It made more money than God and everything, but, frankly, "The Dark Knight" was so six days ago. I think we can all collectively now say, "Two-Face who?"

As such, we've decided to set the odds for who will be taking the mantle of the next villain to try to rid the world of the heinous scourge known as The Batman (as played by Christian Bale again, we hope, as long as he doesn't go to jail for beating up his mom and sister).

A warning: There are SPOILERS for "The Dark Knight" in this piece, so if you haven't seen it yet, what the fuck are you doing messing around here? Go see it.

The Riddler

Strengths:
A pretty good setup in "The Dark Knight" in the form of Mister Reece (Mysteries, get it?), the guy who figures out Batman's secret identity and tries to threaten him with it. Also, done right (see "Batman: The Animated Series"), the Riddler is one of Batman's coolest and best-dressed villains.

Liabilities:
There's an outside chance that Mister Reece could turn out to be Hugo Strange, the doctor who found out Batman's identity in the comics and tried to sell it to other supervillains, but he's way lesser known, so it's pretty well outside. Still, there's a chance. Plus, done wrong, the Riddler is a second-rate Joker who tends to be more grating than a chorus of screwdrivers on chalkboards (see "Batman Forever"). Let's just pray to God Robin Williams' name doesn't come up outside of this little discussion we're having.

Odds: 1-1.

The Joker

Strengths:
He was goddamn incredible in "The Dark Knight," and he lived through the movie. Hell, he basically even says near the end he's going to show up again so that he and Batman can grin and pout, respectively, at each other for eternity. Plus, he's basically our go-to guy when we need someone to get Batman's panties all in a wad.

Liabilities:
The character made it out alive, but the actor didn't. Probably wouldn't be the same with anyone but Ledger in the role. Maybe there'll just be a little cameo in a scene in Arkham so we know he's still around.

Odds: 3-1.

Black Mask

Strengths:
Despite the showy nature of his skull mask thingy, Black Mask pretty well fits in with the real-world sensibility of the Nolan Batman franchise. He's a mob boss with some parental issues who wears a mask to intimidate his enemies. So he's basically Batman without all that self-righteous bullshit.

Liabilities:
Nobody knows who he is. Hell, I had to look him up on Wikipedia to remember much of anything about him, and I work with the guy.

Odds: 4-1.

The Scarecrow

Strengths:
He's appeared in both movies so far, and has yet to die. Cillian Murphy's still holding strong, too, as far as I know. Plus, he's got a cool mask.

Liabilities:
His screen time decreased substantially in "The Dark Knight," basically amounting to a cameo, and he didn't even get that much screen time in the first one. The law of diminishing returns says it may be time to appear in a "28 Days Later" sequel, friend.

Odds: 3-2.

Catwoman

Strengths:


Liabilities:


Odds: 6-1.

Poison Ivy

Strengths:
Considering the amount of homemade "Batman: The Animated Series"-style cartoon porn I had to endure while I was looking for an image to use with this piece, she's clearly a fan favorite.

Liabilities:
If Nolan and crew were going to feature a villain who obsessively tries to protect the environment, they probably needed to do it this year. The fad will more than likely be over by 2010 or whenever the next one's coming out. Plus, she was already the villain in a movie this year, "The Happening," or at least that's what I've talked myself into believing, so I can justify having to pay money to see that piece of shit.

Odds: 8-1.

The Penguin

Strengths:
He was in one of the previous Batman franchise movies, and wasn't stomach-collapsingly terrible in it. Also, he's got the whole legitimate club owner thing going on, which means he could be pretty reasonably played by a short, very funny-looking fat guy without looking too out-of-place in Nolan's oh-so-realistic Bat-world.

Liabilities:
What do you really do with the guy? Basically, Batman breaks into his club, interrogates him, and goes after other criminals. That's how I've seen him portrayed in every Batman comic of the last 15 years. You could have him run for mayor, but that's been done. Outside of having him steal Batman's car like he did in the animated series, I'm out of ideas.

Odds: 12-1.

The Mad Hatter

Strengths:
The Mad Hatter's mind control shtick is actually something that could seem pretty acceptable in a movie franchise that's gotten us to swallow a super-water-evaporator gun and super-vision-sonar Bat-eyes.

Liabilities:
The character may be public domain by now, but you really don't want to mess with the ghost of Lewis Carroll's intellectual property rights. Ghost of Lewis Carroll will wreck your shit.

Odds: 15-1.

Mr. Freeze

Strengths:
In the animated series and the comics, Mr. Freeze is a tragically tormented character who fights Batman not out of a sense of greed or malevolence, but as a way to deal with the pain brought on by the death of his young wife. Batman knows what he's doing is wrong, but can't help but pity the poor, broken man he has become.

Liabilities:

• "ICE to see you!"
• "COOL party!"
• "Allow me to break the ice. My name is Freeze. Learn it well. For it's the chilling sound of your doom."
• "Alright everyone, CHILL!"
• "Let's kick some ICE!"

Clayface

Strengths:
Another poignantly tragic character, Clayface has been used as everything from an allegory about pretending to be someone other than yourself to a lecture about drug abuse to a message about how cool treasure hunting is. And shapeshifting is fun.

Liabilities: Mystique from the X-Men movies kinda stole old Clayface's thunder on this one. Plus, there have been like 20 of them, so which one do you use? Also, how do you figure out a believable way explain a big muddy shapeshifting guy in these movies? It'd be tough. Maybe if you throw enough mud and lightning into the origin scene, people won't know what's going on.

Odds: 25-1

Man-Bat

Strengths:
He's an interesting counterpoint to Batman, though the concept is pretty on-the-nose. He'd make for some good action sequences, too, especially since we've established on like a dozen occasions that the Bale Batman can fly with his rich-guy wings.

Liabilities:
He turns into a half-man half-bat. After about twenty minutes of flying around, there's not much else to do with the guy. And unless Jeff Goldblum suddenly shows up with his machines from "The Fly," it won't make a lot of sense how he came into being, because apparently Christopher Nolan is against things being fantastical, despite the pictures I've sent him of the half-man, half-sock I created.

Odds: 22-1

Ventriloquist and Scarface

Strengths:
A dummy that talks on its own and apparently controls its ventriloquist suitably fulfills the films' creepy quotient, and the fact that the dummy may just be another personality of the ventriloquist makes for good psychological movie stuff. Plus, the organized crime connections make the character easy to slide into the established character set. Bonus, the ventriloquist is now a hot chick in the comics.

Liabilities:
The fact that the dummy is (sometimes) sentient is so weird that even the comics haven't really bothered to explain it. Also, come on, it's kind of silly.

Odds: 13-1.

KGBeast

Strengths:
He's a good enough fighter that he'd give movie Batman, who solves just about everything with punching, a run for his money.

Liabilities: He was an anachronism when "Batman Returns" got made. Still, a movie full of nothing but Alfred making jokes about how Batman smells like beets when he gets home would be pretty great.

Odds: 40-1.

Batzarro

Strengths:
Pretty fucking funny. Also, it would make the third Batman movie in this franchise feature an evil doppelganger, just like the third Spider-Man...nevermind.

Liabilities:
He's funny, but he's also a pretty patently fucking stupid character. He doesn't even make any sense. Batzarro is supposed to be the opposite of Batman. He shot and killed his parents. But that's not the opposite of Batman. If he was the opposite, his parents would be alive, and they would have shot the robber. Ugh.

Odds: 80-1.

Dogs of Ever-Increasing Size and Ferocity

Strengths: Say what you will about the Joker and Two-Face, these were the real villains in "The Dark Knight." Think back to the movie. There were dogs everywhere. The Slavic mobster guy had them, then the Joker had them (and Batman punched one off a building in Chris Sims' favorite moment ever). Then, at the end, the cops that were chasing Batman had them. It just makes sense, then, for him to fight them in the next one. First he starts with a chihuahua, then he works his way up to a great dane. It would be the perfect story arc.

Liabilities: I can't think of any.

Odds: 1-1.

KingOblivionPhD@the-iss.com