Team Players

There are some characters in comics who are by nature joiners. You can barely get two people together for a team up before they arrive as well.

And then there are those others who are regarded as dangerous loose cannons of dubious loyalties.

This is an article about two such characters, and how each of them is the undisputed greatest team player of their particular universe.
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Smilex

Perhaps more indicative of the insanity of the Joker than anything else about him, Smilex is a deadly poison that causes horrific facial deformations, usually in form of a rictus grin.

Smilex is made in both liquid and gaseous forms – the gas resembles a green smoke. The liquid can be mixed into almost any foodstuffs.

The puzzling thing about Smilex is the business plan behind its distribution. The Joker gives it away, seeking the widest possible range of people inn Gotham, with the intent of killing them. Surely, this is insanity by any modern standard: the total absence of anything even resembling a profit motive – in fact, the Joker probably took a loss on the deal.
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The Coolest Batman villain

There’s only been a few hundred Batman villains over the years, due to most of them having a tendency to come back again and again and again…

…and let’s face it, I’m going to be talking about one of the big guns here.  One of the longest-lasting and most well-known of all Batfoes.  So you can rule out Film Freak and Ratcatcher and all those villain-come-latelies.

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Dark Knights, Dark City III: The Last of the Batmen

Welcome back to this, the third and final installment of Dark Knights, Dark City. I hope you’ve enjoyed it – I know I have.
Hell, I may even do this, or something like it, again someday…

Parts One and Two are here and here respectively.

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Dark Knights, Dark City II: The First of the Batmen

Welcome back for part two. This time with actual Batmen, although maybe not any you’ve heard of :)
Let’s get to it, shall we?

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Dark Knights, Dark City I: The Early Years of Gotham City

Something a little different: this is part one of a three part essay on the history of the Wayne family and Gotham City. It should by no means be considered canonical. Rather, it is an attempt to work together the various Batmen that have appeared in a number of Elseworlds books from DC, along with selected stories from DC Universe comics.

This is nerdcore, folks – if you’re not a comics geek, there’s probably not much here for you.

Continue reading Dark Knights, Dark City I: The Early Years of Gotham City

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