Batman: The Animated Series: 10 Most Disturbing Episodes

10. On Leather Wings

What better place to kick things off than with the episode that started it all? Since this was the first episode of BTAS, it's only natural that the creative team would want to set the tone for what was to come. And boy, did they succeed.

It was a bold, but ultimately genius move to start off with a lesser-known Batman villain like Man-Bat, especially since he leans hard into the darker horror aspects of the Batman mythos. Given that this marked the character's first appearance outside of the comics, the show's creators had a degree of freedom when deciding how the mutated bat monster should sound. What they came up with was a positively blood-curdling sound that is guaranteed to make your skin crawl.

But of course, the most disturbing part of this episode comes when we finally get to see Dr. Kirk Langstrom transform firsthand. Even before the transformation occurs, the scene is full of tension, with Langstrom appearing distorted as he passes by a series of glass flasks and beakers.

On top of that, it's clear from the way he talks that this isn't one of the sympathetic villains that BTAS would become known for. Rather, Langstrom has become addicted to the serum that triggers his transformation and he's completely fine with that. This all reaches fever pitch as we see the doctor morph in skin-stretching detail into a fanged, winged monster, his voice shifting into that nightmarish, inhuman screech.

It really is the stuff of nightmares!