The best episode for every iconic Batman: The Animated Series villain
What’s Gotham without its gallery of rogues?
By now, you probably know the excellent Batman: The Animated Series (streaming on HBO Max) did a very good job adapting Gotham’s finest bad guys and distilling them to their most effective elements or rebuilding them from the ground up. However, aside from watching the whole show (which you should definitely do), what’s the best way to experience each rogue? Well, that’s where this list comes in: Here is the best outing of each classic villain, chosen not only because it’s a good episode, but because it reflects everything essential about that version of the character.
This list only includes villains that have multiple episodes to pick from. Sorry, one-offs like Hugo Strange, Calendar Girl, and Maxie Zeus. You will be missed. Sort of.
Season 1, episode 34
Batman: The Animated Series’ best Joker episodes tend to key in on his warped sense of pride rather than his desire to murder all of Gotham, whether it’s his inability to let go of a grudge (“Joker’s Favor,” “Joker’s Millions”), his anger at having to be second best (“The Man Who Killed Batman,” “Mad Love”), or his disgust at someone profiting off his likeness (“Joker’s Wild”). The best example of this is “The Laughing Fish,” in which the Joker poisons Gotham’s fish to cause them to bear his trademark rictus grin. It’s all in an attempt to copyright the fish and thus take a cut of their sale, a bizarre, hilarious scheme that sounds like poetry coming from voice actor Mark Hamill.
Season 3, episode 21
With the creation of Harley Quinn, Batman: The Animated Series head writer Paul Dini might have concocted the most instantaneously famous antihero comics character of the modern age. She’s lovable whether she’s engaging in
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