Batman The Animated Series

Comics-wise, the Mad Hatter’s defining trait for the last few decades has been that he’s genuinely insane and in legitimate need of mental help, but that doesn’t apply to BTAS Hatter.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 1st 2021 at 12:52:59 PM

Oops, double post.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 1st 2021 at 12:52:22 PM

I would say Ventriloquist, Two-Face, and Mad Hatter are the notable ones who are probably the most legitimately insane.

Agree about The Ventriloquist and Two-Face. I haven't seen any portrayals of the Mad Hatter outside of his appearance in B:TAS. I don't think The Riddler qualifies given that he feels compelled to leave clues about his crimes, not to commit the crimes in the first place (I expect he qualifies as a narcissist, though). The Joker would seem to be a classic sociopath in that he's well aware of the difference between right and wrong, he just doesn't care.

Many of Batman's villains likely qualify as having some kind of psychiatric issue that would probably warrant intensive therapy, but the vast majority of them aren't disturbed in such a a way that an insanity defense would work for them in a court of law.

Wasn't the Mad Hatter in B:TAS just some dude who was obsessed with a woman named Alice or something? I don't particularly remember him being insane, just your average creep.

In B:TAS he was a meek scientist type who was frequently bullied by his boss and had a crush on a female co-worker named Alice. He had developed a method of mind-control and, after finding out that Alice only liked him rather than loved him, he decided to use his technology to his own advantage. You feel kinda bad for him until he decides to mind-control Alice to make her love him.

He made a couple of appearances throughout the series, but it always struck me as being a little odd that he should continue past his initial appearance. I could see his impetus for becoming a super-villain, but he didn't seem like he had much reason to remain a super-villain, at least as described in B:TAS. It's not like he kept going after Alice. I remember there being a couple of villains like that, that made sense for their initial story but didn't really as recurring villains.

Weren't there two different Mad Hatters in the comics? Jervis Tetch, who looked like the Tenniel illustrations from Alice in Wonderland and another guy with a handlebar mustache and a bowler hat?

Edited by Robbery on Sep 1st 2021 at 4:18:08 AM

To be clear, I was giving Riddler as an example of a villain who possibly has mental issues, but usually wouldn't have the insanity defense apply. It's not enough to just be diagnosed with a disorder, as much as that'd make things easier for comic writers.

Although it's not out of the question, in some cases, that a villain might be found guilty but still ultimately end up in Arkham for treatment. This might be what happens to BTAS Riddler: despite being back in Arkham at the end of "Riddler Reformed", he mentions going up against the Parole Board and he's ostensibly taken in for "a parole violation".

BTAS Hatter probably doesn't have a case. He seems a little delusional at times, but also seems perfectly aware that he's turning Alice into a puppet and mind-controlling people. He's just possessive enough to do it anyway. I can't really remember the details of his motivations in later episodes beyond "Perchance to Dream", but I think he might just be outright hypnotising people so he can commit crimes and steal money?

You know, I haven't actually read any of Mad Hatter's appearances in comics. He feels like one of those villains who'd be a little too constrained by their gimmick (gotta fit in those Alice references), but maybe I'm being unfair. I'd be curious how he compares.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Sep 1st 2021 at 5:16:08 PM

Checking the Mad Hatter's Wikipedia entry (which is rife with misleading statements, big surprise—the Mad Hatter wasn't sent to Arkham after his first appearance, because he first appeared in 1948 and Arkham didn't show up until the 70's), and there was a second Mad Hatter who first appeared in 1956 (this is the mustachioed bowler-hat guy I was thinking of) who was just obsessed with hats. and made hat-based weaponry much like the Penguin has umbrella-based weaponry.

> Arkham didn't show up until the 70's

Wow,today I learned!

Yeah, in the '60s show they all went to Gotham State Penitentiary instead.

I think the only other villain that would be considered insane is of course Joker.

Joker definitely is a psychopath.

I think some of the criminals go to Arkham because Arkham has the facilities needed to hold them, like Killer Croc or Mr. Freeze.

Comics Mad Hatter, for reference.◊

To give a good comparison for anyone who has, say, played the Arkham games. Most of the villains in the Arkham games are mildly to almost entirely rewritten in order to be more depraved or dark. Mad Hatter, uniquely, is not - at least not much: in fact he's fairly faithfully adapted in those games. The whole "serial murderer who is delusional and incoherent to the point of often being barely lucid" thing has been canon for Hatter for a while.

Depending on the Writer, you could count Killer Croc sometimes. He goes in and out on being mentally ill or not - specifically, for a while it's occasionally a plot point that whatever condition he has that makes him a reptile man has a deteriorating effect on his brain. It's basically been dropped nowadays iirc, though.

Also depending on the writer, but even rarer, Harley occasionally gets portrayed that way. Her first comic outright depicted her as having snapped so hard she's mentally incapable of perceiving the consequences of her actions.

Then there are version specific ones, too. The second Clayface was insane, though he's also basically obscure these days. The version of Clayface in The Batman was insane too, but he got better.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 1st 2021 at 8:56:00 AM

Yeah the Arkham Mad Hatter is pretty equivalent to how he is in the comics most of the time. And he barely seems to be aware of Reality.

Here are the tapes for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-x8FIRnPXU&ab_channel=Zevik

Edited by Envyus on Sep 1st 2021 at 9:56:18 AM

How many versions of Clayface are there? And which one is the one that stuck?

Eight. The original Basil Karlo is the one used the most, as he later gains the second Clayface Matt Hagen's powerset which is the iconic Clayface powers as Karlo was originally non powered.

Edited by Envyus on Sep 1st 2021 at 10:01:50 AM

Four main ones, iirc:

• Basil Karlo: originally an actor/murderer who was a Master of Disguise and didn't have any powers, until being reimagined as the "one true Clayface" and getting Clayface II's powers. Is the current Clayface, though Rebirth Clayface is an almost entirely different character than any of the previous versions.
• Matt Hagen: The second Clayface. Got exposed to a comic book thingamabob and becomes living Clay. BTAS' version composited Basil Karlo with his name.
• Preston Payne: Anti-Villain scientist who accidentally gives himself the ability to melt people, and has to do it periodically or else he feels unbearable pain. Didn't last long.
• Sondra Fuller: The female Clayface. Worked for Kobra. Also didn't last long, but did get have a kid who briefly became Clayface V.

There are others, but most of the rest are oneshot or extremely brief versions that didn't really go anywhere. I mixed up the number before: Clayface III (Payne) was the one who was legitimately insane. The one I mentioned from The Batman was a Canon Foreigner (and basically a mashup of Harvey Dent with Clayface's powers).

Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 1st 2021 at 9:08:02 AM

Right, in the comics wasn't Hagen originally an explorer or a treasure hunter? I recall that he found a glowing pool deep in the ocean that turned him into Clayface.

It should be noted that Preston Payne suffered from facial deformities; he developed a serum from Hagen's blood that he hoped would let him alter his face. It did for awhile, and then it turned him into an animated blob (hence his suit, which serves as an exoskeleton) that could turn others into protoplasm. Guilt over accidentally turning people into protoplasm drove him mad and sent him on a rampage, and he ended up delusional in Arkham, in love with a mannequin.

Most adaptations go with some version of Hagen, and his powerset.

Edited by Robbery on Sep 1st 2021 at 10:20:47 AM

IIRC comics Hagen was an Adventure Archaeologist, yeah. Chalk that up as another profession you can't have in superhero comics without something crazy and/or awful happening to you.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 1st 2021 at 11:10:06 AM

@Lavaeolus His motivation in his second episode was getting rid of Batman so he can leave him in peace and in third robbing people but only so he can retire. Both motivations that work better with long-term villain.

Most adaptions use Karlo I think. He just has Hagen's power set. Batman the Animated series excluded which uses Hagan with Karlo's actor stuff.

Honestly, this was a big letdown, especially with all the 90s nostalgia fans hyping it up as the best cartoon ever, with "mature and serious" storytelling. I watched it as a teenager, remembered nothing. Watched it again recently, and can still barely remember anything remarkable that happened. Heart of Ice was especially disappointing. They devote a total of one and a half minutes to the actual drama and the rest is Batman tracking down Freeze. It's like... I hear about what happens in it, but actually watching the episode doesn't add any depth, nor emotional poignancy to the single sentence used to describe the sad backstory because the episode isn't a drama; it's a crime procedural. The Batman 2004 is better. Actually all the Batman cartoons that came after it were better than this one, but it deserves all the praise it gets for laying the foundation to those and the rest of the DCAU. It's a good show, even today, but there should be a disclaimer to its hype: hey, 75 percent of its episodes are unremarkable. Perhaps "The Caped Crusader" will give the series a face lift and I'll see if I like the low level crime, villain-centric storytelling more.

Edited by Recynon on Mar 16th 2022 at 3:40:57 AM

I wouldn't say you need a disclaimer. You should take any kind of hype with a grain of salt, especially when you get a lot of people calling something the greatest of all time.

Batman: TAS suffers today in comparison to shows that it influenced. Going back and watching it now, it's still very good but, as you say, not all the episodes are particularly memorable. The people who made the show have much the same opinion of it. They were trying hard not to do shows that would have fit better on Super Friends or the Filmation Batman (early in production, they had to throw out a lot of the scripts they'd gotten and start over, because they couldn't get their writers to adopt the tone they wanted; they brought in Alan Burnett, and he helped get things in order). The important thing to remember about the reputation Batman:TAS has garnered and the memories of it that people who experienced it in real time have of it is that, at the time, there hadn't been anything like it on the air.

It's true of a lot of groundbreaking things that, if you take away how new and different they were at the time they were produced, what you're left with is something good rather than super great. For instance, that's been my opinion of The Watchmen; it's good comics, but there's nothing about it that's particularly noteworthy until you realize that it was the first of it's kind. The first season of The Super Friends is utter garbage, and subsequent series are, at best, good kid's cartoons, but you have adults who remember them fondly because, when they watched them as kids, there wasn't anything else like them around.

I liked Batman: TAS a lot (and I did watch it when it first came out) but I think WB did better with every successive DCEU show.

Edited by Robbery on Mar 16th 2022 at 4:19:54 AM

I think after trying to kidnap Alice and mind control her, BTAS Mad Hatter was motivated by a desire to get Batman out of the way and trying to get enough money to move away from Gotham and buy his own island. He clearly doesn't like Batman and after that stunt with Alice, getting a legitimate job would be hard with someone with that kind of criminal record, so him staying a villain makes sense.

Edited by Overlord on Mar 16th 2022 at 8:58:40 AM

Same. I also don't get why people keep saying that this is the best Joker ever.

Maybe if you take into consideration stuff he did after Batman TAS, there is some merit.

BTAS Joker is one of the last times they let Joker be a character instead of an untouchable god. It means he can still do funny stuff without being over the top, and he can still get punked out. Something like the Charlie Collins episode would not happen today.