The world of Batman has spawned some of the best villains in comic book history. The Dark Knight has squared off against the likes of The Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Catwoman, and Two-Face, to name a few, all of this taking place multiple times throughout his countless adventures. There’s more than just a handful of bad guys who roam the streets of Gotham. Some of them are a little on the weirder side and don’t entice readers or audiences as much, but they still stand out a bit.
When a new adaptation of Batman hits the big screen, it is always clear very early on that he is going to be squaring off against a familiar foe. The villains on this list are odd, at times knockoffs of other bad guys.
Some have potential but not enough to carry the torch of a movie, therefore, they have never gone further than a comic book appearance or an episode of one of the Batman animated series, because they just aren’t cinematic enough to square off with Batman on the big screen. They are the weirdest of the weird in Gotham City.
11 The Condiment King
The Condiment King appeared on Batman: The Animated Series back in the mid-1990s. He was created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. As a character who shoots ketchup and mustard at his opponents, he was more or less supposed to be a comedic bad guy who was easy to defeat. His real name was Buddy Standler, and he had vengeance on his mind while doing his acts of micheif.
The Condiment King and The Joker
The Condiment King could never hold a franchise on his back. However, The Batman director Matt Reeves did tease him for The Batman 2. The Condiment King actually has ties to The Joker, as he was brainwashed by the clown prince of crime. Standler was an outcast comedian who ends up hooking two squirt guns to tanks of ketchup and mustard and attacking his enemies with them.
Creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm based the character off of many of the other spoof-like villains that Batman went up against in the old Batman television series of the late 1960s.
10 The Calculator
Noah Kuttler, otherwise known as The Calculator, first made his appearance in Detective Comics issue #463. He was a villain who used technology against his opponents. He would face off against them, and be able to calculate everything about how they fight, and then use that to be a step ahead of them. Over the years, The Calculator has evolved into a bit of a mastermind, but still not as enticing as many of the other villains in the world of DC.
The Calculator Doesn’t Just Fight Batman
The Calculator’s first appearance in DC was as an antagonist to The Atom. He would later appear as a big bad in the comics that had The Flash and Batman in them. As times have changed, so has The Calculator. In the new millennium, the villain has appeared as a computer hacker and all-around tech wiz to assist other villains in foiling Batman’s plans.
The CW show Arrow utilized the character of Noah Kuttler as fan favorite Felicity Smoak’s father, thus reviving The Calculator in the world of DC in the last decade.
9 Penny Plunderer
A villain created by none other than Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, The Penny Plunderer was once a newspaper salesman named Joe Coyne who sold one-cent newspapers in Gotham City. He was eventually fired and had to turn to a life of crime. His first attempt at a heist got ruined, as all he was able to rob from a cash register was a pile of pennies. This became Coyne’s thing, and he soon based all his criminal activities on robbing places for their coins.
The Giant Coin
The Penny Plunderer is undeniably a product of his time when he was created. Appearing for the first time in the comics in 1947. These kinds of criminal acts may not get him anywhere in this economy. As for avid readers of the comics, many remember the giant penny in the Bat Cave. This piece of memorabilia, so to speak, came from a Batman adventure where he went up against the Plunderer.
8 Kite Man
Kite Man has had a bit of a revival, appearing in Max’s Harley Quinn animated series, and now getting his own series later this year. The character uses kite-based abilities to commit his crimes. He’s had some cool looks in the comics, but mostly comes off gimicky in the animated television show appearances. It’s been stated time and time again that Kite Man is one of the worst DC villains ever created.
Kite Man Depends on the Wind
Picture, if you will, Kite Man on a day without wind; he most likely will decide not to do any criminal activity that day, and if you think about it, not every day is a windy day. In the end, Kite Man is just a guy riding a kite and talking smack to Batman. Bruce Wayne has some of the best detective skills, plus there is his superhero jet, the Batwing. Kite Man stands no chance against The Dark Knight.
7 Crazy Quilt
Crazy Quilt has gone from a bad guy with an artistic sensibility in the comics to someone who attempts to be a supervillain on shows like Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Crazy Quilt’s origin story states that he began as a painter who had moonlighted as a criminal, only to see one of his allies blind him with a gunshot.
Crazy Quilt Was Color Blind
Due to the gunshot that blinded him, he got surgery that helped him see again. The catch is that he is now color blind. Over the years, Crazy Quilt has gotten different variations. In the comics, he now goes by Paul Dekker, and there is even a female version of the character too. He’s a villain who has gone toe-to-toe with Batman, but he has also become a bit of a rival to strictly Robin.
6 Egghead
Edgar Heed, otherwise known as Egghead, was a villain that was created specifically for the 1966 Batman television series. Egghead was iconically played by horror icon Vincent Price on the show. He’s an evil genius without much of an origin story. Egghead was one of the few villains who found out Bruce Wayne was Batman; the only catch was that he did it with his insane, high intellect.
Although you can’t take your eyes off his large dome, which reflects his intellect, he’s a laughable bad guy at best who never really feels like he can be taken seriously by audiences.
Nicolas Cage as Egghead?
One thing is certain: with James Gunn running DC and Matt Reeves always teasing Batman side characters for his iterations of the Caped Crusader, who knows if a character like Egghead would show up on the big screen. However, it doesn’t feel like Egghead could carry a movie as its main protagonist, but Nicolas Cage hopes so. The actor mentioned how he would love to take on the role of the zany Batman villain in a sequel to The Batman, and frankly, we could kind of see it.
5 The Eraser
The Eraser is a bad guy who got his start in the silver age of Batman comics and made the cut for Batman: The Animated Series too. The villain was funny to look at. He wore a yellow suit and had a funny mask, which was part of a pencil with a pink eraser on it. The eraser he wore apparently had the capability of erasing whatever it made contact with.
The Eraser Was a Jealous Man
It turns out that The Eraser had trouble erasing some sadness from his past. Lenny Fiasco, who would become The Eraser, finds out who Batman’s true identity is. When he learns it is Bruce Wayne, some bitter jealousy kicks in, as Bruce Wayne once stole an old college girlfriend from Fiasco. Kind of petty, and he sounds like a guy who just couldn’t erase his own past and move on.
4 Baby Face
Throughout Batman lore, there are always some cool callbacks to old-timey prohibition-era gangster characters. Gotham’s Dark Knight emerged from that era, so there is always a side of bad guys having mon ties. A strange one is Alfonso Face, aka Baby Face, and yes, he is a grown man with a baby’s face. The character appeared multiple times on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
It’s a Baby with a Machine Gun
It’s hard to really elaborate on this, but the villain Baby Face could never be taken seriously in the context of the cinematic experience due to the fact that this is a man with a child’s head and face. There are numerous gangster characters in Batman films that are compelling and make for a fun time to watch their comeuppance. Baby Face is laughable and utterly ridiculous; it’s one of the strangest characters in the world of Gotham City.
3 Baby Doll
Baby Doll is an interesting kind of villain and honestly made for a well-written episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Appearing in Season 3, Episode 4, the actress known as Mary Dahl is an actress who has gone insane due to the mistreatment of who she is within the industry. She suffers from a disease that prohibits her from physically aging. She looks like a kindergartner but is actually thirty years old.
Baby Doll Has a Cult Following
Baby Doll’s violent outrages at those who have oppressed her due to her condition had many fans of the show feeling empathy for her. She was a very sad character that garnered a small following.
She would appear on other episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, but never in the comics or one of the live-action or animated features. Her tragic final line at the end of her now famous episode of the show, “Why couldn’t you just let me make believe?” hit a nerve, and has had us wondering if there’s more to her character, but there most likely won’t be. So, in the meantime, you can watch Orphan and Orphan: First Kill for the same sort of character arc.
2 Outsider (Evil Alfred)
One of the constants of the lore of Batman is Alfred Pennyworth, his butler at Wayner Manor and his main confidant in the Bat Cave. Let us not forget that Alfred Pennyworth had a past; he was once a British intelligence agent prior to becoming the main caretaker for the Waynes. It is here that we learn about The Outsider, a supervillain that emerged into the world of DC Comics when Alfred sacrificed himself and then came back from the grave and was now an opponent to Bruce Wayne.
Outsider Is an Interesting Storyline That Does Not Work in Film
In both Matt Reeves 2022 film, The Batman, and even Todd Phillips’ 2019 Joker movie, we learn that the Waynes aren’t the clean-cut first family of Gotham. Thomas Wayne covered things up in both his personal and professional lives. So there is room for switching things up a bit with supporting roles, but the one constant that many fans like is that Alfred is Bruce’s strongest ally; there is no need to make him come back from the dead.
1 Batzarro
Superman’s uncanny bumbling bafoon of a bad guy, Bizarro, hit a chord with readers when the creature first appeared in the comics, so naturally, Batman needed to have the same counterpart character show up. Batzarro is a worthy attempt at rehashing something like this, but in the end, it’s an utter misfire, and many Batman fans forget that this even happened.
Batzarro Is Too Weird a Concept to Work in a Movie
Although the character originates from fun villains like the Joker and Superman’s enemy, Mister Mxyzptlk, that does not mean that you can find a way to tie this character into a story arc. Batzarro carries two pistols and some kryptonite and dishes out justice the only way he knows how. It’s a strange experiment of a character, and quite frankly, he feels out of context with the world of DC when he appears in the comics.
Bruce Wayne/Batman is a very layered character, but creating a cracked mirror image of him with something like this would make for a lackluster part of any Batman film.
