Revamping Some Rogues

Why invent new villains when you can turn old crappy ones into cool, more interesting ones? Here are five lame Batman villains I wanted to reinvent!

The Condiment King

So in Tom King's "Batman" series, he establishes this fast-food place called "Batburger". It's McDonalds, but Batman themed. A perfect place for a psychologically unhinged teenager to get be inspired by Batman's many foes. I could see the new Condiment King as teen who snapped and assaulted customers at "Batburger". Conveniently he's trying to pay through college to become a scientist and has invented a serum that-when mixed with basic condiments-creates dangerous effects. Acidic hot sauce, mustard gas mustard, sticky mayonnaise, and so forth. His mission would be rallying other fast-food employees into joining his cause of destroying fast food chains around the country. I can't see him fighting one of the usual Batman characters, but he'd make an excellent Harley Quinn villain.

Zebra Man

Is he black with white stripes or white with black stripes? Not important. Yeah, DC has brought Zebra Man back a few times, a common theme are his magnetism powers. For my reinvention I'm imagining an African boy recruited by smugglers and raised to be a shooter. He becomes so good at it he leaves Africa to become a professional hitman in America. And with his hobby of hunting Zebra, he makes it his calling card. Decked out with a Zebra fur coat and black and white striped gear, this poor nobody becomes the illustrious Zebra Man. Maybe he has a magnetic belt he stole from Wayne Industries, but that's more of his secret weapon in case the guns and knives aren't enough. And, yeah, he's just a sly hitman instead of being a goofy zebra guy. He could really work for anyone in the Batman family, but I think he fits Red Hood the best seeing as how they are both trained killers. It could even lead to an African journey where Jason teams up with Batman's African agent David Zavimbe/Batwing to find and capture Zebra Man.

Polkadot Man

Polkadot Man was a villain who hid weapons in the dots of his suit. A little too Silver Age if you ask me. Anyone remember Hector Hammond? He was in the "Green Lantern" movie. The guy with the big head. Him. Let's borrow his backstory. So before Polkadot was a villain he was a scientist who worked for the U.S. military and had the job of studying alien physiology. One day, while studying the body of a deceased alien, an alien virus is triggered and the scientist becomes infected. His skin becomes covered in multicolored boils ranging in size, but each ready to pop at a moment's notice. He escapes government capture and runs into Gotham City. The people of Gotham refer to this monster as The Polkadot Man. Each of his boils carry different effects when popped. They can freeze things, burn them, melt them, make them denser, make them lighter, but his main gimmick would be infecting people with a lesser form of the polkadot syndrome. The scientist knows he is approaching death, but only seeks company in his final moments. I could see a disturbing, sci-fi monster like this being a villain Superman and Batman would have to tackle. And having him be a villain with a time table makes it harder because Superman and Batman would have to defeat him, cure him, and cure the people he has infected before he dies, adding more suspense.

The Ten-Eyed Man

One of my personal favorites. Actual Ten-Eyed Man had the ability to see through his fingers. While that was dumb his origin story-which I'll use-was decent. Basically, he was a soldier who's eyes were damaged from a grenade fragment. We can keep that, but establish he was more of a spy for the U.S. Army. He was so good at getting intel and rerouting it to the U.S. the government took their blind spy and outfitted him with a prototype drone system called Project I (see it's funny cause "I" sounds like "Eye" and "I" means a single person). They hooked up a system to his brain that linked him with ten state-of-the-art drones and tasked him with being their intelligence over in Iraq. With those drones Ten-Eyed Man basically knows whatever he needs to find out, the drones could have weapon systems and be really fast and maneuverable, maybe they have little robot forms too. I think he'd work well as a Batwoman villain. See, Batwoman's father is General Kane and he runs a Batman-themed military unit called The Colony. So let's say the U.S. military asks Ten-Eyed Man to watch The Colony because they don't think Kane is suited to run it. This would lead Batwoman and The Colony into a battle with the U.S. military and Batwoman would seek out Ten-Eyed Man for all the information he has on the Batman Family. More of a psychological, behind-the-screen mastermind than a costumed crook.

Composite Superman

So this guy got his powers from a lightning bolt and some superhero statues, but fortunately half the work on a revamped Composite Superman has been done for me. Currently, in the Justice League comic, there is this guy named Joshua Christian AKA The Fan. Josh is a superhero super-fan who obsessed over The JLA so much he worked himself to peak physical condition, knows all their identities, is a master hacker, and has properly disguised and imitated members of the team. He has framed them of murder and held their identities as blackmail all so he could join them. I don't know how the story is going to wrap up at the moment, but I think with some technical help from maybe Prometheus or Professor Ivo he can be transformed into a new version of Composite Superman. Or Composite Man. This time made from cybernetics that replicate the powers of The Justice League. I'm imagining Wonder Woman boots and bracelets, Flash legs and head-bolts, Aquaman torso and the "A" belt logo turned sideways to be a "C", one Cyborg arm, one Green Lantern arm, Superman's cape and diamond-shaped emblem a "C" in it, and Batman's cowl (with no ears) and utility belt. If Composite Man (or League Man or whatever) can't be part of The Justice League he'll just destroy them and take their place as the greatest hero on Earth. A big super-villain like this will all those powers and a disturbingly grounded backstory would be a great kick off to a new JLA adventure.
Thanks for reading!