Killer Croc


Killer Croc

(pop culture)Perhaps the most bestial of Batman's enemies, the rampageous reptile-man Killer Croc premiered in Detective Comics #523 (1983), by writer Gerry Conway and artist Gene Colan (continued in Batman #357, by Conway and Don Newton). Floridian Waylon Jones suffers from a genetic condition that turns his skin into a scaly crocodilian hide. Ostracized by the locals, the minimally educated Jones becomes more reptilian and stronger with age, growing to hate humanity as his disorder separates him from it. After a circus stint as a crocodile wrestler that earns him the nickname “Killer Croc,” he slithers into Gotham City to muscle into organized crime, and is soon at odds with Batman. Early in his comic-book history, Killer Croc had murdered the parents of Jason Todd, the second Robin the Boy Wonder. A continuity revision eliminated Croc's connection to Todd. Towering over the Dark Knight, Killer Croc is a 7-feet-tall, 686-pound leviathan with prodigious strength, razor-like claws, and sharp-edged teeth, which he wields with both primal fury and combative mastery learned while wrestling. A consistent threat to Batman and Robin, Killer Croc has also encountered Swamp Thing, Man-Bat, and the Creeper. As the Riddler and Penguin will attest, Croc's limited intelligence and loathing of humans make him a poor criminal ally; similarly, the Mad Hatter discovered Killer Croc's ferocity when his plan to drive him mad backfired. Killer Croc has shown his ugly face on television, in the 1990s on Batman: The Animated Series and its continuations, throatily voiced by Aron Kincaid and Brooks Gardner, and on The Batman (2004–present), portrayed by Hellboy's Ron Perlman. In the latter series' episode “Swamped” (2005), Croc attempted to submerge Gotham in water to make himself its aquatic crime king. Kenner and DC Direct have produced several Killer Croc action figures, in his various comic-book and animation incarnations.