The Batman movies’ most important villain isn’t Joker, it’s Catwoman

polygon.com:

Every cinematic incarnation of Batman seems to agree on one thing: The Caped Crusader’s most consequential and marquee-friendly adversary is the Joker. Various Batman-related movies over the years have expressed this in different ways. 1989’s Batman cast megastar Jack Nicholson as Joker right out of the gate. Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight use Joker as a movie-ending teaser in preparation for wildly anticipated sequels. 2016’s Suicide Squad gives him a showcase cameo to lure audiences into another sub-series. And 2019’s Joker gives him his own stand-alone, off-continuity feature. Even when the character isn’t a focal point, he looms large. In 2022’s The Batman, the Riddler cribs heavily from the Joker playbook, even as the movie hints that the original maniac may be waiting in the wings for a sequel.

Yet even as The Batman tees up yet another Joker running around Gotham, it helps make a case for a decidedly different member of Batman’s rogues gallery. In fact, when director Matt Reeves lets the fans have a little Joker as a treat, he only drives home how a different costumed weirdo is actually more consistently vital to these movies. It’s Catwoman.

Fans who primarily know Catwoman from the movies may not even clock her as a villain. (Or as “Catwoman.” Only1992’s Batman Returns and 2004’s Catwoman really call her by her famous nickname. In most Batman movies, she goes by her alter ego, Selina Kyle.) The Batman completes the gradual progression Selina has followed onscreen, from Michelle Pfeiffer’s unpredictable, sometimes Penguin-allied version in Returns to Anne Hathaway’s self-interested, briefly Bane-allied version in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises to, finally, Zoë Kravitz’s undercover avenger in