DC Kills Off One of Batman’s Weirdest Villains

In Catwoman #50, most of the headlines have centered around the death of Valmont, Catwoman’s most recent love interest, and her subsequent arrest for his murder. But the issue also saw the death of one of Batman’s rogues, whose death kicked off the sequence of events leading to the end of Valmont. That villain? Amygdala, who has been a periodic presence in the comics and on TV over the last 30 years or so. In the issue, a brawl was happening between Selina, Batman, Valmont, Amygdala, Punchline and the Royal Flush Gang. Valmont started to escape, only for Valmont to murder him in cold blood.

Amygdala is a super-strong and mentally unstable villain. Prone to fits of violent rage, an Arkham doctor removed the amygdala in his brain in the hopes of calming him. It had the opposite effect and has lessened his mental capacity and made him completely unable to control his emotional reactions; he is also now prone to violent outbursts at the slightest provocation.

Helzinger is not intentionally evil, and tends to be simple-minded and good-natured, but his savagery makes him dangerous. Amygdala was created by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, first appearing in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #3 and shortly thereafter had one of his most memorable storylines, “Knightfall.”

The upcoming story for Catwoman will center on her trying to figure out her next step forward as she has to forgive herself and move on from causing the death of Valmont. Given the fact that Valmont had just killed Amygdala, though, and appeared to be in position to kill Batman, it’s likely the trial itself will end in acquittal. It’s hard to argue that when you’re saving a superhero from a supervillain there isn’t an element of self-defense involved.

Even though he has not been around long, or had a huge role in the comics, the character of Amygdala appeared on the second season of Gotham (played by Stink Fisher) and the second season of Batwoman (R. J. Fetherstonhaugh).

This story, paired with the recent death of Manchester Black in the Superman titles, feels like a resurgence of an old storytelling trope, where in order to show how badass your villain is, you have them take out a previous villain who posed a significant threat to the hero in their own story. Of course, that’s arguably not really applicable to Amygdala and Valmont, since Valmont’s character did not benefit much from the “boost.”