Who should be the next Batman villain?
Perhaps no other superhero has undergone such drastic reinventions over the decades as Batman. The Caped Crusader was invented in 1939 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger as a night-stalking noir detective who used his fearsome bat-inspired costume to terrify criminals.
When comic-book violence became a political hot potato in the 1950s and 1960s, the mandate was whimsy above all, and Batman was softened into a cheerful, colorful hero whose exploits were often downright silly.
He got even sillier in the 1960s TV show starring Adam West, a series that so successfully satirized Batman that for many years the character was synonymous with the goofiest side of superheroes. But since Frank Millers landmark 1986 miniseries The Dark Knight Returns, Batman has returned to his dark roots.
Director Christopher Nolan embraced that version of Bruce Wayne with 2004s Batman Begins and the new The Dark Knight, with a gritty, realistic approach to superhero storytelling that stays as far away as possible from the comic approach of the TV show or the goth-campy movies kicked off by Tim Burtons 1989 Batman.
As such, Nolan has to be careful about what characters to draw on for his version of Batman: It was no mistake that he chose the terrorist leader Ras al Ghul and the fear-spreading Scarecrow as the antagonists for Batman Begins.
Dark Knight brings in two of Batmans most popular villains, The Joker and Two-Face, and reinvents them in a grimmer, more frightening mode. Its a near-certainly that Dark Knight wont be the final installment in Nolans series, and with that in mind, heres a look at which villains in Batmans roster would fit Nolans un-whimsical vision and which wouldnt.
Originally published on msnbc.com July 14, 2008. Read the complete article.