Last night, a calendar for The Batman leaked online that revealed a new look at Paul Dano "suited up" as The Riddler. It's no secret that Matt Reeves has a very different interpretation of the villain in mind, but we weren't banking on him looking like the gimp from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction!
Social media is blowing up about The Riddler's new look, and as bad as it may seem on the surface, it could be a lot worse. In fact, looking back at past comic book movies, it has been.
With that in mind, we thought we'd take this opportunity to revisit some of the worst supervillain redesigns to have "graced" the big screen. This isn't simply a case of terrible costumes, but characters who looked particularly bad because studio bosses decided to completely overhaul their appearances.
We're sure you'll have something to say about these, so keep reading to find out who makes the cut!
7. Green Goblin
The Green Goblin’s appearance is iconic, but by no means a costume that's easy to adapt for live-action. Sadly, Sam Raimi’s only real misstep in this otherwise fantastic big screen debut for Spider-Man was the Power Rangers-style battle suit donned by Norman Osborn.
It was admittedly good that they found a story reason for its inclusion, and giving Willem Dafoe the opportunity to show off his eyes as a way of portraying emotion through the static mask was a clever idea.
However, it’s still a very disappointing take on Spidey’s greatest villain.
Looking at concept art and pre-production footage for Spider-Man, it’s heartbreaking to see that they did in fact consider numerous versions that adhered to the source material.
6. Electro
Jamie Fox is reprising the role of Electro in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but the actor has already confirmed that he won't be blue this time around (and thank God for that).
Hopefully, the plan is also to ditch the goofy rubber suit that was inspired by the Ultimate Spider-Man comics. However, it was still a departure from that, and while it might be a bit much to expect the classic green and yellow costume, recent video games have confirmed it could work in live-action.
Everything from those ugly veins to the microchip in Electro's head ensured we hated everything about this take on the classic Spidey villain, and Marc Webb dropped the ball massively here.
We're sure Marvel Studios will make this right, but will remain anxious until we get a first look.
5. The Joker
There's a lot not to like about Suicide Squad's take on The Joker, and David Ayer and Jared Leto's interpretation of this Batman baddie was a total failure.
The tattoos are unfortunate and arguably a little cringe-worthy (okay, a lot cringe-worthy), but nothing that Leto was given to wear here either looked good on him or immediately made us think "Joker." This attempt to bring the Batman villain into the real world as a gangster fell flat, and a movie as wacky as Suicide Squad would have been the perfect place to embrace the comics.
Everything he wore just looked wrong for the Clown Prince of Crime, and while there was a story behind the teeth, the lack of smile just meant this was a gangster in silly makeup.
He did look a little better in Zack Snyder's Justice League, so there's that!
4. Green Goblin II
The closing few minutes of Spider-Man 2 left us all believing that we would finally see Harry Osborn take up the Green Goblin mantle in the threequel just as he did in the comics.
Would he wear his father’s suit or a version closer to the comic books? There was even speculation at the time that we might get to see the Hobgoblin. As it turns out, the answer was unfortunately none of these. What we got instead was James Franco riding a flying snowboard in a green ski mask and bland jumpsuit.
Of all the options they could have gone for, this bizarre costume was just one of the many decisions that make Sam Raimi massively disappointing final part of the trilogy so universally despised.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2's Green Goblin sucked, but this was still way worse.
3. Mister Freeze
You had to see this one coming, right?
Even in the comics, Mister Freeze has always looked a little lame, but unlike a lot of adaptations that help legitimise various cheesy costumes from the source material, Batman and Robin somehow made this one even worse.
It’s supposed to look like it’s made of some sort of metallic alloy, but came across on the big screen as the cheap, chunky piece of plastic garbage that it undeniably was. This whole movie was only really made to sell toys, but there’s got to be a better way of achieving that than making one of the lead villains look like a giant action figure.
Gotham didn't do much better with Mister Freeze, so we're still waiting on the villain's definitive look on screen.
2. Doctor Doom
Tim Story's take on Doctor Doom in the Fantastic Four films from the mid-2000s was cheesy and disappointing enough, but Fox failed to redeem themselves with Josh Trank's 2015 reboot.
Once again deciding to transform Doom into some sort of human/robot hybrid, we were left with a poorly CGI'd version of the iconic villain with glowing green eyes, and a weird cloak that was supposed to remind us of the comics (instead, it made us cringe in a major way).
This is the opposite of how Doom should look on screen, and it's now going to be up to Marvel Studios to make things right with Victor Von Doom in live-action.
Honestly, the movie's take on the character was yet another slap in the face to fans.
1. The Riddler
Look, we have to talk about The Riddler while we're here because there's so much outrage surrounding Matt Reeves' plans for The Batman right now.
We can't judge this version of the iconic villain on a single trailer and promo photos alone, but it's sure not looking good, is it? This interpretation of the iconic Batman rogue appears to be wearing a leather mask and symbolically uses tape to suffocate his victims in a manner similar to what he's wearing here.
Mostly, we're just disappointed the director is heading down that heightened realism route that Christopher Nolan took with the franchise, and while we weren't expecting a bright green suit, this is still...well, kind of underwhelming.
Perhaps he'll evolve as the film plays out, but this Riddler sure will make for an interesting action figure!