Posted in: Card Games, eSports, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: Batman, card games, Comics, dc comics, eSports, magic, Magic: The Gathering, MTG, Tabletop, wizards of the coast, WotC

Batman Character Analogues In Magic: The Gathering – Next The Villains

Hey there, Magic: The Gathering players and Batman fans alike! As I mentioned in my last article, it's Batman Week here at Bleeding Cool and we folks at the humble Games department wanted a piece of that action. Furthermore, Wizards of the Coast has decided to break out from using only Magic: The Gathering's intellectual property for their trading cards with the Godzilla Series. Therefore, this seems like the absolute perfect opportunity for us to speculate on the things Wizards could potentially do with other IPs. Yesterday, we covered the heroes of the Batman canon (most of them, anyway – more on that near the end of this article), and today we will begin to cover Batman's many, many nemeses. On to the villains!

Keep in mind that we are aiming to analyze four characters and concepts a day. So, if you don't see someone pivotal in Batman's Rogues Gallery, wait until perhaps Thursday to suggest more. I'd be more than happy to continue this series if there's enough interest in that!

#5. The Joker

It's clear to me that we cannot start a discussion about Batman's enemies without talking first about the likes of The Joker. We don't really have a good idea of his alter-ego, but we know enough about who The Joker is that we can analyze his persona. Yesterday we spoke about how Batman and Bruce Wayne are distinct personas, and without getting too much into the psychology of the character we can safely say that The Joker is quite a different story.

The Joker may have no other identity, and he might have one – he may even have three – but that confusion is the very core of his character. In more ways than one, he's more of an enigma than The Riddler! However, the fact that he is shamelessly confusing is made even more confusing by the fact that in some ways, he hides nothing at all. Is The Joker actually Jack Napier? Is he Arthur Fleck? Could The Joker even be Bruce Wayne's mother Martha Wayne, or to historical abolitionist John Brown? Yes, to all and none alike. Therefore, with all of the pretending that The Joker does (or perhaps none of it!), I propose that the best fit for a Magic: The Gathering card analogue is Mairsil, the Pretender.

Mairsil, the Pretender is a card that does plenty of work in the Commander format. He manipulates artifacts and creatures and benefits from throwing them away for his own selfish purposes. When a player plays a Mairsil deck, there's no telling how that game will go. This commander feels more than fit to be exactly what The Joker embodies. Plus, the color philosophies of blue, black, and red all lend themselves well to the way that The Joker operates. He's cunning, a very blue trait. He thinks of nobody but himself, which is a trait that is very geared towards black. Finally, he's spontaneous to a fault, which is red as anything else.

#6. Harley Quinn

Every supervillain needs sidekicks. But more importantly, supervillains need cohorts and connections. Harleen Quinzell is all three at once for the Joker, for a good portion of her character arc. She resorts to a life of crime because of his wilds, and even takes a thematic name at his behest. Most assuredly, though, Harley is her own woman.

There is a lot to unpack with regards to Harley Quinn's existence, from her siding with The Joker, her time with the Suicide Squad, and her time as her own mercenary entity. I can think of no better fit for an analogue for Harley Quinn than the Massacre Girl, from Ravnica's War of the Spark.

The very first word in the text box for Massacre Girl is "menace", and that's true on so many levels. She's also an assassin, implying that she gets paid for her kills, much like any good mercenary. Furthermore, she used to be in league with the Cult of Rakdos, a guild of murderous acrobats, demolitionists, and performers, before going off to do her own thing. Massacre Girl is Magic: The Gathering's Harley Quinn already, in many different ways.

#7. Scarecrow

Let's face the music for a second. Scarecrows are a terrifying thing to behold, day or night. Even the most innocuous scarecrows are beholden to the concept of "uncanny valley", and they are never less than creepy. And no scarecrow is more terrifying than Batman's enemy, Scarecrow.

Well, that is to say, no scarecrow but one, really. And that scarecrow is the Reaper King, from Magic: The Gathering's set Shadowmoor.

Countless people have done alterations to the art of Reaper King cards for the past twelve years, altering the card art (done exquisitely by Jim Murray) to make it resemble Batman's Scarecrow. This comparison was simple enough to make on a superficial level alone, but looking deeper, we have to think about the mechanics of Reaper King and how they could be applied to Scarecrow. For one, he creates a level of player stress whenever a Reaper King player plays a Scarecrow, much like Scarecrow's fear gas might in a very low dosage. Nobody wants their cards destroyed – it messes with players' plans to do so. Plus, most Scarecrows in the game are relatively harmless – except as the Reaper King gives them a power and toughness boost. That's rather like how Scarecrow's fear gas makes things look more dangerous than they are by a large margin. Our last entry today is not a Batman villain, but rather a hero I couldn't fit into the previous article. This last one is also sort of superficial, as well since I don't know enough about his character. That being said, here's what I have:

#8. Commissioner Gordon

Much like a typical daikaiju movie, every superhero movie needs a cast of supporting characters to act from the sidelines. Commissioner Gordon fills that role nicely alongside the Gotham Police Department, in the context of Batman canon. He's necessary because otherwise Batman has no place to put the villains he apprehends.

I am certain there are a few better analogues than Precinct Captain, but this one was a literal match for Gordon, in my eyes at least. Precinct Captain even comes with a rookie officer or two to assist him!

What do you think of these analogues? Are they on the nose? Let us know if you have any better suggestions or what you expect to see from Bleeding Cool in the coming days for this series!

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