10 Villains Who Outsmarted Batman

Perhaps one of the most inadvertently impressive moments that involves someone outsmarting the Dark Knight comes in the infamous pages of Under the Red Hood. Within it, it's revealed that the titular Red Hood that Batman has been fighting against is none other than his former protege and adopted son, Jason Todd - and that Batman somehow couldn't recognise the fighting style of the boy he'd taught everything to.

Todd has a slight advantage in this regard, to be fair, because he's off Batman's supect list since he's supposed to be dead, as he had been for years after the plot of A Death in the Family. Even with this said, it seems totally surreal that the Dark Knight wouldn't notice that this mysterious villain fought the exact same as his darling boy - and had a lot of the same quips.

But also, crucially, at this point Jason manages to one-up Batman on a psychological level, because him turning rogue is a move that genuinely causes the Dark Knight to second guess himself and his cause. After all, Todd's anger at knowing that he died and the Joker essentially got away unpunished is actually pretty fair. And so, as much as Batman can fight against him physically, he has to do so with the knowledge that he is directly responsible for the way that his adopted son is now.