They both have the best rogues' galleries in all of comics, but the answer to your question is Batman.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Top to bottom, does SPIDERMAN or BATMAN have the better Rogues Gallery?
- Thread starter MajulaDream
- Start date
Spider-Man's villains are better for like toys and cartoons and shit but Batman's villains make for much more interesting story material.
Obvious comparisons:
joker/goblin - recurring primary antagonists who are also crazy/agents of chaos
croc/rhino - animal themed muscle men with vague ties to organized crime
clay face/sand man - logia devil fruit earth elementals
scarecrow/mysterio - mind games and illusions
man bat/lizard - biologists that want to hug and mutate their families
catwoman/black cat - pussy galore, cat burglars, feline fine, etc
penguin/kingpin - current mob bosses with mental complexes born from rough childhoods
bane/kraven - dangerous foreign combatants who value the sport of a conflict
Not directly comparable but iconic:
doc oc, vulture, chameleon, venom, electro
two face, poison ivy, riddler, al ghul, mr freeze
I dono, it's too close to call. Batman probably has the more iconic ones largely by virtue of having done a lot of them first, but more of my personal favorites are on the spidey side.
joker/goblin - recurring primary antagonists who are also crazy/agents of chaos
croc/rhino - animal themed muscle men with vague ties to organized crime
clay face/sand man - logia devil fruit earth elementals
scarecrow/mysterio - mind games and illusions
man bat/lizard - biologists that want to hug and mutate their families
catwoman/black cat - pussy galore, cat burglars, feline fine, etc
penguin/kingpin - current mob bosses with mental complexes born from rough childhoods
bane/kraven - dangerous foreign combatants who value the sport of a conflict
Not directly comparable but iconic:
doc oc, vulture, chameleon, venom, electro
two face, poison ivy, riddler, al ghul, mr freeze
I dono, it's too close to call. Batman probably has the more iconic ones largely by virtue of having done a lot of them first, but more of my personal favorites are on the spidey side.
I mean what rogues gallery is even remotely close to even being on par with Batman's?
Doesn't help that they've arguably been the most well-known villains in media for decades. IMO I don't think it's uncommon for anyone to guess at the top of their head as many Batman villains as they can.
Doesn't help that they've arguably been the most well-known villains in media for decades. IMO I don't think it's uncommon for anyone to guess at the top of their head as many Batman villains as they can.
This is like asking which is the better football team: The New England Patriots or Clemson.
Both are tops among their peers (sorry Alabama fans) but head-to-head, Batman's rogues gallery is second to none.
Both are tops among their peers (sorry Alabama fans) but head-to-head, Batman's rogues gallery is second to none.
If you ask a non-comic fan to name a Spiderman villain, you'll get Venom and maybe Green Goblin. You ask them to name Batman villains, you'll get Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn.
There is a reason Batman's rogue gallery is more popular come Halloween time.
There is a reason Batman's rogue gallery is more popular come Halloween time.
Hopefully lol
That spoiler if it sticks, which I doubt, would even it up
Babe still lives and isn't crippled anymore, Jason came back as well. Gwen is still dead
Plus, there's this
The top tiers are about comparable. The problem is that Batman's second and third tiers are just way better than Spider-Man's. That's where the big divide comes from.
Batman has also had vastly better movies/games with his higher level rogue gallery.
Batman has also had vastly better movies/games with his higher level rogue gallery.
I don't think that will last much longer with Insomniac at the helm, to be honest.
Compare the last bosses of the first game in the modern Batman/Spider-Man games.
Hulk Joker in Arkham Asylum vs. Doc Ock in Spider-Man
If you show me someone who actually prefers the Hulk Joker fight over that amazing last set piece in Spider-Man, I will
show you conclusive proof that opinions can in fact be wrong!
I'll take Spider-Man's but there's no real wrong answer here. If the major TAS of each show is the barometer then it's easy to see why Bats runs away with it. Also, the US loooooves him more than the bug (who should be america's hero TM).
Mostly prefer spider-man because i prefer the personal connection each of them has.
Most underrated on either side: Flash and Cap's.
Mostly prefer spider-man because i prefer the personal connection each of them has.
Most underrated on either side: Flash and Cap's.
Batman can have awful depictions of his rogue gallery B-C listers like Bane and Deadshot get ingrain in pop culture.
Spider can get good depictions of his B-C listers like Vulture and Mysterio that only seem to get mentioned in underrated villains lists.
I just don't see how Spider-Man compares. Venom is really the only villain that seems to have enteral popularity that Batman villains have(sorry Green Goblin)
Spider can get good depictions of his B-C listers like Vulture and Mysterio that only seem to get mentioned in underrated villains lists.
I just don't see how Spider-Man compares. Venom is really the only villain that seems to have enteral popularity that Batman villains have(sorry Green Goblin)
The last one you put never happened. Nope, nopeHopefully lol
That spoiler if it sticks, which I doubt, would even it up
Babe still lives and isn't crippled anymore, Jason came back as well. Gwen is still dead
Plus, there's this
I love both characters / franchises. Full stop... but Batman's rogues gallery is without parallel. There are some fun villains to be found among Spidey's rogues -- or Superman's or the X-Men or the Flash -- but they're all distantly competing for second, third, fourth. It's not hard to imagine a C-list villain from Batman being an A-list villain in a shallower pond.
Spidey's villains in particular all feel like revamps on Batman & Superman villains, and a lot of them are not well thought out aside from an animal theme and a habit of bank robbing.
All that said, it would be fun to imagine a shared universe where you can have Norman Osborn and Lex Luthor, and Catwoman and Black Cat, and Venom and Bane and Carnage and Doomsday.... lmao the 90s characters -- the four Supermen cross with Ben Reilly and the four identities Peter took for a minute, and Jean Paul Valley -- there's so many crossover ideas and themes that are interesting to compare/contrast with Bat & Spider.
Maybe when Disney gobbles up DC or WB
Spidey's villains in particular all feel like revamps on Batman & Superman villains, and a lot of them are not well thought out aside from an animal theme and a habit of bank robbing.
All that said, it would be fun to imagine a shared universe where you can have Norman Osborn and Lex Luthor, and Catwoman and Black Cat, and Venom and Bane and Carnage and Doomsday.... lmao the 90s characters -- the four Supermen cross with Ben Reilly and the four identities Peter took for a minute, and Jean Paul Valley -- there's so many crossover ideas and themes that are interesting to compare/contrast with Bat & Spider.
Maybe when Disney gobbles up DC or WB
Hopefully lol
That spoiler if it sticks, which I doubt, would even it up
Babe still lives and isn't crippled anymore, Jason came back as well. Gwen is still dead
Plus, there's this
This is an aside, but what the hell is Norman's haircut supposed to look like in real life? He's pretty much always drawn this way, and I can only see weird, horizontal cornrows.
Norman and Harry have natural waves. How or why remains a mystery lol. You usually need a durag for that
I think its a thing with Batman in general, Batman has been done and varied to such a level that even a lot of bad stuff is memorable or enjoyable in a certain way.
Like Mr Freeze in Batman and Robin will never be forgotten but it won't make people think Freeze is a terrible villain or something.
Leto Joker is horrendous but is basically just another drip in the Joker bucket
A final boss fight isn't the whole game. Arkham Knight had its flaws but the way it handled atomsphere, design and side quests, especially side quests its worlds ahead of Spider-man. Currently at least. Its all going to come down to what WB Montreal pushes out and if its like Origins Batman will still edge ahead.
and I will continue to sleep on the ice and fire gun future wizard clown boy gang.
Yeah, I think several decades of Batman on TV and in movies has just made them better known. A lot of them are copy and pastes since they almost all just regular humans.
grodd is inspired. Grodd gets all of the best lines. Grodd probably doesn't really consider himself a member of the Rogues, though he is a major enemy of Flash.
Ok, so here's Batman's top 10 villains according to Ranker. I'm going to put some of the noteworthy stuff for each character. Then I'm going to list some villains that didn't even make the cut. Let's see what it looks like:
Joker - The most iconic recurring villain in animated comic television with Mark Hamill's Joker from The Animated Series (and Arkham games); possibly the greatest on screen comic villain (or up there) in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight; maybe Joakin Phoenix's Joker; arguably the first great superhero villain in film with Jack Nicholson's Joker from Tim Burton's Batman; the Laughing Fish from Steve Engleheart on the cusp of the Batman renaissance in the 70's; The Joker's Five Way Revenge during the Batman renaissance of the 70's; Ed Brubaker's The Man Who Laughs; Scott Snyder's Endgame and Death of the Family, Paul Dini's Mad Love; one of the landmark moments in comic's history with Death in the Family from Jim Starlin (I still love those covers); oh and Alan Moore's masterpiece The Killing Joke. This doesn't even include half of the great stuff like the psychotic Grant Morrison Joker stuff. You know what, it's kind of unfair to include him. So let's start the list as if he wasn't a part of the discussion:
Killer Croc - Geoff John's Killer Croc in Batman: Earth One is awesome; Tim Seeley's stuff from Batman: Eternal; Alan Grant's Requiem for a Killer
Clayface - Mud Pack; his DC Rebirth Detective stuff is great; Alan Moore's is pretty good
Hugo Strange - Batman and The Monster Men; Steve Engleheart's Strange Apparitions, Steve Orlando's Night of the Monsters DC Rebirth arc
Mad Hatter - Tim Sale's Madness; Greg Rucka's Unknowing; Tea Time; Scott Snyder's All Star Batman I guess?
Black Mask - Doug Moench's Black Mask stuff is pretty fun; Under the Red Hood; and honestly just the idea of the Blacks and Whites (something I think Scott Snyder came up with) is good enough
Talia al Ghul - Grant Morrison's Batman Run; Death of the Maidens; the Demon Trilogy; The Dark Knight Rises
Man Bat - Classic The Animated Series episodes; really neat Justice League Dark stuff
The Court of Owls - Scott Snyder's Court of Owls (and not much else, lol)
Ventriloquist and Scarface - No Man's Land, various stuff in the 80's 90's; Tom King's first Bane arc
The Phantasm - Arguably the second best animated comic book movie of all time (Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse is just too good)
Dr. Hurt - Grant Morrison's epic Batman run
Hush - Ummmm Hush and Hear of Hush
Even some fun villains that have some great stories or roles in other stories like Cluemaster, Victor Zasz, Solomon Grundy, KGBeast, Anarky, Kite Man, Firefly and Killer Moth, Ratcatcher, Professor Pyg, Lady Shiva, the crime bosses like Carmine Falcone and Salvatore Maroni (maybe my favorite Batman story is Frank Miller's Year One). I'm not even counting Deathstroke and Deadshot because they don't feel like Batman villains anymore. Scott Snyder's The Black Mirror is a top 15 Batman story and it feature's James Gordon Jr. who is what, a C- list villain? And stuff like Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylym: A Serious House on a Serious Earth and many others are a smorgasbord of Batman villains big and small. Remember Dr. Death, Batman's first villain? Scott Snyder re-imagined him and it's pretty good!
Heck the Tally Man is neat!
This isn't an exhaustive list. However, even if you just look at the names of villains outside of the top 11 it's kind of insane. When you factor in games, movies, cartoons and elseworld's stuff I honestly don't think there is a compelling argument for any other comic rogue's gallery over Batman without considering the Joker. It's just too deep a roster.
Joker - The most iconic recurring villain in animated comic television with Mark Hamill's Joker from The Animated Series (and Arkham games); possibly the greatest on screen comic villain (or up there) in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight; maybe Joakin Phoenix's Joker; arguably the first great superhero villain in film with Jack Nicholson's Joker from Tim Burton's Batman; the Laughing Fish from Steve Engleheart on the cusp of the Batman renaissance in the 70's; The Joker's Five Way Revenge during the Batman renaissance of the 70's; Ed Brubaker's The Man Who Laughs; Scott Snyder's Endgame and Death of the Family, Paul Dini's Mad Love; one of the landmark moments in comic's history with Death in the Family from Jim Starlin (I still love those covers); oh and Alan Moore's masterpiece The Killing Joke. This doesn't even include half of the great stuff like the psychotic Grant Morrison Joker stuff. You know what, it's kind of unfair to include him. So let's start the list as if he wasn't a part of the discussion:
- Bane - Vengeance of Bane; Knightfall; Bane of the Demon; Gail Simone's Sinister Six; some of Tom King's current Batman run; and The Dark Knight Rises.
- Scarecrow - Admittedly not a lot of premium Scarecrow starring stories, mostly a great role player, but: Knightfall and No Man's Land have some great Scarecrow stories, The Cycle of Violence is really good; Tim Sale's stuff like The Long Halloween and Ghosts (from Haunted: Ghosts); Batman: Arkham Asylum; Batman Begins. Really, like a few other well known Batman characters, they don't have "that one incredible story" but rather some cool stuff and they make plenty of others better.
- Mr. Freeze - The most iconic stories are from The Animated Series and rival the best comic animated show villains in general; Legends of the Dark Knight: Snow; Scott Snyder's All Star Batman miniarc with him was legit; Tom King's Cold Heart; Gotham Central's opening story; and every other winter time story.
- Riddler - For me Riddler is waaay too high, but he's fun and iconic; The 60's Batman show, Dark Knight, Dark City, The Batman: Arkham games; Scott Snyder's Zero Year; Hush; Tim Sale's When in Rome (Catwoman); Matt Wagner's Riddler.
- Two-Face - Tim Sale's The Long Halloween and Dark Victory; Scott Snyder's All Star Batman; Marv Wolfman's A Lonely Place of Dying (and a lot of early Time Drake stuff); Alan Grant's Eye of the Beholder; Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.
- Catwoman - Tim Sale's When in Rome; Ed Brubaker's underrated True Romance and his run in general; The Brave and the Bold #197 (and some of those classic early stories); Paul Dini's Heart of Hush and regular Hush too; at least one of the Batman movies?; and really she is more of foil and complimentary character than one that has a lot of classic stories with her as the villain. Hell, you might even like Tom King's stuff.
- Poison Ivy - First I wanna stan for Francis Manapaul's early Trinity run for DC Rebirth; Batman: Poison Ivy; Scott Snyder's All Star Batman; and Gotham City Sirens.
- Penguin - Batman - Penguin: Triumph; The Penguin Affair; Paul Dini's Penguin (The Animated Series and Detective Comics run); Tom King's Penguin has some strong moments; Joker's Asylum Penguin; Jason Aaron's He Who Laugh's Last; Penguin: Pain and Prejudice; even Gotham's Penguin was really cool while I was still watching the show.
- Ra's al Ghul - Grant Morrison's Tower of Babel, still among the best Justice League stories (at least that aren't mega events); the Demon Trilogy; Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins; Contagion; I know there are more...
- Harley Quinn - Mad Loves...a bunch of other pretty good stuff. She's super popular and fun okay?
Killer Croc - Geoff John's Killer Croc in Batman: Earth One is awesome; Tim Seeley's stuff from Batman: Eternal; Alan Grant's Requiem for a Killer
Clayface - Mud Pack; his DC Rebirth Detective stuff is great; Alan Moore's is pretty good
Hugo Strange - Batman and The Monster Men; Steve Engleheart's Strange Apparitions, Steve Orlando's Night of the Monsters DC Rebirth arc
Mad Hatter - Tim Sale's Madness; Greg Rucka's Unknowing; Tea Time; Scott Snyder's All Star Batman I guess?
Black Mask - Doug Moench's Black Mask stuff is pretty fun; Under the Red Hood; and honestly just the idea of the Blacks and Whites (something I think Scott Snyder came up with) is good enough
Talia al Ghul - Grant Morrison's Batman Run; Death of the Maidens; the Demon Trilogy; The Dark Knight Rises
Man Bat - Classic The Animated Series episodes; really neat Justice League Dark stuff
The Court of Owls - Scott Snyder's Court of Owls (and not much else, lol)
Ventriloquist and Scarface - No Man's Land, various stuff in the 80's 90's; Tom King's first Bane arc
The Phantasm - Arguably the second best animated comic book movie of all time (Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse is just too good)
Dr. Hurt - Grant Morrison's epic Batman run
Hush - Ummmm Hush and Hear of Hush
Even some fun villains that have some great stories or roles in other stories like Cluemaster, Victor Zasz, Solomon Grundy, KGBeast, Anarky, Kite Man, Firefly and Killer Moth, Ratcatcher, Professor Pyg, Lady Shiva, the crime bosses like Carmine Falcone and Salvatore Maroni (maybe my favorite Batman story is Frank Miller's Year One). I'm not even counting Deathstroke and Deadshot because they don't feel like Batman villains anymore. Scott Snyder's The Black Mirror is a top 15 Batman story and it feature's James Gordon Jr. who is what, a C- list villain? And stuff like Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylym: A Serious House on a Serious Earth and many others are a smorgasbord of Batman villains big and small. Remember Dr. Death, Batman's first villain? Scott Snyder re-imagined him and it's pretty good!
Heck the Tally Man is neat!
This isn't an exhaustive list. However, even if you just look at the names of villains outside of the top 11 it's kind of insane. When you factor in games, movies, cartoons and elseworld's stuff I honestly don't think there is a compelling argument for any other comic rogue's gallery over Batman without considering the Joker. It's just too deep a roster.
Last edited:
That's subjective for the most part, and I enjoyed the main quests, combat, traversal, and story a ton more in Spider-Man.
Anyone who thinks that those games are 'worlds apart' in any way are just not thinking about it objectively. They are both amazing games with
very few flaws, mostly issues that are unavoidable due to said scope of such games. It just happens that Arkham Asylum's biggest flaw (IMHO of course) is that atrocious final fight that ends the entire game on a downer.
The final boss fight is just a very huge piece of a game's experience, and I would say that Spider-Man probably had the best final act of any
open world game released. Obviously that is subjective, but at least I can't think of any open world game that stuck the landing as well as Spider-Man did.
And it has a lot more to do with the topic at hand as it's a comparison of adaptations of two of the heros' main villains.
The post I quoted seemed to be trying to extrapolate that the Batman games are 'vastly' superior to the Spider-Man games and that is a result of his amazing rogues gallery. I am just pointing out a case of where that isn't true in the case of the final boss fights of each modern game franchise's first entry.
You can't get a more fair comparison than that! And I personally think that all of the Spider-Man boss fights were better than the ones in Asylum, outside of the Scarecrow hallucination fight.
I'd argue that Lex Luthor is a better villian than any one of Batman's Rogue's Gallery but as a collective whole the group is better than Superman's.
Anyways, the real problem with Spiderman's villains is that they aren't quite as potent dramatic foils to him compared to Lex Luthor for Superman and basically all of Batman's
As someone with an Electro statue and Mysterio, I'll still say Batman.
Kinda want to buy this though now.
Kinda want to buy this though now.
Hell. Yeah.
As of the most recent X-Men issues...
Can you really say that Magneto was a villain? I know it's a retcon, but if we're going by canon...
Isn't most of Spidey's gallery just "gotta kill that spider asap" C-tier villains?
Batman's gallery at least seems like it has some more sophisticated and interesting villains
Batman's gallery at least seems like it has some more sophisticated and interesting villains
Not...really?
They all tend to fall into a fairly normal range of categories i.e. some have a personal connection with Spider-Man that brings them into conflict fairly often (Venom, The Lizard), some kind of genius scientist gone insane ( Doc Ock, Green Goblin) or a criminal underlord (Mr. Negative, Kingpin, Hobgoblin).
I have a feeling this thread is actually more about the depictions in Batman TAS vs. Spider-Man TAS.
The comics have done a great job in recent years to give better characterization to villains such as Electro and Sandman for example.
I feel that Spider-man villains in general have better variety (magic, aliens, tech-based . . . . some Spidey villains even have a Flash Rogues type of setup) and untapped potential but Batman villains are better written. I think this is because they often take the focus of the story away from the hero because of the nature of Batman stories (ie. Bats doing investigative work) unlike in Spider-man stories where the story often revolves around developments on Spider-man's or Peter Parker's career/life and the villains are just secondary . . . . unless they are the Goblin, Ock, Venom variety where the villain have a direct effect (ie. danger) to our hero's personal growth .
same.. Its more close than people make it seem though - Spidey's villains are soooo gooood!
One of my favorite things about Batman's rogues gallery is that so many of its members have stories that wouldn't involve Batman at all if he didn't actively insert himself into them to impose his own morality and sense of justice. Much of the time he functions almost as a mere audience surrogate, simply there so we have a window into already very compelling and tragic conflicts.
Also, most of the time their gimmicks are a stark reflection of their past traumas and mindsets (and often reflective of a particular aspect of Batman's own psychology). Their personas are typically just the logical extremes of their lives and troubles pre-villainy. I don't see a lot of that in Spiderman's gallery.
Also, most of the time their gimmicks are a stark reflection of their past traumas and mindsets (and often reflective of a particular aspect of Batman's own psychology). Their personas are typically just the logical extremes of their lives and troubles pre-villainy. I don't see a lot of that in Spiderman's gallery.
Batman villians having better stories are why the Batman TAS cartoon was leagues ahead of Spider-man TAS.
No. Most people here were exposed to Batman TAS and are correctly voting for Batman.
BTAS had better writers. DC generally have had better writers for their media.
