Find Out What Villains Want With Batman Posters By Steven Waters

The record will show that I'm pretty biased on this subject, but it's hard to argue that Batman doesn't have the single greatest gallery of foes in the history of comic books. His villains are uniquely compelling, with fantastic visuals and character hooks so simple and so enduring that, more often than not, what they want can be boiled down into a single word.

That's the premise behind a beautiful set of posters by Canadian artist Steven Waters that combine minimalist silhouettes of the Caped Crusader's greatest enemies with simple captions about why they choose to break the law in a city where that'll usually get you punched out and thrown into the world's worst hospital. Check 'em out below!

The great thing about these is how well they boil down these particular characters. I feel like I think about the Penguin more than most people think about Batman, and even I'd have trouble boiling his character down to something as concise and well stated as "control."

And that's not the only nice little touch in these; Poison Ivy referring to plants as her children is pretty much the best, and putting the focus on the Riddler's idea of committing crimes as a game, an intellectual competition with a clear winner and loser, is a great summary of the core of his character that readers often miss. This is good stuff, is what I'm getting at.

To see the whole set --- along with Waters' other work on projects like storyboards and character designs --- check out his gallery on Behance.

Check Out The Best Poison Ivy Art Ever