Updated: June 09, 2024

Bat-fans in the '60s tuned into the Adam West Batman TV show for one reason: the awesome villain guest-stars. Sure, West was campy, Yvonne Craig's Batgirl was hot, and Stafford Repp's Chief O'Hara was painfully Irish, but none of them held a Bat-candle to the weekly parade of colorful celebrity kooks who showed up to do battle with the Dynamic Duo. Sadly, the rights to all the villains who were created for the show belong solely to Fox while everything else Bat-related lives with Warner Brothers.

More than 40 years later, fans are still waiting for those show villains to show up in Batman comics, but aside from King Tut's appearance in recent issues of Batman Confidential and a cameo-filled episode of Brave and the Bold, it's not happening until Fox and the Warners make nice, which they've managed to avoid so far. But a Bat-fan can dream, can't he?

Chandell, Played by Liberace:

Liberace, for you kids who don't know, was extremely well-known as a piano player and showman in the '60s. In the show he basically played himself, with a different name, and couldn't take a punch ( again, like the real Liberace ). With the new Grant Morrison series, where every villain is more or less the same murdering psycho with a different mask, a quick nod to an extremely gay piano player who wants to marry a rich heiress might be a nice change of pace. Of course, if Morrison was writing it, Chandell would also wear a pig mask and rape nuns.

The Siren, Played by Joan Collins:

You can't swing a dead cat around the DCU without hitting someone who either deafens or controls people with their voice. But now that Gotham City Sirens is doing brisk business, it's time to bring this shrieking, hysterical woman back! It would make more sense for her to team-up with the other Greek pantheon-themed villain, Maxie Zeus, or his girlfriend the Harpy ( thought we'd forgotten her two issues, didn't you? ), for some old-fashioned Gotham City mayhem. Maybe they can rob a couple of Greek diners, or one of those bodegas that only sells out-of-date Olympics merchandise.

The Archer, Played by Art Carney:

Everyone loves Art Carney! He's funny! He's goofy! The Archer, however, is kind of lame. BUT, set him up as some sort of low-budget, down on his luck super-villain who keeps getting laughed at by Green Arrow, Red Arrow, Speedy, Arrowette, and Merlin, and he could make for some fun times. Also, in later appearances, to make him more "edgy," he'd get mutated into a giant monster and get taken down by napalm while killing one of Commissioner Gordon's relatives.

Lord Fogg, Played by Rudy Vallee:

Batman writers always had a theme, an obsession if you will, that they based each and every villain on. Fogg's was that he was from England. And not just the easy British things, like bad teeth, bland food, and Oasis. He was into London fog ( the stuff, not the clothing brand ). Poisoned fog. Yes, they coasted three episodes on poison fog. Sure, he probably wouldn't fare too well in Arkham Asylum next to some of the other homicidal maniacs, but we would pay good cash to see a tubby guy dressed in tweed get savagely beaten by Killer Croc and a wrench. Hell, it could be a two-parter.