Batman’s 7 Most Powerful Villains of All Time, Ranked

Batman has long been one of DC’s most important superheroes. He stands beside titans like Superman and Green Lantern, saving the day from every cosmic and demonic threat that it faces, and he does so without a single power to his name. Batman fights monsters that can level continents with nothing more than his grit, determination, and a not insignificant amount of bath-themed weapons. Yet, despite that, he’s just as respected as any of his godlike teammates. Batman is the ultimate proof that you don’t need to be super to be a hero. He goes above and beyond to prove it, especially when you consider who some of his villains are.

He might just be a man at the end of the day, but some of Batman’s villains are legitimate monsters. These superpowered beings and freaks could bring the entire world to its knees, but Batman always finds a way to stop them. Somehow. Today, we’re going to examine exactly which of Batman’s foes are the most absurdly powerful and rank them. While the Dark Knight is best known for fighting gangsters and clowns, he grapples with the impossible just as much. With all that said, let’s bite into some Batman villain dissections.

7) Clayface

Basil Karlo started as nothing more than a man with an extra malleable face, but eventually evolved to include the powers of everyone who bore his name. With a body made entirely out of clay, he’s able to twist into any shape or size. Clayface can perfectly impersonate anyone down to the DNA. Combine that with his acting talent, and he can be anyone at any time. Of course, his real strength is his near immortality. He can pull himself back together from any injury, and then just keep coming with giant hammers and sawblades. Clayface is impossible to put down for very long.

6) Solomon Grundy

Solomon Grundy is an immortal zombie with super strength. Even if he’s killed, he’ll simply regenerate and remerge from Slaughter Swamp sometime soon, making him truly impossible to get rid of. Unfortunately, his power levels are very inconsistent. Every time he’s revived, he returns with a random amount of strength, intelligence, and morality. Sometimes, he’s able to trade blows with powerhouses like Superman and the Green Lantern Alan Scott. Other times, Batman can beat him with his bare hands. Grundy is definitely a major threat, easily one of Batman’s physically strongest foes, but he’s far too inconsistent to get any higher on this list.

5) Gotham Girl

Much like her deceased brother, Gotham, Claire Clover can trade her life force for extreme strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, and heat vision. The more life she gives up, the stronger her powers. She once beat Captain Atom to a bloody pulp without breaking a sweat. When Gotham burned through his entire life, not even the combined might of the Justice League could hold him back. Gotham Girl’s only weakness was her limited lifespan, but even that was cured when Batman exposed her to Platinum Kryptonite, giving her the same lifespan as a Kryptonian. Considering they can live for thousands of years under a yellow sun, Gotham Girl has millennia of energy to burn through, making her a very scary threat.

4) Failsafe

Batman’s demented backup personality, Zur-En-Arrh, designed this robot to take down Batman if he ever broke his code. It possessed all of Batman’s knowledge and fighting skills, along with being equipped with special weapons to take down every member of the Justice League. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Zur-En-Arrh transferred his consciousness into Failsafe, meaning that the ultimate fighting machine had a version of Batman with none of Bruce’s humanity running the show. Failsafe took over Gotham and nearly helped Amanda Waller seize the entire world. He’s one robot that nobody should ever mess with if they want to see tomorrow.

3) Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy isn’t just a plant whisperer, but someone connected to the Green nearly as deeply as its avatar, Swamp Thing. She has total control over all plant life and can bend and evolve them to serve her bidding. She secretes pheromones that allow her to control anyone not inoculated. Once, she managed to take control of the entire world, even controlling heroes like Superman and the Flashes as her puppets. Poison Ivy can turn the very ground beneath people’s feet against them, and has grown her personal Eden more than once. Ivy is more than capable of taking over the world if left unchecked, and is definitely the most dangerous of Batman’s most-recurring roges.

2) Barbatos

The jump from third to second place is unfathomable, as while Ivy is a planetwide threat, Barbatos regularly destroys entire universes. He was created by the World Forger to destroy any worlds deemed too unstable to enter the Multiverse. Eventually, this dark god rebelled and killed the World Forger, taking his place and creating the Dark Multiverse, where all the unstable and evil worlds were born out of nightmares. Barbatos is nearly as powerful as beings like the Monitor and Anti-Monitor, meaning he is all but unstoppable. He can rewrite the world around him with his dark energy and is powerful enough to nearly destroy the entire multiverse. Barbatos is the dark shadow representing all of Batman’s faults, and he is very, very strong.

1) The Darkest Knight

Originally, the Batman Who Laughs was a Jokerized version of Batman from the Dark Multiverse. He was dangerous enough on his own, having killed his entire world, but he became one of the strongest beings in history when he stole the body of a Bruce Wayne who recreated Doctor Manhattan’s experiment. With these powers, he was able to warp all of space and time to fit his needs, but that wasn’t even his final form. He continued to garner more strength by absorbing all of the Justice League’s gathered Anti-Crisis energy, then killed Perpetua and absorbed her power himself, making him the strongest being in the multiverse. In that moment, the Darkest Knight had no limits and thus easily stands as the strongest Batman villain of all time.

Which of these overpowered Bat-villains is your favorite rogue, and which normal villain would you like to get a power boost? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts on the ComicBook Forum!

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