10 Most Tragic Batman Villains
6. Kite-Man
One of the most unexpected additions made to Batman lore by Tom King's divisive run on the character, by far, was his complete reworking of the Z-list villain, Kite-Man.
Kite-Man is easily one of the most ridiculous ideas for a supervillains ever, as he is just a thief, just one that gets around via a giant kite strapped to his back. Nothing but a joke of a character for decades. But then King came along with an idea. What if Kite-Man had one of the darkest and most tragic backstories ever?
Kite-Man started off as a normal civilian engineer named Charlie Buck Brown, who loved his son more than anything. However, because that setup is just BEGGING to be made into tragedy, Charlie has his life systematically ruined by The Joker and Riddler, the former forcing him to make the Joker-mobile, which gets him blacklisted by the engineering community, the latter murdering his son.
Charlie decides to end the feud between Joker and Riddler by using his engineering abilities to make a back mounted kite that can carry a full grown man on the air currents of Gotham's skyline, becoming Kite-Man.
The fact that such an intentionally ridiculous villain came about as a result of two sick men destroying an innocent man's life just to take potshots at each other is the kind of gut-wrenching writing that represents King at his best.