The heroes of the DC Universe have had to face a large variety of different villains over the years. From invading alien armies to multiversal threats and beyond, these foes have tested the heroes to their limits. One hero who has faced some of the most challenging and memorable foes in DC Comics history is Batman.
While many of his classic Rogues are human, he has since accumulated foes that are either supernatural, or even more iconically, metahuman. Powerful foes who have extraordinary gifts that push Batman to his limits. Here are the ten most powerful metahuman villains in Batman’s Rogues Gallery.
10 Doctor Phosphorus
The first metahuman foe of Batman that is worth mentioning is a villain known as Doctor Phosphorus, aka Dr. Alex Sartorius. A member of the Tobacconist’s club, Alex had wanted to build a nuclear power plant in Gotham, but was refused and was forced to build the plant outside of the city.
As a result, sand irradiated during a meltdown at the planet transformed Alex into Doctor Phosphorus, making his skeleton see-through in his body and his skin flammable upon any contact and changing him into phosphorus. He tried to poison Gotham’s water supply in revenge but was stopped by Batman.
9 Gotham Girl
One of the more recent foes of Batman is also one of his more tragic, as Batman fought to help this villain several times in recent years. Claire Clover, aka Gotham Girl, joined her brother in buying superpowers that would give them the powers of Superman himself, but at the cost of shortening their lifespans.
However Psycho Pirate manipulated her brother, driving him mad and expending all his powers fighting the Justice League. After his passing she had a hard time coping, and despite Batman’s help, she conspired against him with Bane. However Batman managed to bring her back into the light, hopefully giving her a second chance at heroism.
8 Blockbuster
This next villain was a prime example of a metahuman who gained power through experimentation on himself. The title of the villain has been used by up to four different individuals over the years, but the first and iconic Batman foe is Mark Desmond, otherwise known as Blockbuster.
After experimenting on himself to make him stronger, he gained enhanced strength. However the side effects included debilitating his once brilliant mind, and making him mindlessly aggressive. Despite being cared for by his brother Roland, Roland manipulated his brother into committing crimes until they were ultimately confronted by Batman and Robin themselves.
7 Mister Freeze
This next metahuman foe is unique in that they don’t have special powers necessarily but have changed in a metahuman way biologically, causing them to adapt weaponry to fit their new biology. That villain is Victor Fries, aka Mister Freeze. His unique metahuman nature is that his body was transformed during an experiment trying to save his wife, forcing him to survive in sub-zero temperatures.
Building a power suit to house his new cold environment in, he uses weaponry that allows him to freeze people and things in order to fuel his never ending quest to save his wife Nora.
6 Vandal Savage
One of the oldest villains Batman has ever faced is the longtime Batman and Justice League villain, Vandal Savage. What makes Savage so unique is his metahuman nature that gave him not only enhanced strength and agility, but his immortality as well. Gaining this metahuman power from a crashed meteor thousands of years ago, the former caveman went on to influence countless wars and history as a whole.
He is a longtime foe of teams like the Justice League and JSA, but he has also battled Batman throughout the centuries, after Batman was thrown into the past in the aftermath of Final Crisis.
5 Reverse-Flash
In a shocking move, one of the more recent foes Batman has come up against in recent years is none other than Eobard Thawne, aka Reverse-Flash. During the storyline The Button, Batman and the Flash team up after Reverse-Flash infiltrates the Bat-Cave and nearly beats Batman within an inch of his life.
Batman and Flash had been working together in private to learn about the Rebirth era itself, knowing the universe had changed thanks to the intervention of an outside force, (Doctor Manhattan), and Reverse-Flash raced through time to discover the origin of the smiley face button embedded into the Bat-Cave wall.
4 Clayface
While recent years saw this next metahuman villain turn into a hero on Batman’s team in Gotham City, Clayface spent years as a major villain in Gotham. While the title was used by many people throughout the years, the most popular of them all is Basil Karlo, an actor who originally had no powers.
Using a costume to take out other actors to take on their roles, he later gained the shapeshifting abilities of the other Clayface villains. He was a major force in plots like Hush and No Man’s Land, but in recent years fought to become a hero and reform his villainous ways.
3 Killer Croc
Another tragic foe of Batman’s was a young man named Waylon Jones (or Killer Croc), a man born with a rare form of atavism which gave him scales and the appearance of a crocodile. Ridiculed and teased as a child, he ended up taking the life of his abusive aunt and becoming a criminal in Gotham City.
While originally retaining his human appearance with only green scales to show his atavism, over the years he has gained more animalistic appearances and as a result more powerful abilities like increased strength and more savage nature overall. He has joined the Suicide Squad and in recent years found love with June Moon.
2 Man-Bat
One of the most prime examples of a villain who experimented on themselves and ended up turning themselves into a monster and metahuman threat is Kirk Langstrom, aka Man-Bat. A zoologist who developed a way to give humans sonar hearing by extracting from a bat, he tested the serum on himself first and in the process transformed himself into a large, living Man-Bat.
This brought him into conflict with Batman, with his transformation coming and going over the years as a result of further testing and the struggle between science, villainy and his morality. His wife even took the formula for a time.
1 Poison Ivy
The most powerful metahuman villain in Batman’s rogues is also one of DC Comic’s most complex characters, especially in recent years. That would be Dr. Pamela Isley, aka Poison Ivy. A scientist who due to an accident gained the ability to control and communicate with nature (and in essence the Green), she became an eco-terrorist, battling Batman as she tried to save nature from humanity.
However over the years she has gone back and forth between her villainous nature and her heroism, trying to find a way to balance her love of nature with recognizing humanity’s right to exist.