7 Batman Characters Improved by The Animated Series

For many fans, Batman: The Animated Series is the definitive take on the Dark Knight. Right from the jump, the beloved ’90s series set itself apart from other cartoons of the era by delivering intelligent, complex stories that didn’t talk down to kids. Not only is The Animated Series considered the definitive take on Batman, but most of his friends and foes as well, thanks to creators Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. The pair worked together to redefine the Caped Crusader’s supporting cast for a new generation of fans. Dini and Timm’s interpretations of these characters were so successful that they even carried over into other media, like comics and live-action movies.

But Batman: The Animated Series didn’t just redefine several key Batman characters — for some, it was more like a rescue. A number of the show’s most endearing characters were being underused or downright wasted in the comics before Paul Dini and Bruce Timm plucked them from relative obscurity and recognized their true potential. Here’s a list of seven Batman characters that were made even better by Batman: The Animated Series.

1) Clock King

Clock King started life as William Tockman, a typically goofy Silver Age villain with a gimmick — in this case, clocks. Tockman was just a regular guy who dressed in a ridiculous — even by comic book standards — blue and yellow costume adorned with clock faces.

Batman: The Animated Series reimagined the villain as Temple Fugate — a man obsessed with the idea of time itself. This new iteration of Clock King wore a suit and bowler hat — his only timepiece-inspired gear being a pair of clockface glasses and a sword shaped like the long hand of a clock. Fugate wasn’t just a better dresser than his comic book counterpart, however. He also memorized Batman’s fighting style to the point where he could time all of the Dark Knight’s moves down to the second. This ability made Fugate a surprisingly formidable foe, one of the few capable of besting the Caped Crusader in hand-to-hand combat.

2) Poison Ivy

It’s not that pre-Animated Series Poison Ivy was a bad character; she just wasn’t anything to write home about. That is, until Paul Dini and Bruce Timm arrived on the scene. The dynamic duo not only upgraded Ivy’s arsenal, giving her a wicked wrist-mounted repeating crossbow, but also her choice in companions.

That’s right, Batman: The Animated Series was the first time Poison Ivy teamed up with fellow Gotham Siren Harley Quinn, a pairing that proved to be a match made in heaven. These days, the two characters are inseparable — you really can’t have one without the other — and it’s all thanks to Paul Dini. Though Ivy was never romantically linked to Quinn during the series’ original run, Dini wrote the pair with such a natural chemistry that they were all but destined to become more than simply partners in crime.

3) Harvey Bullock

While most of the characters improved by Batman: The Animated Series were villains, the show had a positive effect on some of Batman’s allies as well — even though calling Harvey Bullock an ally might be a bit of a stretch. While the somewhat oafish Bullock often butted heads with the Caped Crusader and was a bit too fond of donuts, he was overall a good, well-intentioned cop that Commissioner Gordon trusted implicitly.

By contrast, comic book Bullock was a dirty cop who frequently took bribes, smoked, and drank to excess. Given a choice between the two, we’ll take the brutish pastry-eater over the corrupt drunkard any day.

4) Clayface

Clayface has a convoluted comic book past. Before Batman: The Animated Series even aired, there were already four different Clayfaces in the DC Universe. Basil Karlo, an actor turned serial killer; Matt Hagen, a treasure hunter with shapeshifting powers; Preston Payne, whose corrosive skin turns anyone he touches into a puddle of goo; and Sondra Fuller, AKA Lady Clay, who possesses Hagen’s shapeshifting powers.

When it came time for Paul Dini and Bruce Timm to come up with a version of Clayface for Batman: The Animated Series, they wisely decided to cherry-pick the best aspects of the multiple comic book Clayfaces to build something uniquely their own. The result was Matt Hagen, a former actor whose body becomes a mass of malleable clay thanks to an overdose of the toxic skin care product Renuyu. Equal parts tragic and terrifying, this version of Clayface quickly became the definitive version for most Batman fans.

5) The Joker

Two words: Mark Hamill. With all respect to Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson, Batman: The Animated Series gave us the definitive Joker, voiced to perfection by Luke Skywalker himself. Goofy one second, downright terrifying the next, Hamill’s Joker was all of the jokers that came before him in print and on screen distilled into one perfect interpretation of the character.

Of course, we also need to give credit to Paul Dini’s brilliant writing. Hamill’s portrayal might be 90% of what makes BTAS’s Joker work so well, but without Dini’s writing to shape Mark’s portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime, you’re liable to end up with something like 2016’s abysmal Batman: The Killing Joke.

6) Harvey Dent/Two-Face

Two-Face was always one of Batman’s most tragic foes, but Batman: The Animated Series cranked that tragedy up to eleven. Harvey Dent had previously been depicted as an occasional ally of Batman before the horrible accident that turned him into Two-Face, but it was Dini and Timm who had the brilliant idea to make Harvey Dent Bruce Wayne’s best friend. The duo even went out of their way to showcase this friendship several times before introducing Two-Face to better emphasize how devastated Bruce is by Harvey’s transformation.

Sadly, all of the pathos Batman: The Animated Series gave Two-Face was stripped away in 1995 when Batman Forever reduced the character to a one-dimensional joke.

7) Mister Freeze

Nobody benefited from a Batman: The Animated Series glow-up more than Mister Freeze. Dini and Timm took a one-note villain and gave him depth and a backstory so compelling it earned an Emmy. Freeze was originally just a cold-based villain who committed mostly ice-themed crimes, in other words, another gimmicky Silver Age rogue.

Batman: The Animated Series turned Mr. Freeze into a reluctant villain, committing crimes solely to fund his attempts to find a cure for his cryogenically frozen wife’s terminal illness. Despite being a 2-D medium, The Animated Series made Freeze a three-dimensional character for the first time, influencing the way he would be portrayed in the comics and on screen forever after.

What do you think, are these characters better off in their Batman: The Animated Series iterations, or do you prefer their original incarnations? Let us know in the comments.

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