Five Batman Villains Who Should Never Make it into a Movie ... Ever

Already the internet and Batman junkies are foaming at the mouth in regards to who might get the honor of being the next big movie villain. In the wake of The Dark Knight, the top names being thrown around seem to be Catwoman and the Riddler, which are both logical choices of where the Batman franchise could go next. Yet at the same time, there are a few villains we can probably all-mostly-agree should not be in the next Batman movie. These are the characters I'm more interested in. These are the bad guys that would officially cause the Batman franchise to jump the shark. At least one has proven a formidable opponent in the past, but probably should be left there. And a few should just never be allowed into a Batman movie . . . ever.

The Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot)

Actually, the Penguin isn't even that bad. It's just the fact that when it comes down to diabolical villains, the first thing that comes to mind typically isn't a guy with flippers for hands in a suit and top hat whose weapon of choice is an umbrella. The original Batman film did the best I've ever seen at making the Penguin a villain anyone could take seriously (which I guess makes him the villain who should never make it into a movie again). Yet even in that case, what was it Penguin wanted? Acceptance. He only went all super-villain-y when folks started making fun of him. So his whole icescapade (couldn't resist) was a temper tantrum.

Hush (Thomas Elliot)

This guy, who was a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, is basically the anti-Bruce Wayne. Just like Bruce, he was born into a rich family, but unlike Bruce, he hates his parents. I mean, hates them. He hates them so much, he cuts the breaks on their cars in an attempt to kill them. And get this; he starts hating Bruce when Dr. Wayne saves his mom. From this point on, the Waynes get blamed for everything that goes wrong in Elliot's life; literally, everything. And when Bruce is lucky enough to have both his parents killed, Elliot hates him even more. So he becomes a bad guy. And, you know, he's not half-bad. He recruits all kinds of bad guys to help him try and kill Batman. He's so bad, he even runs Joker out of Gotham for a while, in an attempt to make sure nobody kills Batman but himself. But ultimately, he's just a sort of pathetic whiner who throws villainous temper tantrums because he can't keep up with the Joneses, aka the Waynes. It would be interesting to see a paralleled Batman/Hush movie, but he's really not much a villain without the aid of the other villains he recruited, then killed, in his devious scheming.

The Mad Hatter (Jervis Tetch)

The Mad Hatter did have some pretty clever tricks up his sleeves, and in his hat, but other than that he proves another villain who could never come near super-villain classification. According to many of the series in which Hatter was involved, Jervis Tetch fell for a girl named-you guessed it-Alice. Upon learning the love was not reciprocated, Tetch went insane and started committing crimes. And that's about it. This guy, who is completely obsessed with Alice an Wonderland, spent most of his time stealing hats and controlling people's minds; in fact, sometimes he controlled his own mind to create a better universe than the stink hole he created for himself. Imagine two or more hours of that. No thank you.

The Ventriloquist/Scarface

Arnold Wesker is the Ventriloquist. Scarface is his dummy. I'm not kidding. It's a doll. And here's the great thing about it: Wesker is a total dork without Scarface, probably not even capable of hurting a fly, yet with machine gun-toting Scarface he's a force to be reckoned with. If you have any doubts that the Ventriloquist wouldn't cut it in a Batman feature film, let me recount for you one of his "greater" storylines. In one plotline, Wesker loses Scarface, and must replace him with a new villain. He settles on a sock puppet, creatively named "Socko." Eventually, Scarface and the Ventriloquist are reunited, resulting in a standoff between Scarface and Socko. The standoff-which is actually more of a hand-off, if you think about it-ends when the two shoot each other. Unfortunately, the gunfire also results in Wesker shooting himself in both his hands, leaving him in a bloody unconscious state. 'Nuff said.

Killer Croc (Waylon Jones)

Killer Croc's closest thing to a super power is a skin disease. Okay, that's not entirely true, but the skin condition is pretty much the biggest thing he has going against him. Okay, that's not true either. But before I get ahead of myself, let's give Croc some background. Waylon Jones was born with a condition that, over time, made him appear more and more like a crocodile: green scales and all. What adds to his potential as a villain are his super strength and super regenerative abilities. But outside of the coolness of being able to regenerate lost limbs, there's not much to Killer Croc. In my favorite Croc appearance, Killer Croc sits among a group of Batman's nemeses discussing how they almost killed the Bat. In the midst of the great tales of Batman's near death experiences at their hands, Croc submits, "I threw a rock at him." In his defense, it was a really big rock.

A villain by any other name is still a villain. These villains just happen to be on the sadder side of villainy. The closest any of these come to true Batman arch-nemeses status is a web-fingered, web-toed sob story or a spoiled aristobrat who only wants to get rid of Batman because Bruce Wayne got everything he ever wanted (namely the death of his parents). These are the villains who should count themselves lucky if they're even considered as extras in the next Batman film. So let's cheer them for their efforts, but let them stay in Arkham and the comic books.