Jab’s Builds! (Whomp 'Em! Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! ToeJam & Earl!)

[kirinke]

It's comics and most comics were written by guys back then. Which means... They're idiots when it comes to the girls. Sorry, but considering the age in which they were originally written, it's true.

[Jack of Spades]

Damien has ruined Ra's and Talia for me.

Damien ruins everything for me. I just avoid anything he appears in. Which, with the spread of Bat-fungus, gets harder all the time.

[Skavenger]

Okay, people know that I have Strong Opinions (tm) about certain Batman characters. I could have gone on even longer about Harold, and crowed for ages about Riddler's time as a private detective. Surprising some people, however, might be the fact that I hate, hate, HATE what happened to Nyssa Raatko. She is, in my eyes, the Greatest Wasted Opportunity Ever that DC had.

She wasn't perfect, and there were some strange things going on when the book came out (Ra's al-Ghul was so sick he could barely stand, but over in Hush, which was coming out at the same time, he could do shirtless sword fights like nothing had happened), but it filled in so much about Ra's and his history, and answered the major question, "why did a 600 year old guy wait until 28 years ago to have a child?" Answer: he didn't. And, since all sequel villains need a slight upgrade, this other one had figured out how to use the same pit repeatedly.

So between her killing Talia over and over again to fully brainwash her into hating Ra's, her plan to murder Superman - which, to clarify, 0the act itself wasn't supposed to make her feel something. It was reaction the world would have to him being shot and killed, not dying in a massive battle against a bone monster in bike shorts, but in a simple assassination a'la JFK, that was supposed to be what triggered a reaction. "If the whole world wept, could I?" - even her confrontation with Bruce Wayne earlier in the series stems from the pure hatred she has of her father.

The book also might be responsible for that "WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?" moment in a certain movie, as I don't really remember there being much discussion about Batman's relationship with his mother before in comics; every previous story was about "Doctor Thomas Wayne" and whether or not he was a good man, or if Bruce was using his father's money well, or what kind of legacy was happening with ancient demons summoned by Thomas Jefferson and an ancestor on Thomas Wayne's side of the family (comics are weird, ya'll). But if you want a book where Martha slaps Bruce across the face and gets him to apologize for accusing her of being a hallucination, pick up the book. It's good stuff, and Martha takes no lip.

But what you had was the final death of Ra's al-Ghul (which, let's be honest, Batman had been building up to for some time now; since every Lazarus pit can only be used once, every time he came back was one less pit, and eventually you HAD to run out of pits), and his successor being someone every bit as clever as him, every bit as manipulative as him, and every bit as ruthless as him, but without any of the strange nobility he had in believing that what he was doing was "For The Greater Good" or hoping Batman would get over his qualms about murdering billions of people. Plus, you had a completely different relationship dynamic happening with Nyssa, Talia, and Batman than before, since Talia's loyalty was manufactured instead of genuine, and they could have gotten a LOT of use out of that for future stories.

But then she gets murdered via car bomb, off-panel, in Robin's solo title of all places...all so they can set up Cassandra Cain as the new "big bad" in charge of the League of Assassins.

What a damn waste.

[Jabroniville]

ATOMIC MAN (Paul Strobe)
Created By: Jack Miller & Sheldon Moldoff
First Appearance: Detective Comics #280 (June 1960)
Role: Jobber Villain
Group Affiliations: None
PL 6 (105)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 5
INTELLIGENCE 6 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+7)
Expertise (Criminal) 5 (+5)
Intimidation 5 (+5)
Perception 4 (+4)
Stealth 1 (+4)

Advantages:
Improved Smash, Ranged Attack 3

Powers:
"Matter-Transmuting Goggles" (Flaws: Easily Removable) [29]
Transform 8 (Anything to Anything Else) (Extras: Perception-Ranged) (48 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +4, Fortitude +5, Will +4

Complications:
Motivation (Revenge)- Strobe wishes to have revenge on Batman for having captured him in the past.
Power Loss (Goggles)- Strobe's goggles need to be recharged every two hours.

Total: Abilities: 52 / Skills: 20--10 / Advantages: 4 / Powers: 29 / Defenses: 10 (105)

-Another forgotten goof, the Atomic Man was an electrical engineer who later went to jail for crimes he'd committed, being captured by Batman. Upon his release, he started using special gadgets, wanting revenge on everyone who caught him. He had a device that allowed him to alter the molecular structure of anything he looked at, which is INSANELY powerful, but he was disarmed and captured by Batman once more. He did at least manage to turn the Batmobile into glass. The character has never appeared again, though has shown up in the backgrounds of some of the funny modern Bat-cartoons.

-The Atomic Man is such an idiot he built an ALCHEMY GUN and just used it to rob banks and fight Batman, but his device was powerful enough to one-shot the Batmobile with a transmutation effect. It was said to also be able to make a cruise ship "lighter than air", and turned a gun into paper (Improved Smash).

[kirinke]

With that kind of power, he could have been richer than Midas. All he had to do was turn things into gold, silver and precious gems.

[Skavenger]

With that kind of power, he could have been richer than Midas. All he had to do was turn things into gold, silver and precious gems.

Yeah, but you start flooding the market with gems and gold, eventually you're going to impact the value of it.

I wonder if anybody's ever done the math to determine how much gold would have to be introduced into a country's economy before you completely wreck it.

[kirinke]

If you were smart enough about it, you wouldn't have to worry. I mean, 1 gold bar is worth quite alot, make enough for a million dollars or so a year, and it won't be bad. Anyone could live quite comfortably on that.

[Jabroniville]

ORCA (Dr. Grace Balin)
Created By: Larry Hama & Scott McDaniel
First Appearance: Batman #579 (July 2000)
Role: Jobber Villain, Robin Hood Vigilante
Group Affiliations: None
PL 8 (114)
STRENGTH 8 STAMINA 6 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 5
INTELLIGENCE 5 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Athletics 2 (+10)
Expertise (Science) 9 (+14) -- Flaws: Limited to Marine Biology
Intimidation 5 (+7)
Perception 6 (+8)
Stealth 1 (+4)

Advantages:
Fast Grab, Favored Environment (Underwater), Move-By Action

Powers:
"Echolocation & Vision" Senses 6 (Extended, Ultra & Accurate Hearing, Extended & Low-Light Vision) [6]

"Sea Creature"
Swimming 4 (16 mph) [4]
Immunity 2 (Drowning, Suffocation) (Flaws: Limited to Half-Effect) [1]
Immunity 2 (Pressure, Cold) [2]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +6, Fortitude +8, Will +6

Complications:
Motivation (Funding)- Orca literally robs from the rich with the intention of giving the proceeds to the poor.
Relationship (Husband)- Grace is married.

Total: Abilities: 78 / Skills: 23--10 / Advantages: 3 / Powers: 13 / Defenses: 10 (114)

-One of the more stand-out weird recurring characters of the early 2000s was a muscular, chesty anthropomorphic killer whale named Orca, appearing repeatedly as a background villain in Scott McDaniel's work. A character so visually keyed-in to McDaniel's particular cartoony style of motion & defined shading, I wouldn't be surprised if she was a Sketchpad Character the popular artist pushed onto the book. I mean... Batman doesn't normally fight characters like THIS, you know?

-In any case, Orca is Dr. Grace Balin, a marine biologist at Gotham Aquarium who had spent much of her time helping the homeless and underprivileged children. Paralyzed in an accident, the now wheelchair-bound biologist finds that the Aquarium is soon doomed to be shut down due to lack of funding. Desperate, she researches spinal cord tissue regeneration using spinal tissue from orcas. And being unaware of comic book origin tropes, she is immediately transformed into an orca-woman. She robs from the rich to give to the poor, acting as a "Robin Hood" character who steals from a particularly douchey rich man, which requires Batman to use his particular take on justice in attempting to reason with her. She attempts to sell the man back his diamond, but when he realizes she's the original thief, his men shoot her. Bleeding out, she tells Batman the only thing that can save her is the rest of the formula that transformed her, stating that this will make the change permanent. Batman does so, even though she argues he'd be responsible for anyone she killed- he says his job is to save everyone.

-Orca disappeared from the book after that, but reappears during Last Laugh and One Year Later... where she turns up dead, having been shot by Harvey Dent's gun, along with several other super-villains. These all turn out to have been orchestrated by the Great White Shark in his attempts at becoming the new top boss in town. Orca reappears many years later in "Rebirth", which is a fresh continuity. A second one named Dean Toye also shows up, dealing with "Aquaman Stuff". It's possible one writer forgot there already was one, or that she'd come back. All in all, I thought the character looked cool, but she was obviously short-lived.

-Orca is a pretty basic PL 8, and still vulnerable to being shot to death (I mean, it literally happens twice). However, as a super-strong character with aquatic powers, she's a pretty big annoyance to Batman, whose normal human anatomy is not designed to handle an underwater battle. He has to use submersible gear and a riding harness to even stand a chance.

[greycrusader]

Orca just popped up again recently in the new Nightwing book and also in the debut of the King Shark miniseries.

She's totally derivative of the Lizard AND Man-Bat (the earlier Batman-related Curt Connors rip-off), but there's something fun about the character.

All my best.

[Jabroniville]

THE TRIGGER TWINS (Tom & Tad Trigger)
Created By: Chuck Dixon & Graham Nolan
First Appearance: Detective Comics #667 (Oct. 1993)
Role: Jobber Villain
Group Affiliations: None

-The Trigger Twins share a name with characters from All-Star Western in 1951. They first meet when they decide, separately, to rob the same bank at the same time, and find that they look exactly alike. Later, they rob a mafia boss, but he's so impressed by their skills that he talks the "Twins" into working for him. Later, they are captured by Azrael, but are freed by a woman who cons them into thinking she's their long-lost sister. In a 1997 Robin annual, Robin teams with some Western-themed heroes to beat them. They join the Secret Society during Infinite Crisis, but are shot and killed by Vigilante and Wild Dog during the Battle of Metropolis.

[Jabroniville]

MADAME ZODIAC (Marissa)
Created By: Bob Rozakis & Don Heck
First Appearance: Batman Family #17 (May 1978)
Role: Criminal Fortune Teller
Group Affiliations: None

-Madame Zodiac appeared in the late 1970s, helping out fellow female villains Catwoman & Poison Ivy escape from Batgirl & the Earth-Two Huntress, then Batwoman got involved and captured Zodiac... however, the villainess was like "PSYCHE!" and disappeared with a valuable item from a museum, to everyone's surprise. She next appeared using the Pentagon's geometrical shape to enhance her own powers- Batgirls stopped her by knocking down some walls, neutralizing her. Later, she experimented with dark magic that split her personality in two- one evil and one good. She released a guy named Doctor Zodiac from prison, the two becoming lovers and vexing Batman & Superman- she captured Batman, but Superman & Dr. Zodiac teamed up to let her good side out once more- the two merged. It's unknown what became of her- she has never appeared Post-Crisis.

[Jabroniville]

TWO-FACE (Harvey Dent)- Golden Age
Created By: Bob Kane & Bill Finger
First Appearance: Detective Comics #66 (Aug. 1942)
Role: Friend-Turned-Foe, Obsessive Madman
Mental Problems: Split Personality Disorder, Anger Issues
PL 8 (132)
STRENGTH 3 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 9 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+8)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+11)
Deception 8 (+12)
Expertise (Criminal) 9 (+13)
Expertise (District Attorney) 9 (+13)
Insight 2 (+6)
Intimidation 6 (+10)
Investigation 4 (+8)
Perception 3 (+7)
Stealth 2 (+6)

Advantages:
All-Out Attack, Benefit 2 (Wealth), Daze (Intimidation), Equipment 5 (Advanced Tommy Gun +5, Car), Fast Grab, Improved Aim, Improved Critical (Tommy Gun), Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Hold, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 6, Startle, Taunt

Equipment:
"Tommy Gun" Blast 6 (Extras: Multiattack) (18)

Offense:
Unarmed +11 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Tommy Gun +10 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +4

Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +4, Fortitude +7, Will +7

Complications:
Responsibility (Split Personality Disorder)
Responsibility (MUST Go With the Coin)- Two-Face makes all of his decisions based off of the coin- he is compelled to follow the choice the coin presents.
Enemy (Batman)
Motivation (Justice)- Despite his insanity and criminal ways, Harvey Dent is a just man underneath it all.

Total: Abilities: 72 / Skills: 50--25 / Advantages: 19 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 17 (132)

-Two-Face has since become part of the "Trinity" of elite Batman foes- it's The Joker, The Penguin & Two-Face- though Harvey can be sometimes diminished or missing from other franchises, owing to his deformed appearance. Resembling a Dick Tracy villain more than just about anybody else in Batman's Rogues Gallery, he's also a more personal enemy at times, because as Harvey Dent, he was an ally of justice, and close friend to both Commissioner Gordon & Bruce Wayne.

-He debuts in the early Golden Age- a young District Attorney maimed by a mobster, who throws acid in his face. Driven insane by his own reflection, Dent becomes "Two-Face", deciding to either commit crimes or perform acts of charity depending on the flip of a coin. Batman & Robin capture him, and he's rehabilitated thanks to plastic surgery- something that's recurred in many later stories. And as would be cliche, Dent would become re-disfigured and go on crime sprees again. Writer Les Daniels wrote that the early Two-Face was "the most deadly serious of Batman's foes. Two-Face seemed to disturb even his creators, who cured him through plastic surgery at the end of his third appearance in 1943". Many of the Golden Age "Two-Face" stories are actually under a SUCCESSOR.

-The Golden Age Two-Face is a basic "Dick Tracy Foe"- an ingenious, dangerous criminal with a tommy gun and PL 8 status.

[catsi563]

I found a more modern take on 2 face intresting in that Harvey had a budding disassociative identity crisis where big harv was the tough personality that harvey wished he could be. when the acid was thrown or the building exploded maiming and disfiguring him the pain brought big harv to the fore and thus 2 face was born

[Davies]

In his first few appearances, Two Face was given the civilian name "Harvey Kent", and cured of his injuries and manias fairly easily after about a year. He reappeared as "Harvey Dent" in 1948, but didn't become Two-Face again until 1954.

[Jabroniville]

TWO-FACE (Harvey Dent)- Modern
Created By: Bob Kane & Bill Finger
First Appearance: Detective Comics #66 (Aug. 1942)
Role: Friend-Turned-Foe, Obsessive Madman
Mental Problems: Split Personality Disorder, Anger Issues
PL 10 (139)
STRENGTH 3 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 11 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+8)
Deception 8 (+12)
Expertise (Criminal) 9 (+13)
Expertise (District Attorney) 9 (+13)
Insight 2 (+6)
Intimidation 6 (+10)
Investigation 4 (+8)
Perception 3 (+7)
Ranged Attack (Guns) 4 (+14)
Stealth 2 (+6)

Advantages:
All-Out Attack, Benefit 2 (Wealth), Daze (Intimidation), Equipment 5 (Advanced Tommy Gun +5, Car), Fast Grab, Improved Aim, Improved Critical (Tommy Gun), Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Hold, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 6, Startle, Taunt

Equipment:
"Tommy Gun" Blast 6 (Extras: Multiattack) (18)

Offense:
Unarmed +11 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Tommy Gun +14 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +4

Defenses:
Dodge +13 (DC 23), Parry +12 (DC 22), Toughness +4, Fortitude +7, Will +7

Complications:
Responsibility (Split Personality Disorder)
Responsibility (MUST Go With the Coin)- Two-Face makes all of his decisions based off of the coin- he is compelled to follow the choice the coin presents.
Enemy (Batman)
Motivation (Justice)- Despite his insanity and criminal ways, Harvey Dent is a just man underneath it all.

Total: Abilities: 76 / Skills: 52--26 / Advantages: 19 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 18 (139)

Two-Face- The Most Personal Batman Enemy:
-The Post-Crisis Two-Face has received a couple of origin stories, but quickly returned after the Crisis. His dissociative identity disorder is now said to have been the result of beatings from his mentally ill, alcoholic father- he develops issues with free will, and has to make all of his decisions via the flip of a coin. He is revealed to have been the one who killed the parents of Jason Todd, not Killer Croc, as well. His origin is retold in Batman: The Long Halloween- a masterpiece by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale, who detail the meteoric rise of Dent as Gotham's youngest-ever DA, and his attempts at cleaning up the city, forming a triumvirate with Commissioner Gordon and Batman. His struggles against the untouchable Carmine Falcone are told, and he's possibly the most willing of the three men to go outside the lines. Even so, Batman repeatedly says "I BELIEVE in Harvey Dent".

-But ultimately, most of the major mobsters in Gotham are killed by the mysterious "Holiday", Harvey barely sees his lovely, fragile-looking wife Gilda, and the remaining mob guys conspire against him. We're left with the strong impression that Dent himself murdered Falcone's son, but in the end, Dent is maimed by mob guy Sal Maroni on the stand. This breaks Harvey's mind, and he becomes the lethal Two-Face- he executes Falcone & Maroni, and leads the other Batman Rogues after he breaks them out of Arkham Asylum, but he is ultimately defeated, having permanently given Gotham over to "The Freaks" instead of the old mob families. At the end of the tale, the characters still don't know the identity of Holiday, but Gilda Dent, having been protective of her dear Harvey, narrates the reasoning for her crimes herself.

The Two Two-Face Stories:
-The main issue with Two-Face is often that his Origin Story is the best PART of the character- the real sense of tragedy and grief is so potent, especially as various forms of the story emphasize how much Dent means to Bruce Wayne in particular- Batman: The Animated Series shows Harvey as a recurring character in the early days, and he's Bruce's close personal friend. The Dark Knight film details Batman's echoing his Long Halloween sentiments of believing dearly that Harvey is the true person who can save Gotham. Both emphasize how grim and tragic it is that he's lost to Gotham's "Freaks"- he represents the darkness of Batman's failures, and those noir-style "Bad Endings" that the franchise often leans on.

-The problem is what you do AFTERWARDS. Most of the Two-Face stories I've seen outside of his origins are just... Generic Crime-Boss stories. As a physically normal man who uses guns instead of gadgets, he's the most "old school" of the Bat-Rogues, and so a lot of his stuff is just heists. In No Man's Land, he gets a bit more characterization- he's one of the central figures in a post-quake Gotham, and is implied to have finally gotten rid of the coin to make his decisions, choosing to spare Batman at one point, all of his own volition. He makes an uneasy alliance with Gordon to control parts of Gotham territory, but later puts him on trial for that very illegal act- a clever Gordon, facing Two-Face as judge & prosecutor, demands HARVEY DENT as his defense attorney, leading to a scene in which Dent himself cross-examines Two-Face, and wins acquittal for Gordon. Now THIS is the kind of stuff later Two-Face stories can do well. Play up how crazy he is, but also how there is a good man trapped in there somewhere.

-During No Man's Land, he also teams up with Det. Renee Montoya, and falls in love with her when she is kind to him and reaches the Dent persona. However, this quickly turns dark- he blackmails her, frames her for murder, and tries to ruin her life by revealing her secrets to the world, all in an attempt to get her to give up on that life and stay with him underground. She points out how one of those secrets is that SHE IS A LESBIAN, but he appears to not even comprehend how that matters. He appears calm yet terrifyingly-casual and delusional, but you're just waiting for the moment when he snaps, and BOOM- "HARVEY'S NOT HERE ANYMORE!" and it's a fight over a gun- Batman ultimately grabs the gun so neither can kill the other, and Dent is arrested again- Montoya's job is saved, but she's been outed.

Later Two-Face Stories:
-One later story sees that Dent has kept his abusive father in an expensive house, refusing to let him live in a slum despite their past... but captures him and humiliates him on live television, planning to kill him. "Two-Face" rips into Dent as being spineless, but Harvey chooses to commit suicide to prove him wrong and stop another crime spree. Two-Face sees the coin come up scarred, but abides by the decision and jumps- Batman saves him, but the shock temporarily "kills" the Two-Face side of Dent's personality. He later confronts his ex-wife Gilda, who has remarried to Paul Janus (a reference to the Roman god of doors- the two-faced Janus)- he frames Janus, but is undone. Later, Gilda of course gives birth to twins- Two-Face kidnaps them as he thinks they were conceived using an experimental fertility drug, but the end of the story reveals that he is the twins' natural father.

-In Hush, Dent receives plastic surgery again, "eradicating" Two-Face once more, but becomes a murderous vigilante, seemingly killing Hush. He protects Gotham in One Year Later while Batman is away, Batman having trained him personally. This seems INSANE, but it goes well enough until Batman's return- Dent feels unnecessary and unappreciated. The villains KGBeast, Magpie, Ventriloquist and Scarface, and Orca are all killed via twin shots to the head by a double-barrelled pistol- the implication is he's killed them himself. Batman later realizes Dent was framed by the crime-boss Great White Shark, but Dent cracks under the pressure of Batman's doubt and questioning, and deliberately scars half his face with nitric acid and a scalpel, becoming Two-Face once more. Batman defeats him, but the villain escapes- Batman later darkly tells Great White that he's going to inform Two-Face of the mob boss's culpability in his downfall next time they meet. He appears in a few more stories, but as a more minor character in them.

Two-Face's Abilities:
-So Two-Face is dangerous, but not overwhelmingly so. In a straight-up fight, it's no contest between him & Batman- he's PL 10 with a gun and PL 7 melee, so it's a TOTAL pushover, but he's not much of a threat one-on-one. Though he's incredibly dangerous to anyone else. It's more about the planning and the Goons with him, as Batman can disarm him and beat him rather handily at times. Dent's a big, strong guy, and when he gets going (All-Out Attack, Power Attack) he's a bit of a threat. The secret also is to screw up his coin, because it nearly always creates some psychological mess for the poor guy.