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Ozzie is truly the most picked-upon of the great villains, such that even when he's depicted by someone who likes him, it's done more for amusement rather than using him well as a good character.

As you'll see throughout these images, Penguin is seen by Moench and artists alike as a very cartoonish villain, and not a particularly threatening one at that.

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He's one of those villains where an artist can really have free reign to make their own stamp on the character. The Penguin comments really give some insight as to why there are so many wacky, grotesque takes on him. The two faces of her there and in the reflection play off nicely with the conflicted nature of the character, torn between her alliances. As she is in the actual piece, she's still plenty sexy without it looking like fanboy exploitation, and yet she still looks like a formidable and mysterious opponent. You can bet that any comic artist from DC today would have gone for the sketch version instead. I rather love this Talia piece, much more than the original concept sketch where she appears to be wearing a loin-thong. I bet it has great lumbar support and everything. This is a perfect example, simply because I cannot bring myself to be intimidated by a guy sporting that collar. Man, has it occurred to anybody else how Ra's can be really bloody ridiculous? It's like the more people push him to be this big, serious, dire, genocidal threat, the more open to silliness he becomes. The Giger-ness is a nice touch, even if it really pushes Ra's here into full-blown Dracula territory here. Either way, I kinda like this, especially as it focuses on Roman's obsession with masks, a trait which has been almost entirely forgotten in the character in recent memory.

At least it's still there to some degree in the final product with the eyes in shadow. Look, one of the few great things that Moench's Black Mask had was a sense of presence and mystery, so seeing that preserved in shadow would have been the way to go. I think that the original idea would have been the superior one. I can't disagree with him about his disappointment. Generally speaking, I'm glad that Power went his own route, which undoubtedly allowed him more creative freedom. Thinking about it now, that actually sounds a lot like Moench was basically trying to recreate his 'Rogues Gallery' tour issue back in the 80's, with our heroes going through the villain roster in the Bat-Computer. Yeah, right away you can see that Power is abandoning Moench's original suggestions of having the bios appear via computer screen. Several of the choices are so obviously wrong that it's bizarre that they're even brought up in the first place, but hey, gotta consider every last suspect, right? The villain cards pop up in the set just as Alfred and Nightwing being to consider suspects for who could possibly have shot Batman, perhaps with the help of the Joker. Not only are all the cards lovingly reprinted along with Moench's text, but the book's editors actually included commentary from the artists, thus giving a rare insight into the creative process! The combination of characters, art, story, and commentary make Batman Masterpieces a must-have, and to show you what I mean, I'm going to post just the villain pages, almost all of which are by the painter Dermot Power ( Batman/Judge Dredd: The Ultimate Riddle, and concept artist for Batman Begins).

Visually, it's a feast of portraits, and that alone would warrant a master post here.Įxcept it gets even better, because apparently the cards had enough of a cult following amongst collectors that the entire deck was given its own coffee table art book: Along the way, we get TONS of cards dedicated to rogues, some of whom pop up several times.

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Everyone posits their reactions and theories, including the Joker himself, who can't be sure whether or not he actually did it at all! This offered plenty of opportunities to hit all the big beats of the previous card series (major and minor characters, important events) plus create all-new settings for cards (scenes from the plotline, bizarre wacko takes on the rogues, the Joker popping up in classic Elseworlds). The plot was simple: after the Joker once again escapes Arkham, Batman goes missing and is presumed dead, with the Joker being the likeliest suspect.

And it was all written by none other than our old favorite, Doug Moench. The more cards you collect, the more parts of the story you'd have to piece together. Inspired by the loose narrative of Topps' classic Mars Attacks! cards, the Batman Master Series set was the first series of cards to comprise a complete, original Batman storyline. In 1996, trading card company Fleer decided that they wanted to release a different kind of card set for Batman.

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