Spellbinder is easily recognizable by his garish costume and (frankly, bizarre) assortment of gimmick weapons. The team of John Broome and Sheldon Moldoff created this nutjob in the mid 60s. And it shows. Beginning life as an art forger (as well as a mouthpiece for the creative teams apparent disdain for the op art trends of the day), Delbert Billings had the infuriating knack of hypnotizing Batman into thinking he was somewhere else entirely. If ever the Dark Knight Detective came close to catching the villain, he would start doing cartwheels (yes, cartwheels), or else hed pull out a spinning top and all of a sudden, Batman would think he was dangling off of a giant clock, or something equally weird. Later on, he was able to convince a couple of Gotham Citys cops that a dragon was rampaging through the city, simply by standing in front of their vehicle and doing cartwheels. On that occasion, Batman beat him by throwing aluminium foil strips at him (no, really). Call me crazy, but with the benefit of hindsight, Spellbinder comes off as sort of iconic and actually rather modern. With the popularity of large-scale performance magic and mass illusions (like those created by David Blaine or David Copperfield) and, in the wake of popular movies like The Illusionist, a character like Spellbinder actually makes a lot of sense. If he was presented in a similar fashion to The Hoaxer (a character who was probably at least partly based on Spellbinder anyway) from Grant Morrison & Frank Quitelys awesome Flex Mentallo series, then so much the better. Currently, as far as continuity is concerned, the original Spellbinder is dead, replaced by his girlfriend, but hey, kids, once again, this is comics, theres always a way back from the great unknown! Despite a brief cameo in a 2011 issue of The Dark Knight (as part of a David Finch splash page that depicted loads of Batmans classic foes), the original Spellbinder hasnt been heard from in some time. Perhaps theres a place for him within the pages of The New 52?
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Spellbinder is easily recognizable by his garish costume and (frankly, bizarre) assortment of gimmick weapons. The team of John Broome and Sheldon Moldoff created this nutjob in the mid 60s. And it shows. Beginning life as an art forger (as well as a mouthpiece for the creative teams apparent disdain for the op art trends of the day), Delbert Billings had the infuriating knack of hypnotizing Batman into thinking he was somewhere else entirely. If ever the Dark Knight Detective came close to catching the villain, he would start doing cartwheels (yes, cartwheels), or else hed pull out a spinning top and all of a sudden, Batman would think he was dangling off of a giant clock, or something equally weird. Later on, he was able to convince a couple of Gotham Citys cops that a dragon was rampaging through the city, simply by standing in front of their vehicle and doing cartwheels. On that occasion, Batman beat him by throwing aluminium foil strips at him (no, really). Call me crazy, but with the benefit of hindsight, Spellbinder comes off as sort of iconic and actually rather modern. With the popularity of large-scale performance magic and mass illusions (like those created by David Blaine or David Copperfield) and, in the wake of popular movies like The Illusionist, a character like Spellbinder actually makes a lot of sense. If he was presented in a similar fashion to The Hoaxer (a character who was probably at least partly based on Spellbinder anyway) from Grant Morrison & Frank Quitelys awesome Flex Mentallo series, then so much the better. 
Currently, as far as continuity is concerned, the original Spellbinder is dead, replaced by his girlfriend, but hey, kids, once again, this is comics, theres always a way back from the great unknown! Despite a brief cameo in a 2011 issue of The Dark Knight (as part of a David Finch splash page that depicted loads of Batmans classic foes), the original Spellbinder hasnt been heard from in some time. Perhaps theres a place for him within the pages of The New 52?