The entire world is abuzz over the opening of the new Batman film The Dark Knight. The buzz, in large part, is due to the performance of Heath Ledger as Batman supervillain The Joker and his “absolutely magnetic” performance. As people line up tonight at midnight across the country to watch the film, I wonder…which villains from Batman lore will be least likely to follow up Ledger in the next film? Let’s go with six since, hey, this is the sixth Batman movie. Logic!

Globe
Real Name: Hammond Carter
Most Likely to: Inappropriately touch an equator; Eat a hoagie

This villain made his debut in a comic earlier this year. You’d think that, in the year 2008, comics would have grown up a bit and been emboldened by new ideas over time, but you’d be sadly mistaken. According to his Wiki, Globe “plots crimes by latitude, longitude, time zones and the shape of landmasses.” Not going to lie, I’d totally embrace a movie with Globe, if only to find a bunch of Batman-loving nerds go there with high hopes, only to be met with a three-hour film largely chronicling the finer points of cartography.

Great White Shark
Real Name: Warren White (how convenient!)
Most Likely to: Make Richard Dreyfuss crap himself

Great White Shark’s origin story is so amazing, I’m not even going to rewrite it. Here’s the gist:

White is sentenced to Arkham Asylum indefinitely instead of prison. There, he suffers great indignities as the new inmate, or “fish.” His first cellmate is Death Rattle, a cult leader and mass murderer who plans to turn him into a human sacrifice. Early in his stay, Killer Croc slices a set of “gills” into White’s neck with his claws, claiming the “fish” needs a set. Realizing his mistake in pleading insanity, White bribes his psychiatrist, Dr. Anne Carver, into having him transferred to a minimum security prison in exchange for $20 million. However, Dr. Carver is revealed to have been killed and replaced some months before by the villainess Jane Doe. Her boss, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, orders all of Dr. Carver’s papers filed by Jane Doe be destroyed, including the paperwork that would lead to White’s transfer. Dr. Arkham’s decision is heavily motivated by the loss of his own pension due to White’s corrupt business practices.

To survive the harassment and violence in Arkham, White allies himself with Two-Face, becoming his “coin boy,” but the relationship quickly ends when Death Rattle threatens him and Two-Face does nothing to help.

During a prison riot caused by the escape of a cadre of demons trapped underneath Arkham ED NOTE: Well, what other things do demons have to do other than cause prison riots, I suppose, White is assaulted and locked in Mr. Freeze’s subzero cell by Jane Doe. His injuries, the result of horrific frostbite, leave White deformed: his skin turns a pale white and his nose, lips, hair, and several of his fingers fall off. These deformities, along with his set of “gills,” leave him resembling a real great white shark.

So basically this guy was a white collar criminal who got bitched out by approximately 700 people and abandoned by everyone he aligned himself with. Batman probably wouldn’t even have to hit this guy. He could probably take a nap and Great White Shark would just die of loneliness or something.

Magpie
Real Name: Margaret Pye
Most Likely To: Own many cats; Die alone

Magpie is infamous for her desire to steal rare jewels named after birds and replace them with booby-trapped replicas. That’s a bit niched, no? I’m all for making it seem like you’re doing something, but you can’t call yourself a criminal and have that be your only crime. Even if you’re amazing at it, you’re affecting like five people on Earth. If Batman were the Supreme Court and all of these villains were cases, Magpie wouldn’t even be reviewed for selection. If Batman saw her doing her “crimes”, all while looking like an extra from a low-budget 80s hair band’s music video, he’d probably shrug his shoulders and go get a pizza.

Calendar Man
Real Name: Julian Day
Most Likely To: Commit a crime based on emulating a woman’s menstrual cycle

Calendar Man is widely considered one of the most worthless villains in any form, ever. IGN named him the Worst Batman Villain ever. Fans and even the characters in the comic books called him a douchebag, a joke, or both. He was so bad that when the writers of the Batman cartoon wanted to use anything remotely similar to his gimmick (that being he committed crimes based on the calendar, i.e. if it was Summer or Wednesday or Flag Day, I guess), they had to turn him into a hot chick with big boobs to make the modus operandi remotely interesting. Simply put, Calendar Man is an ASS.

Film Freak
Real Name: Burt Weston
Most Likely To: Imitate art imitating life

Film Freak is an actor who played villains in many films. Then he couldn’t act any more, so he decided to undertake crimes from movies. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to have rented “Two Girls One Cup” at any point before his untimely demise at the hands of roided-up monster villain Bane.

The Calculator
Real Name: Noah Kuttler (I swear, given everyone else’s names, I would have thought his name would be Cal Quelator…sigh)
Most Likely To: Receive wedgies from every member of the Justice League

What strikes fear into the citizens of Gotham? Math, apparently. According to his Wiki, Calculator’s creation stemmed from the high-tech new device of 1976, the pocket calculator. He’s apparently like a supergenius or whatever, but I can’t help but feel as though Batman could just hold up a nude woman to Calculator and he’d be confused, aroused, and paralyzed by fear. Which probably makes him even more relatable to all the people who’ll begin the countdown to the next Batman movie after seeing The Dark Knight.

[Many thanks to Comic Vine for the majority of the images and info]

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