Todd Phillips’ Joker may have been based on DC Comics’ Clown Prince of Crime, but it featured a very different take on the tragic character that ended up with the most Oscar nominations of any film in 2020, leading to questions of a possible sequel.
While we don’t really want to see a direct sequel of Joker, there are quite a few tragic DC villains who could also headline their own film, especially if they took the Joker approach. So here are a few more DC villains we’d love to see explored on the big screen just like Joker.
SCARECROW
We’ve seen Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow adapted quite a few times, from his big-screen debut in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins to his dark origins on Fox’s Gotham TV series. Like most of Batman’s villains from Gotham City, Scarecrow is a tragic figure whose obsessions have taken over his life.
Even as a teen, Crane delighted in the use of fear against his victims, which carried forward to his career as a psychologist specializing in fears and phobias. Watching Crane’s evolution to the Scarecrow while working as a psychologist would be uncomfortable but captivating, much like Joker.
ECLIPSO
The powerful villain known as Eclipso isn’t really a tragic character himself, but as he uses the black diamonds known as the Heart of Darkness to possess and corrupt innocent people, we can see many tragic figures falling under Eclipso’s control.
While the premise of Eclipso is a bit more supernatural than Joker, it could similarily dive into the fractured mindset of someone in the process of being corrupted by the Heart of Darkness. While it loses a bit of the real-world aspect that made Joker so moving, it would be a great way to introduce a new villain that could also impact other future DC films.
BANE
Another Batman character that we’ve seen explored on the big-screen is Bane, who appeared in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin and Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, though neither adaptation really did the character justice.
In the comics, Bane was born into captivity and forced to live out his father’s prison sentence. His life was a constant battle for survival that resulted in one of the most hardened and intelligent villains Batman has ever faced, and that’s not even touching on his addictive need for the performance-enhancer known as Venom.
CAPTAIN COLD
Joker succeeded in removing itself from the larger Batman story, which is something a film about Captain Cold would need to replicate as Leonard Snart’s supervillain career in the comics was directly influenced by the Flash. However, if the film focused on Len and his sister’s abusive upbringing and their relationship, we could see a different origin develop for the character.
Snart’s creation of his cold-gun could be for revenge against the man who killed his sister, Chillblaine, instead of an attempt to stop the Flash. The Flash #182 retold Snart’s origins and his final battle with Chillblaine and would serve as great source material for a Joker-esque movie.
CLAYFACE
There have been a few different characters who called themselves Clayface over the years and the various reboots have affected the characters’ existence/origins, so we’ll focus on the updated origin of Basil Karlo, an up-and-coming actor who was horribly disfigured in a car accident prior to shooting his dream film.
Karlo begins abusing a transformative substance known as Renu that was able to restore his face temporarily, though this drove him to crime and ultimately led him to a final accident that transformed him into the monster known as Clayface. The film could explore Hollywood’s unhealthy beauty standards, Karlo’s obsessive nature and Clayface’s horror potential.
BROTHER BLOOD
The character of Brother Blood might seem like an odd villain to get his own film, but the dark origin of the leader of the Cult of Blood might as well have been written for a horror movie. Brother Blood is a title that has been passed down for generations with a bloody twist, as the title is inherited after the murder of the father by the son.
We’ve seen quite a few movies about children raised in cults, but it’s never quite played out with the twist of Brother Blood, and the film could even subtly explore the supernatural with the Cult of Blood’s connection to the demon known as Trigon.
POISON IVY
Fans have been dying to see Poison Ivy back on the big screen long before Joker, whether in her own film or alongside Harley Quinn in the DCEU. Uma Thruman’s portrayal of Ivy in Batman & Robin is actually the best thing about that film but traded tragedy for camp when it came to her origins.
While Poison Ivy could be considered an eco-terrorist, Dr. Pamely Isley was a timid biochemist who fell under the sway of Dr. Jason Woodrue/the Fluoronic Man. Woodrue injected Isley with chemicals in his sick experiments and transformed her into the powerful Poison Ivy, which is something we’d like to see explored with a bit more than 10 minutes worth of screen time.
MAN-BAT
Joker may have grounded itself in reality, but a lot of Gotham’s tragic villains have horror or fantasy elements that would still work well in a gritty origin film. Man-Bat is a great example of this, as while he is a larger-than-life monster, he is also a scientist dealing with an addiction.
Dr. Kirk Langstrom was hoping to use bats to create a cure for deafness but instead transformed himself into a giant Man-Bat. While that alone is a horror story worth a film, he has also forcibly transformed his wife into a Man-Bat and had the serum stolen from him in order to create a league of ninja Man-Bats, so there is definite room for exploration on the big screen.
DEX-STARR
The character of Dex-Starr from the Green Lantern comics would obviously be a very hard sell for a film. But the feline Red Lantern known as Dex-Starr has an incredibly tragic origin story that we would love to see adapted, even if it does star an Earth cat named Dexter.
Dexter was an abandoned cat who was adopted by a loving owner that was later murdered, and Dexter himself was attacked and thrown off of a bridge. Thankfully he was chosen by a Red Lantern ring because he possessed great rage and saved. Dex-Starr would use the ring to take revenge on the murderer of his owner before leaving for space to join the Red Lanterns.
MR. FREEZE
Fans of Batman: The Animated Series from the 90s have already seen the best take on Mr. Freeze’s tragic origin, but we’d still like to see it properly told in a Joker-style film. Arnold Schwarzenegger brought a laughable version of the character to life in Batman & Robin, but the story of Mr. Freeze deserves better.
While Batman: TAS introduced Mr. Freeze’s cryogenically frozen wife Nora Fries into his origin and gave him motivation for his criminal actions, the New 52 gave the story a darker twist when it revealed Nora was actually frozen well before Mr. Freeze was born, and he had instead become infatuated with her after years of study, tainting the already dark origin story.
