The Batman/Characters

The Bat Family

Bruce Wayne/Batman

• Badass Normal: C'mon, it's Batman.
• Bruce Wayne Held Hostage
• Cool Car: The Batmobile, as always.
• Crazy Prepared: Again, it's Batman.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Married to the Job: Lampshaded by Alfred.
• Parental Abandonment: Yeah, okay, you all know what's coming. HIS PARENTS ARE DEEAAAAAAAD!
  • But worse, his parents' murderer was never brought to justice.
• Rich Idiot With No Day Job
• Took a Level In Badass: With each passing season.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?
• Would Hit a Girl: You knew she was a plant, right?

Alfred Pennyworth

• Deadpan Snarker
• The Jeeves
• The Medic
• Parental Substitute
• Secret Keeper
• Servile Snarker

Barbara Gordon/Batgirl

• Action Girl
• Bratty Half-Pint
• Danielle Judovits
• Little Miss Snarker
• Redheaded Hero

Dick Grayson/Robin

• Bratty Half-Pint
• Deadpan Snarker
• Future Badass: As Nightwing as seen in "Artifacts".
• Kid Sidekick
• Parental Abandonment

Supporting Characters

Commissioner Jim Gordon

• The Commissioner Gordon: Obviously.
• Demoted to Extra: Word of God says that they would've liked to do more with this character but the network had them give him the shaft because they wanted more focus on Barbara.
• Early-Bird Cameo: According to Jeff Matsuda, Gordon was the young officer seen in the flashback in "Traction."
• Parental Obliviousness: The poor guy can never fully connect with his daughter due to clashing views, and even years into the future, he still doesn't know about her superhero double-life. Justified, as the only time he ever got a good luck at Batgirl was the first time he met her, and he was missing his glasses.
  • Yet, he noticed Batgirl's hair color.

"Another redhead?"

• Reasonable Authority Figure: Another given.
• Remember the New Guy?: Aside from the Early-Bird Cameo, Gordon's this. Alfred comments that "James Gordon has loomed large over [Bruce's] life." Then at the newly-installed Batsignal, Gordon says to Batman, "Thanks to all of your efforts, Batman, the time is finally right to take our alliance to the next step." Both said despite the fact that prior to "Night and the City," Gordon hadn't appeared in the present day.

Detective Ellen Yin

• Action Girl
• Brother Chuck: Aside from a reference in "Artifacts," she's not seen or heard from again after Season 2, though she does appear on occasions in "The Batman Strikes" comic.
• The Commissioner Gordon: Before Gordon appeared on the show anyway, and while she was Batman's ally.
• Race Lift: She's basically an Asian-American version of Ellen Yindell from The Dark Knight Returns, with her name, her journey from distrusting and hunting Batman to trusting and helping him, and the fact that said mention in "Artifacts" had her replacing Gordon as Commissioner.

Chief Angel Rojas

• Asshole Victim: Almost. He was targeted by a newly-transformed into-Clayface Ethan Bennett after how badly he treated Bennett.
• Brother Chuck: Disappeared after Season 2 and unlike Yin, nobody missed him or cares.
• Expy: He's basically Harvey Bullock with a higher rank and no redeeming qualities.
• Jerkass: He doesn't exactly treat a lot of his subordinates with any real respect.
• Kick the Dog: His treatment of Ethan Bennett in the Season One finale.
• The Other Darrin: Rojas was voiced by Edward James Olmos in his first appearance, then by Jesse Corti in all of his other ones.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Just watch most of the episodes he's in. There's no way in hell this idiot should've gotten as far on the force as he did.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Batman saved him and his officers quite a few times and yet he's still an ass towards him.

Lucius Fox

• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Look under "Recursive Adaptation"
• Remember the New Guy?: At least in regards to Batman and Alfred. Robin and Batgirl, not so much.
• Recursive Adaptation: He's based a good deal of The Dark Knight Saga's version of Lucius Fox--an old friend of Thomas Wayne, knows Bruce is Batman, and is an armorer for the Dark Knight. Goes into Comic Book Fantasy Casting territory in that this incarnation looks a good deal like Morgan Freeman.
• Secret Keeper
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: The answer to where Batman gets his gear.

The Justice League

Clark Kent/Superman

• The Cape
• Clark Kenting: Well, duh.
• Flying Brick
• Human Alien
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Thanks to the short lead time for recording Superman's debut, George Newbern from Justice League reprised the role.
• Intrepid Reporter
• Jerkass: In his debut towards Batman and Robin, but he gets better. Still, surprising considering that between most incarnations of him and Batman, Supes is the nicer one.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When he's using his heat vision. Under mind control spores laced with Kryptonite, it's more like Green Eyes Take Warning.

Barry Allen/The Flash

• Big Eater
• Composite Character: According to Alan Burnett, he's Barry Allen. That said, he does have a personality more akin to Wally West or Bart Allen.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He was only called "Flash" in his appearances and his real name was revealed in a news article about the show.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Charlie Schlatter, who voiced Flash on Superman: The Animated Series voiced Flash here, though according to promo materials the Flash on STAS is the same as on Justice League and hence is Wally West whereas this Flash is Barry Allen.
• Personality Powers: Played straight, given his personality is more like Wally West or Bart Allen than the comics' version of Barry Allen.
• Super Speed

Hal Jordan/Green Lantern

• Color Character
• Green Lantern Ring: Of course.
• Heroic Willpower
• Space Police

J'onn J'onzz/Martian Manhunter

• Bald of Awesome
• Combo-Platter Powers: In addition to the normal set of flight, shapeshifting, telepathy, super strength and speed, and intangibility/nigh invulnerability, this incarnation also has telekinesis
• Last of His Kind: It's generally believed that the Joining killed the rest of the Martians in this continuity.
• Mind Over Matter: This version of J'onn has telekinesis.
• Weaksauce Weakness: J'onn seems to have a psychological fear of fire. Hence the Joining could point an armed (but not discharged) flamethrower at the guy and make him back off.

Oliver Queen/Green Arrow

• The Archer
• Badass Beard
• Badass Normal
• Color Character
• Follow the Leader: Lampshaded during the first time GA teams up with Bats. Ollie mentions being inspired by Bruce's stuff at the end of the adventure. His appearance in the finale has him using the Arrowplane.
• Trick Arrow

Katar Hol/Hawkman

• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He was never addressed by his real name, but the fact he comments about fighting criminals on two worlds and the comment about the Batcave resembling Thanagar Police Headquarters pretty much confirm he's Katar Hol.
• Space Police

The Rogues Gallery

The Joker

• Arch Enemy
• Asshole Victim: As with Rojas, he almost became one. And by the same person, Ethan Bennett/Clayface I no less. And like Rojas, he deserved Ethan's enmity towards him, basically being the one who more or less made him Clayface.
• Ax Crazy
• Does Not Like Shoes
• Electric Joy Buzzer Accidentally kills himself with one. Well, almost.
• For the Evulz
• The Hyena
• Institutional Apparel: Sports a green and purple straitjacket in his first few appearances.
• Kevin Michael Richardson
• Large Ham
• Mind Rape: Does this to an already under stress Ethan Bennett.
• Monster Clown
• Slasher Smile

Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin

• Acrofatic
• Adaptational Badass
• Butt Monkey: In nearly every episode he's in, as well as the movie.
• Composite Character: Of himself!
• Evil Counterpart: Of Bruce Wayne.
• Evil Laugh: Tom Kenny admitted that it was a bit of a Shout-Out to the Burgess Meredith version.
• Evil Redhead
• Fat Bastard
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Tom Kenny, anyone?
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
• Jerkass
• Lightning Bruiser
• Pungeon Master
• Rich Idiot With No Day Job: Well, unless you call a life of crime a job.
• Smarter Than You Look: He's not as gullible as Catwoman thinks.

Catwoman

• Badass Normal
• Berserk Button: Someone getting in her way, more so if you're intervening in her heists. Ragdoll will vouch for that. Also, don't threaten any feline creature. She doesn't like that.
• Catgirl
• Classy Cat Burglar
• Dark Action Girl: And a damn good one, being able to equal Batman in combat and she knocks him out at one point.
• Dating Catwoman: As always.
• Enemy Mine: She plays this well, especially in The Cat, The Bat, and the Very Ugly. That, or it's her typical Heel Face Revolving Door.
• Friend To All Living Cats: Per usual.
• Gina Gershon
• Kindhearted Cat Lover
• Spy Catsuit: Naturally.
• Whip It Good: Just wouldn't feel right without it.

The Riddler

• Batman Gambit: He has set fake bombs all over the city that can only be deactivated by solving various puzzles. This is actually a diversion so that he can break into the City Hall database undisturbed and steal important information. He almost got away with it too.
• The Chessmaster
• Criminal Mind Games
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Deconstructed, much like his Batman: The Animated Series counterpart.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: He's voiced by Robert Englund.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He looks an awful lot like Marilyn Manson, which makes sense because Manson was originally contracted to voice him.
• Riddle Me This: As usual.
• Smug Snake: He's a great schemer and could have become a Magnificent Bastard, but in each episode he appears in, he ends up throwing a psychotic fit when his plans backfire.

Poison Ivy

• Anti-Villain: Type III, much more so in The Batman Strikes comic series.
• Does Not Like Shoes
• Green Thumb
• She Is All Grown Up: In her last appearance in The Batman Strikes, her body is drawn in a more adult way, showing that's she finally growing into the full-fledged seductress she's known as in other continuities.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Again, made more apparent in The Batman Strikes.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Pam wasn't all right in the head as a normal human, but she really lost it when she became Poison Ivy.

Hugo Strange

• Affably Evil
• Author Existence Failure: Frank Gorshin died after Strange's third appearance was recorded.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He wanted all the knowledge of the universe for helping the Joining. He got it and became catatonic because they telepathically broadcasted it into his mind.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Makes his first, brief appearance in "Meltdown" and goes on to become much more important than that scene lets on.
• The Chessmaster
• Mad Doctor
• The Man Behind the Man
• The Other Darrin: Richard Green replaced Frank Gorshin as Strange after Gorshin's death.
• Scary Shiny Glasses
• The Shrink

Killer Croc

• Beast Man: Possibly Croc's most beastlike incarnation to date. Thankfully, the writers didn't claim that he had a "skin condition" this time.
• Genius Bruiser: Especially when compared with his Dumb Muscle portrayal in Batman: The Animated Series.
• Multiple Choice Past: We don't know whether he's a military genetic experiment gone awry, he deals with the wrong kind of voodoo magic in the swamps, or if he's simply a circus freak.
  • If the tie-in comic, The Batman Strikes counts as All in The Manual, then according to issue 25, he was both a military genetic experiment subject before escaping, then was part of a circus freakshow before escaping that and ultimately coming to Gotham, though it's still unknown if he was born like that as in the comics or if being part an experiment is the reason for his appearance.
• Ragin Cajun
• Ron Perlman

Mr. Freeze

• An Ice Person: Unlike other versions, he doesn't need a gun.
• Clancy Brown
• Evil Sounds Deep
• Red Eyes, Take Warning
• Talking to Himself: Subverted when Brown reprised the role of Lex Luthor as Freeze only grunted in his appearance in "The Batman/Superman Story."
  • And they don't share any scenes anyway.

Ethan Bennett/Clayface I

• Adaptation Distillation: Clayface was a sympathetic character in Batman: The Animated Series. In this show, he's an outright tragic figure.
• Anti-Villain: A definite Type II.
• The Atoner
• Black Best Friend: To Bruce and Ellen.
• Canon Foreigner: Ethan wasn't in the comics.
• Composite Character: His personality / arc has more in common with Two-Face than most Clayfaces.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Destined Bystander: Ethan Bennett was a cop and a friend of Bruce's who appeared throughout Season One before becoming Clayface.
• Dishing Out Dirt
• Driven to Villainy: He got better.
• Enemy Mine: He tries to help Batman take down the Joker when he resurfaces, but Batman won't let him out of concern for his mental health. When the second Clayface appears, Batman and Robin willingly let him help them take the new guy down.
• Fallen Hero
• Heel Face Revolving Door: Starts out on the Face side, goes into the Heel side briefly, makes another attempt on the Face side briefly, slips back into the Heel side, then in Season 4 ended up back of the Face side and stays there.
• How Do I Shot Web?: At first: it doesn't take long for him to get dangerously good with his powers.
• Knight of Cerebus: As Clayface.
• Mind Rape: Ethan suffers this at the hands of the Joker.
• Reformed but Rejected: By pretty much everyone who didn't know him personally, and by Rojas. Though considering that Rojas was a Jerkass who had a hand in his fall, yeah...
• That Man Is Dead: He tells Batman and Ellen to say goodbye to Ethan Bennet after his first shot at returning to a normal life. Subverted when he manages a Heel Face Turn later anyway.

Basil Karlo/Clayface II

• Attention Whore: Not only doesn't he even try to hide from security cameras, he'll look into them and boast about what he's going to do. He also went on a news program and tried to tell a bogus sob story. In fact, aside from a brief instant when he went What Have I Done after attacking some people for rejecting him for an acting job, he embraces it after realizing he's famous because of it now and got angry when Batman was mentioned in the aforementioned news program.
• Bad Bad Acting: He wasn't a good actor before he became Clayface and he still sucks at it when he gets his power.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Subverted as he doesn't really seem to have one and parodied it as he tried to tell a story where he and his sister had to fend for themselves, but the reporter he tells it to clearly wasn't buying it.
• Evil Counterpart: To Ethan.
• Legacy Character: Interesting, considering the comics version of Karlo was the progenitor of the identity.
• Large Ham

Harley Quinn

• Adaptation Distillation: Came through with very few changes thanks in part to her introduction episode being written by Paul Dini.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: She dresses like a harlequin.
• Berserk Button: Not only was she upset that she got fired and her show canceled and a new show takes over her time slot, but the psychiatrist of that show plans to talk about how being fired caused Harley to have a "mental breakdown".
• Blondes Are Evil
• Dark Mistress
• Dumb Blonde
• Genki Girl: Though less humorous than in "Batman: TAS" and more dangerously psychotic like in the comics.
• Hynden Walch
• Love Makes You Evil: She was nutty from the start, but the Joker made it much worse.
• Mad Love
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Hynden Walch did a good Arleen Sorkin impression.
• Perky Female Minion
• She Fu
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Her real name is Harleen Quinzel.
• Unholy Matrimony
• Villainous Harlequin

Bane

• Curb Stomp Battle: Does this to Batman, though for different reasons than in Knightfall. Mostly the fact that using Venom turns Bane into a Hulk-like figure in this incarnation and that his debut was in the second episode of the whole series meant he was going up against a Batman still getting used to fighting supervillains and whose only prior experience at that point was the Joker.
• Jobber: After his first appearance, Bane's been pretty much this, usually by someone zapping his venom tubes with a jolt of electricity seconds into the fight.
• The Juggernaut: In his debut.
• The Other Darrin: He was voiced by Joaquim de Almeida for his debut in "Traction," then by Ron Perlman for his cameo in "Team Penguin," then his grunts by Clancy Brown in "The Batman/Superman Story."
• Super Serum: Venom, the source of his powers.

Black Mask

• Bad Boss: Never let yourself get delayed or question his plans if you value your life as two of his Number Ones learned the hard way. He'll also assign a random mook to take over as Number One.
• Clock King
• Didn't See That Coming: How a lot of his plans fall apart.
• Evilly Affable
• Evil Plan: As a villain, he plots a few.
• Hannibal Lecture: Tries it on Robin and Batgirl.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning
• Shout-Out: Oddly, despite being, well, Black Mask, his methods in his debut episode resembled the Joker slightly more, when somebody's not useful anymore, he just says "You! You're the new number 1!".

Lex Luthor

• Alliterative Name
• Bald of Evil
• Clancy Brown: Again and appropriately enough, one of the Bat-villains he hires during his episode was Brown's role of Mr. Freeze. Sadly, Freeze only grunted, so no real use of Talking to Himself.
  • Not to mention that Luthor and Freeze didn't share scenes anyway.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive
• Diabolical Mastermind
• Fantastic Racism: Similar to other recent incarnations of Luthor, this version has a hatred of aliens.
• Kneel Before Zod: Forces a mind-controlled Superman to bow to him.

Mirror Master

• Composite Character: Of Both Mirror Masters. He has Sam’s genius intellect and charisma as well as Evan’s “I can do anything I think of with mirrors” ability.
• Ink Suit Actor: He's voiced by and modeled on John Larroquette.
• Magic Mirror
• Revenge Before Reason: Against the Flash.

The Everywhere Man

• Blessed with Suck: Arguably, the clones he creates become progressively more and more sentient, and every multiplication equals an even more untrustworthy clone, this ability only comes in handy a few times, a long fight isn't exactly smart.
• Canon Foreigner
• Hey, It's That Voice!: He's voiced by Brandon Routh.
• Me's a Crowd

Francis Grey

• Alas, Poor Villain: See Villain has a Point and Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain below.
• Big No: When his son dies as a result of his scheme to flood Gotham with poisonous gas at the strike of midnight on New Year's Eve.
• Combat Clairvoyance: After a fashion. Having reset time so on many instances whilst fighting the batfamily, Grey's able to accurately predict their next moves before they even make it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Twofold. Stealing a watch is one thing but winding up imprisoned due to really rotten turn of events causing a disaster? His design to kill everyone in the city as it rings in the new year via toxin dispersal for Legal's excessively poor judgement isn't any better.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Guy started out as a struggling repairman with a wife & son to feed whom couldn't make ends meet, being cursed with inglorious misfortune t'boot only worsened the matter. Later devolving into a wrathfully deranged superhuman with a nigh foolproof plan and a righteous grudged to put the screws to the grunge town that unjustly incarcerated him for seventeen years. All because of one little screw up that wasn't meant to hurt anybody.
• Go Mad From the Isolation: Played with; the harsh reality of being faced with all the time he was losing; due in part to being stuck fixing all the clocks in prison, did a number on poor Grey's mental state. Ironically enough, said horrid living is what triggered his powers into action.
• Heel Face Turn: Through a combination of Big No and Reset Button.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Played with and ultimately inverted. Starting out, he was a petty thief whose poor decisions and incredibly foul luck ruined his life. It was only more than a decade later after harsh incarceration did he come out of it more dangerous than ever. Even Robin felt hurt after finding out Francis's time away from his family destroyed any relations they had. Little wonder why the poor man went insane.
• Invincible Villain: For all intents and purposes, even the preparation specialist Batman didn't like his and Robin's odds of actually preempting Grey's plans.
• Reset Button: He's a walking case of this, able to reverse time by several seconds and eventually several years in order to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: As stated above, having been left with nothing to do but watch his life slowly bleed away while rotting in jail was the catalyst that kick-started his time based abilities.
• Villain Has a Point: While making no excuses for his attempted theft. Grey promotes a solidly valid argument that the sentence he received for one little screw up that entailed severe collateral damage was rather extreme.

Francis: "You know who I am, then you know that my prison sentence was totally unfair." Batman: "You committed a crime." Francis: "I Took A WATCH. Everything else was an accident. For that they put me away for seventeen years!? You make one little mistake." Batman/Francis: "And you spend the rest of your life paying for it."