The Batman 2 Could Use Some Fantastical Villains

Sorry, fans of Golden Age Hawkman comics — the news is out. Director Matt Reeves has confirmed that the Gentleman Ghost will not appear in The Batman 2.

“What was important to me was to find a way to take these pop icons, these mythical characters that everybody knows, and translate it so that Gotham feels like a place in our world,” Reeves told Deadline. “We might push to the edge of the fantastical but we would never go into full fantastical. It’s meant to feel quite grounded.” For that reason, Reeves continued, “Gentleman Ghost is probably pushed a bit too far for us to be able to find a way to do, but there is a fun way to think about how we would take characters that might push over into a bit of the fantastical and find a way to make sense of that.”

Honestly, it’s a little strange that people expected Reeves to pit Robert Pattinson’s Batman, still early in his career, against the otherworldly Gentleman Jim Craddock. Sure, the Gentleman Ghost has been around for a long time and continues to hassle heroes, most recently in an episode of Batman: Caped Crusader. But he’s a strange character, a highway man who liked robbing people so much that he continues the practice in the afterlife.

Conversely, Reeves took a very grounded approach in The Batman, borrowing heavily from not just the comics Batman: Earth One and The Long Halloween, but also from the films of David Fincher. When even a goofball like the Riddler has to be reimagined as John Doe from Seven, it’s hard to see where a dapper specter would fit in.

But then again, that’s exactly the problem. Christopher Nolan already did grounded Batman, devoting plenty of screen time to explaining the reason for an indestructible Batmobile and Catwoman’s pointy ears. Even a very good movie like The Batman languishes in Nolan’s shadow. By exploring the fantastical side of Batman’s rogues gallery, Reeves’ movies could stand apart.

To outside observers, fantastical stories don’t fit the Batman model. They think of Batman as a gritty hero from his first introduction in 1939’s Detective Comics #27, and that the goofier stuff — ghosts and aliens — were introduced during the superhero bust in the 1950s and continued through by the campy tv show of the early ’60s.

But things got spooky almost immediately for Batman. Detective Comics #31 and 32 saw Batman fight the Mad Monk, a mystical figure who could hypnotize his victims and change into a werewolf. The story ends with Batman loading a silver bullet into his gun and shooting a vampire in its crypt.

Over the years, Batman has only added more fantastical characters to his world. The swamp zombie Solomon Grundy has shifted his attentions from Green Lantern Alan Scott to Batman, Deacon Blackfire uses his demonic powers to gather a cult, and then there’s the immortal Ra’s al Ghul.

Supernatural villains offer Batman a unique challenge. Batman defeats his enemies by calling upon his steely mind, his perfectly-honed physique, and his array of weapons. But supernatural characters work outside the realm of logic. Batman can’t necessarily outsmart them or rationally predict their moves, a fact underscored by Ra’s al Ghul’s taunt for Batman: “Detective.”

The usual tricks don’t work for Batman when he fights a supernatural figure. His gadgets fail. His muscles aren’t enough. Instead, Batman has to go outside of his boundaries and make a leap of faith, the scariest thing he can imagine.

To be sure, most Batman movie adaptations have forced the hero to face his limitations. The 1989 Batman realizes that he’s not the only weirdo in town, The Dark Knight forces him to see the cost of his escalating war on crime, and even Ben Affleck’s Batman in the DCEU has to learn that he needs to rely on other heroes. The Batman follows suit by forcing Bruce to change his tactics, inspiring Gotham instead of scaring the citizens.

Here’s the thing, though: the Nolan movies kind of already covered that point. Batman was learning the limit of fear tactics all the way in Batman Begins.

If the Reeves movies did bring in the Gentleman Ghost, the Mad Monk, or an immortal Ra’s al Ghul, they can set themselves apart from anything done by Nolan or anyone else. They can embrace the horror aspects that have always been in around the corners of Batman movies. Moreover, they can explore a key aspect of Batman’s story, one too often ignored by film adaptations.

And admit it, seeing the Gentleman Ghost on screen would be way better than yet another version of the Joker.

The Batman 2 is slated for an October 2026 release.