“Batman: The Animated Series” is beloved for how accurately it adapted the “Batman” comics. Many consider the series to be the definitive depiction of Gotham City. Yet “Batman” also colored in the margins, where the creators left their own thumbprints.
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The series didn’t only adapt existing Batman comics and characters. The “Batman” team also introduced a handful of original characters, spicing up the stories they could tell. Some of these original characters were such successes that the comics started adapting them from the show.
Take Gotham police officer Renee Montoya, one of Commissioner Gordon’s (Bob Hastings) inner circle. Or Nora Fries, terminally ill wife of the villainous Mr. Freeze. Nora’s admittedly more of a plot device, but her presence casts a cloud over Freeze and is the foundation of his brilliant recharacterization.
Some of the other original characters were more sinister. The many illustrious villains of “Batman: The Animated Series” weren’t only classics like Two-Face (Richard Moll) and the Riddler (John Glover). But whether they began on comic pages or cartoon frames, criminals in Gotham City are still a superstitious and cowardly lot, no match for the Batman.
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5. The Condiment King
“Make ‘Em Laugh” is one of the weakest Joker episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series.” However, it does include one unforgettable gag — a walking gag named the Condiment King (Stuart Pankin).
The stakes of this episode are pretty low — the Joker (Mark Hamill) is mad about not winning a stand-up comedy contest. Instead of just murdering the judges, he brainwashes them (courtesy of mind control tech bummed off the Mad Hatter), turning them into deliberately lame costumed criminals: Pack Rat, Mighty Mom, and the Condiment King.
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Real name Buddy Standler, the Condiment King feels like the winner of a contest to make the worst super-villain ever. His gimmick is onenote and completely devoid of any menace. He wields two guns: one shoots ketchup and one blasts mustard. His outfit’s trunks are literal tighty-whitey underpants. He speaks in terrible puns that grind even the Dark Knight’s gears. But while he’s obviously no match for Batman, the joke of his character landed with the audience. The Condiment King has shown up in DC Comics (with his real name retconned into another awful pun: Mitchell Mayo). Current Batman actor Robert Pattinson also wants the Condiment King in a DC movie — why not?
4. Roxy Rocket
“Batman: The Animated Series” co-creator Bruce Timm has said he thinks the Dark Knight needs more female villains. Hence, several of the original villains on “Batman” were women: the terrorist Red Claw (Kate Mulgrew), the vengeful fashion model Calendar Girl (Sela Ward), unaging child actress Baby Doll (Alison LaPlaca), etc.
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One of the most memorable of these girl baddies is Roxanne Sutton/Roxy Rocket (Charity James). A former stuntwoman, Roxy decided staged adventures weren’t enough of an adrenaline rush for her. So, she turned to crime, riding around Gotham City in a custom rocket booster and bomber pilot outfit. Roxy first appeared in the series’ tie-in comic, specifically the first three pages of “The Batman Adventures Annual” #1.
But Timm and writer Paul Dini liked the character enough to reuse her, including an actual episode of “New Batman Adventures.” In “The Ultimate Thrill” (written by Hilary J. Bader), Roxy dashes across Gotham on a crime spree. She falls for Batman because he’s the only man who can keep up with her. (Timm called “The Ultimate Thrill” the most “blatantly risque” episode of “Batman: The Animated Series.”)
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Miss Rocket then turned up in “Superman” episode “Knight Time,” running afoul of the Man of Steel. Dini reused Roxy during his “Detective Comics” run in the 2000s, and for a “Justice League Action” episode, “The Fatal Fare.” (That time, Roxy was voiced by Gillian Jacobs.)
3. Roland Daggett
“Batman: The Animated Series” owed much inspiration to the contemporary Tim Burton “Batman” films. 1992’s utterly wild “Batman Returns” featured three villains: not only the Penguin (Danny DeVito) and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), but also corrupt businessman Max Shreck (Christopher Walken).
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Shreck didn’t make the jump to “Batman: The Animated Series,” but the show featured a similar character named Roland Daggett (voiced by the legend Ed Asner). Daggett first appears in “Feat of Clay,” when his company is producing the beauty cream Renuyu — an overdose turns Matt Hagen (Ron Perlman) into the shapeshifting Clayface. The show then brought Daggett back three times for whenever it needed a businessman villain. In “Appointment in Crime Alley,” Daggett is trying to bomb the titular slum so he can buy up and redevelop the land on the cheap.
Daggett is one of the least colorful, but most callous, villains in the series. Unlike the Joker and co. Daggett also usually escapes justice. He hasn’t made the jump into the comics, but he should because he fills an empty niche in Batman’s rogues gallery for a Lex Luthor type villain. Bruce Wayne may use his wealth responsibly and charitably, but there’s a lot more Roland Daggetts out there than there are Bruce Waynes.
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2. The Phantasm
Just as “Batman: The Animated Series” is the best serialized Batman cartoon, the spin-off picture “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” is the best animated Batman movie. In the film, another shadowy vigilante appears in Gotham City: the titular Phantasm (Stacy Keach). Batman can look like the Grim Reaper in the right light, but the Phantasm embraces that theme even moreso. Their costume has a skull mask and scythe-like arm blade, because unlike the Dark Knight, Gotham’s Angel of Death has no qualms about murder.
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The Phantasm is out to kill prominent criminals in Gotham, from washed-up mobsters to the Joker himself. Batman pieces together this mystery, which turns out to be tied to Bruce Wayne’s own past. Beneath her mask, the Phantasm is Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany), Bruce’s ex-girlfriend and the woman who could’ve saved him from his dark destiny. Her father Carl (Keach) got in debt to the mob, forcing them to flee Gotham together. But it did little good, and Andrea is out to avenge her father’s death just as Bruce is his.
“Mask of the Phantasm” pulls from 1987 comic “Batman: Year Two” (by writer Mike W. Barr and artist Alan Davis & Todd McFarlane) where Batman fought the Reaper, a lethal sword-wielding vigilante. The Reaper was really Judson Caspian, father of Bruce Wayne’s then-girlfriend Rachel. “Phantasm” inverts that and creates a more powerful story. In fact, these days, the Phantasm is a more famous Batman villain than the Reaper. Tom King and Clay Mann’s 2021 “Batman/Catwoman” mini-series even brought Andrea over into DC comics — something many Batman fans had waited 20 years to happen.
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1. Harley Quinn
Were you expecting anyone else? The triumphs of “Batman: The Animated Series” are many. But if the series’ legacy is going to be singled out into one thing, it’s either got to be (a). Introducing Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker or (b). Introducing Harley Quinn, the Joker’s therapist turned moll.
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Debuting as a side character in “Joker’s Favor,” Paul Dini wrote in Harley with his friend, the late Arleen Sorkin, in mind. (Sorkin had just worn a jester costume on a “Days Of Our Lives” episode.) Sorkin put so much of (her own) personality in Harley’s giddy character, and her striking harlequin costume made Miss Quinn surprisingly unforgettable. The fans loved her, and the writers kept using her. She went from background comic relief to dedicated spotlight episodes, like “Harlequinade,” “Harley & Ivy,” and “Harley’s Holiday.” Her origin was told in a triple-length one-shot comic (written by Dini, drawn by Timm): “Mad Love,” which was eventually animated into an episode.
Harley Quinn is an icon all by herself at this point, so beloved she’s not even much of a villain anymore. Few Batman villains can boast getting their own movie and TV series, but Harley Quinn sure can. Harley is so prolific that it’s hard to believe she’s only been around since 1992. Looking back now, those 50+ Harley-less years for both Batman and the Joker feel like something is missing.
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