Bat-Manga, Examined (part two)

Because of my quest to pursue the sharing of knowledge (and mostly because I am completely bored at work), here is part two of our in-depth look at some things that caught my fancy in the Japanese Batman manga stories.  Today we will look at the villains featured in the translated stories.

In one of the opening pages of the book, the Joker is shown, and you can see plenty of neat-o Japanese toys from the 60's that feature the Penguin and the Riddler, but by a strange twist of fate, only one real Batman villain appears in these stories.  The rest were invented by the author, and fall somewhere between:  Golden Age villain stereotypes from American comics, and the average episode of Speed Racer.

Yes.  That is really his name.  Pretty much equivalent to naming a Super Villain "King Bank-Robber Guy" or "President Malfeasance Gentleman," but there it is.  His power is, he can die and come back whenever he wants.  That's why he is called Lord Death Man.  What does he want to do to our heroes?

Heh heh, yeah, that's right.  He wants to...wait, what?

Hmm, that's strange.  It seems to make sense to the Caped Crusaders.  At least that's over for now--

Okay, WHAT IS THE OBSESSION WITH BEEHIVES? In America, we say "Swiss Cheese," or use a metaphor of something that has several holes, hence the getting-shot-with-a-gun thing.  From my experience, beehives typically have one hole...the entrance.  Let's move on to the next villain.

Yes, that is also really his name.  With his collar up (which it is the rest of the time) and hat off, he looks like Nightwing did in the 1970's, and he has a magic wand thingy that can control the weather, not unlike another D.C. villain that has a magic wand thingy that can control the weather.  I have no understanding of his name, but luckily for us, this guy does NOT dance in giant bird cages wearing bikinis and body paint.

Next, Batman and Robin fight Jim Carrey.  No, actually, it's a guy who is sort of a cross between Two-Face from the comics, and False-Face from the TV show.  To sum it up, this happens to him:

We have all had days like that.  And then he goes on a crime spree:

He can't quite decide whether to wear masks, or go around as the Incredible Melting Man and gross out people.

He also doesn't know the difference between a Rock Pulverizer and a shiny gemstone.

Moving on, we encounter a villain we have acutally heard of:

 

Clayface, although this is a guy who falls into a pool of slime in a cave, and gains the ability to turn into Pterodactyls and stuff.  Unfortunately, this ability wears off after a while, allowing this to happen:

Batman, too, gains the ability to turn into dinosaurs, and if this shocks you (like it did me, briefly), remember that far, far stupider stuff than this was done in the late 40's and 1950's in American comics.

But I will call you Grodd, because you are a giant talking gorilla.  And why draw all the anatomy and stuff that gorillas have, panel after panel, when you can just have him wear a sheet and a helmet? That's much easier, and much less hairy.  He does disrobe at the end, when he is easily defeated.  Oh, and he turns stupid again, and probably goes back to the circus.

Next time, in Part Three, we will examine some "What THE heck?!" moments, but for now, I will leave you with the "Quote of the Day":

Isn't that what guns DO?