POISON IVY
Poison Ivy, one of Batman’s most beloved antagonists would open up opportunities to explore a complex and layered female character. Poison Ivy is unique in her motivations because unlike many she isn’t simply searching for money or power, she is fighting to protect the environment.
Dr. Pamela Isley’s tale is a tragic one. She was experimented on against her will by her professor which transformed her into a metahuman. She nearly dies twice in the aftermath and is driven insane. The experimentation also leaves Isley infertile with Isley treating her plants as her children after her transformation.
All of this happens before Isley moves to Gotham, becomes Poison Ivy, and begins her eco-terrorism and criminal schemes. The exploration of unlawful experimentation, possibly harassment with the professor shown seducing Isley in the comic Secret Origins #36, and eco-terrorism makes this story ripe for further exploration. Poison Ivy is lauded as a feminist, an environmentalist, and a beloved LGBTQ character by many fans and depending on the story is either portrayed as a villain or an anti-hero. Exploring how this unique rogue came to be would be a perfect opportunity to dive into an interesting and sympathetic villain.
VENTRILOQUIST
Once again a Batman villain who suffers from mental illness. The first Ventriloquist, aka Arnold Wesker, suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. As Arnold he is timid and meek, while Scarface, his ventriloquist dummy with the appearance and personality of a 1920s gangster is brash, tactical, and cruel. Arnold and Scar Face have had more than one origin story. Including, Arnold being born into a powerful crime family and seeing his mother assassinated with his only outlet being ventriloquism which led to his D.I.D.
In another, Arnold kills someone in a bar brawl and is subsequently sent to Blackgate Penitentiary where his cellmate Donnegan introduces him to “Woody” a ventriloquist dummy created from the remains of the former Blackgate Gallows. The dummy convinces Arnold to murder Donnegan and escape, which leaves the dummy scarred and is the birth of Scarface. Scarface is in total control ordering Arnold around, as well as degrading him with verbal and physical abuse. The Dissociative Identity Disorder and the trauma that lead to it is definitely worth exploring and the fact that the film would show the origins of Arnold and his relationship with Scarface would be fascinating to see, especially with Scarface slowly taking control over Arnold.
BANE
Bane is one of Batman’s most dangerous foes and for good reason, given the fact that he is famous for breaking the Caped Crusader’s back. Bane’s backstory is an interesting one with Bane taking his father’s place in prison as a child to serve out his father’s life sentence. A Bane origin film would need to be set primarily in prison with the character growing up and being educated in the corrupt prison with many different people teaching him.
In time Bane uses his brilliance, strength, and experience to become the “King” of the prison he has spent his life in, but is subjected to horrifying experiments with the mysterious drug Venom. Bane is forever changed by Venom after nearly being killed by the experiments. He discovers the drug enhances his strength if he takes it every twelve hours to avoid horrible side effects. Although to take it Bane needs to pump the drug directly into his brain using a system of tubes attached to him. Bane is able to eventually escape prison and sets his sights on Gotham and Batman.
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This unique and horrifying origin would be a fantastic opportunity to dive deeper into the humanity of one of Batman’s strongest adversaries and explore the failures of a corrupt government and prison system. The innocence lost by an innocent tossed into the prison system and turned into the very criminal that people expect would add a layer of honesty and realism to this famed comic book character that is worth exploring.
SCARECROW
The Scarecrow, aka Jonathan Crane, is fascinating because of his obsession with fear. Crane has various backstories over the years, but he always suffers abuse by his peers and either his grandmother or father, which leads to his obsession with fear and control. He becomes a psychologist and professor, but is fired for a phobia based experiment during a class and turns to criminality. Crane is also often shown as a psychologist at Arkham Asylum where he experiments on his patients using his infamous fear toxin.
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His deranged fascination with fear makes him a truly terrifying and intriguing villain. Scarecrow, like Two Face, would be an opportunity to further flesh out Gotham without the Bat Family being the focal point. Instead focusing on how Crane became obsessed with fear as well as his experiments with the infamous fear toxin in Arkham Asylum. And with numerous backstories there is the opportunity to choose either a single version or pieces of many. This would be a perfect opportunity to not only explore the mind of a deranged scientist, but dive into the horror genre in a fantastically horrifying way.
Batman has an endless supply of villains from his appearances in comics, film, television both animated and live-action, and video games. The mythology of Gotham and Batman is largely built on these characters and solo film would be the perfect opportunity to truly dig into how these characters became who we love…and love to hate.
Villains are endlessly fascinating from the exploration of the darker side of humanity to the question of how someone becomes evil. Are they born bad or do they become the villain of the story because of actions, either their own or others around them? Joker dove into this for Batman’s most infamous enemy and Disney followed suit with one of their most despicable villains in Cruella.
If the pattern continues, and based on the success of these types of stories it should, comics offer a wide array of opportunities to truly explore how these iconic villains came to be while also diving into the reality of the world that could create someone like them with trauma, untreated mental illness, and violence all combined into the perfect storm for a villain to be born.
Which Batman villains do you want to see get their own solo films? Do you want to see Batman’s rogues gallery explored and build out individually? Leave your thoughts in the comments below or on our social media.
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