10 Batman Villains That Have Only Appeared Once (So Far)

By Chris Quicksilver /

8. Baxter Baines

Batman encountered the eccentric Billionaire Baxter Baines only once, in a two-part 1978 story by David V.Reed and John Calnan. Baines is dedicated to exposing The Batman€™s secret identity and has put a lot of time (as well as his own considerable resources) into it. He publicly reveals clues as to The Batman€™s identity and actually comes painfully close to figuring it out. To this end, Baines even develops a costume of his own and hatches a brilliant scheme to bombard the Dark Knight Detective with special light rays that can only be seen through a lens of his own design. He then plans to use the lens to track Batman in the day (by this time, he has already deduced that Batman is a wealthy member of Gotham€™s social elite). Of course, Batman gets around this by staying in the next day and then uses the same technology to catch a cult of murderers from the Caribbean. Oh, Batman, there's just no stopping that dude. Eventually, The Dark Knight €˜outs€™ Baxter Baines himself as being Batman and, in the resulting media (and criminal community) fallout, the enigmatic Billionaire leaves Gotham for Capri. As a combatant, Baines proved himself to be nearly as effective as The Batman and he was also shown to be fluent in several languages, a gifted athlete and a genius inventor. In his single appearance, Baines was an intriguing foe for The Batman, he was sort of like a mischievous alternate version of Bruce Wayne (if he had chosen to become The Riddler instead). It is doubtful that this rogue will ever be seen again, but personally, I hope he does return at some point. There's a lot of story potential there.