

Thankfully, Terry had another set of eyes watching him with Bruce.Īnother byproduct of trying to center the stories around a High School setting was that some of the other students would sometimes end up turning into super-criminals, often with jarring results. His illusions are certainly powerful even without super-strength or fighting ability, he once used a zombie illusion to make himself invisible to Terry and almost managed to bludgeon him to death with a rock. He specifically tries to induce addictive behavior in his victims through his hallucinatory fantasies in order to keep them under his thumb, and will go to quite elaborate lengths in constructing false dreams and illusions, perhaps indicating an obsessive compulsion towards manipulating people.


Often, this involves spurring teenagers into criminal activity. Initially based on a D-List DC mope, Spellbinder is a particularly terrifying villain due to his penchant for using virtual reality to turn peoples’ deepest fears as well as their most heartfelt desires against them. The worst would likely be the “psycho psychologist” Spellbinder, school counselor Ira Billings who mostly preyed upon young people by beaming elaborate hallucinations into their minds in order to induce them to commit thefts. One of the continuing requests Warner Animation gave to Timm’s team was to center the stories around Terry’s high school, and while they no doubt were hoping that this would lead to less creepy villains than the original series, this motivation would’ve seemingly backfired, as all the villains from Hamilton High are incredibly unnerving. Some men just want to see the world burn, and Blight has the juice to make it happen. Freed from the shackles of his public image, or perhaps driven mad by the despair brought about by his incurable condition, Blight is easily one of the most unrepentantly nihilistic of either of the Batmens’ rouges’ gallery. What makes Blight such a tremendous villain is his mounting lust for destruction which only grows more depraved and intense as time goes on. By the end of the first season of Batman Beyond, the one-time business mogul has already been reduced to simple armed robbery simply to supply the chemicals for his disguise.

These skins are expensive, and end up draining his resources quickly. A celebrity in Gotham, nobody sorts out that Powers is the horrifying Blight due to a set of false skins he wears. Having taken over Wayne Enterprises (renaming it Wayne-Powers) by the time Batman Beyond begins, most of his initial plots involve hiring other villains to engage in corporate sabotage and assassinations. Derek Powers is a little like Lex Luthor with half the brain and none of the charm, but he more than makes up for it in his sadistic, calculating strategic acumen and utter savagery when forced out of hiding.
