Batman's Only Dope Because of His Villains

Batman has the most notorious Rogues Gallery in all of comics. Not a single hero, not even Marvel's Spider-Man, can put a comparable group of villains together and hold a light to the baddies the Caped Crusader bumps into time and time again. In fact, the Dark Knight's Rogues Gallery is so grandiose, it's likely one of the only things keeping ol' Bruce Wayne from being one of the most vanilla characters you can read.

They say money can't buy you happiness, but Bruce Wayne has proven for the past 80-some years that it can buy you an illustrious career of knee-capping career criminals while living some faux superhero creed. It's a story we've seen done ad nauseam and it's beyond worn thin. Luckily he has the perfect group of rogues to save him from despair, ensuring he's a character worth following with each passing issue.

First off, you have a character like The Joker, the most popular villain sequential storytelling has ever revealed. Throughout the years, fans of Batman have seen many iterations of the character and virtually always, the Clown Prince of Crime has been more interesting that the hero he tries to thwart. Deeply troubled and Batman's antithesis, the simple existence of The Joker proves that the vigilante's recurring nemeses are far more interesting than himself. And we're just getting started.

There is the Clown Prince of Crime, but then comes Bane, Clayface, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Ra's al Ghul, The Riddler, and Two-Face. Each with just as interesting—or far more interesting—of a story and life than Bruce Wayne. And that's only the half of it. We still haven't gotten to Killer Croc, the Mad Hatter, Man-Bat, The Penguin, Scarecrow, Deathstroke, and any of the countless other characters that have come toe-to-toe with the character.

Batman's the closest thing to vanilla ice cream comics has. He sells well because it's a safe bet, and you know what you're getting. Sprinkle in some Joker-fied Heath candy bits or Bane-infused M&M's, however, and you have a dynamite sundae that sets the character far beyond the rest of the field. Batman may be rich and flashy and have cool toys, but he's nothing without his villains.

The Batman will be released in theaters on March 4th.