Kite Man
The Villain: One of the more spectacularly naff members of Gotham City’s rogues gallery, Kite Man uses a variety of kites to pull off his various criminal activities. Shamefully, the way Batman chooses to combat this menace is by bringing his own kite to the party. Oh dear…
Why He Won’t Appear: Bloody terrifying those kites, aren’t they? Er, no, they aren’t actually. Not even remotely.
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: In Nolan’s pitch-black vision of Gotham, Kite Man would be a hideous predator, using his array of brightly coloured kites to lure children into his sex-trafficking ring.
King Tut
The Villain: Created for the Adam West television series, King Tut was the alter-ego of the excellently-named Professor William Omaha McElroy, an Egyptologist who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Tutankhamun after receiving a nasty head injury.
Why He Won’t Appear: McElroy was a farcical character who would crop up every few episodes, having suffered ever more improbable accidents to have produced the transformative bump on the head. And every time, a repeat bump on the bonce would return him to his old self again. Treating schizophrenia? It’s easy when you know how.
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: As a mad Egyptologist, embittered by the Wayne Corporation’s decision not to award him a research grant.
Anarky
The Villain: An “anti-villain” created as an antidote to the camp excesses of antagonists from the early ‘80s, Anarky was an establishment-baiting terrorist, whose willingness to kill for his cause puts him at odds with the Bat.
Why He Won’t Appear: Because we’ve more or less seen the exact same character portrayed in V for Vendetta . Anarky is very much a poor man’s V in our book.
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: He’s certainly not the worst entry on this list, and we could see him fitting in with Nolan’s cloudy presentation of good and evil. However, as we say, his character is one that’s been done before elsewhere, and thus unlikely to feature.
Zebra-Man
The Villain: Jake Baker is a scientist whose machinery irradiated his body. These mad scientists…when will they learn?
Why He Won’t Appear: Well he looks ridiculous for a start, but even taking that out of consideration, the over-reaching scientist is still another villainous trope that’s been done to death elsewhere. We’ve already had Scarecrow for one…
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: We really, really don’t want him as one of the main villains, but if he had to crop up at all, he could maybe feature as one of the Arkham escapees from the Bane-centric Knightfall arc. Provided he loses the stripes…
Anthony Lupus
The Villain: No prizes for guessing what Mr. Lupus’ main feature is. That’s right, he’s a werewolf. Awooooooooooo!
Why He Won’t Appear: His storyline is a ridiculously convoluted slice of hokum, in which a mad doctor (yep, another one) turns him into a werewolf, and threatens to withhold the antidote unless he kills Batman. Nice and realistic then…
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: There’s a germ of a usable plot in there somewhere, with perhaps a more powerful antagonist (who do we know who’s locked up and bearing a grudge?) holding something over Lupus in order to use him against the Bat. He wouldn’t have to be a werewolf at all, just a desperate man with nothing to lose.
The Ten-Eyed Man
The Villain: Poor old Philip Reardon is a Vietnam Vet, sent home early after getting a grenade fragment between the eyes. Working as a warehouse guard back in Gotham, he gets ambushed by a group of thieves and knocked about a bit before mistaking Batman as one of his assailants. Then a bomb goes off, leaving him blind. Naturally he blames Batman, and with the help of a brilliant doctor, recovers his sight by connecting his optic nerves to his fingers. Yes, really.
Why He Won’t Appear: Can you really picture Batman’s arch-nemesis tottering around with his arms outstretched, bumping into things willy-nilly? It doesn’t really seem a fair fight, does it?
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: Dispense with the ten-eyed nonsense, and have him as a victim of a robbery that goes wrong after intervention from the Bat. A blinded war-vet would be yet another cross in the column marked, “Reasons for Gotham to hate Batman”.
Snowman
The Villain: Klaus Kristin is his real name, and he’s actually the hybrid son of a male yeti and a human woman. Not a happy home-life then, but on the plus side, he does have control over both ice and snow. Cool. So to speak…
Why He Won’t Appear: We already had Arnie as Mr. Freeze, and God knows that was enough for anyone.
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: Nolan could do an excellent, pun-free version of the tragic Mr. Freeze, but the Snowman is a different matter. Maybe re-writing him as a Russian henchman who’s impervious to cold could work, although even then, it sounds more Schumacher than Nolan.
The Ratcatcher
The Villain: Otis Flannegan is a gasmask-sporting former rat catcher turned petty crook. Kidnap and robbery are his main specialities. Nice fella.
Why He Won’t Feature: If the above makes him sound like the sort of unsavoury ne’er do well who could quite possibly feature in a Nolan film, we should probably mention his other key characteristic…he can communicate with rats, and have them do his bidding. Hmmm.
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: Ditch the vermin and stick with Flannegan as a low-rent crim, perhaps a lackey of a less ludicrous primary foe.
Maxie Zeus
The Villain: One of Arkham’s merry band of wackjobs, Maxie believes he is the Greek God Zeus. Hint: he isn’t.
Why He Won’t Feature: He’s not just a little bit unhinged like most of Batman’s foes, he’s a mental incompetent, plain and simple. That doesn’t leave you with many places to go as a screenwriter! Although he does boast the admirable aspiration to fertilize the world with his own excrement.
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: Perhaps he could become a stalker of Bruce Wayne, inadvertently uncovering his secret identity in the process. But will anyone listen to the ramblings of a madman when he tries to tell the world?
Signalman
The Villain: Phil Cobb is a failed mobster who now sets about tortuously trying to work out commonplace signs and signals into his crimes. Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth mate.
Why He Won’t Feature: The character was laughed out of town when he tried to become a mob boss, and now he’s mucking about with stop signs and the like? This man is worthy of your pity, not your fear!
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: Batman fails to reach a crime-scene on time thanks to that pesky Signalman swapping the road signs around. As a result he was unable to save his new girlfriend from a grisly death. Again.
Egghead
The Villain: A pun-loving egg-fetishist played by Vincent Price in the television series. An egg-cedingly odd fellow. Sorry.
Why He Won’t Appear: Seriously, was there any reason behind this character’s creation other than the manifold punning opportunities to be had from the word “egg”? An egg-scruciatingly poor villain. Sorry.
How Nolan Could Make Him Work: As a disgruntled employee of a food-production company, who takes his revenge on his bosses by contaminating a batch of eggs with poison. Can Batman find them all in time? No, we wouldn’t pay to watch this either.
