SERIOUSLY THOUGH SHE WAS MY FAVORITE BATMAN VILLAIN
Her physical condition didn’t allow her to age
No one took her seriously as an actress
And even when she was trying to get into a happy romantic relationship (albeit with another villain) he still couldn’t take her seriously as a consenting, sexually active and romantically interested adult
That’s a lot of blows to someone’s psyche
and Babydoll is both a sympathetic villain and a formidable one
I remember this episode fucked me up a a kid.
And man, do I wish we could see this Batman again: the Batman that consoles his villains, because the majority (if not all) of them are mentally ill people. And Batman knows this and wants them healthy again, not punished and GOD definitely not dead.
Baby Doll is so underrated as a Batman villain
but her episode was perfect
Batman: The Animated Series
The story of one fucked up, traumatized little boy, doing his best to help other fucked up traumatized people.
The Batman that cares about the inmates is my favorite. He doesn’t put up with their shit, but he does try to reach out here and there and he’s as human as he can be to them.
When Harley was re-institutionalized, he got her that dress she wanted.
In the comics based on B:tAS, there was a time during Christmas that there was snow and it was Mr. Freeze’s fault, and he was making it snow because Christmas was his anniversary with Nora and she LOVED it when it snowed on Christmas, so Batman let him finish mourning before calmly taking him back to Arkham.
He never, ever gives up on Harvey possibly recovering.
Sure, Batman is going to throw punches and do what it takes to take these guys down when they’re hurting or threatening people. And he’s not going be a complete bleeding heart; he has to protect the innocent. He’s going to take them down and take them back to Arkham, but it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of being a bit human to the ones who deserve it.
Batman needs become human again
Because it needs to be here:
Remember that time a young girl with near god-like psychic powers threatened to destroy reality and the only one that could stop her was Batman because he had a previous encounter with her and was tasked with killing her to restore reality.
But instead, Batman sat with her on a swing and kept her company as the girl’s psychic powers slowly killed her.
No?
Fuck you people making me emotional
The. Batman.
This is MY Batman, not the murderous fascist they’ve made him into.
So today pulling into Stop and Shop, this lady cut me off and nearly drove into me, and then, when I tried to pass her, she swung to the right and nearly hit me again, and then flipped me off.
So somebody is having a bad day and taking it out on me. That’s fine. It’s harmless, and I don’t know what’s going on in this woman’s life. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt she’s not just a piece of shit and is just having a bad day.
But then I park and she follows me, and gets out of the car and starts swearing at me and getting in my face.
Now I go from “indifferent” to “I’m gonna fuck with this woman’s head.” Now I would say I’m a gentleman of size, and in all black and bemohawked I probably look spookier than I actually am, so props to this lady for getting in my face. Now of course I’m not going to hit her, or even threaten violence. That’s shitty. Nobody should get threatened with violence.
Instead, I take a step back, narrowing my eyes like I’m studying her face really closely, and then I touch one of the several piece of “occulty” jewelry I’m wearing (none of which, by the way, are magicked in any way at all). Then I mumble some nonsense under my breath, and then make the fig gesture and the horns at her.
She stops, wide-eyed.
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO TO ME?”
I chuckled, and shake my head. “Nothing at all.” I say in a not-terrible convincing voice. “But every time something bad happens to you today, you’re gonna be thinking of me.”