Killer Croc
34 years ago - Waylon Jones is born with advanced adavism. He is abandoned by his parents and raised by his alcoholic aunt.
18 years ago - 16-year-old Waylon kills his aunt and lives by himself in the woods.
13 years ago - 21-year-old Waylon attempts to join a circus.
10 years ago - 24-year-old Waylon runs away and takes refuge in the sewers of Gotham City. where he poses a constant menace to Batman.
8 years ago - 26-year-old Waylon battles Roy Harper, but stops when he realizes that he's trying to commit suicide.
4 years ago - 30-year-old Waylon battles Bane as he attempts to take over the Gotham underground. He is eventually found and captured by Nightwing.
3 years ago - 31-year-old Waylon escapes Arkham during No Man's Land and flees Gotham for the swamps of Louisiana. He attempts to coexist with Swamp Thing, but ultimately poses too much of a threat, and is brought back to Gotham.
1 year ago - 33-year-old Waylon is treated by Leslie Thompkins and given space to stay. he starts protecting her clinic.
Killer Croc is a great example of some of Batman's later-addition enemies. He underwent a shift in his story in the seventies and eighties as the comic transitioned out of the campiness of the sixties a lot of the classic enemies were being redesigned with a new, darker, crazier aesthetic, some with more success than others. The eighties especially brought in a wide variety of deliberately chaotic characters.
What makes Croc stand out among this era is the fact that he actually ISN'T a bizarre and twisted serial killer... he's a monster. Very few mediums can depict monsters with the success of comics, and while Batman had had his share of monsters over the years very few of them had the unapologetic Universal Monster aesthetic of Killer Croc. It was a clear and easy to understand design and he had become an enduring part of the Batman mythos.
What makes Croc stand out among this era is the fact that he actually ISN'T a bizarre and twisted serial killer... he's a monster. Very few mediums can depict monsters with the success of comics, and while Batman had had his share of monsters over the years very few of them had the unapologetic Universal Monster aesthetic of Killer Croc. It was a clear and easy to understand design and he had become an enduring part of the Batman mythos.
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Killer Croc's Comic HistoryCroc first debuted in 1983, part of a wave of new, more realistic and lethal enemies for Batman. He was originally much smaller; a human being with atavism that essentially made him a side-show freak turned cannibal. It was a simple concept but also a very effective monster for Batman to fight.
He's been a consistent threat to Batman, but hasn't ever really had his story expanded all that much. The Animated Series told stories of him looking for a place to live in peace, but we've also seen him living in the sewers of Gotham where he would eat people. He appeared in the opening arc of Jeph Loeb's "Hush" story arc where Jim Lee drew him with a huge new monstrous body, explained away as having been the result of a new mutating virus, but the very next story arc after this was Brian Azzarello's Batman: Broken City where he is back to his more human but still reptilian body, now acting like a street-level enforcer for organized crime. More recently, he's been added to the Suicide Squad in the rotating position as their giant scary monster character where they have actually depicted a blossoming romance between him and the Enchantress. He is clearly a very malleable character, but perhaps it's the simple clarity of his core concept that allows him to fit into so many narrative roles. |
Our Killer Croc StoryWe didn't want to stray too far from the core concept of Killer Croc as established by his original appearances. He seems to work best as a representation of the sort of urban myth you might have in a large city like Gotham. Sure, lots of cities have a urban legend about crocodiles in the sewers, but only in Gotham could that crocodile actually be a seven foot cannibalistic monstrosity.
We tried to use him a little bit more broadly by having him fight Nightwing, and brawl Bane during his takeover of Gotham's underground. Also, one element that was introduced in the post 52 continuity is the idea that Roy Harper attempted suicide by taking on Killer Croc, who then became his sponsor in a recovery program. The idea of Croc going THAT far is a little odd, but we do like the idea of Croc realizing what Roy is doing and refusing to go along with it. That can actually be a cool turning point for Roy, and speaks volumes about what Croc's motivations are. He's a murderer and a monster, but he is in touch with his humanity on some basic level. It makes him a more interesting character, and opens up some possibilities about what he might do next. |
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Killer Croc's "Costume"Croc's appearance has really evolved over the years. While he was originally just a human being with a skin condition and sharp teeth, he's evolved into what is essentially a gigantic crocodile monster. His head has elongated, his jaws expanded into a huge gaping maw... he's even grown a tail.
Not that there's anything wrong with this image, but it actually represents a slow move AWAY from what makes Croc so unique. There are any number of anthromorphized lizard characters (The Lizard from Spider-Man's villains springs to mind), and when Croc has his more mutated body he doesn't really seem all different from all the others. He looks his best when he's still human, just gigantic and scaly. The image with the taped hands and suspenders is one of my favorite (click on it to see a much larger version). This was actually handled really well in his live-action appearance in the Suicide Squad movie. He's huge, lethal, terrifying... but ultimately human. Over time, perhaps he grows to his massive size, grows his claws, has his mouth full of serrated teeth, but even with all these mutations he should have the body of a human being. |
Killer Croc's FutureWe actually struggled with what to do with Killer Croc moving forward, because while he's a cool recurring threat within the world of Batman, he doesn't really lend himself to broader character development. The comics have clearly come across the same challenge, because they've resorted to using him a generic muscle in a variety of villains-as-heroes teams, most notably the current Suicide Squad. This option really didn't present itself for us, since out Suicide Squad is lead by Bane, a character that largely makes Croc redundant.
Instead, we decided to simply leave him as-is. He's a Batman villain that is currently at large in Gotham. It actually seems odd that we don't have MORE of these, that so many of Batman's classic villains are tied up in the larger machinations of the world. Still, Croc is a character primed for SOMEONE to use. I imagine that he just might have some huge uptick in his profile in Gotham right around the corner. |
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