Prime Video’s Batman: Caped Crusader season 2 puts fresh twists on some of Batman’s most popular villains, including the Riddler, the Joker, and Scarecrow. But the show also delivers the first adaptation of one of the Dark Knight’s weirder foes: Barbatos. If you want to know more about his role in Batman comics and how it’s different from the show, we’ve got all the details.
This article contains spoilers for Batman: Caped Crusader season 2, episode 4
Who is Barbatos in Batman: Caped Crusader?
In the season 2 episode “The Devil’s Due,” Batman is accused of murder after someone kills a burglar and paints a bat in blood at the scene of the crime. It was actually the work of a cult that believes that if they sacrifice enough blood and treasure to the demon bat god Barbatos, he will wake from his slumber beneath Gotham, destroy all nonbelievers, and reward their loyalty with incredible wealth. The cult’s members dress like Batman and believe that the Caped Crusader is the avatar of Barbatos.
The twist is that Barbatos doesn’t actually exist. He’s an urban myth used by a charlatan cult leader who just wants to line his own pockets with the stolen goods his followers gather. He’s not an especially bright conman either, since he explains his fraud to Batman within earshot of a true believer who then stabs her boss to death for his blasphemy. But in DC Comics, Barbatos and his followers can be far more dangerous.
**Who is Barbatos in DC Comics?**
The name Barbatos comes from mystic texts dating back to the 16th century, where he is included in lists of spirits or demons that a sorcerer might summon. It has been used in several Shin Megami Tensei games as well as in *Genshin Impact*, and was first brought to DC Comics by Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyer in the 1990 comic “Dark Knight, Dark City.” There he was called Barbathos and was summoned in 1765 by a group of occultists including Thomas Jefferson. Gotham City was built on top of the temple where the ritual took place, and Barbathos reveals that he created Batman to eventually release him.
Grant Morrison used the name Barbatos and made the dark force a creation of Darkseid. Scott Snyder made him the archvillain of his 2017 crossover series Dark Nights: Metal. This plot has some similarities to the Caped Crusader episode in that Barbatos has a cult in Gotham known as the Court of Owls, though that group is made up of Gotham’s elite rather than just a bunch of very gullible thieves. Snyder’s Barbatos is an ancient force who seeks to destroy the Multiverse. He unleashes a bunch of evil versions of Batman on Earth, including the Batman-Joker hybrid known as the Batman Who Laughs. He also claims to have influenced Bruce Wayne’s life directly to ensure that he would become Batman, and that many of the dark worlds he recruits from were formed by Bruce’s own fears.
Barbatos also appears in the 2023 gothic opera Batman series Gotham Nocturne from Ram V and Rafael Albuquerque. When Batman is possessed by a demon known as an Azmer, he’s able to fight its influence with the help of Barbatos. Batman goes on a sort of mythic quest through the desert where he denies Barbatos’ offers of power, choosing to fight his battles on his own.
Batman: Caped Crusader is very focused on reinventing villains, turning the Mad Hatter into a talk show host and separating Harley Quinn from the Joker. Making Barbatos a myth rather than a real occult force is just another way the show is forging its own path, but maybe a future adaptation might embrace the weirder corners of Gotham.
Batman: Caped Crusader season 2 is streaming now on Prime Video