Nightmare Fuel / The Batman

"All it takes is one rotten day...to transform a normal man into a MONSTER!"

The Batman vs. Dracula as its own page.

This incarnation of Batman and his Rogues amps up the creep factor for a variety of Batman's rogues, making them all more deranged at best and a gaggle of Humanoid Monsters at worst. As such there are nightmares aplenty.

---

• The Joker. From his inhuman red eyes to his disgusting mouth, everything seems off about him. The fact that his original outfit was modeled after a straightjacket doesn’t help and the fact he can actually combat the Caped Crusader in wits and brawn in this verse only makes him more dangerous.
  • Victims of Joker's laughing gas, especially with their wide eyes and demented grin with yellow teeth!
  • Joker’s introduction in the first episode is incredibly creepy, with his face being hidden completely in shadow, with the exception of his eyes and Slasher Smile. Look for yourself!
  • If you thought this Joker looked horrifying, have a gander at his concept art. Jeff Matsuda's early sketches depict the Joker wearing an exaggerated Slasher Smile that would've made his comic counterpart proud. Matsuda probably made the right call to ditch that look for the Joker and settle for his slotting teeth grin instead.
• Seeing Batman under the effects of Joker toxin in "The Laughing Bat" is just... wrong. Oh so very wrong. And this isn't the first time we see Batman infected by the toxin. Or the last. Joker himself is even worse and even more deranged than usual, attacking people with a new strain of Joker Gas and targeting everyone who breaks any minor rules as a twisted mockery of Batman's Code. He gassed people for relatively minor offenses, such as leaving the turn signal on. It gets worse when he gasses the mayor’s wife and then later goes after two girls who were innocently making chalk drawings. Him later actively trying to make his own "Joker" by poisoning Batman and Batman slowly undergoing Sanity Slippage only adds to the horror pile. And then Penguin gets poisoned...
• Ethan Bennett's treatment by the Joker in the penultimate episode of the first season is just terrifying, especially near the end of the episode when Ethan's face melts as he turns into Clayface. Even worse is that Ethan's transformation was entirely accidental on Joker's part. Even he had no idea what his Joker Putty would do to humans. Not to mention Ethan only breathed in the fumes. Who knows what a direct application would’ve done?
  • Speaking of which, Ethan's shifting ability as Clayface is pretty creepy all its own... especially when you look at it frame by frame.
  • What makes Ethan's transformation especially horrifying are the circumstances. Most Clayfaces brought their mutations on themselves in someway through vanity and experimentation. This time it's forced on a completely helpless victim who finds himself melting away after being tortured by a madman. Seeing him wail for help from people who only see a monster is genuinely painful to watch.
  • Even the second Clayface, Basil Karlo, gets a few creepy scenes, especially when he snaps against the casting agents who kept rejecting him.
    Clayface: (turns into a werewolf) I can even play the dog…(lunges)
• The Riddler, especially with his eerily calm voice and whimsically murderous personality that crosses between childish and dangerously insane. Being voiced by Freddy Krueger himself can do that...
  The Riddler: Tell me, Batman... what question can you never answer “Yes” to? (doses Batman with knockout gas then whispers) “Are you asleep?”
• Penguin in this incarnation is completely deranged, unlike his more saner crime boss incarnations and has the added bonus of being a dangerous martial artist willing to kill with his own hands, a pair of silent blade-handed contortionist minions who kill at his leisure, and having a vast assortment of dangerous weapons in his umbrella to boot. Many creepy moments from him are as followed:
  • Penguin pulling a Nightmare Face right after breaking down in tears after his initial defeat by Batman.
  • Penguin’s face when he tries to ground Batman into “fertilizer”.
  • Penguin getting the powers of Ra and then threatening to blow up a hospital. Full of CHILDREN.
  • Oh and in "The Laughing Bat", it's revealed that he doesn't barge into Joker's plots to destroy all of Gotham out of professional courtesy, and nothing else. In other words, he doesn't seem to mind other villains committing citywide genocide, so as long as they don't interfere with his plans.
• Ragdoll, a creepy contortionist that can stretch and bend in ways that aren't even imaginable. He once hid in Penguin's hat without being noticed, which indicates he could be hiding in any nook and cranny anywhere.
  • When Bruce Wayne tries to stop the contortionist villain, the latter creepily turns his head at a 180 degree angle, whilst he warns Wayne in a thinly veiled threat that "boys shouldn't play with dolls".
  • Generally, Ragdoll having a pair of stitched X's where his eyes should be. Like some of Batman's villains, it kind of makes you wonder if there's even a man in there.
• Black Mask. Particularly his mask. Not only does it look creepy, it's apparently unable to be removed. Is he even human underneath? The same question can be asked about the Kabuki Twins.
• "Strange New World". Hugo Strange's plan is to turn the city into a Zombie Apocalypse, with one key difference- they would be his mindless drone army, and otherwise act like regular zombies, minus the ripping people to shreds. We see it actually in action and it's terrifying. And the zombies are frighteningly intelligent, capable of team combat and setting traps... and then it turns out they're not zombies at all. Strange just tricked Batman and Robin into breathing his hallucinating toxin, and everyone's perfectly normal. It's only the two of them that see them as zombies, and due to this, they almost complete Strange's plan of releasing more of the toxin in crowded Gotham.
  • Also doubles as Fridge Horror since Batman and Robin are in reality thrashing innocent people, the police, Batgirl and eventually one another while hallucinating everyone around them is a zombie. Fortunately, the duo still cling to their Code, so no one is seriously hurt.
• The Penguin trying to slice Batgirl into pieces in "A Dark Knight To Remember". Made worse by Batman's amnesia impeding him from being her hero.
• Alfred getting hypnotized by Spellbinder in "The Butler Did It". Especially when he moves in sync with the other butlers, and shoves the Batman off the top of a moving van.
  • Heck, Spellbinder in general. The hallucinations he puts Batman in could give Scarecrow a run for his money.
• The plant clones in "Fleurs de Mal". They talk with the Voice of the Legion, and there's one scene where Batman is fighting his clone with a sharp Batarang, and cuts his chest open, which then proceeds to close back up as Clone!Batman laughs demonically.
• In Strange Minds, Batman is overwhelmed within Joker's mindscape, and starts to go insane, and starts laughing like a maniac. Seeing the normally stoic and reserved Batman go into a laughing fit is terrifying, even more when we see all of Joker's clones laughing simultaneously.
  Joker!Clown: How many Jokers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Wouldn't know. They're too busy loosening Batman's SCREWS!
  • In addition, a Jokerized chicken can be seen, which is both scary and kind of funny at he same time.
    Joker!Chicken: So you're a shrink; tell me: Why do I cross the road?
  • The scene where Batman crosses paths with the man Joker once was, and his unfortunate fate. One YouTube commenter put it best:
    We literally just watched the Joker eradicate the last remotely decent part of himself.
• In Brawn, seeing Joker under the effects of Bane's Venom apparatus◊ is just... unsettling.
• In The Laughing Cats, Joker is shown to be the only person who can actually unnerve Catwoman, as him lowering her into a giant pair of chomping teeth is the only time in the series when she shows genuine fear.
  Joker: I’ve always been told there’s…more than one way to skin a cat.
• As if Joker didn’t have enough of a Nightmare Fuel monopoly already, there’s his “partnership” with Donnie in The Apprentice. A grown man wanting to hang out with a middle school kid is creepy enough, but when that grown man is The Joker, you know this can’t end well. And then there’s his nightmarish Mood Whiplash when Donnie shows reluctance to actually hurt people, suddenly turning cold and hostile and planning to throw Donnie into the same vat of chemicals he fell into years ago so the kid can truly “see the funny side”.
• Harley Quinn. No, really. The Adorkable version audiences know and love is pretty much gone. She starts as a psychopathic womanchild and doesn't get any better. She's willing to murder innocent civilians for no other reason than because she thinks it would be funny or because they pissed her off somehow. She, among other things, gives a bigger Slasher Smile than Joker, and tries to kill several people because they didn't like her show. Her actually having a decent and equally received relationship with Joker does not help, and in fact emphasizes how bad this incarnation actually is.
• D.A.V.E. is scary in just how effective it is. Not only is D.A.V.E. able to beat the Batman in a fight multiple times, but the flawless tech robbery, committing the perfect crime that includes the elements of all of Batman's villains (just like D.A.V.E. itself), even deducing Batman's identity in a frighteningly believable and easy way, infiltrating the Batcave, and setting up a Sadistic Choice (either Alfred dies, or Batman's identity is revealed to the world) really do earn D.A.V.E. the title of Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind.
• Phosphorus. Up until this episode, Firefly is just a snarky thug for hire with a jetpack and lasers. One mishap with a radioactive isotope and he's this show's equivalent of Blight. Everything he touches incinerates, to the point where even the floor under his feet starts melting, he's able to project massive amounts of weaponized heat, and he's Drunk with Power and developing a serious Hair-Trigger Temper, to the point where even his girlfriend, who likes him because of his bad-boy nature, is terrified of what he's becoming. And what's worse, according to Batman, he's in danger of a meltdown, taking most of Gotham with him, unless he absorbs more radiation, which would make him even more dangerous.
• In “A Matter of Family”, where Tony Zucco has Batman tied up on a giant dart board, while explaining and demonstrating the circus act he used to be a part of with his father; knife-throwing. He’d throw the knives, and his dad would “hope he wouldn’t hit him”. Mark Hamill’s performance just makes it even creepier.
  Batman: Why'd you give up such a promising career?
  Tony Zucco: (coldly) Well, one day... I missed.
  • From the same episode, the death of Dick Grayson’s parents is this as much as it was a Tear Jerker. Because, unlike in Batman: The Animated Series, you actually see them fall, with Mary futilely calling out to Dick. Even Zucco’s brothers were horrified by what he’d done.
    Tony Zucco: I think “The Flying Graysons” might have to change their name.
• Joker’s nanobot clone. Especially the part where he removes his eyes and makes the Joker understandably grossed out. He then tries to KILL Joker and the others before melting down Gotham with his nanobots to turn it into his personal play pen.
• Mr Freeze's state in the future. The bottom half of his body has rotted away, and without his Humongous Mecha suit, he has to used spider-like legs to get around. He looks like a frozen, rotting, and yet living corpse.
• In the final episode Hugo Strange is put in a permanently catatonic state due to being given all the knowledge in the universe by The Joining. While you can't say he didn't deserve it for selling out Earth to them, there's something very unsettling about seeing the normally composed and calculating villain as a drooling vegetable.