The Smark Avengers - Vol 4, Ep 6: The Ultimate Batman Villains Tier List—Made by a Marvel Fan?!?

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

🔥 The Ultimate Batman Villains Tier List—Made by a Marvel Fan?!? 🔥 Batman has one of the greatest rogues galleries in all of comics… but what happens when a Marvel fan ranks them? 😬 In this episode of Smark Avengers, Jon—one of our resident Marvel diehards—is ranking EVERY major Batman villain on a tier list, and let’s just say DC fans might not be happy with some of these choices!🃏 WHO MAKES THE TOP TIER? ✅ Is Joker REALLY the best villain in comics? ✅ Does Bane deserve more respect? ✅ Where do Scarecrow, Riddler, and Penguin land? ✅ Who ends up in the dreaded F-Tier? With hot takes, controversial opinions, and some truly questionable rankings, this Batman villain tier list is guaranteed to spark debate—so get ready to yell at your screen! 💬 COMMENT BELOW: Who’s your favorite Batman villain, and where should they rank?🔔 LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more comic book debates, tier lists, and hilarious arguments!

Well, it's St. Patrick's Day weekend here, speaking of pissing everywhere. So yeah, yeah, that's all. I live down the street from an Irish pub. Well, hopefully nobody will pee on camera, which isn't a problem because your camera's not on. Yes. You could be peeing on camera right now. We wouldn't know. How'd you know I'm not? There you go.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Smart Adventures. My name is Corey. And with me, it's just John. Dylan could not join us today. I'm sure there's a lovely excuse for that. I just don't know what it is. Do you? I'm assuming it's probably something some Patrick's Day related. You would think so being in Ireland?

Yeah. But again, I don't know the culture well enough to know the Northern Ireland versus Ireland thing. There's any major differences there? I know Ireland likes a drink in general, but I think he likes a drink, especially on St. Patrick's Day. I think if you watch the show enough, you would see that Dylan likes to drink. It is on camera.

It is documented. We're not saying he's got a problem. We're just saying he likes to drink. That's true. I will always be forever abused by the watchalong we did where he ended the show an hour after we already into the show. It's so fucking confusing. Well, so because Dylan will not be with us, and next week, John won't be able to join us. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to kind of play a game, do something interactive again.

And that little thing is basically we're going to do a tier list. We've never done one of these for the show, so it's going to be a very first for us. And if you don't know what a tier list is, you'll see very shortly because I'll be sharing the screen and putting stuff where they need to be. But essentially what it is is just a ranking. So traditionally you go S tier down to F tier, best as S, worst as F, and you just go through item by item. So because John and Dylan are both very Marvel people, specifically Spider-Man people, I thought I'd be interested in seeing how they would take that knowledge and apply it to the world of the Batman rogues. because there's the Sinister 6 in the Marvel world

where the villains all get together to work against Spider-Man and they don't do that shit in D.C. Mainly because I think the villains just hate each other that much. I think aside from the movies where there's like the team-ups from like the Schumacher era in the Tim Burton era,

the last time there was a big villain team-up was the original 60s Batman movie. which is a classic yeah I do enjoy that movie is one of my favorites so it's going to be simple I have, make sure I have the right tab up I do do you

I do it just didn't give me a preview so John let me know can you see this yes I can perfect so we're on a tiermaker dot com and there's our tier list So we have S going to F and down below, we have pictures of various different Batman villains. And pretty much we're just going to go through one by one, and John's going to give me his thoughts on them. If it's all possible, John, I'd like to see you, like, could you think of, like, what the equivalent character would be in the Spider-Man Rogue's Gallery?

And where they fit on the tier of S-to-F when you think of, like, is this a competent villain? Can I just ask, what is S standing for in this list? I do not know. I always just took it as, yeah, I'll be honestly, do I see these things all the time? I'm like, why? I think S is like super. Okay.

But I think it comes from like the world of like Capcom video games where like something is S tier or whatnot. I think it's a video game thing. I don't know. Right, right. Yeah. I'm sure he'll explain it next week. I'll ask him next week.

So, yeah, John, and if you are not familiar with a character, then by all means, let me know. And I can, you know, pull up some details about them and share a little bit more. So are you ready? Yes, let's do it. All right. Our very first on the list is Manbat. So this is Dr. Kurt Langstrom. He is the scientist who screwed around with some DNA.

and some super science and inadvertently turned himself into a bat monster. So as you do. As you do. So what are your feelings on man bat? He is, you know, not a character I'm super into. But there's, I guess you could say there's a bit of like a tragic underlying, you know, story to him as well. like, you know, I'm guessing he didn't

set out to turn himself into a man bat, but with his experimentations, that's what happened. Yes. Like, you know, I guess like, if you were to compare him to maybe a Spider-Man villain,

he could be compared to, you know, the lizard, possibly, Kirk Connors. Seems like the obvious is the obvious equivalent. Yeah, yeah. Or, I mean, even more BS a little bit as well,

because of the whole, you know, that connection type thing. So, yeah. So, so real quick on him, he has, in recent years, has had his own miniseries and was also a member of the Justice League Dark, so not exclusively a villain all the time.

There you go. More well-rounded character, then if he's, you know, he can be a good guy and a bad guy, I guess. Yeah. Though saying all that, I still think he's kind of a dead villain. Yeah. Yeah, he's been a member of Task Force Z, the T-Counsel, the Justice League Reserves, Justice League Dark. The Secret Society of Supervillains Shade. Lords of Chaos in the Department of Metahuman Affairs.

He is currently considered a good character. He is a good guy. Okay. Well, in that case, then... I mean, do not let that sway you. I mean, I was sort of swayed anyway, but that's just the cherry of the top. I'm going to pop a man bat in the F tier, I say.

F. Yeah. So for not very good, not a fan. Exactly. All right, fair enough. So Dr. Kirk Langstrom is going to be joining the F tier. Now, our next character, I don't know how familiar you are with them. What do you know about killer moth? Killer moth is basically a pyromaniac, isn't he? You've got him confused with Firefly. Oh, oh. shit in that case I may need you to give me some details on killer moth all right killer moth is a super villain who fights batman using almost identical methods and gadgetry but with moths as the central theme instead of bats because of this he's not taken very seriously by the larger criminal community during underworld unleashed who's granted powers by the demon neron and became a moth monster named traaxis following his death in infinite crisis multiple successors have used his costume, and he was briefly a member of the misfits. He was created by Bill Finger in 1951. He is traditionally referred to as a Batgirl villain as well. That's where you normally would see Killer Moth.

Hmm, okay. So he's got gadgets. He's kind of a joke. People don't respect him. Again, not to let that sway you. I mean, I don't want to put two. There's certainly the first two villains in the F tier. I might put killer moth in F and then bump man bat up to D.

Okay. So you push man bat up to D? Yeah. Okay. Now, if you're ready to move on, we'll go to a character who I know you're also, you should be familiar with. Also has killer in the name. We're going to be talking about Killer Crock. Nice.

So what do you know about? about Killer Croc? He is, what, like a former circus performer? Like, I want to say Strongman or something like that. But I believe he was born with some sort of weird skin disease, which gives him his kind of crocodile-like appearance. Although saying that, like, he's certainly turned it into more, like, of an actual crocodile man over the years, it feels like.

So I don't know if he's had some sort of, like, superpowered, you know, level up or whatever. But, yeah, is he a cannibal as well, I want to say? Yes, yes. He is a cannibal. His body has mutated, but it was not necessarily a power-up, per se. but yes, he was a basically someone born with a skin condition that made him appear that he had scales and such. But yes, he was mutated. Killer Croc was in the first Suicide Squad movie.

We'll even forget a little role. He in the comics was a member of the suicide squad as well, and they got put into a romance with Enchantress, which was kind of weird and wholesome. But yeah, no, Killer Croc. also was a member of Gotham City Monsters. I remember that team, that team of book. That was an odd one. Who else was in that? Gotham City Monsters, coincidentally enough, man bat.

Lady Clayface. I Vampire and Frankenstein and Orca. And I think Batwoman also. Interesting. Yeah. It was interesting little book. There's only a little six-issue mini. Yeah, it was a they had there was some sort of there was a storyline in one of the in the Batman title where I can't remember who it was might have been Dr. like Hugo Strange unleashed some sort of thing that made people mutate and turn into monsters and there's a part of Gotham that was like completely fucked up and they called it Monster Town and that's where Killer Frog was like hanging out and living for a while.

Do you remember in Marvel with there's a mutant town for a while? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, they had, they had, they had monster town in Gotham. Lovely. It's nice that the monsters had a place to call their own. Ah, see, exactly. They were free to do all of their monster stuff at their own leisure. So, yes, where would you put Killer Croc on your list?

Hmm. I'm sort of torn between B and C. Because I don't think he's like, you know, he's obviously not. the tippy top, but he's someone who's like appeared in like a fair amount of things over the years and really memorable boss fight in the Ark of Asylum game. Yeah, exactly.

So he's taking around the sewers. Very panic inducing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, for that reason, I reckon I will put him in the B tier. B tier. Okay. All right. Well, next up is we have the demon's head, Rayshal Ghul. We talked about him pretty recently on an episode of the show that we'll never see the light of air because it seemingly ever recorded. But John, what do you know about Ray Shao Gould? Yeah, like you say, he's seemingly immortal. Like he uses the Lazarus Pits to, you know, keep himself alive after all these years. But then every time he uses it, it makes him. go slightly more mad. He's the head of the league of assassins.

And I think he kind of wants Batman to come and join him as well, doesn't he? Yeah, he's been looking for an error. Because I think the thing about living so long, and I think he's very aware of the fact that his body is deteriorating and will not stand up for, you know, much more in the way of resurrection, like, mentally. So he's been looking for an error for a long time, and, like, several characters have been close to being heirs.

I know he wanted Bain to be an heir for a while. He wanted Asriel to be in an air for a while. I still think that Bruce is his number one on the bucket list. He doesn't he have two daughters as well? Like, that's a bit of a slight on them. Yeah, he's got Talia and Nisa. And he had a son for a while who is secretly al-Balters. I know. That was like a, oh, that's a whole

Grand Moorson story there, right? Yeah. Basically, Razakul died and his body was destroyed, and the league were trying to resurrect him, and they wanted to put his soul into Damien's body, because he needed someone of his bloodline. Yeah. That it was realized that, like, this acolyte that he had was, like, secretly his son, so Razokul got put into an albino body

for a while. Okay. He is currently dead, by the way. currently got shot in the head and not resurrected so he is not in the DC world at the moment who shot him in the head I cannot remember

because immediately my first thought went to KG Beast but like it can't always be KGB shooting people on the head Yeah See I've never been a huge fan of Ray Shao Gaw but I guess like, you know,

Batman begins sort of up to his profile a little bit. So even though he is, you know, just basically an old man with a sword and I guess an army of assassins. Incredibly skilled, hand-to-hand combatants. Yeah.

Pretty devious as well. I think I might pop him in the B tier as well. But again, I might change this as we go along. By the way, it was somebody disguised themselves as Deathstroke that killed him. Oh, okay.

Yeah, so we'll put Razagool in the B tier. All right. Next up as a character, we have spoken about at length a couple of times in the past. It's the man who broke the bat, Bain. Nice. Well, obviously, Bain grew up in like a horrible set of circumstances which basically made him stronger.

He is addicted to venom which helps like bulk him up and give him all his muscle and whatnot. And like you say, he's pretty much a master tactician as well who like managed to wear Batman down and then break his back and send him back in for a little while. Yeah, Bain also is responsible for the death of Alfred Peneworth, who is still dead in the main DC continuity. I thought they'd brought him back. No, not been brought back yet. Oh, okay. Yep, still dead.

Wow, that's surely got a bumping up to list then. I think I'm going to put Bain in the A tier. Okay. And, yeah, I mean, if this was the Bain from, uh, was it Batman forever? Or was it Batman and Robin? Batman and Robin. Yeah.

That beam would probably be a lot lower down the list. Yeah, what I've gathered from that Batman and Robin, and that's just a little side-tailed to that for just a hot minute. Between that and putting, Mr. Freeze in there. A lot of it had to do with very reactionary because Bain had just been introduced

in the comics just two years before that movie even came out. And then the Mr. Freeze characterization that they went with with you know, the trying to cure his wife from this illness of putting her in suspended animation. That was something that was created for the Batman in the animated

series cartoon because before then Mr. Freeze is just a crook with a freeze gun like Captain Cold. So, yeah, they just took a lot of, like, what's going in, what's recent in the comics right now that we can use? And not really well thought out how to use it. I don't know. I think they did the, the mist of freeze stuff pretty well. Like, it gave.

Can I tell you why I think that is? Go for. Because I think they, I think the people who were, like, in charge of the scripts and stuff could watch a 30-minute episode of a cartoon. But then you asked them to read, like, four years worth of comic books. They were like, eh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because Bain did show up in the Batman the animated series, but his characterization was a little different.

So up next, we have the woman who almost married Batman not that long ago, Catwoman. There you go. Selina Kyle. Yeah. I mean, yeah, she's a cat burglar, basically. But she's, yeah, like an anti-hero. She's, you know, she's certainly been villainous in the past, but she has a conscience as well. So she's not altogether bad.

But I guess she's, you know, she's probably one of the most longstanding Batman villains. Oh, yeah, she's been around for a long time. Yeah. And like you say, she has more of a personal connection with Batman and Bruce as well. So I think that makes her pretty important in the grand scheme of things. I, you know, it's hard to rate her because, like I say, she isn't like an outright villain. There's been times, I guess, where didn't she, like, try and basically take over her, like, gangster father's criminal empire for a little bit and stuff like that? Yeah, yeah.

So, like, the most recent kind of stuff, because, you know, Catwoman is one of these characters. that has had a very long-running solo title. Probably one of the best comics, if you're ever going to dive into reading like Catwoman comics, Ed Brubaker and Darwin Cook, that run that they had together was amazing. And makes you respect the character of Slam Bradley,

the original lead role of Detective Comics, who Dylan has always been used by his name. Yeah. But no, Catwoman, there was recently a storyline called Gotham War in which Catwoman and Batman were having a philosophical crisis that was

also Bruce was getting manipulated by some psychological training that he was not underwear that he'd been put under but pretty much like what Catwoman was doing is she was taking people who were usually serving as henchmen to other big name mob families or super

criminals and teaching them like here is how you identify the right people to steal fraud And basically just kind of doing a Robin Hood thing, teaching people how to steal from the rich so that, you know, people who weren't going to miss the money that much. And then how to lay low afterwards so that they could like ease their way into a legitimate lifestyle whilst also not putting them back into the hands of criminals and henchmen as henchmen. Yeah. So like big debate there. And that was that was one of the more recent big catwoman storylines.

Hmm. Well, this is another tough one. I think if you're ranking them in terms of pure villainy, she wouldn't be that high up the list. But she's such an iconic character, and she has that personal connection with Batman. And she was played by Michelle Pfeiffer. So I'm going to put her in the eight here,

I'd say. Okay. Now, do you have any thoughts about Zoe Kravitz as her? Was it Zoe Kravitz? Yes. Yeah. She was fantastic as well. I thought that was a very true to form catwoman.

Yeah, yeah. Much truer than the Michelle Pfeiffer, but I mean, the Michelle Pfeiffer is, you asked Tim Burton to do a take on something. It's going to get a little kooky and a little supernatural. So I have absolutely no problem with Michelle Pfeiffer in the role, but Zoe Kravitz was like the more traditional comic version of Selena. including kind of being bisexual. It was very heavily implied that girl that she was taken care of

was like a girlfriend. Mm-hmm. All right. Next up is a mercenary. He is Deadshot, more famously known for being a member of the suicide squad anymore. Deadshot was introduced

as sort of an anti-batman for a while in that he was sort of a, yeah, sounds like you know, so by all means, take it away. am I right in saying he was basically dressed as like sort of a magician when he was first introduced like he was yes that was his original sort of gimmick that was the original look yeah and thankfully at some point he uh sort of upgraded his look to something that's a bit more threatening i guess but yeah like you say he's uh probably um more sort of connected to the suicide squad for most people than he is Batman these days. But he is another one I want to say who's sort of who has a conscience and isn't altogether bad as well. Like he's capable of doing some good stuff.

Yeah, the thing that Suicide Squad really did for Floyd Lawton was like very, I mean, the whole Gemic with Deadshot is he's always had a death wish. So his main concerns is taking care of his kid and just does not give a shit if he lives or dies. Yeah. And it's sort of what made him like the ideal member

of the suicide squad. Because it's like, well, I mean, he'll keep going on these dangerous missions if it means he can get out and see his kid, but he also doesn't seem to care if he dies or not. So I think he has been dead for, I think they just resurrected him. know he was dead for a while recently. Okay.

About four or five years. It's pretty long in comic book terms. Really? Anymore, yeah. So I'm thinking maybe C-tier. Okay. Throw a dead shot and C-tier. All right, not to be confused with Deadshot,

we have a character that we spoke about a good bit very recently. Deathstroke the Terminator. Mm-hmm. uh, Destric, usually more associated with the, with Dick Grayson and the team Titans more often than not. But, well, do you know about Destrick the Terminator? Um, pretty much he's like, what, like the premier sort of mercenry slash assassin in the DC universe. Yeah, he's, he's the A tier when it comes to assassins. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, does he have any powers or is he just like a normal guy who's just like a normal guy who's just really good at what he does. Normal guy, he's pretty good, he's really good at what he does. If you were ever going to read a death stroke, the Terminator run, Christopher Priest had a good run on a Deathstroke solo title during the initial rebirth. So it's all about death stroke and his terrible ass relationship he has with his children. Because he has three kids.

He had a son who died. who was the original ravager. He has another son named Jericho. And Jericho has power. So Jericho's ability is that he can possess people's bodies by looking into their eyes. Right. And then he has Rose, who is the current ravager. And she's much more of an anti-hero than her father for sure.

They kind of have that, kind of have that magneto dynamic with his kids that he has with Quicksilver and Wanda, where it's like, You can tell there is a level of love there. You just aren't sure, like, how far that goes. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I know the Destro comic was really a good introduction to the character if you're not familiar with why he is good at what he does and why he's kind of cool, but also a reminder of he's a very complicated person. And by compliment, it complicated, I mean, not a good person.

Well, I'm tempted to put him. quite high. Maybe you stick him in B tier again. Okay. Because again, I think he's someone who's not just a Batman villain. He kind of transcends Batman. Yes. He was one of, they had a big crossover event and he was the big bad of that big crossover event not that long ago. So up next, we have a, well, there's a version of him in the Marlowe. Marvel world that's a little more supernatural than this one, but we have Dr. Jonathan Crane the scarecrow. Nice. What's your familiar, isn't he?

Yes. Yeah. He basically developed fear toxin, which he uses on people to make them see their worst fears, and I guess then uses that distraction to steal stuff or do whatever villainous things he wants to do. Yeah, pretty much. So Dr. Jonathan Crane was a college professor. Grew up very poor, very tall and skinny. The scarecrow name came about because he always was wearing kind of tattered-looking clothes and the gaunt look to him just, again, made him look like a scarecrow.

And basically, the sphere toxin is all about power fantasy for him. It's something he can lord over people. Yeah. So, yeah, no. he was played by Killian Murphy in the Nolan movies he had small parts in all three

the rumor for the longest time was that if they made another 90s Batman movie he was going to be played by Jeff Goldblum Really? Wow I remember seeing that in magazines as a kid Huh And I'm trying to think of any other

I mean of course you know The most memorable Boss fight in in the Arkham Asylum game. Yeah. When you're wandering around trying not to get seen by him. Mm-hmm. He had a big crossover storyline called Fear State, where he basically took over an entire skyscraper that had been turned into an updated version of Arkham Asylum.

That was kind of cool. Cool. But yeah. Any thoughts on where you would want to put the Scarecrow? I mean, he is, oh. obviously one of the villains for Batman that like most people would recognize I think and that's got a score I'm pretty high I'd guess he might not be the most threatening to Batman physically but I mean I would say probably still stick him in

B tier okay we're gonna put him over into the B tier All right. Well, coming up is a character that you thought you were looking at earlier, but it is, in fact, Firefly. What do you know about Firefly? Well, I know for sure that he's a pyromaniac. And he also has, like, I guess, like a similar costume to Kill a Moth where he's got, like, wings and can fly about and stuff. I don't think he's been particularly successful in his criminal endeavors over the years. So I think that's probably going to count against him in this. Yeah. So, yeah, Firefly is Pyromaniac, as you mentioned.

He was supposed to be, he was played by Brendan Fraser in the unreleased backgirl movie that got scrapped after the Warner Brothers Discovery merger went through. Honestly, not a lot. People don't really do a lot with Firefly. So there's not really too much to him aside from that, except for about, I think, 90% of his body is burnt because of that obsession with fire. He's kind of like the trash can man from the stand.

If you're familiar with that book. I'm not familiar with the book, but I think I have watched the mini series. Yeah. Played by the great Matt Fruer. who we saw the Generation X movie. Indeed. There you go.

All right, so where would you put, Firefly? I mean, clearly he's a lower tier, villain. But I won't say he's as low as Killamoth. I will put him in the D tier. In D tier. Okay. I just noticed as well. Why does it go A, B, C, D, F?

I don't know why there's not, well, because like in, I don't know how your grade system work. This does not explain the S, I will tell you up front. But the way that grading is done here in our school system, it goes A, B, C, D, and F. We skip E for whatever reason. Hmm. I, that doesn't, if that doesn't encapsulate the American education system, I don't know what does. Blame Linda McMahon. So up next, we have the Mad Hatter.

What do you know about the Mad Hatter? Basically, he's obsessed with Alice in Wonderland, which is where he's got, you know, his name from and his look and his whole vibe. He's got a hat which can hypnotize people, am I right? insane? A little bit more than that. So, yes, he does have a hat that he does have that ability with. he also makes headware that has microchips in it that will brainwash people.

There's usually his modus operandi mind control devices that he hides in hats. Yeah, yeah. Which is a pretty weird gimmick, I'll be honest. Oh, yeah, yeah. So obsessed with fairy tales, mind control device, depending on who's writing, bad of a pedophile. Yep, depends on who's writing. Because sometimes, sometimes his little Alice is like a full-grown adult woman with blonde hair, like in the Batman, the animated series cartoon.

And in other instances, it's a child. So, you know, it's, there you go. Yikes. But it's old, old Jervish, Jervis Tetch is his name. That's certainly not a lot of evil. But yes, I'm obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. and mind control. Where did you play some?

I am thinking C tier because he's I mean, again, he's not like you know, one of the most famous that man villains or anything, but I think you know, I think he was in the Arkham games as well. Like, I think he's got, you know.

Yeah, he was in Arkham City. Yeah, yeah. He just played it apart in a recent Detective Comics storyline where Commissioner Gordon, or the former Commissioner Gordon, killed a man that he had been sleeping with a man's wife, and it was revealed that the reason he did it was because there was some mind control.

Matt Hatter mind control device in his glasses. Oh. Yes. All right. Well, next up is a character. I'm not sure how familiar you are with it, but it is Hush, Tommy Elliott. So we know about Hush.

childhood friend of Bruce Wayne. I believe he was quite jealous of Bruce and especially when Bruce's parents died and he basically inherited all that money and he kind of wanted the same. So I believe he murdered his parents by like tampering with the brakes of a car or something. And then basically, yeah, he grew up to become

become a master surgeon, figured out that Bruce was Batman, and then started, like, I guess, doing all these surgeries to kind of change his facial features to look like Bruce as well. Yeah. Yeah, that was a, I don't remember, I'm not sure how familiar you were the era where Bruce Wayne, like Batman died in DC Comics. It was gone for like a year. Yeah, I'm not super familiar with it. Okay. So that was that era of time where Grant Morrison was writing and Dick Grayson became Batman. Mm-hmm.

To keep up the facade that Batman was not dead, because that's part of what Dick Grayson was doing, they actually coerced Tommy Elliott to pose as Bruce Wayne because he had the plastic surgery to look like Bruce. Yeah. So, like, he was kept under, like, fucking lock and key, basically, like, you're getting what you want. You get to have all this money and get to have the facade of being, you know, this wealthy, famous Bruce Wayne, play that part. That's all we need you to do, but keep out of trouble. Did he keep out of trouble?

Probably not, no. So yeah, where would you put hush? Hmm. Well, I think, you know, he's had some significant moments because wasn't it sort of around his interest? that the Red Hood kind of popped up and it was you know it was revealed that what's his name the ship uh oh jason todd yeah he was back in the dc universe i think originally in that storyline it was clay-faced like playing jason todd but then like the timeline has been messed with so much i don't know if that's still canon or not. So, yeah, he did, he did pose as Jason Todd to fuck with him.

That's for sure. It was a very big fake out at the time. Mm-hmm. I'm torn between B and C. I think I might go see. C for Hush, okay. Yeah, I don't think he's done enough yet to get bumped up any higher. Okay.

So this is about the half-way. point. How are we doing on time right now? Oh, I think we're about 40 minutes in. Okay. So we're doing pretty good on time. So just do a real quick recap because we're about halfway through. So far we have no one S tier for you. In the A tier, we have Bain and Catwoman. In the B tier, we have Killer Croc, Razol,

Deathstroke the Terminator and Scarecrow. In C tier, we have the Mad Hatter, Deadshot, and Hush. In the D tier, we have Man Bat and Firefly. In all by as long as in the F tier, we have Killer Moth. Is there any changes you would like to make? No, not at the moment. Okay. All right, well, moving forward, I will say this is the beginning of the controversial ones.

Harley Quinn. I say controversial Harley is depicted more of a hero these days. Not necessarily an anti-hero, but just I'll write hero. Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, she did start

life as basically a joker, a fan girl, didn't she? Basically in love with him and willing to go along with his crimes and whatnot to please him. But it was a very abusive relationship. And I guess it was the realization of that, which, you know, inspired Harley to split from Joker and turn over a new leaf.

So, yeah, again, she's sort of in catwoman territory in terms of not an outright villain. Yeah. Yeah, that's what kind of puts her in that controversial area. Yeah. So Harley also. Sorry. Oh, no, I was just going to say, been a member of the suicide squad several times. Right now in a relationship with Poison Ivy, who's going to be coming up on the list later.

Mm-hmm. But you were saying. Yeah, she's had some super memorable appearances in, like, the movies and stuff with the well how what the hell have I forgot her name? Margot Robbie Margot Robbie yes yeah I think that's going to push her kind of high I'd say I'm putting

her in the B tier B tier okay and well probably the most iconic and the first ever Batman villain is we have the Joker so I could tell you what you know about the Joker but it's Joker but if you you want to hit the highlights by all means please do i mean the joker is the ying to batman's yang he's uh he's been around almost as long as batman has uh like we i guess we don't know his

origins for sure but if you want to believe the killing joke like batman played a part in the joker's origins when uh the original red hood fell into a very uh a very goodhood fell into a a that of chemicals or whatever, which bleached his skin and gave him his green hair and ricked a smile. But yeah, I mean, let's face it, villains don't come as iconic as the Joker. So, I mean, it's pretty clear where he's going in this list. Okay. Well, all means.

Top of the table. Top of the table. All right. Next up is character, I'm not sure how familiar you are with Dr. Hugo Strange. Yeah, he's another psychiatrist, I believe. But like a weirdly jacked psychiatrist. My psychiatrist would be incredibly thrilled with being referred to as that, by the way. Yeah.

I believe he is pretty intelligent as well. Didn't he work out that Bruce Wayne is Batman? He did. He's one of the first. In terms of memorable stories, though, I have no idea. I know it was like a big antagonist in the, I think, second Arkham game, Arkham City. Yeah.

There was a period of time where he took Batman, he took the Batman identity and was running around dressed as Batman as well. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, really, he had like at one point faked his own death and started to manipulate Bruce Wayne through like guilt and making him believe that he was hallucinating by seeing him and such. like if you know if if the joker is sort of like villainy through insanity then um hugo strange is sort of the opposite that way like he's incredibly he's insane obviously but he's also incredibly brilliant yeah so like his psychological warfare is a second to none you say that and it almost makes you feel guilty for saying i'm going to put him in the sea tier i i'll be honest you i don't think many

people will disagree with you yeah he's not a bad villain but like you know he's he yeah basically he's a guy a crazy guy with a weird Abraham Lincoln beard all right up next is one of the newer villains grew on here it's the picture just depicts one of them but i'm going to go with not only talon but uh the court of alas in total what do you know about the quarter of alas They are like a group of secret, like, millionaires or whatever, but basically all the wealthy families of Gotham who've been ruling Gotham behind the scenes for the last couple of centuries or whatever. And, yeah, they have, like, the court of owls, which is, I guess, like, they send people out to kind of do their bidding and, and, like manipulate situations so they keep getting richer and Gotham keeps, you know, chug along the way they want it to chug along.

Yeah. And then talon, I guess, is that sort of chief assassin type thing? Yeah. So there is many, many talons. They are kind of these undead, like fast healing assassins that are, you know, kind of kept in a state of suspended animation until needed. Mm-hmm. I know Dick Grayson was supposed to become one.

That he got picked as a kid to be turned into a talent, but obviously that did not happen when his parents died. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, where would you put the court? I mean, I think that whole first storyline was brilliantly done in the comics. I think I wouldn't be surprised if that's sort of adapted into the movies at some point

like it's sort of heavily rumored that they might be involved in like a future Batman movie so I would say they have made a pretty big impact in a pretty short amount of time so I'm going to put them in the B tier I reckon

okay Okay. All right. Up next, we have the penguin. Oswald. Yes. So how familiar you are with Oswald Cobbopat? Oh, well, I mean, who isn't familiar with Oswald Coplepot?

He is basically a gangster, but he also runs his own little club called the Iceberg Lounge. He has a fondness for top hats, monocles and umbrellas with deadly weapons inside. Played by Danny DeVito, obviously, in Batman Returns and Colin Farrell in the most recent Batman. And yeah, he is pretty iconic, I would say. The one aspect that the depictions of him in the movies have not really, like they flirted with it a little bit in Batman Returns is that Oswald Cobblepot, the Cobblots are old money in Gotham. Like very, very old money. Like the Cobbopats are tied to the court of owls. The problem is that Oswald fell off and like squandered the family fortune.

And he is, he is aware of the court's existence. and for the most part, they leave him alone and he does not breathe a word about them. Like, that is very well established on that end. And I know in the comics, he actually had his own solo title not that long ago. That was all about, like, pretty much he faked his death to fuck with Batman.

And it ended up, yeah, and it turned into a fucking to-do. Because, yeah, yeah, this was, Chip Zadarski's, Batman. run. I won't go on to it too long, but basically, are you familiar with the Batman of Zerun Ra? I think so, yeah, it's like the, like a different personality that Bruce, like, put inside himself. Yes. So he basically created this personality in his own psyche to prevent himself from being mind controlled. So if someone were to ever mind control him, Zerun Ra would kick in and be his own person.

Because Batman has contingency plan for everything, he created a contingency plan for Batman. And basically he told Zerunerah, hey, come up with a contingency plan in case I ever, like, go bad. And Zernra built a robot called Failsafe that knows everything that Batman knows and knows how to beat all of his friends. And it was a, it was a fucking to-do. Because Failsafe went online the second the news broke that Batman killed the penguin.

Yeah. So a lot of people hated the storyline. I actually, I enjoyed it for the most part. It did get real fucking weird, but so well. So where would you put Penguin? I, you know, for a guy who's basically just a short guy with an umbrella, I'm going to rank him in the S tier, I reckon. S tier, okay.

Yeah, he's right up there as one of the most iconic Batman villains. all right up next we have the eco-terrorist herself poison ivy what do you about poison ivy that is Pamela Isley who was like uh I guess like scientists to do with plants and stuff um and then as tends to be the case like some chemicals get mixed in there somehow and she's got all the powers of being able to like talk to the plants and control them and do stuff with them. Like I guess, you know, manipulating people like getting them to sort of fall under her thrall and fall in love with her. And yeah, yeah, so she's basically sort of like a I was going to say eco-terrorist

but is she really, would you really classify as a terrorist, I guess? I would. I mean, she is about like, a lot of her depictions have been about her destroying like kind of human

constructed, like she sees herself almost more plant than person. Yeah. And I remember, I remember they're in her. She has her own solo title. And as a lot of bad man villains do come to think of it. And in it, I remember there was a scene where she was basically attacking and killing vegans. And the vegans were like surprised that she was doing that with her whole thing is like, you're eating plants. Yeah. She's like, I'm a carnivore. You know, like I don't eat plants. That's me, you know. But yeah, no, she's the question, what does she eat? And if she's not eating people.

she right now she is very closely tied to swamp thing of all people because they have written into her character that she's now very very much tied to the green which is the elemental force of nature in the DC world I mean that makes sense yeah and also yes her she is toxic to other people and except for Harley Quinn who she gave an antidote to so that they could you know, not have to worry about accidentally killing each other. Ah, true love. Indeed.

So I'm going to rank Poison Ivy pretty high as well. I'm going to say she's A tier. A tier. Yeah. All right. Here's a character I'm not sure how familiar you are with. Professor Pig. Yeah, I mean, he's someone who I most,

know through the video games. But he, what is he like? I don't know if he is an opera singer or if he is just like a mad butcher who sings opera. But yeah, that's about it, really. So Professor Pig is considered one of the most dark and disturbing of Batman villains. He is a twisted surgeon obsessed with the myth of Pygmalion and notions of physical perfection. Due to this, he kidnaps Gotham citizens to horrifically transform them into his obedient Dallotrons. He's also the leader of the Circus of Strange, a syndicate of circus-themed metahuman freak criminals.

I mean, he is a pretty memorable-looking character, I guess. And he does have bags of weird personality. But, I mean, in terms of, like, big impact and stuff, I don't think. think he's going to rank that highly that's fair i think i might stick him in the d tier d tier yeah yeah all right coming up is another kind of an oddball the ventriloquist or your thoughts on the ventriloquist uh i mean it's kind of a genius gimmick like the sort of meek old guy with the angry or aggressive like 1920s style gangster puppet.

Yeah, I mean, again, this is not like, you know, a big level threat to Batman or anything. He's more of a, I guess, like a joke character, but he is quite memorable. I am thinking I don't, oh, let's just stick him in D as well. Okay. So here is the, I want to say the last of the kind of controversial ones. This is Jason Todd, the Red Hood. So when Jason was resurrected, he originally returned as the Red Hood, the original identity of the Joker, the man who killed him, and basically became kind of a Punisher anti-hero type. Not afraid to not afraid to kill if it meant, you know, taking bad people off the streets.

Often a right now he is friendly with the bat family. They are on good terms. But that's the problem with Jason and the rest of the family. They don't always stay on good terms. Yeah. Bit of an attitude problem. Yeah, I was going to say. Like, even as, you know, Robin back in the day, he was, he had a bit of an attitude problem as well,

which I guess didn't really endear himself to a lot of fans as well, which is probably why they voted for the Joker to kill him. True. Yeah, I mean, it's, his story is kind of one laced in tragedy and like, I guess there's the personal connection. with Batman as well, which, you know, that's, I guess, important. But then has he really gone up against Batman straight up? Like, has he, you know, I know they've had their clashes in terms of disagreements over methods and stuff. But like, it seems like Jason Todd mostly concentrates on taking out other. criminals in Gotham rather than

trying to take up the Batman himself Yeah originally Jason when Jason got brought back He had clashes with more so Nightwing and Robin than he did Bruce outright In night His clashes with night wing in particular

Were pretty rough He first introduced himself to Tim Drake by Breaking into Titans Tower and beating the shit out of him so yeah so he did not endear himself to tim drake at all at first uh but yeah no he um much more of an anti hero than he ever was a criminal and that's why kind of like i'm not really sure why when the person created this tier maker they put him on the list but he's there yeah i don't think he's you know uh well one i don't think he fits the mold of like an out-and-out villain anyway But in terms of Batman villains, I don't think he's high on that list either.

Where do I want to put him? It's either going to be C or D. Okay. I'm going to go D, I think. D, okay. Yeah. All right. Next up, he was born on a Monday,

Harrison on Tuesday. The rest of that rhyme, it's Solomon Grundy, the wevenant of, the DC Comics world been around since forever. He was the original Green Lanterns villain. But yes, the resurrected gangster out of Slaughter Swamp. Every time he dies, he comes back a little bit different.

It's a pretty cool gimmick. He's got that really cool look about him as well. And like you alluded to the rhyme. Am I right in saying that's basically the only thing he can say as well? sometimes so every time that Grundy dies and comes back he comes back different okay so there was a Justice League storyline where when Solomon Grundy came back he was actually incredibly intelligent and like he was a problem for the Justice League because it's like

wow not only is he super strong and indestructible but now he's also brilliant so it sort of like makes you long for the days when he was an idiot yeah yeah and he's like traditional pretty tough to beat as well. He's like a big strong dude. I am thinking maybe C tier.

Okay. Yeah, I don't think I'd go higher than that. All right. Next up, he is Edward Nigma the Ridler. What about the riddler? He really likes riddles. who'd have thunk it

truth yeah he's obviously a super smart guy another one who figured out Batman's identity as well I mean kind of depends on what continuity you want to look at

but he was like heavily involved in the Year Zero storyline where Gotham got flooded and like turned into a bit of a lawless city as well. Yeah, I mean, he's as far as Batman villain goes, he's pretty memorable to some good movie appearances. Well, I say good. Like, yeah. The Jim Carrey version was... I enjoyed it.

It was wacky. As you did expect, Jim Carrey. Yeah. An ode to Frank Gortion. Yeah, yeah. Whereas the Paul Dano version was a lot more sort of creepy, I guess. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would probably rank Ridler pretty high, actually.

Okay. A Ridler who, his episode from the Batman cartoon always stuck with me. The video is the video game one where he created that computer program about the labyrinth. And Batman had to work through like a real version of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, Ridler is somebody who is desperate to prove to the world just how smarty it is. Mm-hmm. I am thinking... He's going to go in the S tier as well. Okay.

All right. Next up, we have former district attorney Harvey Dent Two Face. Wow. This is going to be a tough one as well. Harvey obviously, like I say, was former district attorney until he had some acid thrown into his face and burned off half his skin and hair. and basically sent him on a downward spiral where his personality split in half. And he had the good Harvey side and then the bad two-faced side where he's, yeah, more of a criminal, I guess. And then his deal has always been the two-sided coin with the scarred side and the normal side.

flipping that to make his decisions. And yeah, like another one with sort of a close personal connection to Batman as well because of like being the DA and kind of they work together a little bit before his accident. Well, it wasn't an accident, but you know what I mean. So yeah, I think he's going to have ranked pretty high on this list. Okay. So I told you I've been reading the Two Face comic. They just had some pretty good reveals in it that basically they revealed the birth of the split personality. It basically when he was a kid, he was alone, so he had an imaginary friend.

And his mom, he had an abusive father. And his mom basically taught him like, hey, whenever you're feeling bad, took that bad feeling away somewhere else. so he would always in his mind give that bad feeling to his imaginary friend. So the two-faced side of him is basically this other being of him that has taken all of the pain and misery and suffering he's ever had in his entire life. And when Harvey got burned with the acid, it was enough trauma to allow him to manifest himself properly. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And the coin flipping compulsion comes from his father, who you,

used to basically flip a coin to decide whether or not he was going to beat his son. Oof, that's pretty dark. Yeah, the Two-Face Comics been pretty dark. But yeah, it almost makes the, it makes the scarred side of Harvey very sympathetic in that sense. Like, oh, yeah, you have just basically been the, you've carried the brunt of this guy's pain to misery's entire life. Yeah. No wonder you're still fucked up. Yeah.

Yeah, where would you put TwoFace? Yeah, I don't think he's going to rank pretty high. I will say 80. Okay. All right, we are two people left on the list. Our penultimate character is the black mask. How familiar are you with the black mask? I am aware that he exists.

Okay. Black Mask is an interesting character. He is a mob boss who had a fixation with masks and is a sadist who loves torturing people. The mask at one point was fused to him and he could not remove it. But yes, he very famously was the person who had before it was revealed to him in a fake out. he had killed Stephanie Brown, who was the fourth Robin, where he had basically tortured a death with a power drill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Black Mask is a pretty run-of-the-mill mob boss and sadist. Usually runs afoul with female characters more often than not, like Catwoman. He usually turns up as an enemy for her.

And I know he was played by Ewan McGregor in the Birds of Prey and the Emancipation of Harley Quinn movie. I had completely forgotten about that, but yes. I did too until so I was talking about Black Canary with someone recently and they went, oh yeah, that doesn't sound like how she's in the movie. I went, what movie? Yeah. Yeah, so I, you know, I don't think he is going to rank too high. I mean, he's just a regular guy and at least penguin being a regular guy or a regular mobster.

like he kind of makes it work, but Black Mask is a bit more forgettable, I'd say. So let's stick him in the seed here. Okay. And our very last person on the list, he is a serial killer. It is Mr. Zaz. So we know about Victor Zaz. Well, like you say, he's a serial killer, and he likes to I guess commemorate every kill by marking himself with a

knife or whatever and so yeah his entire body is littered with like you know the five slashes to indicate the people he's killed and going by that he's killed a lot of people he certainly has

not really much else you can add to Victor Zazz he's a clear-cut motivation. He likes to kill people. And he also likes to scar himself to commemorate each death. Yeah. So where would you like to put Mr. His ass?

I mean, he's, again, not that, like, impressive in the grand scheme of things, but he is sort of big enough that he keeps popping up, and other things as well.

So I think that works in his favor a little bit, but I'm going to say let's stick him in D tier. Okay. All right. So John, that is your full list. To do a quick recap, we'll go top to bottom. In your S tier, you have the Joker, the Penguin, and the Ridler. In your A tier, you have Bain, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Two-Face.

In your B tier, you have Killer Croc, Razal Ghul, Death Strip, The Terminator, Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, and the Court of Owls. In your C tier, you have the Matt Hatter, Deadshot, Hush, Dr. Strange, or Hugo Strange, because we say Dr. Strange, people are going to start thinking Marvel. Solomon Grundy and Black Mask. In your D tier, you have Manbat, Firefly, Professor Pig, the ventriloquist, the Red Hood, and Victor Zaz. and all alone in your F tier, you have killer moth. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with that. Okay. So what I'm going to do is next week, I'm going to run this whole thing with Dylan,

and what we will do is we will do a comparison and see where you and Dylan, where you match each other, where you have disputes. That may be its own episode probably won't be. Just be kind of fun to compare with you guys. Yeah, yeah. interested to see how Dylan would rank these guys. Well, in the meantime,

that is going to do us for our episode today. John, where are you at in your movie count? I am currently at 226 movies for the year so far. Jeez. It was your most recent. It was

the 2000s remake of My Bloody Valentine. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it was made during that phase where, like, 3D was coming back, and it was very egregious in its, you know, attempts to kind of make the most of that. But watching it in 2D, it just looks a bit weird. It looks bad. Yeah.

Have you ever seen the Friday of the 13th 3D movie? what the old the old school one from the 80s yes yeah yeah yeah it crushes the guy's head and like a spring loaded eye like just yeah yeah I imagine it was as agree just as that yeah so if John if they want to see your view of my bloody

Valentine where can they go to see more they just need to head to letterboxed and you can find me under Big John Bowsky, Owenwood. Dylan is not here to promote his stuff, but Dylan is a writer by trade. So if you are curious to see what his short stories are like, I believe his book is called the adventure, the world of Captain Explody. Is that right?

Something like that, yes. I've got it around here somewhere, but yes. Okay. If you go into Amazon and you put in Captain Exploity, I can't imagine you're going to turn up too many other options. But Dylan is very sharp, very creative, very funny. So I all need to check that out. The other thing I have going on is my other podcast, Largold Cup, which is spoken word podcast.

It's all about storytelling. My last episode, which is going to be like three weeks old by the time this one comes out. I was talking about the life of David Johansson, who recently passed away. John, did you ever watch Scrooge? Yes. Big fan of David Johansson in that movie. I'm not familiar with David Johansson. Oh.

He was the ghost of Christmas past. The cab driver. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Agra Falls, Frankie. Agra Falls. He was also the lead singer of the New York Dolls, which were sort of the proto-glam rock, proto-punk band of the 70s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Buster Pointexter, if you ever heard the song Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot, back in the early 90s. I probably did, but I can't remember it. You get a very, very varied life. Just all over the place, musically. But until next time, we will see you all later. We have exciting news about Japanese Spider-Man,

which, well, I mean, I'm just fucking psyched for it because somebody finally put it up. So hopefully the next time all three of us can come together, we can watch some Japanese Spider-Man. Yeah, definitely. me. Until then, we'll see you guys later. Goodbye. Bye-bye.