#73 - Cavalier
First Appearance: Detective Comics #81 (Nov 1943)
"The shall feel the steel of the Cavalier again!" ~Cavalier
The Cavalier has always been a silly villain. The original inspiration for the oft-appearing Captain America villain Batroc, Cavalier's tangles with Batman usually involved grand fencing battles and ridiculous amounts of extraneous French-speak. However, instead of making him goofy, it set him apart, as his eccentric behavior was always a welcome reprieve from the darker stories in Batman. One of my favorite sillier stories in the Batman franchise involves Robin tricking Cavalier when Cavalier "forces" Robin to take Cavalier to Batman's lair. Robin actually leads him to a large predatory bird's nest, which leads the Cavalier to believe that Robin is actually a giant bird-mutant.
I mean, that's just fantastic.
While he was mostly a Silver Age villain, he has had several appearances over the years with other street-level heroes, notably the Question and Blue Beetle. It was revealed in Justice League of America that Cavalier was actually a closeted homosexual villain in a relationship with another flamboyantly silly villain, Captain Stingaree. Ultimately, Cavalier met his end shortly prior to the New 52 reboot alongside his lover, when the Secret Six took on an army of super-villains and Bane broke his back (he has a tendency to do that). A hero like Batman NEEDS the sillier villains, because grim and gritty can become monotonous, and the perfect antidote to a pervasively dark comic is an occasional injection of humor.
Greatest Cavalier Story Ever Told:Batman Family #15 - The aforementioned Robin trickery story; it also involves the Cavalier making a bet with Killer Moth; silly, classicly Silver Age stuff.
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Top 100 Batman VILLAINS
RandomName basically describes it. It's a list of the top 100 Batman villains. (Note: This isn't MY list. So, if you don't agree with it, don't freak out and rant in the comments)
