Batman Beyond: 10 Best Villains
The most vile villains to terrify Neo-Gotham.
When Alan Burnett was tasked with making a teenage Batman story to appeal to a younger audience by Kids WB, Burnett would proceed to play the greatest trick of his career by giving them exactly what they asked for... wrapped up in one of the darkest cartoons in television history.
So it only makes sense when considering that backstory that the villains of Batman Beyond have a bit more of an edge to them than other comic book cartoons. The real edge that Batman Beyond has always had over other DC animated shows was the fact that it was created from whole cloth, with other comic universes serving more as inspiration (it does not take a genius to see the MANY Spider-Man parallels in some of these villains) rather than the backdrop.
The majority of villains that showed up in Batman Beyond were completely original creations, and even when an old school baddie did show up, it was always with a clever twist on the idea. These villains made Terry McGinnis and Neo Gotham feel so much more alive as characters, ironically through their attempts to burn both to the ground.
10. Spellbinder
Like was said in the beginning, some of these villains really wear their inspiration on their sleeve, and while for most that can be a good thing, it only holds Spellbinder back.
Don't get it wrong, your writer adores the idea of him. Illusionist supervillains are always a fun time, but like Mysterio, Spellbinder just never got more ambitious than wanting to get rich. Which would be fine for a weekly animated cartoon series, except Spellbinder is nowhere near as charming as his Marvel counterpart.
So what got him onto the list? Well, for all his lacking ambition, the show still took advantage of his powers in clever ways. Whether it's framing Batman for a crime by making Commissioner Gordon think he kills someone, to getting rich via addictive full-dive VR. If he had appeared more often and had done more damage with his frankly insane power set, he would have been higher on the list. As it stands, sorry Spellbinder, you just didn't shoot high enough.