The Dark Knight Trilogy: The Rogues Gallery

Let’s face it: nobody really gives a damn about Batman.

Sure, he’s a great superhero. He’s got a cool costume, a good origin, and is the epitome of the badass normal vigilante. But he’s not the reason people read his comics. The reason people read Batman comics is because he has the best villains. Bar none.

Outside of Spider-Man and Dick Tracy, nobody in the history of comics has the sheer quantity of recurring rogues that Batman has. Spider-Man’s rogues gallery is vast, but there are a lot of them that are just plain duds. Dick Tracy has an array of enemies spanning back decades, but most of them wind up dead after their first appearance. Batman’s rogues, on the other hand, have been developed and fleshed out over the course of 70 years. You love to hate them. And, on occasion, you feel genuine pity for them.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the villains that showed up in the Dark Knight Trilogy and how they connect to their comic counterparts.

The Dark Knight Trilogy: Elemental Forces

The Dark Knight Trilogy is a big, epic set of movies with big, epic themes. For all the talk about them being darker and more realistic than your average superhero film, they actually have the same scope as a lot of epic fantasy tales, with battles between pure good and fell evil and the fate of an entire city in the balance. With such big action and high stakes, the films have some large themes and symbols behind them. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne crafts Batman as a symbol that is, “Something elemental, something terrifying.” Today we’re looking at some of that elemental imagery and how it runs throughout the films.

Crowning Moments of Awesome: The DCAU

When it comes to comic adaptations, the DC Animated Universe (DCAU) is pretty much the cream of the crop. Running for over a decade, the shared universe included Batman: the Animated Series, Superman: the Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, and various tie-in movies and comics. Each series was full of awesome moments.

A good number of the scenes below come from Justice League Unlimited, which is my favorite of the DCAU series, but that’s not intended as a slight to the other shows. Suffice it to say that most everything associated with the DCAU was awesome, and the shows generally got better as they went on.