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Most people know that Bruce Wayne became Batman after watching his parents get murdered in Crime Alley. Having been scarred as a child, he grew up to become an emblem of terror, targeting the criminals of Gotham. As he figured it, criminals were a superstitious and cowardly lot. Thus, he embodied fear, weaponizing it in his war on crime.
However, Batman is not nearly as scary as many of the villains he fights against. And while the Dark Knight is willing to embrace fear as a tool, many of his most heinous enemies flat-out revel in it, delighting as they spread terror and suffering.
10 Scarecrow Studies & Spreads Fear
There is no better way to begin than with the Scarecrow, one of Batman’s greatest foes… and a man who has dedicated his life to the study of fear. He also synthesized a special fear toxin that he uses to induce extreme fear in others.
He has terrorized Gotham for years and modified the fear toxin in many different ways, creating different effects, from panic attacks to full sensory hallucination. Recently, Scarecrow began pushing all of Gotham to the brink of collapse, creating a Fear State.
9 Talons Serve The Court Of Owls As Undying Assassins
The Talons are people recruited by the secretive Court of Owls to be their assassins, given superhuman strength and made impossible to kill after being alchemically altered with the metal electrum. The metal will rejuvenate their bodies, even as it preserves them from decay.
Talons have one purpose: to kill on behalf of the Court of Owls. They are precise, deadly, and uncompromising. When not killing, they are kept in a coma-like state and housed in coffins. As such, they make the most of spreading terror and torment when let out to play.
8 Killer Croc Cannibalizes His Victims
Killer Croc is one of those characters who have undergone some dramatically different depictions over the years. A scaly sharp-toothed man with incredible muscles, he is often depicted as little more than a violent thug with a skin condition and love of water. Other times, he is more beast than man, a crocodile-like biped with a ferocious appetite.
Whatever the case, Croc loves to indulge his appetites, whether that means giving into his temper and tearing people to crimson shreds, or sating his more literal hunger by devouring their flesh.
7 Victor Zsasz Is A Serial Killer With Masochistic Compulsions
Victor Zsasz kills people. Murder is the single act that fulfills him and gives him a sense of purpose. And every time he kills, he cuts himself with a tally mark. As such, his body is entirely covered in scars.
This compulsion to kill and to mutilate makes him a bloody butcher. He has butchered whole families, including children, and has absolutely no regrets about this.
6 Deacon Blackfire Is A Machiavellian Cult Leader
Not many people know who Deacon Blackfire is. He was the main antagonist in Batman: The Cult by Jim Starlin and Berni Wrightson, where he was the charismatic leader of the titular cult in question, inspiring them to commit horrid acts of violence.
Blackfire tortured Batman until the Dark Knight’s mind broke. The Deacon was eventually killed, but he later returned as a ghost, continuing to terrorize people even beyond the grave.
5 Ra’s Al Ghul Cannot Die But Will Happily End The World
Ra’s al Ghul is the League of Assassins’ leader and is arguably the Dark Knight’s greatest foe. He is not some reckless psychopath or bloodthirsty brute. Rather, he is a calculating visionary committed to saving the world and preserving his own legacy, no matter how much blood must be shed to achieve this.
Ra’s’ League of Assassins has killed uncounted numbers of people. He has engineered biological weapons, satellites weapons, and even defeated the Justice League by harnessing a signal that overrode the brain’s language centers. But he has done this to support his vision for a better world. When killing thousands, he smiles, cool and confident, not because of the death, but because it might lead to the birth of something better.
4 Black Mask Is A Sadistic Psychopath Trapped Within His Mask
Few villains are as sadistic as Black Mask. This crime lord delights in torture and slaughter. He is every bit as violent as the Joker, and arguably just as crazy.
Few things bring Black Mask as much happiness as breaking and personally torturing someone until they break. He will use everything, from blades to cayenne pepper. The mask he wears has been fused to his face, but what’s really scary about Black Mask is the twisted nature of the mind at work beneath the mask.
3 Clayface Lost His Body & Mind When He Became A Shapeless Horror
Clayface is as much a tragic character as he is a true villain. The transformation that gave him his clay-like shapeshifting powers also altered the shape of his brain, denying him the ability to even think like a human anymore.
When he becomes monstrous, it is the most instinctual thing in the world for him to lie, break things, and hurt people. He spreads himself out in a swathe of mud and blood, rampaging through downtown Gotham.
2 Joker Thinks Life Is A Joke & Death Is The Ultimately Punchline
The Joker is usually considered Batman’s greatest villain (though as has been said, this has been debated). The Clown Prince of Crime does not value life. To him, one death or a thousand are equally funny, so long as the execution of the joke delivers its intended effect.
There is no way to know how many people Joker has killed. He’s turned the Justice League against Batman, murdered Jason Todd, paralyzed Barbara Gordon, and used Batman’s own arsenal to terrorize Gotham. Of course, to him, it’s just a big joke. To all of his critics, Joker has one simple question: “why so serious?”
1 The Batman Who Laughs Is A Jokerized Batman
The DC Multiverse has many different universes, including an entire Dark Multiverse. The Batman Who Laughs is a version of Bruce Wayne who became infected by a special strain of the Joker Toxin that transformed him into a twisted version of the Clown Prince.
He is every bit as smart, calculating, and powerful as the main Batman, but with the Joker’s sociopathic sense of cunning and delight in inflicting horror. In fact, the Batman Who Laughs once destroyed the multiverse just for fun. It was eventually restored through the magic of comics, but it is absolutely terrifying to consider what he is capable of.
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