Top 100 Batman VILLAINS

33 - Bad Samaratin

#33 - Bad Samaritan
First Appearance: Outsiders #3 (Jan 1986)

"The term checkmate is flawed. It suggests a game is over... but the game is about to begin." ~Bad Samaritan

Here's my highest ranked "obscure" villain for you guys; back when Batman was headlining in the Outsiders, there were several underrated villains brought into existence, but one that I've always found particularly intriguing was the Bad Samaritan. Samaritan is really unique in that he doesn't fight; he's just a mouth pressed to the ear of people in power. He utilizes contacts in "high places" to worm his way to world leaders from Markovia to Georgia to Zambia, and every time, he sews the underpinnings of a much more elaborate global chess game that he seems to be playing with persons unknown. He has a huge resource of espionage intelligence and political goings-on, and he seems to constantly be in the know of how things work.

What makes Bad Samaritan so amazing is that he's a mental match for Batman (and the Outsiders); Samaritan is never captured, never brought down in any of his entanglements with whoever he faces, whether it be Batman himself, the Outsiders, JLI, the Suicide Squad, etc. He's just a keen, resourceful mind that seems to always be a step ahead in planning and execution. That's a modern-day Moriarty; someone with an agenda and the faculties to see it through, and for me that's a great villain.

Greatest Bad Samaritan Story Ever Told: Checkmate: Castling - Samaritan was brought into Checkmate (which seems like such an obvious move in retrospect) in the final storyline of that series, eventually earning himself the rank of the White Queen's Bishop. Given his amazing abilities in the espionage and intelligence departments, this was a match made in cloak and dagger heaven, and he was so perfectly suited for it.