a Batman a Week

#013 Joe Chill - The man that started it all.  Desperate and craven, the criminal known as Joe “Chill” was a working-class man who feel on harder times during the lead up to the Great Depression when he lost his job as a Gotham dock worker when he was caught smuggling contraband alcohol for Falcone Shipping by a GCPD sting operation.  Faced with limited options he tried working his underworld connections with no luck, pick pocketing and street hustling couldn’t make ends meet, so his Falcone connection gave him a gun and suggested he try a more aggressive strategy.  He did, his first attempt at mugging a couple turned disastrous when he got so nervous he killed the husband who lunged after him and then startled, shoot the wife when she screamed.  Terrified, Joe fled leaving a young witness behind as he disappeared into the Gotham night.

#012 Thomas Wayne - Son of Judge Solomon Wayne, part of the First family of Gotham City.  Dr. Thomas Wayne worked and built the company Wayne Enterprises that would catapult the Wayne name and fortune into the stratosphere.  Always a serious and hardworking young man, Thomas Wayne focused on his medical studies and his career hardly giving any thought to his personal life until he met Martha Kane. Shyly he asked her out one day and soon enough he had a son, Bruce.  Thomas was mostly distant and stern with his young son, figuring that he would properly instruct his son when he got older and would have less work at the hospital to worry about.  Unfortunately his life was cut short when a mugger attempted to steal the pearl’s he gave to his wife.  He was shot dead defending his wife and son in Park Row. 

I’ve certainly missed many a week. But this Thomas Wayne isn’t the “Bruce Wayne with a Mustache” we’ve usually seen.  Thomas wasn’t a big man.  He didn’t work out nor tone his body to physical perfection like Bruce did, he was an uptight, clinical, bookworm, so his eyes are large and his body is frailer than his son at the same age.

#011 Martha Wayne - Originally born Martha Kane of the wealthy Kane family, second family of Gotham City.  Before getting married to Dr. Thomas Wayne, she was a wealthy, socialite making the rounds as Gotham’s most eligible bachelorette.  After settling down she gave birth to her son Bruce, and decided to teach her son about the importance using their wealth and status to being charitable.  Unfortunately her life was cut short in an alley when a mugger attempted to steal her Wayne family necklace, she was shot dead along with her husband in front of their son.

For once I wanted do a sexy, outgoing Martha Wayne, since there isn’t much development into who she was, and what she meant to Bruce.  The closest I can think of a series actually giving Martha some character was Martha in Batman:Brave and the Bold voiced by Julie Newmar!

#010 Hugo Strange - The greatest criminal organizer in the world.  He is an insane psychologist and chemical genius who discovered Batman’s secret identity with designs to take it for himself.  Which is why he also trained himself to physical perfection, in addition to his super psychological analyst abilities, he’s one of the Bat’s oldest and challenging adversaries. 

In celebration for his rise to the top of Arkham City. 

009# The Monk - A criminal psychopath whose identity is Niccolai Tepes whose plan was to hypnotize and manipulate wealthy women and use them to rob and kill their significant others.  Unfortunately Julie Madison feel victim to his scheme, which is what put the Batman on his trail, that took him into Europe on the Bat’s first multi-part adventure. 

In the original 1939 tale, The Monk and his assistant a woman named Dala are two vampires with a pit that houses a huge Gorilla.  For me, the monkey he has is named Dala. 

#008 Julie Madison - Fiancee to Bruce Wayne.  Aspiring actress and frequent damsel in distress who had no idea her future husband was the caped crusader, The Batman.  Daughter to Gotham businessman Norman Madison, the two meet in Bruce’s brief semester visiting Gotham University.  After an attempt on her life by Basil Karlo during a movie shoot, she has had enough of Gotham City (and Wayne) and leaves to start her career in Hollywood. When she finally makes it to Hollywood she adopts the stage name of “Portia Storme”.

#007 Jabah - Loyal assistant to the Doctor Death. In my version, both the good Doctor and Jabah came from India where they would extort money from powerful India members of it’s upper caste system. Once things got too hot in their country, Doctor Death and Jabah fled to America where they crossed paths with the Caped Crusader.  Characters like this are a stark reminder of how images of many non-caucasian minorities where often portrayed, if you’ve read a book or seen a movie or show that predates the 1960s in this country, you know how it goes. 

#006 Doctor Death - the first super villain the Batman ever faced in the comic series.  Attempting to extort money from Gotham’s wealthy using deadly chemicals and gases.  Dr. Karl Hellfern (Doctor Death) was stopped by the Batman, but in an effort to escape arrest he locked himself in his own lab and set it ablaze, disfiguring his own face.  In more recent incarnations he wears a gas mask and seems to continue his chemical schemes. 

#005 Stryker.  Full name, Alfred Stryker, who pre-dates our favorite butler in appearance in the Batman Universe.  Stryker is the first actual criminal/foe/bad guy in Batman, debuting in Detective comics #27 in 1939.  His plan was a scheme to eliminate his business partners out of their holdings in their company, none other than AXIS Chemicals.  When millionaires started getting popped off, the Batman catches wind of this and stops Stryker from completing his plans.  He meets his fate by falling, or being pushed, into a vat of his own chemicals.