about_faces | The Twelve Days of Who's Who! Part Three: from Dr. Moon to Joker, Joker, Joker! (1985-1989) (Reply)

I talked about Dr. Moon during my review of Batman: Two-Face Strikes Twice!, and his bio here just reinforces my affection for this creepy little sadist. I get the impression that whoever wrote the bio likes him too, because Moon's quotes dominate his own profile. Really, how could anyone not love (to hate) him after reading his philosophy about medical science? You can totally understand his logic! His glorious mad scientist logic! Oh Dr. Moon, come back to us. I know you died in Manhunter, but I'm sure that Kate's scalpel-to-the-throat attack wasn't fatal! You probably performed impromptu surgery right there, and possibly even stitched Phobia's head onto your body while you were at it, because her body was right there doing nothing and even as you're dying, damn it, you're a pioneer! Oh wait, Phobia wasn't killed in that battle? Well, minor details are for minor men.

It occurs to me that Dr. Phosphorus was one of the first villains to set the template for the revised origins and motivations of the villains in Batman: The Animated Series. There are several instances where the villains are out to get revenge against the corrupt businessmen, mobsters, politicians, and other everyday jerks who purposely or accidentally helped create the "monsters." What made these victims into villains themselves was that they didn't care who got hurt or killed during their revenge. Poison Ivy had Harvey Dent, Mister Freeze had Ferris Boyle, Two-Face had Rupert Thorne, Clayface had Roland Daggett, Calendar Girl had the fashion industry, etc.

Dr. Phosphorus here blazed a radioactive trail thanks to his creation by the original comics' version of Rupert Thorne, a Boss Tweed-style corrupt politician. What's more, his legacy seems to have influences the creation of similar characters such as the Corrosive Man and Blight from Batman Beyond. But a character in his own right, Phosphorus' finest appearances had to be in the pages of James Robinson's Starman. Sure, the character bore little resemblance in terms of personality, but since Dr. Phosphorus' personality was generally "RRARGH KILL THORNE DESTROY THE CITY HAHAHA" before, the upgrade he got was welcome and refreshing. Also, as far as flaming radioactive monster men went, he was pretty damn stylish.

File under "villains we'll never see again for obvious reasons." Awesome Sienkiewicz art, but that's a given.

Sheesh, what possessed Gardner Fox to try a Yellow Peril Fu Manchu knockoff even as late as 1966, and why the hell did Tzin-Tzin continue to show up throughout the 70's?! Oh wait, I remember: that was the era of Black Spider and "super-flies," gotcha. But even here, in the 80's, Tzin-Tzin is drawn with long claws and pointy ears, but is still given no actual in-story reason to sport any of those features! There's really no excuse by this point. It occurs to me that Ra's al Ghul was the Fu Manchu knockoff (mastermind villain with funky facial hair and a world-spanning empire) who actually stuck! I guess the key was making him nebulously Arabic rather than an Asian caricature stereotype.

As for Dr. Tzin-Tzin, information about him is incredibly scant, but I think he died in the 1988 Peacemaker mini-series, which seems to be a spin-off of the original Checkmate ongoing series, which itself was a spin-off of Vigilante, which no one seems to remember in the first place! Speaking of which:

I think the Electrocutioner, like the Punisher, might best qualify as an antivillain. Just as an antihero can still be a protagonist who moves a story along even while doing morally and ethically questionable things, the antivillain is someone who's trying to serve heroic ideals through irreconcilably villainous means, and thus they need a heroic force to oppose them. They cannot be heroes, nor even antiheroes, if they're willing to cross those particular lines. That's why the Punisher sucks as the star of his own book, generally speaking. As Chuck Dixon once noted, he's a villain, and even a villain protagonist still needs his own Denis Neyland Smith to oppose him.

My point is that the Electrocutioner was thankfully killed off right around the time that some writer could have easily tried turning him into an antihero. Of course, the ironic thing is that the person who killed him was the Vigilante, who WAS one of DC's answers to the Punisher, a leading character who ALSO had a tendency to slaughter criminals who evaded justice. Has anybody read the whole run of Vigilante? I own most of it, and I *want* to like it since it's about a vigilante District Attorney who has Harvey Bullock as a supporting character, but I just... can't... care. Because he's a villain, and what's more, he's a humorless, cold-hearted dick with absolutely no worth as a character. His suicide in the final issue was both ingloriously ugly and yet strangely befitting of the character.

That said, the series features two recurring villains who are a functional and supportive gay couple, so that's still pretty awesome.

Fay Gunn. Say it aloud if you don't get it yet. Yeah, that's cute.

Even though Jason Todd has received a massive boost in popularity and status among creators and fandom alike (especially fandom), virtually no mention is ever made of Jason's brief enrollment in "Ma" Gunn's school of crime kids. To Batman's credit, this shows that he didn't immediately go, "Hey, a black-haired young boy who looks just like Dick at that age! I MUST TAKE HIM BACK HOME AND DRESS HIM UP." the way most Jason backstories petty much seem to do. No, originally, he actually did try to give Jason a better life on his own.

Unfortunately, he sent the boy into the welcoming arms of Faye Gunn, who seemed like a sweet old lady until she revealed her evilness by--gasp!--lighting up a cigar! Okay, and commanding her school of kids to kill Jason was also pretty evil, but I still love the "cigar means bad!" visual cue. While Fay Gunn was too one-note to ever appear again, other Fagin-style villains have subsequently appeared in the pages of Brubaker's Catwoman, as well as the Sewer King from Batman: The Animated Series. Just goes to show that you can't keep an idea down, good or otherwise.

Can you believe that it's the second guy who went on to become the established villain who carries on to this day? No, I can't either. Thing is, Firebug seems like the more interesting character, with an origin steeped in misfortune, tragedy, and insanity. He's also one of the few African-American villains, although it's hard to tell that from his image there. Plus, his costume is silly by today's standards, but it's positively badass compared to whatever the hell Firefly is wearing.

Somewhere along the way, somebody (Chuck Dixon, I think) decided to make Firefly the one with the more intimidating costume, ditching the Crazy Quilt style light-based attacks to entirely co-opt Firebug's arsonist gimmick, only without the interesting origin. Instead, he's like a pyromaniac version of Mysterio, which should tell you everything you need to know right there. But unlike Firefly, even a loser like Mysterio has been in the occasional brilliant story, so while a good writer could potentially do something great with Garfield, it ain't happened yet.

As for Firebug, well, Chuck Dixon--the only writer to do a halfway-decent job writing Firefly--turned Firebug into an overweight loser who was beaten disgraced by Firefly. Firebug subsequently quit the villain business and sold his suit to a prospective Firebug II, the consequences of which played out in Gotham Central. So while Firebug had an incredibly sad backstory and went out in disgrace, at least he's alive and safe in comic limbo rather than getting killed off like so many other obscure villains here. I like to imagine he's settled down somewhere and found some measure of happiness. He's much better off.

surrealname--regular around these parts, Joker afficianto, and living embodiment of Guy Gardner--has often sung to me the praises of Marshall Rogers' Joker, whom he refers to as "Butt-Chin Joker." Really, when it comes to Pre-Crisis Joker, nobody's take is better than Rogers. Even now, his is still in the top, like, two, if not number one. That said, this isn't my favorite piece by Rogers. Between this and his art for Clayface and Deadshot's bios, he wasn't doing his best work. Thankfully, before he passed away, he produced Batman: Dark Detective, and all was well with the world again for a time. Even still, this is Marshall Rogers drawing the Joker, and that is never, ever, ever a bad thing.

For a very brief period, Kyle Baker became THE Joker artist. His Joker appeared on the covers of graphic novels and short story collections, plus one of his portraits has appeared on tons of merchandise, occasionally still popping up today. All of these Baker pieces are from my personal favorite era of his work (circa The Shadow/Justice, Inc, both written by Andrew Helfer, which doesn't hurt my enjoyment of those series), before Baker discovered computer coloring and effects. He's still brilliant, but in different ways, and I miss his straight pen-and-ink work like the above. As far as Jokers go, his stands apart from the usual lanky guys, giving him an almost zoot-suit style width. It's not a take I'd like to see made the standard, but I love how Baker pulls it off.

Kevin Magure. Joker. Top that off with the Jack Nicholson movie pants, and you have a piece of pure happy-making that I so wish were published in less crappy quality, but that's 1989 DC production values for you. I just don't know why they bothered screwing with his name logo, since it suited the others just fine. If I'm nit-picking, it's because that's all there is left to do when faced with Magure drawing the Joker. It makes me so wish he'd drawn the glorious Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League International Annual where the Joker is hired to kill the League, but Bill Willingham did a fine enough job.