Favorite villian?

[Tim Drake]

Mr. Freeze

I think the story of Mr. Freeze has to be the best developed villain in BTAS TNBA. Heart of Ice was beautiful and Deep Freeze wasn't bad either. Both showed him as a villain with humanity and some decency. Then we get a direct to video movie, which while not as good as MOTP it still kicks ass. It ends unexpectadly with Nora Fries recovery. Then in TNBA Cold Comfort we are confused on why Freeze continues to torment Gotham now that his wife is returned. Again Victor faces another tragedy the loss of his body. I do admit though that his characterization was a little off and the loss of goggles bugged me. Then we get a great issue in BGA Polar Opposites, where we see how his love for his wife still exists. And finally Meltdown in BB where once again we feel sympathy for a character who always seems to get the short end of the stick even when offered a new life. And his goggles return! Anyhow, he's my favorite Batman character and one of the few that's in all three continuties.

[nerdgirl]

Hi Tim!

This is a cool question! My favorite villain is the Riddler. Like him, I too love challenging mind games, so I can relate to him in a way. We both love intelligence. I like trying to solve his riddles. I also liked his classy green and purple (my favorite colors) three-piece suit, unitl they changed it to that hideous jumpsuit (and shaving his head was a crime, too). In a way, I feel sorry for him, for it was his work behind "The Riddle of the Monataur" that built up Montahue's fortune. It figures that the brains of the operation gets ripped off (isn't it always like this?), so I sympathize with him a little, although if they were me, I wouldn't resort to crime. I also think he is just a cool villain.

Have a villainous day!

nerdgirl

[redDragon]

Joker's cool 'cause he's an insane maniac that keeps coming back even when you think you've gotten rid of him!!!

[Joker85]

Joker, always has been and always will be. He just can't be killed(not even in ROTJ).

[Domino]

In the animated series, I'm going to have to go with Clayface. There is just something about the way the character's shapeshifting is portrayed that doesn't translate well into comic books or live action. Based on that, Inque would get a close second.

[mxyzptlk]

i would say joker because he has spent almost his whole criminal career trying to make batman die or go insane. plus in the comics he has been shot in the heada, blown up in a helicopter, and fell into a bunch of acid.

[Inque]

CLAYFACE!!!!!! The Inque of BTAS and TNBSA!!!

[Clayface]

Originally posted by Domino
In the animated series, I'm going to have to go with Clayface. There is just something about the way the character's shapeshifting is portrayed that doesn't translate well into comic books or live action. Based on that, Inque would get a close second.

Now there's a smart poster!

I think its fairly self explanatory which is my favorite villian - just check out my handle. But in a very, very close second its a tie - Joker and Ra's Al Ghul.

[Kylewayne]

CATWOMAN... cuz she " Almost Got'Im "

[joker]

joker. like mxy said, hes been through a lot pluse hes just so cool. hes so pschcotic he wont even kill the one man he wants to, batman. thats how much he is enfatuated(dont know if thats how you spell it dont know what it means) with him that he just wants to make him feel pain. but not to die. then because the game would be over. theres crazy for you.

[DR. BELCH]

Oh, so many to choose from. I believe a good villain should be human above all else and not just a crude one-dimensional mook with no backstory or motivation for his actions. So I'll go with my top five picks.

* Joker. A perfect example of antisocial personality syndrome. Think Charles Manson if he looked like a clown.
* Ras-Al Ghul. He calls himself a philanthropist; in reality, he's a modern-day Caligula.
* Two-Face. He's a perfect example for an abnormal psych class. He suffers multiple personality syndrome (depending on your interpretation, from growing up under an abusive father or from repressing anger and guilt from his childhood troubles with a bully. With the advent of the Judge, he becomes an excellent example of Freud's id, ego, and superego in action.
* Mr. Freeze. I've discussed him at length in another thread and why I consider him more a victim than a villain.
* Poison Ivy. My father once called her "pretty poison", and he was right. Favorite Ivy eps of mine are "House and Garden" and "Chemistry".

Very close seconds:
* The Riddler. I love it when he goes mad trying to figure out how Batman got out of the safe in "Riddler's Reform"--way to out-puzzle the puzzlemaster!
* The Mad Hatter. Unrequited love drove him to his debauchery. There's always a dame in it somewhere, ain't there, folks?
* The Penguin. Sure, he's no Mel Gibson, but he's Batman's sanest villian...he seems about the only one who doesn't manifest a mental disorder. Plus you even feel sorry for him in the ep where he dates Ronnie Vreeland and, after she emasculates him, he learns that "the problem is society...high society".
* Catwoman. I don't even consider her a villain per se, at least not of the caliber of Penguin or Two-Face...in fact she even helps Batman out in "Almost Got 'Im", oddly enough plays damsel-in-distress in "Cat Scratch Fever", and behaves like a good kitty in "Batgirl Returns" (though like any cat, she only appears docile--go to scratch her belly and she'll bite your fingers with a vengeance! )
Catwoman's biggest problem--and Batman's--is that she's a dame who wants what she wants when she wants how she wants it and has no qualms about bending rules to get it. I don't care for her new look with the pasty-white makeup and cropped dark hair, however. I wonder if she dyed the other half? )
* The Ventriloquist. Another multiple personality syndrome sufferer, but one with a good career doing voiceover work if he stays on the straight-and-narrow. "I just had one a' them there--uh, whaddaya call 'em--pree-ma-notions." "Shaddap, dummy!"

[Clayface]

Awww, come on BELCHY! I gotta be in there somewhere! I got all sorts of motivation! And you want confusion in your personalities? Just check out the end of Feet of Clay II! Plus, I can turn into all of them posers at will!

[DR. BELCH]

--I decided to put Clayface somewhere between Ivy and Riddler. I don't consider him a villain in the strictest sense either, though...that is to say, like Freeze, he was victimized (the true monster is Roland Daggett) and forced into perfidy, and Batman did everything in his power to help the former Matt Hagan. But when he crossed the line and used stolen isotopes from Waynetech, the milk of human kindness dried up pretty d*** quick--Batman went as far as to pull the plug on Hagan's lover's machine just as it looked like he was about to get his cure.
I never quite cared as much about Clayface after his comeback...his humanity seemed to have died when he dissolved, and that felt so wrong. I felt more pity for his foot soldier, "Annie" (as did young Mr. Drake).

[Clayface]

Good man, BELCHY! (hope the belchy nickname ain't tickin' ya off) At least you're giving me some props!

For the most part, I agree that the characters have to have spme good backstory to be interesting to me. But, for some reason, Clayface was always an acception for me. I always thought he was so cool, whether he had backstory or not. And, of course, I was even more thrilled when they gave him that great story in Feet of Clay. His return later was good, in my opinion. He stole the isotopes to try and keep himself alive - good enough reason for me to believe it. He came off as less of a victim, but at the time, he was a desperate man. And then you have his great reappearance in TNBA, with Annie. That was a great story, and at that point in his development, he was becoming more and more the character of the monster he appeared to be on the outside (remember, that was one his problems - getting himself confused with the characters he played after the trauma of becoming this shape changing creature). He's had some other minor appearances in the series in which he was sort of the mindless monster (Holiday Knights comes to mind), but his main episodes kept him very much in character, I thought.

[DR. BELCH]

--since adding Clayface gives me an odd number. For a nice even dozen, I'll put Scarecrow in the lineup. I was a psychology major, and Dr. Jonathan Crane's experiments fascinated me. What drives fear? Some say it starts in the mind and causes the pulse and respiration to increase; others say it starts with the heart and lungs, and the mind interprets it as, "Say, bub, you're a 'scared!"
I've also noted a connection between fear and carnal arousal in women, usually while observing a stimulus like a scary movie (notice how some women start panting heavily, fidgeting in their seats, and clinging to their boyfriends in the theater?)
I even thought it might be fun to see a story (If DC only had the cojones) concerning Scarecrow associating himself with an unscrupulous TV producer (modeled after Rupert Murdoch, maybe, or Howard Stern) to tape a reality TV show in which twelve women of different, races, religions, and socioeconomic strata are locked in a room and exposed to a stimulus of horror movies for eight hours. As the Scarecrow's fear gas is pumped into the air ducts the women's reactions become more wild and outrageous, and the ratings skyrocket. Batman is the only one who realizes how dangerous this is, as long before the credits roll on the last movie, the women's hearts will literally explode from terror. "This isn't science," he mutters, "it's wholesale televised murder!" The Bat's gone toe-to-toe with all the biggest baddies...but can he win against the Neilsen box?

[Blight]

Hey, my favorite villians are Mr. Freeze and The Joker. Mr. Freeze is just a poor man who I can't help feel sorry for, and I love The Joker because he's an evil lunatic, which I can definitley relate too!

See ya!
Blight

[optimal321]

Joker, Ra's, Mr. Freeze, and Two Face. Not saying the others aren't cool, they just came to mind first.

[The Old Maid]

I find villains that break your heart interesting. Two-Face, Scarface, and Mr. Freeze didn't ask for what happened to them, they didn't ask to get sick. But once they did lose it, they gloried in it, relished it. How do you cure someone who doesn't want to get well?

Joker is an odd duck, though, I can see why people find him so fascinating. I for one don't think Joker is insane. I think he's just evil. And I think people (including the Bat mythos characters) have a mental block with believing that anyone could choose that kind of life. So they rationalize it as "some mental illness we don't have a name for yet."

Joker doesn't belong in Arkham. He's a predator whose very presence makes the other inmates worse. It's like breathing contaminated air. He should be in a real prison. I wish we could have seen an episode that explores this. Perhaps Bats keeps dragging him to prison and they punt him back to Arkham because no one wants the man. This guy relishes his horrible life too -- but insane? No, I don't believe that.

[Man of Steel]

Hey:

I think that the best villains in Batman would have to be,

1. The Joker
2. Two Face
3. Scarecrow
4. Mr. Freeze
5. The Mad Hatter.

I think that those where the best villains in the Batman show.

[watsonlives]

the one i found most interesting was HARDAC, and the batman robot in it's follow-up episode. that stuff really makes one think.