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"Batman: The Animated Series" is beloved for how accurately it adapted the "Batman" comics. Many consider the series to be the definitive depiction of Gotham City. Yet "Batman" also colored in the margins, where the creators left their own thumbprints.

The series didn't only adapt existing Batman comics and characters. The "Batman" team also introduced a handful of original characters, spicing up the stories they could tell. Some of these original characters were such successes that the comics started adapting them from the show.

Take Gotham police officer Renee Montoya, one of Commissioner Gordon's (Bob Hastings) inner circle. Or Nora Fries, terminally ill wife of the villainous Mr. Freeze. Nora's admittedly more of a plot device, but her presence casts a cloud over Freeze and is the foundation of his brilliant recharacterization.

Some of the other original characters were more sinister. The many illustrious villains of "Batman: The Animated Series...

DC Comics has a knack for putting morally grey villains in their world and equally grey superheroes to fight against them. James Gunn, the co-head of DC Studios, knows this very well.

There are some powerful villains and heroes in DC | Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures

Being in charge of the Dcu, Gunn has the power and the authority to add one of the most underrated villains from Batman: The Animated Series into the upcoming Dcu film The Brave and the Bold.

DC knows how to create likable villains

It can be said that DC Comics and its cinematic universe have some of the finest villains out there. From the psychotic nature of Joker to the disturbing plans of Darkseid, the villains are plenty.

Baby Doll is one of the saddest villains in Batman: The Animated Series | Credits: Warner Bros. Animation

Back in 1992, Batman: The Animated Series premiered on television...

Batman: The Animated Series is so beloved in part because of its broad scope. It told stories of every kind within the framework of its noir-themed Gotham City, encompassing everything from borderline horror to straight-up comedy. That gave it a tremendous amount of creative freedom, which Paul Dini and his colleagues turned into something magical.

The flexibility extended to characters as well, and Batman: The Animated Series introduced a whole rafter of Batman's supporting cast for the first time. The big one is Harley Quinn, of course, but their ranks also include the likes of Renee Montoya, Nora Fries and The Condiment King. Mary Louise Dahl holds an honored place among them, despite appearing in just two episodes. Her introduction, "Baby-Doll," is one of the strangest -- and greatest -- episodes in the entire series. Dini, who wrote the script and created the character, also included an extra wrinkle. The...

Warning: Spoilers for Two-Face #3Batman: The Animated Series was one of the most influential Batman animated shows of all time with its nuanced storytelling and memorable rogues gallery, and with the first-ever Two-Face title, DC is expanding its comics canon with the debut of Baby Doll from the animated series. As Baby Doll makes the jump from animation to comics, Two-Face writer Christian Ward also hints at other unique Batman characters set to make appearances.

On X, Two-Face series writer Ward posted cover art by Baldemar Rivas, revealing that Baby Doll will appear in February's Two Face #3 by Ward and Fbio Veras as an antagonist to Harvey Dent. Baby Doll is a fan-favorite Batman: The Animated Series villain who has yet to debut in the comics, but she has an interesting affliction of body and mind that perfectly aligns with the two-sided nature of Harvey Dents character.

Remember when...

There have been several actors and musicians who have been called “one-hit wonders”. Due to a plethora of factors, their careers often reach a peak and fall back again. The lead actress in Zack Snyder’s flop movie had a similar story.

A still from Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch | Credits: Warner Bros Pictures

Emily Browning, who was once known for being an iconic actress in Hollywood, is now actively seeking to avoid it. The only reason she stated in an interview was related to the allegedly unchecked sexism.

Emily Browning Has Something to Say

It’s not uncommon for Hollywood actresses to speak out against the alleged sexism in the industry. However, no actress has said it like Emily Browning did in her interview.

Emily Browning in Sucker Punch | Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures

Starring in films like Sucker Punch, Sleeping Beauty, Legend, and more, Browning was quite famous in the early 2010s.

Batman: The Animated Series introduced audiences to a multitude of villains, each with their own unique backstories and motivations. Batman has some of the most iconic villains in comic book history, and Batman: The Animated Series episodes present them at their most quintessential. These DC villains, ranked from least to most compelling, show the diversity of Gotham's rogues' gallery in Batman's animated history.

Batman: Tas premiered in 1992 and became one of the most acclaimed animated series of its time, thanks in part to its groundbreaking storytelling and rich character development. One of its strengths was how it adapted classic Batman villains while introducing new ones to the canon. Some villains were lifted straight from the comics, while others were original creations for the show. Regardless of origin, Batman: Tas gave depth to these antagonists, making many of them more sympathetic and multidimensional.

Baby Doll Was Just Weird Only Appeared...

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As the new DC Universe prepares to revisit Batman and people theorize who might face off against the Dark Knight, it's time to accept some villains won't work on the big screen. When discussing the genre of superhero films, sometimes they're only as good as the villains that star in them. With a long history and an extensive list of enemies, there's no shortage of foes for Batman in his war on crime. However, some Batman antagonists are too strange, obscure, or unsuitable to be the main villain in a movie adaptation.

Making his cinematic debut in 1943, Batman has become one of the most adapted superheroes in the history of DC Comics. Having fought a litany of lethal foes, including the Joker, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, and Poison Ivy, at times, Batman's villains have proven more popular than the eponymous Caped Crusader himself.

Kite Man: Hell Yeah! will be Lance Reddick's final television credit. Dean Lorey, who developed the Harley Quinn spinoff series and serves as an executive producer, has opened up about the late actor's performance as the iconic Superman villain, Lex Luthor.

In an interview with Collider to promote the Max original animated series, Lorey touched on how the success of Harley Quinn made it easier to get more prominent actors like Reddick to sign on for voice roles in Kite Man. "Well, Harley helped because Harley was a hit, and it was becoming kind of a cool thing to do. We just went after actors that we loved and never imagined would say yes, and they virtually all did," Lorey explained. "We just kept going, 'Well, why not ask Jonathan Banks? Maybe he'll do it.' We just slowly put together the cast that way. But that's pretty much how Harley happened.

Make a jug of sweet tea, y’all, and enjoy some summer viewing with these “Hicksploitation” films from the ‘60s—over-the-top exploitation films that targeted cultural stereotypes of rural Southern culture. Old men cast their eyes on young women, moonshine brews in the swamps, young farm hands, town floozies … This pair of slice-of-life films transports you to the best of the backwoods!

Available 25th June 2024, the special Backwoods Double Feature collector’s edition—on Blu-ray and DVD from Film Masters—features Common Law Wife (1963) and Jennie, Wife/Child (1968), newly restored versions of two films originally released by Something Weird Video in 2003.

From a genre that doesn’t often see a lot of TLC, these films get a glow-up that provides a whole new appreciation for backwoods hillbillies. Both films are from original 35mm archival elements—with supplemental 1080p footage in Common Law Wife—for an upgraded viewing experience, on Blu-ray for the first time.

Director Zack Snyder reflects on the negative response to Sucker Punch, stating that the main criticism was that it was too exploitative. Snyder defends the film, explaining that the action sequences were always meant to be more lyrical and blissful rather than tense and perilous. Critics claimed that Sucker Punch prioritized style over substance and failed in its portrayal of female characters, and the film ended up being a major financial disappointment.

Sucker Punch director Zack Snyder opens up about the negative reactions to the film, now 12 years after its release. Hitting theaters in 2011, Sucker Punch is Snyder's first film based off an original concept, with the director serving as co-writer alongside Steve Shibuya. The film stars Emily Browning as Babydoll, an institutionalized young woman who retreats to various alternate realities in which she and her companions are powerful fighters.

Now, during a recent interview with Letterboxd all about Snyder's Sucker Punch,...

For viewers wondering how many of Jane's alters are there in Doom Patrol so far, here are all of Jane's Doom Patrol alters explained. First appearing in Doom Patrol #19 in 1989, Jane was originally a woman named Kay Challis. Sexually abused by her father when she was five, Kay withdrew and developed a new alter named Miranda. The memories of her troubled childhood returned after Miranda was attacked in a church on Easter Sunday, destroying her new alter and fracturing her psyche into 64 distinct alters. She was committed shortly thereafter and held in a psychiatric hospital for several years, until all of her alters gained superpowers after the Invasion! crossover event. All Jane alters in Doom Patrol are distinct in personality and superpower, making Jane is one of the most intriguing Doom characters in both comics and the show.

Diane Guerrero's portrayal of Jane and all Jane alters so far...

Photographer and film-maker who took some of the last shots of Marilyn Monroe

In the summer of 1962 Bert Stern, who has died aged 83, took more than 2,500 photographs of Marilyn Monroe over three sessions held in a Los Angeles hotel. The images captured Monroe in a sometimes pensive but mostly playful mood as she posed nude, variously covered by bedsheets, a chinchilla coat, a stripy Vera Neumann scarf and a pair of chiffon roses. Despite their air of carefree humour, the portraits are inescapably wistful because – along with George Barris's subsequent pictures of Monroe at Santa Monica beach – they are among the last photographs taken of the star. She was found dead at her home several weeks later.

The shoot was for Vogue, which had Stern on a contract that required him to fill 100 fashion pages a year and afforded him an additional 10 pages for personal projects. Stern proposed Monroe as a subject,...

Calling all Beatles fans… the group’s second feature film, 1965’s Help!, will be released on Blu-ray on Tuesday, June 25 and Wamg is giving away copies to 2 lucky readers.

Directed by Richard Lester, who also directed the band’s debut feature film, 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night, Help! follows The Beatles as they become passive recipients of an outside plot that revolves around Ringo’s possession of a sacrificial ring, which he cannot remove from his finger. As a result, he and his bandmates John, Paul and George are chased from London to the Austrian Alps and the Bahamas by religious cult members, a mad scientist and the London police.

In addition to starring The Beatles, Help! boasts a witty script, a great cast of British character actors, and classic Beatles songs “Help!,” “You’re Going To Lose That Girl,” “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” “Ticket To Ride,...

This pioneer of experimental animation grew up in a brewery, was branded a degenerate by the Nazis, did animations for Disney and influenced John Cage. Prepare to be mesmerised

Here come the circles, radiating from a single point to fill the screen. They keep on coming. Are they approaching or vanishing? Am I looking up at a dome of light or down into a black hole? Patterns collapse inward, and circles of light turn and turn. Everything spirals and surges with an abstract radiation.

"It's just like Bridget Riley!" someone in the dark gallery at the Eye film Museum in Amsterdam says – but even as she speaks the image has moved on. Spirals, a series of patched-together experiments in abstract animation by Oskar Fischinger, was made in his studio in Munich in the mid-1920s, and comes near the start of a major exhibition of the animator's work.

The Eye...

From Bernini to Bridget Riley, artists have long brought art to life. But the animator's art is unique – innocent, imaginative and fun

Animation, when you think about it, is a very strange art. The invention of cinema in the late 19th century made it possible to show apparently moving, lifelike photographs of real people. But it was also used from the very beginning, as Watch Me Move – a summer exhibition of animated films and art at London's Barbican – reveals, to make drawings and models come to life.

Bringing a statue to life is an ancient dream, embodied in the myth of Pygmalion. It was said that this Greek sculptor literally "animated" one of his statues: it lived. Less luridly, such artists as Bernini and Rubens infuse their (static) statues and paintings with stupendous effects of dynamism. Bridget Riley's paintings do the same thing inside your head, inducing an illusion of movement.

From frying God's brain to escorting Thatcher from office, the Scots writer chooses his favourite superhero moments

Action Comics #1, 1938

This was the first ever superhero comic. Not only did it start everything off, the first image of the story is incredible. It's Superman – who was an unknown character at that time – leaping through the air with a tied-up blonde under his arm, with absolutely no explanation of how he got there, or why. What I like about it is that, as a piece of storytelling, it's very modernistic, and having always thought about it in terms of nostalgia, when I was researching it for the book it was great to go back and see it for what it was. From the first panel on, it sets up everything for the next 70 years.

The Flash #163, 1966

This was from the time of pop art comics in the 1960s when DC Comics had go-go chicks,...

Actor wins £155,000 Praemium Imperiale, sponsored by Japan's imperial family, as Anish Kapoor takes sculpture prize

Winning Japan's equivalent of the Nobel prize, the £155,000 Praemium Imperiale, has come as a great relief to Dame Judi Dench: one of the world's best-known and loved actors is out of work again and panicking.

The fear never goes away, she said after receiving the award honouring actors, artists, musicians and architects by the Japan Art Association, sponsored by the Japanese imperial family. "Trevor Nunn always said I was in floods of tears on all my first nights because I didn't know where the next job was coming from," Dench said. "I've been bumming around. I haven't worked since February, so this is very nice."

Since her professional debut, as Ophelia in 1957, Dench has seldom been out of work. Her career has been weighed down with awards including an Oscar, Tonys, Oliviers and Baftas...