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Batman Character Analogues in Magic: The Gathering – Even More Evil

Hey there, Magic: The Gathering players and Batman fans! Batman Week continues here at Bleeding Cool and the Games department has even more in store. For the past three days now, we have been covering what cards would make great analogues for key characters and concepts. We'll be covering the concepts I just mentioned tomorrow, but for now, let's conclude the villainous portion of the Batman Series!

Please note for the sake of posterity that this series is purely hypothetical; Wizards of the Coast has nothing to do with the ideas posited here, nor does D.C. Comics. In fact, this is all expressing the opinions of the author and not Bleeding Cool as a whole. With that having been said, let's begin!

#13. Poison Ivy

Dr. Pamela Isley, known also in Gotham City as Poison Ivy, is a tough-yet-seductive eco-terrorist with a blatant affinity for plants. She also concocts pheromones and toxins to use on her enemies (such as Batman, potentially among others). As it stands, elemental-themed characters are pretty easy to pin with a superficial sort of comparison. Let's look at what I've got for her:

Avenger of Zendikar feels like a good fit for Poison Ivy. Sure, it doesn't have an ability like deathtouch but why would one even send it out to attack when all of these Plant tokens are in play, ready to do even more damage? The control of, as well as the nurturing of, these Plant tokens feels very Poison Ivy, and so that's why this army-in-a-can of a card is the pick.

#14. Mr. Freeze

Dr. Victor Fries is a terribly tragic character. His wife was terminally ill, and in an experiment attempting to save her, there was an accident – his body heat fell to sub-zero temperatures at equilibrium, and as such he is now forced to wear a cryogenically-cooled suit in order to stay alive himself.

All that backstory aside, Mr. Freeze – who should probably actually be called Dr. Freeze with his credentials – is another element-themed supervillain. He has technology capable of controlling temperatures and freezing victims solid. That feels an awful lot like tapping down a creature indefinitely in Magic. Let's think of an analogue.

Frost Titan is a rather apt comparison to Mr. Freeze. It is able to tap down creatures for an extended period of time, and it can protect itself, presumably with powers of cold and ice. As mentioned above, elemental characters are among the easiest to find analogues for.

#15. Bane

Having said that, some of the characters in the Batman canon are rather tough to assign creatures to. Bane was a tough decision – though not as tough as The Penguin from last article – but we decided upon going against the grain, as seen below.

Bane is this hulking, juiced-up monster-of-a-man who has been known to take down Batman on more than one occasion. He's known as one of the only villains to ever "break the Bat", so to speak. So, we made him a Planeswalker, and not just any Planeswalker. We decided that the perfect analogue for Bane was Garruk, Apex Predator.

When this card came out, it was so pushed that the entirety of the Core 2015 aesthetic was themed after Garruk. He is also a hulking, juiced-up monster who has the potential to kill other Planeswalkers like they were nothing, so this comparison actually works well.

#16. Killer Croc

Killer Croc has been the basis for many Magic: The Gathering card art alters, all for one particular card. There's not much to say on this except that we could probably use a common in the Batman Series to make sure the value for the other cards stays high enough for collectors.

This particular choice was very easy. It's also about as superficial as we would want to get with the comparisons in the Batman Series, but it is the right choice nonetheless.

What else can possibly be said about this analogue to Killer Croc? Emperor Crocodile is hungry as anything and Killer Croc always needs something – or someone – to snack on. What do you think about these comparisons? Do you have any better ones? Let us know below!

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