Ranking Every DC Movie Villain From Worst To Best

For all of the cartoonish elements of frivolities of the original series' villains, Burgess Meredith's Penguin is a wonderfully crafted character in incredibly silly surroundings.

Clearly not a physical match for Batman, the sneering menace is instead introduced as a brilliant mastermind, crafty, low-blowing and invariably scheming. It's no reflection on him - or on Meredith's excellent performance - that those plans inevitably ended up being daft, it's just what the script and the context called for. He wouldn't lower himself to monstrous acts, or even great acts of violence, but he lost absolutely nothing for it.

In the Batman 1966 movie, he's the mastermind of the piece, heavily referencing the comics source and offering a far truer reflection of the character than Danny Devito in Batman Returns. Obviously, the fact that he's in probably the worst (or the least understood) Batman movie doesn't help him, but Meredith's performance matures like a good wine.

Batman '66 is available to buy over at Amazon.