with Batman during the Golden Age ended with a Good Old Fisticuffs brawl over a cliff, with Strange falling to his presumed death^note Robin of Earth-One would later discover that he'd actually remained alive but comatose for decades.
• Faking the Dead: He’s done it so many times he even mocks Catwoman once when she pulls it off.
• Faux Affably Evil: Strange is almost always polite and soft-spoken and it only makes him even creepier.
• Foil: To The Scarecrow. Both are or were associated with Arkham as staff, both have a fascination with human frailty, and both have even used fear gas (though Strange never depended on it, although oddly enough he was the first to use it). The only real difference between the two is that Dr. Crane slipped into insanity, while Prof. Strange's sanity is a little more controlled.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A villain whose glasses usually obscure his eyes completely, effectively masking his emotions in most depictions.
• Freudian Couch: He once had Bruce as a client and tried to get him to admit that he was Batman; since he was Batman, Bruce thwarted the effort with a Memory Gambit, forcing himself to forget his secret identity for the duration.
• Genius Bruiser: Depending on the Writer, his genius may be coupled with some truly massive muscles, enough for him to actually pass as Batman in a dim light. The Monster Men mini zig-zags this; its Strange is a scrawny little shrimp implicitly doing his experiments to beef himself up, but is also the only one that explicitly trains what little muscle he was born with. He's also portrayed as a fairly skilled martial artist and even a skilled acrobat and gymnast who can perform impressive flips and somersaults.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Since he’s obsessed with becoming the new Batman, he’s insanely jealous of Bruce, who is Batman. In Prey, he’s also shown to be jealous because Bruce’s superior body means Hugo will never be as good a Batman as he is.
  Hugo Strange: I…I can share his mind…but not his body. I can know how it feels to be the Batman psychologically…but not…not physically. God, h-how I envy him…How I hate him.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: In Prey, Gordon gives Batman his bio and mentions that he used to have this.
• Herr Doktor: As indicated above, in non-comic media several actors have voiced him with a Germanic accent.
• I Just Want to Be You: In Prey, he even has his own Batman costume and spends his free time sitting around his home wearing both it and a Slasher Smile.
• I Know You Know I Know: One pre-Crisis story had Batman basically weaponize this against Strange, returning Strange to captivity despite his knowledge of Batman's identity by claiming that he hypnotized Strange to "forget" his secret identity. In reality, Batman hadn't done anything, but Strange is left in a mental tangle as he tries to determine if Batman's letting him think the Dark Knight is Bruce Wayne because he's trying a double-bluff or if he genuinely isn't Bruce Wayne...
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: In a sense; Strange is smart enough to deduce who Batman is under the mask, but he generally fails to be a greater threat because he can't recognize the flaws in his analysis of Batman. As a result, his plans run into crucial mistakes based on Strange acting according to what he believes about Batman rather than what the Dark Knight is really like.
• Kill and Replace: His goal is to kill Batman so he can be the new Batman.
• Mad Doctor: He is a legitimate doctor, of both medicine and psychiatry. He uses his training to drive people into insanity and mutate them into horrific monsters.
• Made of Iron: Once survived dropping through a floor to impale himself on a weather vane. Which is impressive enough on its own, but over the next few days he held perfectly still, allowing rats to come nibble on him so he could eat them, and played dead while Batman and Crane were fighting right next to him, only revealing himself when the basement started to flood.
• Mad Scientist: Even more so than he is a Mad Doctor.
• Manipulative Bastard: One of the masters in the Bat-verse.
• The Man Behind the Man: To the second Black Mask, Jeremiah Arkham.
• The Man Behind the Monsters: He is the creator of the Monster Men and often uses their cannibalistic rampages to cover his own criminal activities or further his research.
• Meaningful Name: His surname is "Strange," and he sure as hell ain't normal.
• Mind Control / More than Mind Control: Several. The Monster Men again; Sgt. Max Cort from Prey.
• Mind Rape: He uses his fear gas◊ to make his victims experience their worst fears. His earliest uses of the gas were to make people too scared to stop him or his men during their crimes.
  • Strange is often tied to Arkham Asylum; if he is, expect Mind Rape on the other villains, too.
• Mundane Solution: Pre-Crisis, Hugo discovers Batman's Secret Identity not through any fancy psycho analysis or some sort of Zany Scheme. How does he do it? Simple: He drugs Batman and takes off his cowl. Easy-peasy.
• Not Quite Dead: God knows how many times.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted. While Strange is brilliant, and is known for both mutating people and being a skilled psychiatrist, all his schemes align closely with either mastery of biology or of psychology.
• Paranoia Gambit: Rupert Thorne, a crooked politician and a crime boss, once has Strange abducted and beaten to death because Thorne wanted to know Batman's identity. Except, Strange was Faking the Dead, and in revenge, he made Thorne think he was haunted by his own vengeful ghost, driving him mad and leading to him publicly confessing to his crimes.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In Batman and the Monster Men, he is even shorter than normal, practically a dwarf, but he is still pretty buff.
• Psychological Projection: He's convinced Batman does what he does because he enjoys lording his strength over others - which is actually what Strange wants to do.
• Psycho Psychologist: He is a legitimate psychiatrist, and a damn skilled one too. It's just he's more interested in driving people insane or brainwashing them than healing them.
• Put on a Bus: He hardly ever shows up in the comics Post-Crisis despite being one of Batman's most notable enemies. He's more well-known for his appearances in media outside the comics.
• Renaissance Man: He's an expert in psychiatry, philosophy, literature, and biology, as well as bodybuilding.
• Renamed to Avoid Association: invoked Generally called Professor Strange rather than Doctor Strange, to avoid confusion with you know who.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Naturally, as a villain who wears glasses, he has a tendency to catch the light with them in a way that makes him scarier to look at.
• Shadow Archetype: Like Batman, he's a Crazy-Prepared Badass Bookworm who is determined to push the limits of physical and mental perfection, with the difference being he's a self-centered sociopath and a criminal mastermind, and Batman's limits are much higher than his.
  • Batman and the Monster Men plays this to the hilt, showing a muscular man engaging in exercise while giving an inner monologue; the reader initially assumes it's Bruce Wayne, until The Reveal that it's really Strange.
• The Social Darwinist: Hugo Strange is a big believer in humanity's submission to the principle of "survival of the fittest".
• Stalker Without a Crush: Obsessed with Batman.
• Straw Nihilist: As far as Strange is concerned, there is no greater point or meaning in life, and that's why doing the things he does is justified.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: One of his creations is a fear gas that makes its victims experience their worst fears in horrifying ways. He even had it before Scarecrow became famous for its use.
• The Syndicate: They funded some of his Monster Men research and it's implied that they put him through college. However he eventually decided that it wasn't working for him.
• Third-Person Person: Pre-Crisis at least.
• Übermensch: Sees Batman as one, and wants to be one himself.
• Underestimating Badassery: Post-Crisis, this has been noted as one of his main weaknesses in dealing with Batman as he never realises just how strong the Dark Knight is on various levels. As a key example of this, while he was able to deduce that Batman was motivated by a past tragedy, he initially attempted to deduce his identity by looking at records of muggings or robberies that ended in a fatality in the last five years; when Jim Gordon found out about this, he noted that it would take someone far longer than that to become as skilled as Gotham's vigilante protector was already.
• Worthy Opponent: Pre-Crisis, he ultimately came to see Batman as this, enough that he refuses to surrender Batman's secret identity even when getting beaten to death by Rupert Thorne's goons.

Humphrey Dumpler

First Appearance: Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #2 (August 2003)

A compulsive man driven by his need to reassemble malfunctioning machinery, Humpty Dumpty was incarcerated at Arkham Asylum for being a danger to himself and others.

• Alice Allusion: Subverted. He’s never worked with any of the other villains inspired by Alice in Wonderland, probably due to him not really being evil and just mentally ill.
• Anti-Villain: He's a genuinely good and well-meaning person, as shown by him relocating Batgirl's arms when she dislocated them trying to save him. The only reason why he's even an antagonist at all is because his compulsion to take apart and put back together things he considers "broken" renders him a danger to both himself and to others.
• Appropriated Appellation: “Humpty Dumpty” was originally a cruel nickname his schoolmates used to taunt him.
• Bald of Evil: Not truly evil, but definitely bald.
• Big Fun: He is one of the few inmates in Arkham to not be genuinely malevolent, as he is shown to be a kind, polite, and gentle person. This has resulted in him becoming one of the model inmates in the asylum.
• Born Unlucky: Humpty suffers from near supernaturally bad luck. His home got accidentally demolished when the contractors destroyed the wrong house. His pet got run over by an ice cream truck. His parents were crushed to death by a fallen Christmas tree, so he was sent to live with his abusive grandmother. He then used up all his savings to buy a ferry ticket to escape Gotham, but the clock was off by an hour and he missed his ship. His attempts to fix the clock is what eventually gets him arrested and sent to Arkham.
• Depending on the Writer: His skill in repair and mechanical engineering varies from story to story. In some cases, he's genuinely talented in the art, but in others, he's essentially a clueless child playing with "toys" he has no idea how to work.
• Disaster Dominoes: The devices he "fixes" cause numerous accidents, such as a subway train derailing. Humpty Dumpty's final crime before his first arrest is to adjust the gears in a clock tower, causing one of its hands to fly off, provoking a chain reaction in which dozens of enormous signs crashed to the streets, killing dozens of people.
• Friend to All Children: Humpty Dumpty has a genuine, and wholly innocent, affection for children of all ages (it helps that he's often diagnosed as having a childlike mentality himself). It's Played for Drama in one holiday story when he's found stealing toys while dressed as Santa Claus. During a battle in the orphanage where he's been hiding out, Robin realizes that the kids are oddly quiet despite the commotion, and Dumpty sadly reveals that they're all dead—he's been gathering their bodies and pretending they're alive so he can give them one last Christmas.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Dumpler was raised by his grandmother who who was verbally and physically abusive toward him. He eventually murdered and dissected her, before stitching her back together in an effort to 'fix' her.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: As mentioned below, he has a habit of only talking in verse. That talent comes in handy in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, when scores of demons invade the titular asylum. It turns out that, as a rule, the denizens of the Underworld speak entirely in rhyme, and those who can do so naturally, like Humpty, are essentially demonic-to-English translators.
• Internal Deconstruction: He's one towards the concept of criminally insane supervillains, as he isn't even actively evil, just dangerous without meaning to be due to being genuinely mentally handicapped and stuck at a child-like stage of mind. His fixation with taking things he thinks are "broken" apart and then putting them back together to try and fix them is less of a gimmick and more of an actual compulsion he has, and he's shown to be genuinely well-meaning.
• Manchild: Humpty still has a childlike mentality and does not really understand why his actions are wrong.
• The Mentally Disturbed: He is plagued by an obsessive compulsion to both take things apart and put them back together, and is shown to get genuinely distressed when he is unable to do so.
• Obliviously Evil: Obsessed with fixing objects he perceived as broken, he "took apart" his abusive grandmother to see what made her so mean, not realizing that she couldn't be put back together again. Not for lack of trying, of course — he stitched her back together with bootlaces.
• Only Friend: He's the only inmate in Arkham who doesn't pick on Warren White (although he acknowledges that the latter is an ass and hopes to "fix" him one day). After White loses his sanity and becomes the Great White Shark, he takes Humpty as his sidekick.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Dumpler compulsively speaks in rhyme.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Humpty Dumpty's real name is Humphrey Dumpler.
• Stout Strength: Although seemingly overweight, Humphrey backs it up with some serious strength.
• Token Good Teammate: He's one of the few truly kind and decent supervillains in Batman's world, and is in Arkham for being genuinely insane, not just a criminal lunatic. He's nice enough to befriend Warren White, aka the Great White Shark—someone so terrible that even the Joker hates him.
• Tragic Villain: His home got accidentally demolished when the contractors destroyed the wrong house. His pet got run over by an ice cream truck. His parents were crushed to death by a fallen Christmas tree, so he was sent to live with his abusive grandmother. He then used up all his savings to buy a ferry ticket to escape Gotham, but the clock was off by an hour and he missed his ship. His attempts to fix the clock is what eventually gets him arrested and sent to Arkham. He is genuinely well-meaning but he leaves nothing but tragedy and chaos in his wake.

Dr. Thomas "Tommy" Elliot

First Appearance: Batman #609 (January 2003)

As Tommy grew older, Mrs. Elliot then manipulated her son into staying with her so he could take care of her. Eventually, Tommy had enough and suffocated her. After his mother's death, Tommy left Gotham, entered medical school, and became one of the country's best surgeons. However, when Eddie Nygma AKA The Riddler offered him a way of curing his mother's cancer, Tommy learnt that his former friend Bruce was the Batman (Riddler having figured out his identity in a moment of Lazarus Pit-induced insanity). Tommy decided that enough was enough and that Bruce had to be cut down to size and pay for "his crimes against me". Creating the identity of Hush, Elliot became arguably the most prominent Bat-Villain created in the 2000s.

In an effort to further bedevil Batman, Hush has recently altered his face to become a perfect duplicate of Bruce Wayne.

• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Hush goes after those close to Batman (which makes Bruce realize that for a self-described loner, he sure has A LOT of friends) including, of all people, Superman. Hush thinks big. He also kills Harold, a physically handicapped man who used to help in the Batcave. He was a C-List Fodder who had barely appeared in any comic since the 1980s, but it was still sad.
  • He cut out Catwoman's heart, because she still had feelings for Bruce (and vice-versa). Don't worry, it's Only a Flesh Wound via Applied Phlebotinum and she lives... but she loses a lot of her athletic ability.
• Ascended Meme: Hush was never a serial killer in the regular comics, but Wikipedia had been calling him one for unknown reasons. Then they actually made his Legacy Character one in Batman Beyond.
  • In Batman: Arkham City he becomes one by killing victims who have a slight facial resemblance to Bruce Wayne and cutting those features off and turning all of them into a Bruce Wayne mask.
• Ax-Crazy: His fondness for overly sadistic ways to punish Batman and his allies shows that’s got a real demented streak under all the sophistication.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears a long leather trenchcoat.
• Bandaged Face: Covers his face in bandages.
• Batman Gambit: His mantra is "think like your opponent", which is this.
• Big Bad / Big Bad Wannabe: Usually has one of these roles in his stories; which one depends on interpretation. Notice how he often has his name in the story's title.
• Big Bad Friend: His role in Batman: Hush.
• The Chessmaster: Hush likes his convoluted plans.
• Complexity Addiction: Sometimes his plans just seem needlessly convoluted. Many times simpler solutions would have sufficed.
• Costume Copycat: In his debut arc, there were two people who used his costume beside him; the first was Clayface/"Jason Todd" which he had planned, the second was Two-Face, who may or may not have been intended to do so.
• Criminal Doppelgänger: Got facial reconstruction surgery to more easily get away with impersonating Bruce Wayne.
• Deadly Doctor: Although he specializes in brain surgery, Elliot is also a proficient plastic surgeon, having repaired the extensive scar tissue on the reformed villain known as Two-Face, as well as performing cosmetic surgery on his own face to mimic Bruce Wayne's.
• The Dreaded: Even Batman himself is afraid of Hush, particularly given his knowledge of the Dark Knight's secret identity where foes such as Ra's al Ghul choose not to use that knowledge out of a sense of honor that Hush doesn't possess.
• Enfant Terrible: When he was just nine years old, he secretly tried to murder his abusive parents (and he succeeded at killing his father).
• Evil All Along: At first he appears to be an old friend of Bruce’s, but is revealed to be a co-conspirator of Riddler's to kill Batman.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • He doesn't understand why some might prefer having living parents to having lots of money (of course, this is probably because his own parents were abusive assholes), and he thinks Bruce is Batman for the fun of it.
  • He has been shown assuming more negative interpretations of even Bruce's better actions; when he was a child and accompanied Bruce to a summer camp before his mother showed up to take him away, Elliot immediately assumed that Bruce set up that scenario with his mother just to humiliate him rather than realise that Bruce was trying to be friendly.
  • The usual reason for his failures is not to count on Batman getting help from friends. Friendship is a concept he just doesn't get. His past relationship with Bruce was an act and though he talks about friendship a lot, it has a mocking tone to it.
• Evil Former Friend: He and Bruce were friends (kind of, see above) as kids.
• Evil Redhead: Hush is a heartless sociopath with red hair.
• Evil Wears Black: Wears black underneath his trenchcoat, a sign that he's not good.
• Faux Affably Evil: He might tell a victim he likes him or her, then stab them. And he keeps calling Bruce a friend even when he's explaining his latest method of making his life a hell.
• Freudian Excuse: Considering that his father was an abusive drunk and his mother spent her life forcing him to stay by her or she'd cut off his inheritance, it's almost possible to sympathise with Elliot, even if him killing his parents pushes him too far over the edge.
• Gambit Roulette: Possibly the whole of Batman: Hush, but there is no indication that the events needed to happen exactly as they did.
• Genre Blindness:
  • When he tries to steal Bruce Wayne's identity, doesn't he think that the superhero community might find it a bit suspicious if Batman suddenly retired from crime-fighting for no reason? Also in the same story, trusting that brainwashed civilians can kill Batman was probably a bad idea.
  • Messing with The Joker resulted in a pacemaker being installed in him by the clown, severely weakening him.
• Green-Eyed Monster: His dominant personality trait.
• Greater-Scope Villain: His role in War Games. He refuses Black Mask's offer to join, but provides the location of the Belfry as a consolation prize, which effectively sets the storyline's finale in motion.
• Hate Sink: Oh, God yes. Hush's trivial motives for hating Bruce, insufferably smug attitude towards everyone, long list of petty dickery, and condescending elitism makes him one of Batman’s most personally detestable rogues and one of Gotham's most punchable faces.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During his time acting as Bruce Wayne after Final Crisis, he attempted to use his influence to get various criminals freed from Arkham. This led to Jane Doe becoming so obsessed with "Bruce Wayne" that she cut off Elliot's face, making it easier for the Bat-Family to send Elliot to Arkham when the real Bruce Wayne came back.
• Hypocrite:
  • In Heart of Hush, Hush mocks Batman's crime-fighting career as a sign of his inability to move on from his past. This is pretty rich considering that his own vendetta against Bruce stems from a grudge he's held since his childhood for something that wasn't even Bruce's fault.
  • Hush criticises Batman for acting on impulse and not planning ahead, but most of the time Batman only does this because of personal factors such as Hush having literally stolen Catwoman's heart and not giving Batman time to plan, where Elliot will sometimes abandon his plans to act on impulse.
  • He openly despises the "costumed freaks" of Gotham, but chose to become one himself in order to get his revenge.
  • As mentioned below, Elliot is fond of Aristotle quotes, using them as guiding principles for his strategies. Not only would the philosopher not have approved of a life lived solely for revenge's sake, but as a vain, envious, petty man prone to gloating and fits of anger, Tommy fails to live up to most of the key Aristotelian virtues.
• I Just Want to Be You: Pre-52 version of Hush wanted to be Bruce Wayne because Tommy's mother never liked him as much as she liked Bruce. The New 52 version takes this Up to Eleven: Tommy is now pathologically obsessed with becoming Bruce. This also changes the reason he killed his parents: he wanted to be an orphan just to be similar to Bruce.
• Informed Ability: His being a Master of Disguise. There was that one case of Surgical Impersonation, but let's just say he has been a victim of disguise users more than using them himself.
• It's All About Me: Why does he hate Bruce Wayne? Bruce's parents were killed when he was young while Elliot had to do the deed himself. And when he did so, he loathed Thomas Wayne for actually performing surgery that saved his mother's life. That's about as irrationally selfish as you can get.
  The Riddler: (On Elliot's super-villain name) Scarecrow started singing that song... "Hush Little Baby." It's about a child who can never be satisfied.
• It's Personal: Batman and Hush are this to one another.
• Kick the Dog: Using Jason Todd in an attempt to mess with Bruce's mind, shooting Harold, cutting out Catwoman's heart, lying to Killer Croc about having a cure for his condition and then accelerating it instead, injecting a neurotic child with Venom, killing a minor villain just to have Batman for himself... yeah, this is kind of his specialty.
• Mad Doctor: A skilled surgeon, Hush commonly uses his surgical skills for nefarious purposes, whether torturing others or using surgery to impersonate other people. He also commonly uses medical scalpels as weapons.
• Malevolent Masked Men: A variant; he always keeps his face wrapped in bandages when in costume.
• Manipulative Bastard: Already as a kid. After he has a violent outburst on a summer camp, he coincidentally has Jonathan Crane as his therapist. Tommy admits he is guilty of much more than a mere attack, but gets Crane to declare him mentally stable with just a few words:
  Maybe I'll do it again.
• Meaningful Name: "Thomas" means "twin." He uses plastic surgery to become physically indistinguishable from Bruce Wayne.
• Misplaced Retribution: Thomas Wayne saved Elliot's mother, denying him the family fortune and lengthening the psychological abuse he had to endure. Meanwhile, Bruce lost his parents, which Elliot thought was undeserved. Therefore Bruce has to suffer. That is his (possibly psychotic) motivation.
• Motive Rant: He has one right after he kills Harold.
• My Beloved Smother: Tommy's mom was like this even before the accident. Afterwards, she became so controlling she kept her son at home for nearly twenty years, using the family fortune as leverage; at one point she even convinced others that she had cancer to force Tommy to stay with her. When Tommy says he has enough, she tries to cut him out of her will and he smothers her with a pillow out of anger.
• Never My Fault: When he attacks another kid in summer camp for calling him names, he believes that his mother and Bruce had deliberately manipulated him to lose his temper. This only gets worse when he's an adult.
• Not Proven: Basically how Tommy got away with the car crash that killed his father; the scale of the subsequent destruction meant that there was no way to prove the brakes had been tampered with as basically everything in the car was trashed, but parties such as Detective Sam Bradley were suspicious enough that Elliot knew he couldn't get away with killing his mother afterwards without risking drawing unwanted attention.
• Nouveau Riche: A very, very dark version — Marla was so desperate to have wealth and prestige that she married Roger Elliot, a drunken, abusive Old Money idiot, and tried to retain that prestige by befriending the Waynes, despite secretly hating them. She also foisted her relentless social climbing and scheming on young Thomas, who instinctively kept the desire to "restore" the Elliot family's name, even as he resented her for doing so.
• Psychopathic Manchild: While he may be an exceptional chessmaster, his motive behind everything he does is filled to the brim with childish grudges, showing that behind everything, he’s still an entitled little boy at heart.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Racist, misogynist and especially classist — in Heart of Hush, he calls Zatanna a "filthy gypsy" (despite Zatanna being Italian) and Selina a "common gutterslut". Also apparently hates "freaks", as in costumed heroes and villains, despite being a costumed villain himself.
• Remember the New Guy?: He was apparently a childhood friend of Bruce's and Bruce holds him in incredibly high regard, he's one of the world's best surgeons, and it's heavily implied that Tommy partly inspired Bruce's methods as Batman... Which is why we never heard of him before the "Hush" arc.
• The Resenter: He is frustrated that Bruce got everything he had ever wanted, but chooses to "squander" it in his crusade.
• Revenge Before Reason: He threw away a successful career as a world-class surgeon just to get even with Bruce, who never even did anything to him. It later cost him his fortune and his facial skin, after he foolishly tried to manipulate an identity-stealing serial killer, Jane Doe, as a part of his scheme.
• Revenge by Proxy: When Tommy was a child, his attempt to murder both his parents was thwarted when Thomas Wayne managed to save Tommy’s mother. Tommy seeks revenge by going after Thomas’ son, Bruce.
• Self-Made Orphan: He tried to kill his parents at a young age in order to inherit their riches and because his father was an abusive monster and his mother a simpering, money-hungry lunatic. He only succeeded in killing his father, and, to avoid suspicion, didn't try to kill his mother again, only truly being orphaned when he smothered his raving senile mother in a fit of anger. This left him with a bitter hatred of Bruce, who tragically lost his parents soon after Tommy tried to kill his. Later on in his life, he joins the Riddler (who discovered that Bruce was Batman) on a vendetta against him, feeling that not only did Bruce get the riches Tommy wanted, but that he was wasting those riches as well. Predictably, his vendetta eventually causes him to lose everything and become the full time Super Villain Hush. In the New 52, he succeeds in his first attempt, killing both his parents; he did it because he was obsessed with Bruce Wayne in the first place, and wanted to relate to him (Bruce's parents died first in this continuity).
• Shadow Archetype: Another one of Batman, Hush being what would happen if Thomas and Martha Wayne's parenting of Bruce went horribly wrong and Batman became a villain.
• Smug Snake: One that is less of an arrogant Insufferable Genius and more of a dog kicking jerk.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Has a tendency to... well, gently tell his victims to "hush". Especially in Batman Eternal.
• The Sociopath: Definitely manipulative, incapable of admitting his own mistakes and flaws, always blaming others, extremely narcissistic, entitled and arrogant and lacking empathy on a fundamental level.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: To Aristotle. Not all the time, but certainly often enough that he's well known for it. More frequently in his early appearances. Considering it was his mother that forced him to read the philosopher and that his lifestyle doesn't exactly adhere to Aristotle's teachings, one gets the impression that he finds the quotations by googling "Aristotle [insert barely situation-relevant word here]".
• Stalker Without a Crush: In many appearances he tends to be watching Batman from the shadows. He intends to make his life miserable.
• The Starscream: He's often a second in command who ends up betraying his boss.
• Stealth Expert: Has been able to sneak up on both Batman and Catwoman on separate occasions, and they're supposed to be masters of this.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: See above.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Depending on the story you're reading, he can give Bruce a tough fight, with his martial arts abilities easily being on par with Batman. Or he can be defeated in just one or two hits if he's not the main villain of the story. There are also moments where he can even get taken out by Alfred.
• Surgical Impersonation: His main gimmick: Hush uses surgery to look like other people when committing his crimes. He doesn't get surgery done, he performs it himself.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • When he confronted the Bat-Family in the Batcave, he acted as though he had the advantage over Batman, Nightwing and Robin simply because he had guns, ignoring how the three dealt with armed criminals on a regular basis even when they weren't fighting in their home ground.
  • Attempted to take over Bruce Wayne's life after Batman's death in Final Crisis by using his current resemblance to Bruce. However, the Bat-Family were able to swiftly use Elliot instead, monitoring him with various other heroes acting as a new board of directors while forcing him to act as Bruce Wayne in public so that they could avoid drawing attention to the fact that Bruce Wayne had "vanished" at the same time as Batman had "changed". When he attempted to use what influence he possessed in other ways, he was at first undermined when Tim Drake used a loophole to transfer legal control of Wayne Enterprises to himself and thus cut Tommy out of the picture, and then pushed his efforts so far that the criminal Jane Doe became obsessed with him and literally cut off his face.
• Villain Protagonist: When written by Paul Dini.
• Villain Team-Up: Hush likes recruiting other villains in his plans. Batman: Hush has most of Batman's rogues gallery involved in his Gambit Roulette, In Hush Returns he recruits Prometheus. In fact, he did this years before becoming Hush; as a young man, his girlfriend was Peyton Reilly, the second Ventriloquist, and she helped him in the murder of his mother for her money.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Wears no shirt in his second story arc, unlike his first where he wore a black top under his trenchcoat. It's part of the reason the miniseries was badly received among fans.
• We Used to Be Friends: He and Bruce were buddies in their childhood. Makes his current nature all the more horrifying to Bruce, and highlights his character as what Bruce could have become had he gone wrong at a young age.
• Yandere: The New 52 version. In his new origin story he kills his parents, then gives Bruce a creepy hug, saying "We're the same now" while having a somewhat "overly attached girlfriend"-like facial expression. In high school, he imitates Bruce, wearing the same clothes and flirting with the same girls, and claims to be Bruce, while looking and acting like Jim Carrey's character in The Cable Guy.

Jackanapes

First Appearance: Batman #666 (July, 2007)

Jackanapes is the name of a super-villain gorilla enemy of Batman. He is a gorilla which was adopted and groomed by the Joker into becoming a violent criminal genius, even being capable of speaking English and being a skilled scientist.

• Dead Hat Shot: Pushed out of a plane, Joker calls to his 'son' to activate his rocket pack, only for Jack to ignore him, having accepted his fate. Joker lands unharmed, searching for Jack, only to find his hat in the river.
• Early-Bird Cameo: His first appearance in Batman #666 was in Damian's future as the new Batman.
• Handy Feet: Being a gorilla, Jackanapes can use his feet as hands.
• Intellectual Animal: Jackanapes is a highly functioning gorilla after being raised and taught everything he knows from the Joker himself. He possess basic communication skills and comprehends the English language, as well as being a weapons expert and inventor.
• Jet Pack: The Joker equipped him with a rocket pack for their attack on a plane.
• Killer Gorilla: Jackanapes is a gorilla in a clown costume that wields a machete and submachine gun.
• Machete Mayhem: Carries a machete as one of his weapons.
• Monster Clown: Jackanapes is a gorilla in a clown costume that wields a machete and submachine gun.
• Morality Pet: He's this for the freaking Joker, of all people. After "adopting" the young ape from a local zoo, the Clown Prince of Crime actively enjoys raising him to be his new partner-in-crime, almost treating him like his own son. Moreover, when Jackanapes appears to have died when his jetpack fails during a planned escape, Joker is genuinely heartbroken at the loss of his henchman...if only for a few seconds.

See Batgirl

Jane Doe

First Appearance: Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1 (July 2003)

Jane Doe is a serial killer who steals the identities of her victims, usually for personal gain. She was introduced in the mini-series Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, where she played a part in the origin of the Great White Shark.

• A Day in the Limelight: She's typically used as a side character but was given an entire annual issue with her as the main antagonist in the New 52.
• Depraved Bisexual: Jane has expressed interest in both men and women depending on who she's pretending to be at the time.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: When she first appeared, Jane looked like a normal woman, but subsequent appearances depict her as having no skin at all. Additionally, she originally made lifelike suits that resembled her victims but it was later changed to her wearing their actual skin.
• Flaying Alive: Jane has the appearance of someone without skin and also removes the skin from her victims.
• Genuine Human Hide: As mentioned above, she wears people's skins after killing them.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Implied in her first New 52 appearances, where the majority of her victims are mentioned to be accomplished athletes. Her introduction states that her motivation for taking other people's lives is because she find hers hollow and boring, then when she gets bored with the other personality she looks for another target.
• Kick the Dog: Makes fun of Aaron Cash for killing his crush, even saying that after months of impersonating her she knows his crush was repulsed by Cash.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Her feminine features are subdued enough that she can pass for a man.
• Latex Perfection: When not wearing people's skins, this is how she disguises her appearance.
• Master of Disguise: A rather disturbing version of this trope. She is able to nearly perfectly copy the mannerisms of her victims.
• Mukokuseki: Before her redesign (see Early Installment Character-Design Difference above), Jane Doe was a rare Western and deliberate use of this trope, which sort of makes sense for her. She had a slightly dark-ish skin tone that indicates non-Caucasian heritage... or maybe she's just a bit tanned?... and her eyes were vaguely Asian-ish... but not really. She even lacked large breasts (which is surprising for this universe), which allowed her to pass herself off as a dude with relative ease.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: For a time, Jane fought Manhunter (Kate Spencer) instead of Batman.
• Serial Killer: Kills people and takes over their lives.
• The Spook: Nothing about Jane Doe's past is known to the reader or the characters in-story.
• Third-Person Person: Jane is so disconnected from whatever her original identity was that she refers to herself in the third person.
• Took a Level in Badass: Jane isn't shown to be much of a fighter when she first appears and is taken down by Batman fairly easily. By the time the New 52 rolls around, she's shown to be exceptionally athletic and able to hold her own in a fight.

Joseph "Joe Chill" Chilton

Alter Ego: Joseph Chilton

First Appearance: Detective Comics #33 (November 1939)

The man who created The Batman.

Joe Chill is the man who shot and killed Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of their son Bruce, traumatizing him and leading to the creation of Batman. Since his debut in Detective Comics #33, Chill's backstory, motivations, and appearance have been subject to multiple retcons, which are further changed in adaptations. About the only thing that remains consistent with Chill is that he shot Thomas first as he tried to protect his family, then shot Martha, then ran away.

• Adaptational Sympathy: More sympathetic portrayals of Joe Chill depict him as a desperate, impoverished man forced to crime just to stay alive, one who feels immense guilt over having killed the Waynes. Sometimes, the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne wasn't even intentional, but an unfortunate result of Chill panicking, or because Thomas got physical with him.
• Adaptational Villainy: On the other side, in some less charitable interpretations it's clear that Joe Chill killed the Waynes intentionally. In some adaptations, he isn't some desperate crook, but instead a mobster or a hitman paid to kill Thomas and Martha while making it look like a robbery. The 1989 version took this a step further by combining Chill with the Joker to make Jack Napier, who revels in all forms of murder and takes extra pleasure in further traumatizing young Bruce Wayne.
• Anti-Villain: When Chill's just a guy who pushed to villainy that the Waynes had the misfortune to run afoul of. This is often used to illustrate to Batman that anyone can be a criminal.
  Batman: All he wanted was money. He was sick and guilty over what he did. I was naïve enough to think him the lowest sort of man.
• The Butler Did It: Almost. Pre-Crisis, Bruce was raised by his Uncle Philip, and Chill was revealed to be the son of Philip's housekeeper.
• Composite Character: Occasionally, his role in killing the Waynes is given to someone else in adaptions, such as the Joker in Batman (1989) and Matches Malone in Gotham.
• Create Your Own Hero: Accidentally responsible for Gotham City's greatest hero being born, and by extension, the rest of the Bat-Family.
• Decomposite Character: In regard to the Joker being the one to orphan Bruce Wayne in Batman (1989), the pre-Joker's associate in the flashback to when he killed Thomas and Martha Wayne was confirmed to be the Burtonverse incarnation of Joe Chill.
• Depending on the Writer: Joe Chill is almost more of an idea than a concrete character, and so as long as the core of "criminal who shot Batman's parents" is intact, he can kind of be whatever the writer feels like. In some stories, he's a mob hitman who specifically targeted the Waynes and may even be highly ranked; in others, he's a lowly mugger who got desperate and the Waynes were just unlucky. In some stories, he's unrepentant of having killed the Waynes; in others, he's haunted by their deaths or never intended to kill them in the first place. Tellings of the actual murder can vary: it's most often framed as a mugging that went wrong, but other times, he just stepped out of the darkness and shot them dead. And then there's what he's up to in the modern day: is he alive, or dead? If he's alive, is he still an active criminal, behind bars, or retired? If he's dead, did he die before or after Bruce became Batman? Does he recognize his own importance and live in fear because of it, or only put the pieces together when Batman confronts him—or does he just never learn it at all? And that's before getting into stories that don't even give him the name "Joe Chill", and treat the Wayne murders as an unsolved mystery that could have been committed by anyone.
• The Dragon: In most interpretations, he's working for someone else (usually mobster Lew Moxon, who was put behind bars by Thomas Wayne's testimony). In a twist, Bruce usually cares more about catching Chill than Chill's boss, because it was the man holding the gun, not his employer, who scarred Bruce for life.
• Dramatic Irony: The one who created Gotham's greatest hero wasn't a dangerous supervillain or a high-ranking mobster, but the kind of two-bit punk Batman wouldn't have wasted a second punch on.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: One storyline focused on his children attempting to avenge his death by targeting Batman after Chill was killed in Year Two: Fear the Reaper, with Chill's son adopting the Reaper's costume and trying to drive Batman to suicide. However, Chill's daughter regarded their father as an abusive monster and intended to sell Batman to Gotham's mobs rather than watch him die, the plan being interrupted only by Robin's intervention.
• Even Evil Has Standards: At least one version of the origin story has him admit he killed the Waynes out of envy, but he felt immense guilt upon realizing Bruce was there and witnessed the whole thing.
• He Knows Too Much: Those times that Joe does figure out Batman's identity, he is killed shortly afterward, usually by other criminals who are not happy to find out he was responsible for Bruce becoming Batman.
• Karma Houdini: Some continuities, such as The Batman (2004) and Superman & Batman: Generations, establish that he never got caught for orphaning Bruce.
• Killed Off for Real: Most incarnations of him die and are never brought back until a reboot occurs.
  • The original Golden Age Chill was killed by criminals once they found out he's the reason Bruce become Batman.
  • The Silver Age Joe Chill was killed by some gangsters for reasons not related to Batman.
  • In Batman: Year Two, Batman dragged Joe Chill to Crime Alley, revealed his true identity and was about to kill him when Chill was gunned down by the murderous vigilante the Reaper.
  • Following Zero Hour, it wsa retconned that Joe Chill was killed resisting arrest after the murder of the Waynes.
  • In Grant Morrison's run, in what is likely a hallucination, Joe Chill kills himself once Batman reveals his identity to him. He knows Gotham's criminals would do far worse if they found out.
  • In Batman: Three Jokers, Joe Chill lived long after the murder of the Waynes. However, he became very sick and after saving Chill from a plot created by the Joker, Batman forgives him and stays by his side as Chill dies.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Some stories have Batman eventually realize that Chill is this compared to the rest of Gotham's organized crime. Part of Bruce Wayne's path to becoming a true hero is the realization that his parent's murderer isn't the monster he's made him out to be in his head - rather, he's just a random, desperate man with a gun, who is ultimately a symptom of the greater systemic corruption inherent in Gotham City. It's this realization that leads Batman to become a force of justice, not just vengeance.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Was Joe Chill a lone mugger, or did he work for the mob? Did he have a personal vendetta against the Waynes, or was he just some two-bit punk with a gun who saw an opportunity for a big payday? Was he waiting for the Waynes or were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Was he a greedy opportunist, or a down-on-his-luck guy pushed to desperation? His story changes almost every time it is told.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In most of his appearances, Chill is genuinely remorseful for his part in the death of the Waynes, not least of which is due to him being inadvertently responsible for the creation of Batman.
• Nervous Wreck: In one story, it turns out that Chill has become this, worrying for over twenty years that someday Bruce (note: not Batman) will track him down and punish him for his crime. To the point that when he accidentally tears off Batman's mask and sees Bruce Wayne's face underneath, he thinks he's finally snapped entirely and accidentally leaps off a roof to his death trying to get away. Ironically, Bruce has no idea who he is in this story.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Most versions of him have no real enmity against the Wayne family and are just doing a job (which, pending telling, may be why he didn't have the stomach to kill young Bruce). Still, others take it one step farther and don't even have him working for anybody, leaving him just a random two-bit thug and mugger with too-quick a trigger finger.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: In Batman: Three Jokers, Joe Chill knows that Bruce is Batman. He's never said anything about it, and instead has been trying to write a letter of apology to Bruce for years (he's illiterate).
• Small Role, Big Impact: His only noteworthy role is also his most significant contribution to the mythos. Without his murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, there never would have been a Batman.
• Starter Villain: Sometimes, Joe Chill is (understandably) the first criminal Bruce goes after, and unlike Batman's colorful rogues gallery, he's just a run-of-the-mill mugger.
• That One Case: Other times, Batman never figures out who Joe Chill was, making his never-ending quest to clean up Gotham an extension of his quest to find out who murdered his parents.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: Though his fate, and whether he is dead or not, varies on the telling, he is almost always treated as such whenever he does show up, and in his first named appearance, he was killed off.
• Unknown Rival: In some stories, Chill never finds out that the very child he spared in Crime Alley became the city's Dark Knight that would put him in jail years later.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A rare villainous version, as the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne would lead to the creation of Batman, who would go on to create several villains himself.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: It depends on the continuity, but he couldn't bring himself to shoot a young Bruce that night and fled Crime Alley, leaving Bruce alive to become Batman. In other versions, he almost turns his gun on Bruce as well to prevent any witnesses to his crime, but is forced to flee after hearing approaching police sirens.

Johnathan "Johnny Witts" Wittleson

The Swami

First Apppearance: Detective Comics #344 (October 1965)

Johnny Witts is a criminal mastermind, with an incredible power of deduction. Witts sought to prove he could outwit the Batman at every turn, by always being one step ahead of him.

• Complexity Addiction: Due to his insistence of being Crazy-Prepared, Witts's scheme are often far more complicated than they actually need to be.
• Crazy-Prepared: His entire schtick.
• Death Trap: Loves constructing elaborate death traps to dispose of Batman.
• Evil Genius: Self-styled criminal mastermind.
• Phony Psychic: Witts once disguised himself as a new crime boss, the Swami, who had the power to see when and how Batman would try to capture him.
• Pride: Witts' Fatal Flaw.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Witts likes to think of himself as being in the top tier of Batman's rogues gallery, alongside the likes of the Joker and the Penguin. In truth, most people have never heard of him, and he has had only three appearances in his history, not having anywhere near their longevity.

Duela Dent

First Appearance: Catwoman (2011) #23

Duela Dent is a psychotic young woman who somehow got her hands on the Joker's chopped off face. She is a reimagining of Pre-Crisis villain The Joker's Daughter.

• Adaptational Villainy: In the New 52 universe, Duela Dent is a psychopathic young woman who took residence in Gotham's underground sewers as a tribal leader going by the name Joker's Daughter. She became obsessed with not only serving The Joker, but also with having his blood course inside of her, so she can truly become his "daughter".
• Mismatched Eyes of Madness: Has one green and blue eye, and is mentally unabalanced to the point of wearing the Joker's literal face.
• Self-Harm: New 52 Duela is a deeply messed-up girl who was obsessed with mutilating herself.

Mortimer Kadaver

First Appearance: Detective Comics #588 (July 1988)

Mortimer Kadaver is a murderous criminal possessing a morbid and sadistic obsession with inflicting pain and death. His hideout is filled with a wide variety of means of murder and torture, including an iron maiden, a guillotine, a hangman’s noose, and even a pool of quicklime. Kadaver enjoys feigning his own death by methods such as dressing as a vampire and emerging from a coffin, but he takes even more pleasure in meting out suffering and death to others who cross his path.

• Actually Not a Vampire: Kadaver frequently poses as a vampire to freak out his underlings.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Kadaver enjoys feigning his own death by methods such as dressing as a vampire and emerging from a coffin to terrify his underlings.
• Faking the Dead: Kadaver once made a deal with The Penguin to put him in a hypnotic trance-like coma, causing prison doctors to confirm Penguin had died from a heart attack while working out in Blackgate Penitentiary's gym.
• Faux Death: Kadaver can use hypnosis to place himself or others into a deathlike trance where no life signs can be detected.
• Meaningful Name/Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Not only is his surname a homophone for 'cadaver' (a synonym for 'corpse'), but his first name Mortimer is often shortened to Mort: Latin for 'death'.
• Post-Mortem Morton: His first name Mortimer is often shortened to Mort: Latin for 'death'.
• One-Steve Limit: Aquaman also has a villain called Kadaver: an Atlantean magician and the best friend of Corum Rath.
• Sadist: He loves to inflict suffering and death upon others.
• Scars Are Forever: After surviving an attempt to kill him from the Corrosive Man, Kadaver is left with a permanent hand shaped burn across his face.
• Sinister Scythe: Kadaver is not a skilled fighter, although sometimes he uses death-associated weapons such as scythes.
• Torture Technician: Kadaver possesses extensive knowledge of torture and death; he understands many different methods of how to kill slowly or extremely quickly.

Fleet Delmar

First Apperance: Detective Comics #983 (August 2018)

Fleet Delmar was a Markovian terrorist who believed himself to be the country's liberator and savior. He was left blinded and badly scarred following an encounter with Batman. Years later, he made a deal with an Arms Dealer to purchase an alien helmet that gave him the ability to read minds, absorb and redirect energy, and see again. He them travelled to Gotham City to seek revenge, beginning by targeting Batman's proteges. After seemingly being mind wiped, he was revived by Ra's al Ghul and recruited into the League of Assassins.

• Arms Dealer: Acquired his alien helmet from the arms dealer Martina Dementieva.
• Big Bad: Is the main antagonist of On The Outside and Batman And The Outsiders 2018
• Combat Clairvoyance: The helmet allows Karma to read his foes' minds during combat and react to their moves before they make them.
• Cool Helmet: Not only does one grant Karma his powers, but it’s a jet black full face helmet with a glowing starburst in the centre.
• Deadline News: Karma once hijacked a news studio where he killed everyone except the anchor and then forced her to broadcast a message to Batman before burning her alive.
• Energy Absorption: Karma's helmet allows him to absorb and redirect energy.
• Hat of Power: All of his powers derive from his alien helmet.
• One-Steve Limit: Karma was also the codename of a member of a short-lived incarnation of the Doom Patrol.
• Ruritania: Hails from the tiny European nation of Markovia.
• Supervillain Packing Heat: As the helmet's powers are primarily mental, he still makes extensive use of firearms and explosives against his targets.
• Telepathy: Karma's helmet allows him to read minds.
• Western Terrorist: Was originally a terrorist seeking the overthrow the government of Markovia, the Ruritania that Geo-Force comes from.

Anatoli Vasilyevich Knyazev

First Appearance: Batman #417 (March 1988)

A cybernetically enhanced assassin trained by a secret cell of the KGB who has mastered numerous Martial Arts and weapons, he is now a freelance operative mercenary.

• An Arm and a Leg: After Batman traps his arm in a loop of rope, he escapes by cutting his arm off with an axe.
• Arm Cannon: Replacing his missing hand, often includes a bayonet.
• Artifact Title: He is obviously named after the KGB, who have been defunct since the beginning of the 1990s; he’s been simply called “the Beast” at times because of this, plus that’s what he calls himself anyway.
• Bayonet Ya: Often has a bayonet affixed to his Arm Cannon.
• BFG: A staple of his.
• Boxed Crook: Lock-Up and the Suicide Squad have both put him to work.
• Came Back Wrong: He was resurrected as a Black Lantern zombie during the Blackest Night event.
• Captain Ersatz: He was arguably the first in what would be a wave of "psychotic Soviet ex-KGB cyborg killer" villains that hit comics in the aftermath of end of the Cold War. If you like the NKVDemon or Omega Red, thank this guy.
• Diplomatic Impunity: In his first appearance, Knyazev is working against the wishes of the Soviet government - which nevertheless has made sure to keep his name on a list of the Soviet embassy's official personnel, making sure that even if he is caught, he can be repatriated, brainwashed, and repurposed without ever spending a day in jail for the hundreds of people he has killed in Gotham City. CIA Agent Ralph Bundy lampshades this fact in an attempt to prod Batman into breaking his "no killing" rule. Batman takes a third option and chooses to leave him trapped alone in the sewer.
• Former Regime Personnel: Worked for the Soviets before they fell, then struck out on his own as a Terrorist Without A Cause.
• Godzilla Threshold: A rogue originally created with this specific gimmick in mind. In his first appearance, KGBeast was said to be a villain so dangerous that Batman, reluctantly, knew he would be forced to break his "no killing" rule as there would be simply no other way to defeat him. Since then, however, KGBeast is usually reduced to being just another background C-lister.
• Handicapped Badass: He's still a very dangerous man after losing his hand, even without his arm cannon.
• Husky Russkie: Is always drawn as large muscular and bulky and is Russian.
• Kill Tally: He's stated to have killed at least 200 people.
• Left for Dead: He was left stuck in the sewers at the end of his first story, with no chance of escaping without outside assistance. He made further appearances afterwards, though, so he clearly got out somehow.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: KGBeast embodies this trope as a Russian villain who's heritage and upbringing has turned into a deadly threat who is said to have killed over 200 people.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Of the 200 people he's killed, 100 of them were killed during a single assassination attempt, not even because they were targets but just because killing them was the best way to take out his one target.
• Psycho for Hire: After the fall of the Soviet Union, Anatoli rebranded himself as a mercenary, and when you take his aforementioned bloodlust into account, he's a prime example of this.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His signature costume is black with red lines.
• Renegade Russian: Since the Soviet Union was still active at the time of his creation, it was made clear that he was working for a renegade sect that was working against the main Soviet government. After the end of the Cold War, this distinction was no longer needed and he embraced this trope fully.
• Retcon: It was retconned so that he was saved from death offscreen, right after the end of his debut story.
• Sacrificial Lion: He's got a bad habit of showing up in various adaptations for the sole sake of being killed off almost immediately, likely due to his gimmick having become incredibly dated over time despite his threat level.
  • His Flashpoint timeline counterpart is killed by AMAZO during a prison escape. The panel where it happens is his sole one in the whole series.
  • His DC Extended Universe counterpart winds up dead at the end of his first appearance, courtesy of a Flamethrower Backfire.
  • He's part of the Suicide Squad team in Batman: Assault on Arkham, but winds up getting his Explosive Leash detonated by Waller after he tries to escape. Before the actual mission even starts no less.
• Second Super-Identity: In the Batman (Chip Zdarsky) story arc "Undying City", Vandal Savage debuts new "official" vigilante Commander Star, who is eventually revealed to be the Beast in a new identity intended to discredit Batman.
• Stupidity-Inducing Attack: In his later appearances it was postulated that the time he spent locked in a room with no air by Batman gave him mild brain damage, explaining how a guy deadly enough to make Batman break his no-kill rule was now getting owned by the likes of Robin and Huntress.
• Undignified Death: He was thrown off a building in a You Have Failed Me-style punishment. Originally the killer was thought to be Two-Face, which would have accorded the Beast a little dignity, but as it turned out Harvey was innocent. The Beast's real killer? Tally Man, a villain so obscure even he himself doesn't know who he is!
• Villain Decay: As mentioned above, in his origin story he was a threat to rival Batman's most dangerous villains, and indeed a lot of the beats for his story would be recycled for the introduction of Bane. He was never so dangerous again, and by the end of his life he had decayed into a D-lister who hung around with the likes of Orca and the Ventriloquist.
• You No Take Candle: His English became pretty bad after his initial appearance, possibly because of overall lowered intelligence due to that brain damage mentioned above.

Waylon Jones

First Appearance: Detective Comics #523 (February 1983)

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Often finds himself in one of these.
• Affably Evil: Croc is violent, cannibalistic, and a bitter misanthrope, but he's generally friendly and cordial towards his friends or anyone who treats him kindly and is one of the few rogues who treats their henchmen well. Depending on the Writer, he can verge into Faux Affably Evil instead.
• Alcoholic Parent: His mother died in childbirth, and his father abandoned him. Waylon was raised by his aunt, but her persistent drinking prevented him from growing up in an ideal household.
• Anti-Villain: Had shades of this in old continuity, fully embraced in the New 52, where he gets a large amount of Morality Pets and Pet the Dog moments.
• Ax-Crazy: When he is portrayed as downright feral.
• Beast and Beauty: During his stint with the Suicide Squad, he developed a romantic relationship with June Moone, the Enchantress. This was even encouraged by Amanda Waller, figuring that the pairing would make the two of them more manipulable.
• Beast Man: Effectively, although how much so is a case of Depending on the Artist; he varies from "human covered in crocodile-like hide and with filed teeth" to "bipedal crocodile".
• Because You Were Nice to Me: One pre-New 52 story involves him murdering a bunch of corrupt SWAT officers in order to avenge their murder of one of the only people who had been nice to him when he was a kid.
• Benevolent Boss: Whenever he's leading an outfit, Croc tends to treat his men well. During his periods as a King of the Homeless, he'll always treat those around him like his family, and when Zsasz kills some of his men during Batman: No Man's Land Croc goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• The Berserker: His fighting style more or less revolves around completely overwhelming the opponent with his sheer speed, strength, and resistance to harm.
• Bizarre Human Biology: Croc is allegedly a human who was born with a very rare skin disease, but many artists have started to make him less and less humanlike and more reptilian in appearance, sometimes having a crocodile snout and tail. One writer has Hand Waved this as being a mutation in his disease that grants him traits of more primitive animals.
• Blessed with Suck: Croc's condition gives him the power of a crocodile, but also the monstrous appearance and animalistic impulses of one, which prevents him from ever living a normal life.
• Book Dumb: Following the New 52, Croc has shifted from being a Dumb Muscle to this. He's uneducated and brutish, but by no means dumb, and pretty cunning in his own right.
• The Brute: In most appearances following the story in which he was introduced. In his first appearance, though, Croc was actually a Genius Bruiser who manipulated Batman's entire Rogues Gallery—sort of Bane 0.5.
• Character Development: Croc was for most of his existence generally a straightforward if sympathetic villain, often either having to be stopped from lashing out at anyone nearby or trying to establish himself as a crime boss. The 2000s and 2010s saw him slowly grow into a Noble Demon who just wanted companionship, and a brutal protector of the marginalized. It's notable as Character Development since most people In-Universe acknowledge the change, and Croc's become one of the most reasonable of the Rogues.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Initially, Croc was one of the few inmates in Arkham who was actually sane and was just Obfuscating Insanity because he knew the staff would underestimate him. Later comics depict him as genuinely delusional, and probably one of the few rogues to actually fit the legal definition of insanity.
  • Tying in with Depending on the Writer, Croc was initially depicted as a Genius Bruiser and, while a tragic figure, was much more outwardly malicious. He later devolved into being almost feral, though writers tended to alternate on whether he was Obfuscating Stupidity or a genuine Dumb Muscle. Following the New 52, he's been consistently portrayed as an intelligent Noble Demon for the most part.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Killer Croc is what Marvel's The Lizard would be if you took away the "scientist who changes back and forth into a monster" part. Croc is a scary reptile man beast who has a chip on his shoulder against humanity like The Lizard, but since he lacks the chance to shift back into a human like Curt does (thanks to Spidey), Croc is much more corrupt and devious.
• Death by Childbirth: In at least one comic, it's stated that his mother died giving birth to him.
• Depending on the Artist: Nobody can decide whether Killer Croc is a big strong guy with a skin condition or a crocodile man anymore. It's 50/50 that he'll be depicted either way.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • On top of the above, he seems to be one of those villains writers can never really pin down. It's hard to believe that he was an accomplished marksman and the precursor of Bane, because most commonly, he's portrayed as the Bat-Rogues' Dumb Muscle. Writers can however justify this by tying his intelligence, skill and personality to how advanced his mutation is - generally the more mutated he is the stronger and tougher he is but he also becomes more stupid and feral.
  • Whether he is an actual Noble Demon or just trying to shift the blame away from himself is always changing.
  • How insane he is also tends to vary. Sometimes he's a feral, savage monster that can't be reasoned with because he's too mutated, and other times he's comes across as sane, with his violent tendencies being driven more by his PTSD.
  • How physically powerful he is, ranging from peak human, to low-level superhuman strength (enough to give Bruce some problems, but ultimately nothing he can't deal with), to an unstoppable juggernaut who is suicidal to fight head-on and can only be dealt with via careful prep and a lot of gadgetry.
• The Dreaded: In the streets he may just be a brute but in Arkham he is the scariest inmate.
• Driven by Envy: Of the normal people.
• Dumb Muscle: After Flanderization set in. Justified in that his condition is fully atavistic - everything, including his mind, just keeps regressing further and further as time goes on, which explains how he went from a Genius Bruiser who was Bane-lite to a feral, animalistic savage. Following the New 52, he's been generally depicted as much more intelligent and in line with his old interpretation for the most part; definitely Book Dumb, but more than cunning enough to make up for it.
• Empowered Badass Normal: In his earliest appearances there's nothing really superhuman about him besides his tough hide. Otherwise he's just a really strong wrestler with sharp fangs and claws. As his condition evolved, Croc became a reptilian powerhouse with superhuman strength, powerful jaws, and regenerative tissue.
• Fangs Are Evil: Bit Cash's hand off with his chomper.
• Faux Affably Evil: In his more villainous appearances, Croc acts friendly, but he's also a vicious brute willing to kill anyone in his way.
• Feral Villain: At his least intelligent, he's little more than a ravenous beast driven largely by instinct. Even when he's written as more intelligent, he'll sometimes pretend to be this.
• Flanderization: He was originally a somewhat intelligent gangster with a medical condition (a very severe medical condition), whose misanthropy was the result of being tormented by everyone (family included) for his freakish appearance. This was eventually downplayed, with Croc becoming more bestial and less intelligent as time went on (this was typically explained that his condition was worsening, further separating him from humanity). By the time of Hush, Croc could probably pass for a bulkier Alternate Company Equivalent of the Lizard (explained away by Hush infecting him with a virus that further increased his mutation).
• Forgot Flanders Could Do That: These days, Killer Croc is known for being Dumb Muscle and a huge comic book villain Jobber who gets beat up every time by Batman and family, suffers The Worf Effect against guys like Bane, and isn't taken very seriously. However, in the old days, Killer Croc was a powerhouse who could beat Batman unconscious and was quite intelligent in organizing criminals to his cause. In Batman Eternal, Croc shows signs of his old self again when he defeats Bane in an intelligent and cunning manner befitting a Genius Bruiser.
• Freak Out:
  • In his debut arc, Killer Croc makes a powerplay for the control of the Gotham underworld. Batman soon trails after him and breaks into his home. Croc has a visible and violent freakout, tells Batman the hero invaded his sanctuary where he could not be seen as a freak, breaks the furniture, then shoots the heater to cause an explosion.
  • In Batman #471 he supposedly died when the sewer he was in flooded and collapsed. In #489 it was revealed that he nearly drowned, was forced to live on rats, constantly suffered from fevers, and was haunted by nightmares. He emerged from the sewers after six months with a radically different personality, diminished mental capacity, and permanent hallucinations.
• Freudian Excuse: Between abusive classmates and his godawful aunt, his stint in reform school, and his treatment in the freakshow he was part of, Croc's got a lot of reasons to hate the world.
• Friend to All Children: Believe it or not, he has a soft spot for precocious young kids. Dave (from "Requiem for A Killer"), Erin Mckillen, and Olive Silverlock can all attest to that. In a few cases they're even more comfortable with Croc around than Batman himself!
• Genius Bruiser: When he isn't being written like Dumb Muscle, Croc can be a cunning and brutal opponent. In his earlier appearances he could be called a prototype Bane with how he matched wits with the Dark Knight. Following the New 52, he moved back into this to a degree. He's not the smartest of the rogues, but he's still cunning and charismatic enough to amass a large following.
• Hand Wave: Originally he was a man with a very, very bad skin condition. His appearance has gotten more monstrous over time, which has been explained as his condition worsening.
• Handwraps of Awesome: He sometimes wears these (e.g., in Batman Hush and the concept art for Batman: Arkham Asylum).
• Healing Factor: Can restore missing teeth and limbs.
• Heel–Face Turn: In The Batman of Arkham, owing to psychiatrist Bruce Wayne's gentle treatment and care. (With a dose of Epiphany Therapy and Single-Issue Psychology.)
• Hidden Depths: Croc is generally crass and blunt in what he says, but in his Internal Monologues he's actually quite eloquent and frequently waxes philosophical about the nature of humanity. He's also quite self-reflective, and tends to try and analyze his own behavior, as well as being quite aware of his flaws.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Croc understandably takes this view, and one Suicide Squad comic shows he even takes himself into account, viewing his murders and anger issues as a symptom of his human side.
• Humble Goal: Croc generally just wants to be left alone and to live his life peacefully, but tends to wind up dragged into someone's schemes anyway, much to his reluctance.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Depending on the Writer, and in some continuities, like Joker, he can devour his victims and makes a habit out of it.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: For as much as he tries to isolate himself, what Croc ultimately wants is people who respect and accept him. It occasionally winds up backfiring on him; his issue in Joker's Asylum has his desire for acceptance result in him being used as a patsy and nearly killed by a pair of mobsters as part of their plan to set up a criminal empire.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Croc's search for a cure has been a fairly consistent part of his characterization.
• Immune to Bullets: Croc's skin is thick enough to ward off even high caliber bullets.
• Implacable Man: It's not that he can't be stopped, just that it's extremely difficult to do so.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Croc isn't an example, but Suicide Squad Most Wanted: Killer Croc/El Diablo shows he thinks he's one. During a self-reflective moment, Croc soliloquizes that he mentally divides himself up into two sides, "Croc" and "Waylon". He feels that "Croc" is everything that's good about him, while his human side "Waylon" is his propensity for violence and cruelty.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: His occasional homicidal tendencies aside, Croc is otherwise a gentle soul who usually wants to do the right thing. He protects the downtrodden and marginalized of Gotham, is fiercely loyal to his friends, and might even make a good hero if not for his sense of justice clashing with the dark knight's.
• Kavorka Man: Despite his much-loathed deformity, Croc seems to have no trouble with getting entangled with women, including carnally with Orca and June Moon.
• King of the Homeless: In some comics, Croc has been shown associating with communities of homeless people. In one of his earliest stories, he became protector of a homeless community and tried to set up a comfortable place for them in Gotham's underground, only for it to be destroyed when Gotham changed over the sewer system and flooded it. In a New 52 story, he's shown having established an almost cult-like army of homeless people, who act as his eyes, ears and hands above-ground whilst he remains in the underground.
• Lightning Bruiser: Superhumanly fast to the point of surprising Batman more than once.
• Lizard Folk: Killer Croc used to be just a big strong guy with a skin condition, but he's become more lizard-like over time. He was specifically mutated with a virus by Hush and the Riddler to make him more violent and feral, and less human. By the end of the book it's mentioned he's received the antidote but it didn't work. After War Games, he's more feral than ever and a scientist reveals (shortly before Croc eats her) that there's no way to undo it.
• Man Bites Man: Croc frequently uses his teeth to bite his opponents during fights.
• The Mentally Disturbed: Croc is atavistic, and when intelligent, has the mindset one would expect of an alligator or similar reptile. As a result his moral agency is seriously questionable, and he's one of the few Batman rogues who legitimately belongs in Arkham. After having suffered massive amounts of abuse growing up and burdened with an increasingly monstrous set of deformities, Croc's mind was broken even before his condition started to eat away at his sentience.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Croc used to just be a sideshow wrestler, but as his skin mutation made him look increasingly less human, he began to act more like a monster.
• Morality Pet:
  • In a rather bizarre decision made regarding the post-Flashpoint Croc, he's revealed to be Roy Harper's sponsor in Red Hood and the Outlaws.
  • In the New 52, teenager Olive Silverlock, a student at Gotham Academy, is this to him. He's kind and friendly to her (and it extends to her friends) and is also very protective towards her. Her mother Sybil seemed to be this to him too, as he appreciated her not treating him like a monster and he in turn promised her he'd keep an eye on and care for Olive.
• Mutants: Possesses an atavistic mindset, coupled with a skin condition not unlike epidermolytic hyperkeratosis, and a metagene. The end result is the crocodilian monster we all know and love.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The name Killer Croc doesn't exactly sound like the kind of name for a person you want to be around.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: This guy's definitely not someone you'd want to meet in a dark alley, though how croc-like he actually is varies by writer and continuity.
• Noble Demon: Especially following the New 52. Croc is violent, but he's also an insanely loyal friend, surprisingly compassionate, a Friend to All Children, and extremely protective of his fellow marginalized outcasts. He's also willing to team up with Batman on occasion, though the two often come to blows over the fact that Croc is much more willing to dispense brutal vigilante executions on anyone who crosses him or his friends.
• The Nose Knows: Croc has had an enhanced sense of smell since he was young.
• Not Himself: Before Knightfall Killer Croc had seemingly died helping Batman protect homeless people. Croc survived, but had gone mad due to his near death experience, forcing Robin and Azrael to confront Killer Croc.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: When he isn't portrayed as a Dumb Muscle, Croc will often feign being too stupid or feral to comprehend the world around him for his own ends or simply let people make their own assumptions.
• Omnicidal Maniac: On his worse days, Croc has no real desire other than to kill everyone in his path,
• Only Friend: In the New 52, only Officer Hoolagon, a man born without an arm and one of the very few non-corrupt police officers in Gotham, treated him with any sympathy and compassion. When Hoolagon is murdered by Dirty Cops, Waylon lured them down into the sewers and personally killed them off one by one.
• Parental Abandonment: Mom and dad left him with an alcoholic aunt, who could not have cared less about him.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He will make a point of gruesomely devouring those especially deserving of it, which almost happens to the Mad Hatter and actually does to three corrupt SWAT officers. This is a huge reason Batman never got along with him.
• Pet the Dog: When Arsenal hits rock bottom and tries to commit "suicide by Croc" by goading Killer Croc into killing him, Croc sees right through his plan and bluntly tells him that he won't do that -if Arsenal wants to die that badly, he'll have to kill himself, Croc won't do it for him. This starts Arsenal on his long road to redemption.
• Red Right Hand: Croc's bestial outer appearance is indicative of his animalistic inner nature.
• The Resenter: Resents and hates "normal people" and lashes out at them constantly.
• Retcon: At the end of the Hush storyline, Batman noted that the effects of the virus used to accelerate Croc's condition could be counteracted quite easily, and that the government (who had captured Croc during the storyline) would administer the cure to him as an incentive for him to join Task Force X. Despite this, all later appearances from Croc featured him still being in his further mutated form.
• Sadist: Croc very much enjoys hurting people for fun in a lot of his appearances. Even in his more sympathetic depictions, Croc acknowledges that he does like hurting people, even if he doesn't like that about himself.
• Scary Black Man: Is technically black, and yeah, he's not someone you want to run into. Ever.
• Self-Made Orphan: Killed his abusive aunt.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Many stories, such as "Requiem for a Killer", depict Croc as suffering from PTSD and flashbacks as a result of his trauma, which contributes to his vicious temperament.
• Southern Gator: Some incarnations of Croc speak with a Cajun accent, although in the mainline comics he hails from Florida.
• Super-Senses: Possesses a highly advanced sense of smell.
• Super Swimming Skills: Killer Croc is an adept swimmer due to living in the sewers for so long.
• Super-Strength: His strength crosses the line into superhuman, making him very difficult to stop. According to Batman, Waylon can lift a school bus. When fighting against Aquaman who was holding back, Croc's strong enough to bite into a Aquaman's skin (Mostly). He was even strong enough to bite into General Zod's arm when Zod wasn't paying attention.
• Super-Toughness: Bullets fling off Killer Croc's skin and an alligator breaks it's fangs on his scales. He can also survive being thrown from the top of a skyscraper.
• Terse Talker: After being mutated even further by Hush, Croc became much quieter and his sentences were often clipped and short.
• Terrifying Transient: Killer Croc is often depicted as homeless, often living in the city sewers. This is often used to reflect his animalistic nature and give him further pathos in society’s rejection of him due to his condition.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Waylon has been mistreated his whole life because of his deformities, and while his mutation was already doing a number on his sanity, the rotten treatment people gave him didn't exactly help.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the New 52, he's the only member of Batwoman's rogues to not be an original, and magic is used to upgrade him into a more ferocious and powerful multi-eyed form. Later, he's upgraded into a massive multi-headed hydra and rampages through Gotham.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Over the years, Croc gradually went from a vicious thug to a more sympathetic Noble Demon. It varies Depending on the Writer, but nowadays he borders on being a Retired Monster and is generally a friendly and surprisingly empathetic Anti-Villain. It's acknowledged that he wasn't always this way, but that he's changed for the better.
• Tragic Villain: He was relentlessly bullied for his appearance growing up. He also wants to be normal very, very badly. Well, Depending on the Writer, but this is a pretty frequently recurring quirk of his.
• Villain Decay: In his earlier appearances, he was so brutally strong he was able to manhandle and beat down Batman at his best in most confrontations. Over time, however, Batman's been able to beat him up more and more easily that Croc can get taken down in just one or two hits even when Croc is trying to mob attack Batman with other Arkham rogues. And in Batman: Europa, a virus-stricken Batman was still able to put him down in a few hits. Then there's the fact that in modern times, Killer Croc can get hit with The Worf Effect whenever another really strong villain, usually Bane, comes to town to establish himself.
• Villainous Friendship: He formed one with Floronic Man, who was the only inmate to talk to him while Croc recovered from being temporarily paralyzed by a nerve gas and regaled him with tales of his backstory.
• Villainous Rescue: Bane's third attempt to get Batman before he finally got the job done involved kidnapping Robin(Tim Drake), to lure Batman into a trap. Instead of Batman, Killer Croc shows up, looking for revenge against Bane, and Robin is able to escape in the resulting fight.
• Was Once a Man: Was originally an ordinary human with a skin condition that simply made him look reptilian. Later became Ambiguously Human, then an official metahuman.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Several of his appearances, particularly modern ones, depict him as a protector of the marginalized and homeless of Gotham. Croc sincerely wants to help the unfortunate, but his disregard for the law, psychological instability, and his brutal approach to dispensing justice put him at odds with Batman.
• Wolverine Claws: Killer Croc's fingers are sharpened and white like bones. He uses them to cut open doors or crush skulls.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Croc is extremely violent and disturbed, but it's almost impossible not to feel sorry for him. He's been subjected to constant abuse throughout his life and been treated like a monster, and most of his genuine attempts to go straight end in disaster for him.
• The Worf Effect: He is Bane's punching bag in multiple stories. He epically subverted in Batman: Knightfall when, after recovering from his initial beating at Bane's hands, he attacks him in the sewers and manages to fight him to a draw before they're both swept away by the current.
• Wrestler in All of Us: He was originally a wrestler, and he still fights like one. Makes sense, since crocodiles already grapple their prey (albeit with their mouths). In the territorial era of professional wrestling, wrestling crocodiles wasn't a particularly uncommon practice either.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: At the end of Gotham City Monsters things were starting to look up for Waylon, then The Joker War happened and status quo sent him back to the sewers.

Killer Moth/Charaxes

Drury Walker/"Cameron Von Cleer"

First Appearance: Batman #63 (February 1951)

Killer Moth (now revealed to be small-time criminal Drury Walker) continued to endure, however, committing smaller-scale robberies and picking up jobs as hired muscle. Sick of being perceived as a joke by his fellow rogues, he made a deal with Neron for greater power and became a towering moth/human hybrid. He was eventually killed during the Battle of Metropolis during Infinite Crisis, being torn in half by Superboy-Prime.

Following Flashpoint, Walker began to menace the Green Arrow, becoming a member of the Longbow Hunters.

• Adaptational Badass: Subverted in the New 52, where he has a much more intimidating appearance and nearly defeated Batman in his first appearance before Green Arrow intervened. However, since that first showing he’s been shown to be even more of a Butt-Monkey than ever before.
  • He has had more success as a Green Arrow villain than he has as a Batman villain.
• Adaptational Wimp: While his Villain Decay happened more gradually, his Moth-Mobile was retconned in ‘’Batgirl: Year One’’ into The Alleged Car when pre-crisis it had been a legitimately impressive (if ridiculous-looking) counterpart to the Batmobile which the narration often referred to as a “juggernaut”.
• All Webbed Up: The Killer Moth's cocoon gun is a signature weapon used by Killer Moth to trap opponents in high-tensile, sticky threads, often resembling a cocoon.
• Animal Motifs: A decidedly less sinister take on the Macabre Moth Motif; in most appearances, he just wears a moth-like outifit and employs an adhesive "cocoon gun" during heists.
• Bat Signal: He once gave some gangsters an infared searchlight with a moth logo on it, calling it "The Moth-Signal", for them to shine into the sky to summon him the same way the GCPD shine the Bat-Signal to call for Batman. The criminals immediately question why they'd use something that would give away their location.
• Butt-Monkey: The biggest of Batman's Rogues Gallery.
• Came Back Wrong: During the Blackest Night, Walker in his Charaxes incarnation was reanimated by a Black Lantern power ring. Superboy-Prime duly killed him again for his trouble.
• Complexity Addiction: Despite having a lucrative regular criminal career, he got a taste for the mad pageantry of supervillainy. He once went so far as to lure Batman to a fake hideout in Gotham's woods where he unleashed a horde of vicious bears he had personally trained upon the Caped Crusader.
• Cool Car: The Mothmobile was a custom made, convertible sports car used by Killer Moth. Its color and style were similar to the bright, pastel color scheme used in Killer Moth's costume
• Delinquent Hair: In the New 52 his hair became a mohawk to fit his criminal behavior.
• Depending on the Artist: These days he flips between his classic and New 52 appearances seemingly at random.
• Easy Amnesia: After he discovered Batman’s secret identity, he ended up with a head injury that left him with no memory of the experience, though he was shown later to vaguely remember that there was something more to Bruce Wayne than meets the eye.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He was working with Firefly for a short while as a mercenary duo before realizing just how dangerously unstable his partner actually was (he believed that he could see visions in the flames, for starters), causing him to cut things off ASAP because he genuinely feared for his life. That said however, Batman: Bad Blood and Batman: Wayne Family Adventures do have them teaming up. Interestingly, he would later visit the other side of this trope when allying with two other small-time supervillains to kidnap Bruce Wayne, Commissioner Gordon and Armand Krol. The other two genuinely thought they were going to release the hostages. Walker just dumped all three in a deathtrap and walked away.
• Evil Counterpart: Tries to be to the criminal underworld what Batman is to the police. While he was initially rather successful, his repeated failures made it so gangs were no longer willing to call on him for help.
• Extreme Omnivore: Killer Moth was once found eating holes in Batman’s old discarded costumes like a real moth.
• Gas Mask Mooks: In the New 52 he switched to a gas mask from his traditional green moth helmet.
• Genius Ditz: Moth might be an overconfident dork whose constant failure makes him a laughingstock, but he is a genuinely brilliant gadgeteer and his plans, while overly ambitious, often do have some very clever ideas.
• Harmless Villain: He's considered the weakest supervillain in Gotham and is usually captured pretty easily by Batman and company. Eventually he got tired of being picked on all the time and not taken seriously, so he made a deal with Neron and became Charaxes, a deadly cannibalistic moth creature that spits acid. This version of the character stuck around for ten years before being given a mercy killing, and an unnamed character took up the Killer Moth name until the timeline collapse of Flashpoint and the New 52. It wasn't until DC Rebirth that Killer Moth was fully restored to his lovable loser incarnation.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: Trounced by Batgirl on her first night of duty, before she even received any combat training. Needless to say, this solidified Killer Moth's fall from grace to the Gotham Underworld.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: He may be a villain, but he suffers from so much bad luck and disrespect that you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.
• Impoverished Patrician: Batgirl: Year One shows mob debt collectors shaking him down at his mansion, and at one point he gets a crew together for score only to take them to a hideout that’s been foreclosed on for unpaid property taxes.
• Legacy Character: A second, unnamed Killer Moth began using the name and costume after Walker's death. This version ironically worked with Lock-Up in Gotham Underground and was used as a pawn by Prometheus during Justice League: Cry for Justice. He was last seen being pursued by Robin after the events of that story.
• Macabre Moth Motif: He wasn't initially dark, wearing a garish costume with striped purple and green spandex, orange cape and a moth-like mask. Later on though, he was redesigned to look more menacing in his demonic Drury Walker / Charaxes incarnation.
• No-Respect Guy: Because of his tacky costume and long list of failures, Killer Moth is often treated as a laughingstock.
• One-Winged Angel: After making a deal with Neron, he was transformed into a half-human half moth monstrosity. However it fell victim to a Retcon and he fell back to a nobody.
• Protection Racket: What his initial scheme boiled down to — crooks paid him to keep police/Batman off their back.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: He briefly became an enemy of Green Arrow in the New 52 before once again returning as an enemy of the Bat Family in Rebirth.
• Secondary-Color Nemesis: Wears a lot of orange, green and purple in his original costume.
• Shadow Archetype: The first Batman villain explicitly designed as such, to the point of working out of a "Moth Cave", driving a "Mothmobile", and selling criminals infrared "Moth-Signal" beacons.
• The Spook: Absolutely nothing has been revealed about who he was before being Killer Moth, even his real name is somewhat ambiguous as Oracle’s files refer to him by a completely different name than Blackgate does, and Sugar and Spike discuss that his real name is unclear.
• Starter Villain: He’s the first supervillain Barbara Gordon ever fought. In the New 52, he was also Green Arrow's first supervillain opponent.
• Super Zeroes: Secret Six featured a horde of villains in Killer Moth costumes, implying the identity eventually fell into public domain for Mooks ala the Rainbow Raiders.
• Thememobile: The Mothmobile: a custom made, convertible sports car used by Killer Moth. Its color and style were similar to the bright, pastel color scheme used in Killer Moth's costume.
• Unskilled, but Strong: As Charaxes. Robin was overwhelmed by him, but the more methodical Lock-Up captured him without too much trouble.
• Villain Decay: You'd never believe it now, but this guy used to actually be a credible threat.

King Kraken

Alter Ego: Unknown

First Appearance: Batman #676 (June, 2008)

The villain known as King Kraken was once a deep sea diver who became disfigured. Following his disfigurement, he turned pirate. He has had numerous run-ins with the hero known as the Wingman, and is a member of the Club of Villains. His weapon of choice is an electric rifle.

• Arch-Enemy: He sees the Wingman as his.
• Creepy Old-Fashioned Diving Suit: His costume deliberately invokes this.
• Lightning Gun: His weapon of choice is an electric rifle.
• Mysterious Past: The reason behind his disfigurement and his animosity with Wigman are unexplored.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: King Kraken's true name has never been revealed.
• Submarine Pirates: His modus operandi.

Victor Goodman

First Appearance: Batman Confidential #26 (April, 2009)

Victor Goodman was an Egyptologist, working for the Gotham Museum of Antiquities, who was known for his radical theory that King Tut was murdered for his belief in Aten (the Egyptian disc of the Sun). Goodman was incensed that the trustees of the museum would not bring a King Tut exhibit to Gotham because of its high crime rate and the fact that the Riddler had robbed the museum numerous times. He was removed from a meeting by the head of the Museum’s trustees, and in the ensuing struggle he received a head injury. Victor was then fired by the museum. Goodman became unhinged by this incident, believing himself to be the reincarnation of the Pharaoh King Tut, who would bring Aten’s light to purge Gotham’s darkness. As Tut he set out to have his revenge on the trustees, the Riddler, and the embodiment of Gotham’s darkness: the Batman.

• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the TV show, he was a fat, middle-aged man. In the comics, he's ripped.
• Adaptational Name Change: In the TV show, his real name was William McElroy. In the comics, his real name is Victor Goodman.
• Canon Immigrant: Is the mainstream DCU version of a character who first appeared in the Batman (1966) TV series.
• Cool Mask: Wears a golden mask modelled on Tutankhamun's golden burial mask.
• Darker and Edgier: Is far more violent than the character from the Batman (1966) TV series.
• Epic Flail: King Tut carries a flail that can be used as a blunt weapon and also has a hidden blade in its base.
• Hooks and Crooks: King Tut carries a crook that can be used as a blunt weapon and also has a hidden blade in its base.
• Ironic Name: He’s a murdering supervillain whose real name is Victor Goodman.
• Mythology Gag: Victor Goodman's name is a play on the name of the actor who portrayed King Tut in Batman (1966), Victor Buono (which means "good man" in Italian).
• Napoleon Delusion: Believes himself to be the reincarnation of the Pharaoh King Tut.
• Nepharious Pharaoh: Believes himself to be the reincarnation of the Pharaoh King Tut, who will bring Aten’s light to purge Gotham’s darkness.
• The Rival: Really doesn't like the Riddler.
• Sword Cane: Carries a crook and flail. Both weapons have retractable blades hidden in their bases.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Does not wear a shirt as King Tut.

Charles "Chuck" Brown, Sr.

First Appearance: Batman #133 (August 1960)

The man who can fly anything, Charles Brown is a harmless villain who does really petty crime using a hang glider, stylized to look like a kite. Debuting, as you probably guessed, in the Silver Age, he would go unused for years. He returned in the modern age, basically unchanged from his Silver Age incarnation.

• Beware the Silly Ones: Is he ridiculous even by Silver Age standards? Yes. Has he managed to make Batman look like a fool while pulling off some cartoonish scheme on more than one occasion? Also yes.
• Breakout Character: His role as a recurring gag character in Tom King's run was so beloved that he became a recurring fixture in the DCU, including a major secondary role in Harley Quinn followed by his own spin-off series.
• Butt-Monkey: He is never taken seriously in modern times, and the amount of effort he goes to is more played for laughs than anything.
• Catchphrase: "Kite Man. Hell yeah." in modern times. Tom King said it was a last-minute joke to make the page less silent that both stuck and resonated with readers.
• Death Seeker: Implied to be part of the reason he became a supervillain, since he had nothing left to live for after the death of his son, Charlie Jr. However, he ultimately decides that staying alive would be a better tribute to his son's memory than dying ever would.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of Joke Character and Idiosyncrazy Batman villains in general. The Riddler had his son murdered while flying a kite, knowing that like any good Gotham resident who suffered a traumatic event he'd become a supervillain, based around the thing that changed his life. All to create the most ridiculous supervillain possible in an elaborate plot to make The Joker laugh. As silly as all this is, the man still lost his son and was traumatized. All in the name of an elaborate joke where he, like always, was the punchline.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Subverted: he was a nobody before, and once he put on his costume, he became... another nobody.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: His modern depictions play this up, especially under Tom King.
• Killed Off for Real: Post-Crisis, he was killed by Bruno Mannheim for refusing to join him. He was eventually revived in the Rebirth continuity, with several appearances in Tom King's run on Batman.
• Kite Riding: Does really petty crime using a hang glider, stylized to look like a kite.
• Meaningful Name: There's another Charlie Brown who constantly runs into grief with his kites and is probably the only character in American comics who's an even bigger Butt-Monkey than Kite-Man himself.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: In his first appearance, he drops tear gas from his kite, steals a giant ruby, frees a mobster, almost kills Robin and captures Batman.
• Only in It for the Money: He's a far cry from Batman's other villains — he's only after money and jewels, and hasn't ever hurt anyone on-panel. He actually refused to join the Secret Society of Super Villains, which got him dropped off Wayne Tower. He later also refused to aid Bruno Mannheim.
• Shadow Archetype: To Batman, proving that really anyone could be this for him. Both suffered a traumatic event and developed an alter-ego turning something they had an emotional connection to into a motif, but Bruce took a childhood fear and used it to become a Terror Hero, while Charles took something that brought him joy and used it to become an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
• Tragic Villain: His origin as told in Tom King's Batman reveals him to be this. Formerly a mechanic working for the Joker, he got wrapped up in the War of Jokes and Riddles when Riddler forced him to act as an informant for Joker's gang. When he eventually flipped and confessed to Joker, Riddler had his son killed, and so he became a minor supervillain to cope with the grief. His whole kite motif is based on his son's love of kites.

Bridgit Pike

First Appearance: Detective Comics #988, (November, 2018)

A female follower of Ted Carson, the second Firefly. She and Carson are hired by Kobra to kill Batman while he investigates a murder.

• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: She was the first and only version of Firefly to appear in Gotham, with Garfield Lynns and Ted Carson being nowhere to be seen. In the comics, she works with Ted Carson as his protege.
• Affirmative-Action Legacy: She’s the first female Firefly.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: Of the animal alias variety.
• Canon Immigrant: Bridget Pike was created for the Gotham TV series, first appearing in the episode ""Rise of the Villains: Scarification" (October 19, 2015).
• Distaff Counterpart: To Firefly.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: There are two gauntlets built into Bridgit's suit. These gauntlets are capable of projecting powerful blasts of thermal energy. The flamethrowers were capable of burning a building down.
• Jet Pack: Bridgit's suit is equipped with a powerful jetpack. This jetpack allows her to propel herself into the air and hover if the situation requires it.
• Pyromaniac: Like everyone to adopt the Firefly identity, Bridgit Pike is a pyromaniac.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: There are two gauntlets built into Bridgit's suit. These gauntlets are capable of projecting powerful blasts of thermal energy. The flamethrowers are capable of burning a building down.

Lewis "Lew" Moxon

First Appearance: Detective Comics #235 (September, 1956)

A unscrupulous gangster from Gotham City. In early Pre-Crisis versions of Batman's origin story, he was the one who arranged for Joe Chill to murder young Bruce Wayne's parents, thus making him directly responsible for Batman's existence. Despite the rise of numerous other gangs, he still held on to a considerable criminal empire until his death at the start of Batman: War Games.

• Big Bad: In the original versions of Batman’s origin, he was the man at the top of the food chain whose orders to kill Thomas and Martha Wayne set the entire series into motion.
• Evil Cripple: Becomes this after surviving Deadshot's assassination attempts. He is left confined to a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down.
• Evil Is Petty: Moxon’s primary motivation for targeting the Waynes—both in the original Pre-Crisis continuity and the revised Post-Crisis versions—is often thin-skinned resentment. Whether he’s angry because Thomas Wayne refused his money or because he felt humiliated by Thomas's surgical intervention, his personal vendettas drive his criminal decisions.
• Evil Mentor: Through his daughter, Mallory, Moxon serves as a corrupting influence, as she is revealed to be an active member of his criminal empire.
• Greater-Scope Villain: In some ways, he can be considered this in the Pre-Crisis continuity. In the original versions of Batman’s origin, Moxon served as the overarching architect of Bruce Wayne’s trauma: if he hadn't sent Joe Chill to kill the Wayne couple that fateful night, Bruce might had never become Batman after all.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His act of revenge on the Waynes resulted in their son becoming a vigilante which leads to Moxon getting himself inadvertently killed after being spooked by said vigilante, mistaking him for Dr. Wayne's vengeful ghost. However, after the reality-altering events of Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, he is instead killed by one of his own associates, Philo Zeiss, in Batman: War Games, proving that his "loyalty" among criminals was illusory.
• Killed Off for Real: Pre-Crisis, he was confronted by Batman, who was wearing the costume his father Thomas wore during a costume party he attended. Upon seeing Batman, Moxon remembered what he had done and had been convinced Thomas Wayne had returned as a ghost to haunt him for his misdeeds, which causes him to panic. He attempts to escape Batman only to run into the street and be struck by a car. Post-Crisis, during the events of War Games, where he and his bodyguard Hellhound were killed by Philo Zeiss at the meeting of Gotham's gang bosses.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: For many years, Moxon escaped justice for his role in the Waynes' deaths due to amnesia or lack of evidence, allowing him to flourish while Bruce suffered... that is, until either he gets scared enough to not dodge an incoming truck (Pre-Crisis) or Zeiss murders him (Post-Crisis).
• Look Both Ways: His fate in the Pre-Crisis comics, where he's run over by a truck after running away in fear from the Batman.
• The Man Behind the Man: Moxon fits this perfectly, specifically regarding the Golden Age comics and the Untold Legend of the Batman retelling, where Joe Chill acts merely as his instrument of vengeance.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: By hiring Joe Chill to kill the Waynes, Moxon inadvertently created Batman. His single act of petty revenge ripples outward to define his own demise and the future of Gotham City.
• Retcon: Moxon’s role in the Batman mythos has been subject to multiple retcons. His involvement in the death of the Waynes has been cycled in and out of canon multiple times, ranging from the mastermind behind the murder to a mere acquaintance who had nothing to do with the crime. In the current modern continuity, he's finally been effectively written out of the role after Infinite Crisis, with Joe Chill now acting alone in the murder of the Waynes.
• Sacrificial Lamb: His death at the start of Batman: War Games served the purpose of clearing the board for the larger event.
• Villainous Breakdown: In his original death Pre-Crisis, the sight of Batman in his father’s costume causes a psychological fracture, leading to his fatal panic.

Leo Kingford

First Appearance: Detective Comics #1102 (December 2025)

Leo Kingsford was the son of a Gotham City hitman, one of the very first criminals Batman ever arrested. At thirteen years old, he watched Batman break into their aparment and drag his father away to the police, terrifying and traumatizing the young man so severely he would develop a life-long obsession with overcoming fear at all costs. This would lead him to study martial arts under boxing master Ted Grant — aka Wildcat — but when even the legendary boxer's teachings failed to quell the terror inside him, he turned to the supervillain Scarecrow, inverting Crane's iconic fear toxin into a mixture that removes fear entirely, leaving its victims without any sense of inhibition or self-preservation.

• Animal Motifs: Take a guess. Likely due to lions' association with courage, though the fact his name is Leo Kingston doesn't help. According to Black Canary, he got the nickname in Wildcat's gym after taking down a brawler called The Beast; the Lion is King of the Beast.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: His 'costume' is a sleek white suit and black undershirt.
• Batman Gambit: Pulls one on the Trope Namer that actually works: in his introductory story, he sets up a mystery that leads Batman all over the country trying to figure out when and how the Lion will unleash his plague of courage... not realizing the plague had been dispersed that very night and the "mystery" was to keep Batman out of the city long enough for it to take effect.
• Create Your Own Villain: One of Batman's most explicit examples; seeing a terrifying bat-monster break into your apartment and drag your beloved father away screaming doesn't leave you well adjusted. Bruce admits he was still inexperienced and didn't fully know how to use his Terror Hero tactics yet. He did make sure young Leo got a full scholarship to try and make up for it, but all that did was give him the seed to start his supervillain career.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Blonde hair with golden-amber eyes, much like the animal he names himself after.
• Freudian Excuse: Batman inadvertantly traumatized him as a child, and it was sever enough to leave him with life-long PTSD, even outright hallucinating the Batman well into adulthood. Unfortunately, he chose some very poor coping mechanisms, despite the efforts of Wildcat to try and help him.
• Genius Bruiser: He has a natural genius for chemistry — winning an award for it when he was a teenager — and was a good enough boxer that Wildcat and Black Canary thought he could go on to multiple world championship titles. They make him a very dangerous opponent.
• Light Is Not Good: Has a white-and-gold color scheme and is associated with lions, doesn't stop him from being a terrorist who tried to destroy an entire city to resolve his own issues.
• Likes Older Men: Because DC strictly enforces Vague Age on Batman, we don't know how much older (they're drawn in a way that makes them look in the same age group) but he was thirteen when Batman started his career in vigilantism, so there's at least a ten year age gap between the two. Doesn't stop him from telling Bruce what 'striking' eyes he has.
• Loves My Alter Ego: He despises Batman, but actually is very friendly to Bruce Wayne, and is heavily implied to have romantic feelings for him as well. When he plots to destroy Gotham with his courage toxin, he tries to encourage Bruce not to return to Gotham, and when that fails he sends him the antidote (disguised as a bottle of whiskey). Notably, Bruce does not seem averse to these advances.
• Manly Gay: Flirts openly with Bruce Wayne and is mentioned by a female debutante that he's "stolen her dates" before. Can go fist-to-fist with Batman.
• One-Steve Limit: There have been two Batman villains named "The Lion" prior to Leo Kingsford. The first is Lewis Yarnell, a member of the Wonderland Gang. The second is Rex Calabrese, a mob boss who was Selina Kyle's father during the New 52.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: What his version of Scarecrow's fear toxin does to people; everyone who gets exposed winds up getting themselves killed in a matter of days by pulling fatal daredevil stunts when they really should know better.

Lyle Bolton

First Appearance: Robin (Vol 2) #24 (January 1996)

• Anti-Villain: His main motivation is to capture other members of Batman's rogues gallery. During No Man's Land, he was even recruited by Batman himself to keep some criminals in check.
• Arch-Enemy: This incarnation of Bolton has actually fought Nightwing and Robin more than he's fought Batman.
• Canon Immigrant: He was originally created for Batman: The Animated Series and later brought into the comics. Fun fact: he actually transitioned before Harley Quinn.
• Create Your Own Villain: Subverted, as unlike his BTAS counterpart, Bolton is not brought on as security chief of Arkham Asylum through the Wayne Foundation. Indeed, Bolton in this continuity is just a failed would-be cop who decided to become a Vigilante Man.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: With Cluemaster and a few other C-List villains, he helped orchestrate a plan that would exhaust Batman in the Batman Eternal special.
• Escape Artist: Not a skill he uses very often, but as seen in his debut storyline, he's an expert in locks and restraints who also knows how to defeat them if need be.
• High Hopes, Zero Talent: Played with, as Bolton got his Start of Darkness when he tried joining the GCPD, and at least physically was the ideal candidate, even boasting about how badly he beat a pair of detectives during their time together training when he was once arrested. But mentally was another matter, and he was rejected on the grounds of being too much of a Blood Knight.
• The Jailer: Obsessed with keeping all criminals imprisoned for all time.
• Knight Templar: Is a fairly dangerous person in his own right, and takes more extreme measures than Batman would ever do to fight crime.
• Lawman Baton: Carries a nightstick as one of his primary weapons.
• The Leader: A minor one, but in story arcs where he's used his take-charge personality usually leads to the other villains following him. This happened when he was hiring to work security for an underground fighting ring (leading to a Crossover between Batman and Wildcat) and again when he ran Blackgate Prison during No Man's Land.
• Lightning Bruiser: In his first few appearances, he was specifically written as being faster than his large size would indicate (though not as fast as Nightwing). He lost this aspect as his decay set in.
• Meaningful Name: The guy obsessed with locks is named Bolton.
• Motive Decay: Along with his Villain Decay detailed below, he also experienced this, to the point where he eventually stopped trying to imprison super-villains altogether and just started working with them as a generic C-list bad guy in the background.
• Order Is Not Good: He's definitely on Order's side in the battle of Order Versus Chaos (even telling Batman once that Gotham's chaos will only bend to "terminal order"), but he's also definitely not a protagonist.
• Passion Is Evil: Ironically in light of his stated dedication to order, his actual personality is much more impulsive and chaotic. It was his passion for locking up criminals that led him to get disqualified from being a cop to begin with, and after becoming a vigilante he goes Jumping Off the Slippery Slope with it.
• Pet the Dog: Interestingly had one moment when, after capturing Robin in his disguise as young hood Alvin Draper, he brought back Chinese for his prisoners. It's a small thing, but not something the hyper-sadist BTAS Lock-Up would ever have been caught doing.
• Recruiting the Criminal: He put KGBeast to work after the latter's Villain Decay set in, and also recruited the Trigger Twins and a weedy stool pigeon to help him run Blackgate during No Man's Land. Ironically, Batman recruited him for the post.
• Sadist: His big first appearance in the comics? Tried to drown many people at once.
• Shoulders of Doom: A mainstay of his costume.
• Villain Decay: In his debut appearance he was skilled enough to save Robin from Charaxes and later beat the former in a fight and kidnapped him. Later appearances just had him be a big lummox who would charge like a bull at Robin or Nightwing and get effortlessly beaten.
• Villain Has a Point: At least initially, when his goal was the same as his BTAS counterpart (which was discussed in a talk between Batman and Nightwing). Later he lost this element as he decayed into generic D-list villainy.
• Wardens Are Evil: During his time as Blackgate's warden during No Man's Land, he plotted to drown all the inmates rather than let Nightwing set them free. Again.
• Would Hurt a Child: Or lock them up in his prison at least, given that's exactly what he does to Robin in his Alvin Draper disguise.