Batwoman Finale Confirms a Bizarre Batman Villain Exists in the Arrowverse
Season 3 of Batwoman is officially in the books, after the hit The CW series delivered episodes chock-full of surprising plotlines, epic fight scenes, and DC Comics references. Across the season, the fight for Ryan Wilder / Batwoman (Javicia Leslie) and the Bat-Team shifted to rescuing the various "trophies" of Batman villains, allowing for some unexpected DC references along the way. That proved to be the case even within the series' latest finale, with a direct name-drop to one of the weirdest characters in Batman's rogues gallery. Spoilers for the Season 3 finale of Batwoman, "We Having Fun Yet?", below! Only look if you want to know!
The episode saw Ryan and the Bat-Team working to stop Marquis Jet / The Joker (Nick Creegan) from dropping an acid bomb onto Gotham City via Bat-Blimp, something that would need to require convincing the public of Gotham to ignore his messages. The team considered various ways to briefly mind-control the city via a hack to the airwaves, and debated which Bat trophy to utilize in the ordeal. Among the number of items listed was "Condiment King's gun" — providing the first indication that the obscure and rather odd DC villain exists in the Arrowverse.
Created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini for Batman: The Animated Series, Condiment King (as his name suggests) utilizes various food toppings to control other people and commit crimes, and sometimes even cause anaphylactic shock. While the character is usually seen as a punchline within most of DC canon, he has proved to be formidable in certain instances. Some have also been curious to see if and how Condiment King could translate into live-action, with some wondering why he didn't appear in the roster of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad last year.
"Here's the difference. Polka-Dot Man was a sincere character. Somebody was writing Polka-Dot Man and they're like, 'This is a new Batman villain that we're creating named Polka-Dot Man,'" Gunn explained in an interview last year. "He was sincerely created. Condiment King is a joke, they created him as a joke. Like, 'Oh, here's a stupid character.' I don't care about Condiment King."
"Polka-Dot Man, he is what he is in the movie: he went and he got his suit made and he's like, 'I'm gonna be a superhero named Polka-Dot Man!,'" Gunn continued. "That's how he started out, he thought this was cool. 'Nobody's Polka-Dot Guy yet. I'm gonna be that guy.' Then he goes out and people are like, 'You look like an idiot! It's embarrassing.' But nobody's gonna do that with Condiment King."
At the moment, Batwoman has not been renewed for a fourth season, so it remains to be seen if Condiment King's role in the universe could extend beyond that. Still, the character's acknowledgement within the live-action franchise is definitely a clever and specific one.
What do you think of Condiment King being name-dropped on Batwoman? Share your thoughts with us in the commentss below!