Top 100 Batman VILLAINS

95 - Magpie

#95 - Magpie
First Appearance: Man of Steel #3 (Nov 1986)

"Look at all my shiny things. Bits and baubles that twinkle in the moonlight." ~Magpie

Magpie is a minor villain to be sure, but for some reason she has endured for twenty years as something of a comic relief villain. Her plots are generally not terribly threatening, and she often comes up as a topic of conversation for superheroes. One of my favorite moments in Jeph Loeb's Superman/Batman run is when Superman and Batman are trying to crawl through the sewers after a fight, and they're talking about their various run-ins with her. It's kind of embarrassing how much they just thoroughly bash her exploits, and yet, without villains like this, I think you lose the realism of superheroics in DC. There are just some villains that fail at being villains, and that's the sort of flavor that makes DC's villains unique. You had characters like Catman go from Z-List failures to solid characters, and you had villains rise and fall and rise again like Dr. Light. There's no guarantee for success, and the failures keep things interesting.

Magpie herself debuted in the Man of Steel title, and she was the first villain captured by the team-up of Batman and Superman (post-Crisis, this was considered their first case together). After that, she primarily became a lesser version of Catwoman, stealing pretty things from jewelry stores and museums, although usually to a level of success much lower than the Feline Fatale's. Sadly for her, she ended up being killed off in the One Year Later story arc in Batman and Detective Comics, but thankfully she gained a brief reprieve in Blackest Night: Batman.

Greatest Magpie Story Ever Told:Batman #401 - Part of the Legends crossover story (the first crossover post-Crisis), Batman has his first solo fight with Magpie. Solid story with a nice bit of humor.