These Villains Were Created By Batman

No superhero has more iconic villains than Batman, and no one's less happy about it than the Dark Knight himself. Gotham City breeds colorful and menacing rogues by the dozen, and no amount of punches and Batarangs seem to discourage new ones from cropping up. In fact, on more than one occasion, Batman's efforts to control the spread of Gotham's madness have ended up creating new, even worse enemies for him to fight. Whether he's training good guys who go bad or driving bad guys to get worse, Batman has made his fair share of mistakes over the course of his 80-plus-year career, and they have a habit of coming back to bite him in themed makeup and a creepy costume.

Before you get too down on the man, remember: Batman has created a lot more heroes than he has villains. Indeed, he's inspired a veritable army of roof-dwelling vigilantes who perpetuate his tradition. But as proud as he may be of these successes, Batman is the kind of person who takes obsessive stock over his failures. We have no doubt he has reviewed the following list to himself many times, during his regular brooding sessions in the Batcave. These are the villains Batman created.

Bruce Wayne created the myth of the Batman to menace the criminals and corrupt cops who make Gotham City a hellish place to live. But by resorting to such extravagant measures, he inadvertently opened the floodgates for a new class of costumed criminal to follow in his wake. Villains like the Joker, the Riddler, and Poison Ivy all emerged shortly after Batman did — but for a time, traditional mafiosos like Carmine Falcone still held onto the streets of Gotham, with more colorful supervillains acting as sideshows.

This all changes in Batman: The Long Halloween, in which a serial killer is on the loose who commits murder on holidays. The first few murders are (most likely) committed by Gilda Dent, who seeks to start a war between the Falcone and Maroni crime families. But when these three themed murders capture the attention of the public, another party takes over the gimmick: Alberto Falcone, Carmine Falone's son. Alberto has been kept out of the family business, but can see the writing on the wall: The old mafia's day is done, and the era of the costumed villain has dawned.

Batman does not directly make a supervillain out of Alberto Falcone, but Alberto represents every criminal in Gotham who meets the challenge of Batman by fabricating an outlandish persona for themselves.

In 1992's Batman: Sword of Azrael, Batman encounters Jean-Paul Valley, AKA Azrael, a genetically-enhanced, hypnotically-conditioned knight of the ancient Order of St. Dumas. Batman and Azrael soon find themselves on the same side, and Azrael is invited to train alongside Robin as part of Batman's ever-expanding family of associate crimefighters. Mere months later, in the celebrated Knightfall story arc, Batman loses a battle with the musclebound mastermind Bane and is left a paraplegic. Thus, Bruce Wayne passes the mantle of the Bat to Jean-Paul Valley, the apprentice he's worked with for the shortest length of time and knows the least about. No one but Bruce, whose spirit is broken by his defeat, thinks this is a very good idea.

Bruce jets off across the pond for a year to seek a remedy for his broken back, leaving the new Batman — or "AzBats," as Robin and Nightwing take to calling him — with the run of the cave. AzBats finds himself haunted by his subconscious programming and constrained by the rules and conventions of being Batman, and so he gradually adopts more and more violent methods and lethal weaponry. Eventually, he becomes an executioner in an armored suit, transformed from hero to villain. A freshly-recovered Bruce Wayne is ultimately forced to take down the mad pretender and restore the dignity of Batman. Azrael is eventually rehabilitated and rejoins the extended Bat-family, but tends to stay at arm's length.

There's no antagonist for whom Batman can take more personal responsibility than Jason Todd, AKA the Red Hood. After parting ways with Dick Grayson, Batman decides to hand the mantle of Robin to a juvenile delinquent named Jason Todd. Batman first encounters Todd when he discovers the kid has boosted the tires off the Batmobile, which is just about the gutsiest thing one could do on the streets of Gotham. Concerned for his future but impressed by his moxie, Batman offers Jason a new home and a new purpose as Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Jason never quite sheds the chip on his shoulder, and has difficulty playing by Batman's rules. Frustrated and confused, Jason is lured into a trap by the Joker, who beats him within an inch of his life with a crowbar and leaves him to die in a warehouse explosion in 1988's Batman: A Death in the Family. Batman carries his guilt over Jason's death for years, even as he attempts to move on with his life.

Jason eventually resurfaces, fashioning himself after the Joker's original masked identity in order to enact his revenge against his would-be killer. As the new Red Hood, Jason terrorizes Batman to punish him for leaving Joker alive. In the years since his return, Red Hood has oscillated between villain and anti-hero — but wherever he lands, he never stays there for long.

The story is familiar: A mother, a father, and a young boy walk innocently into a dark alley and are confronted by a man with a gun. But this time around, Batman arrives to save the family. This is what Batman was made to do: He prevents the exact kind of heartbreak that created him. But, Batman's luck being what it is, even this story ends in tragedy.

The boy in this story, Hank Clover, grows up idolizing Batman and takes his example to heart. He and his sister Claire train their minds and bodies for years in the hope of following in Batman's footsteps. Sadly, the malevolent genius Bane exploits their good intentions, offering them a procedure that will give them the powers of Superman. It comes with a catch: The more they use their powers, the sooner they'll die. Believing that a short life doing enormous good is worthwhile, Hank and Claire undergo the procedure and become Gotham and Gotham Girl.

The siblings get to live their dream of working alongside Batman to protect Gotham City, but the dream is short-lived. As part of his master plan, Bane unleashes the emotion-manipulating Psycho Pirate, turning them both mad. Gotham goes on a killing spree, and is only defeated by the combined might of Gotham Girl and the Justice League. They force Hank to use up his powers, until he dies in his sister's arms.

1999's Batman Beyond is set in a high-tech future, in which an aged Bruce Wayne takes Terry McGinnis, a brash teenager, on as an apprentice, so that someone will be able to succeed him as Batman. Terry's father is murdered in the first episode, in order to conceal an illegal chemical weapons experiment being conducted by his employer, Derek Powers. Powers is a billionaire industrialist who has purchased Wayne Enterprises and is now using its resources for evil ends by creating a deadly nerve gas to sell to a foreign military.

On his first night in the batsuit, Terry derails Powers' plans to ship the nerve gas, and faces him in a one-on-one confrontation. During the fracas, Terry hurls a metal canister at Powers, which neither realizes is loaded full of nerve gas. Powers reflexively shoots through the canister, exposing himself to a lethal dose of his own medicine. Powers' doctors manage to save his life by exposing him to intense radiation, but it has the side effect of turning him into a walking nuclear meltdown. Powers continues to menace Batman and Gotham in the boardroom and the streets as his new alter ego, Blight.

Like his predecessor, Terry creates his own arch enemy in a preventable accident that likely wouldn't have happened had he not been so green. Luckily for the new Batman, Blight also creates his own villain — Derek Powers is defeated for good after he's betrayed by his own son, Paxton.