Changing Scales

Written by GL

The thing I like the most about the supervillains of the Batman series is how dark and colorful they are. I like the way they always seem to use the emotion of fear as a weapon, exactly the way the Batman himself does. Examples range from the un-dying Joker, to the delightfully mad Scarecrow, to the subject of this blog entry: Killer Croc.

Killer Croc is a relatively young character, named Waylon Jones and was first penned in 1983. What many non-serious Batman-watchers may not know is that Waylon Jones is one of a very few black supervillains out there in the comic world. Aside from that, there is alot of mixed-up data concerning the origins of this very vicious character.

One version of origin claims that Waylon Jones was born with a medical condition that caused him to grow more and more reptilian-like - from tougher skin to an actual tail. Although he may have once been human, his disease, over the long term, caused Waylon Jones to lose much of his human appearance.

An alternate version of this origins-claim is that Waylon Jones is not afflicted with a disease but an inherited gene-trait from an age-old species of the human race.

In DC's The Batman & Robin Adventures, it is revealed that Killer Croc's mother had died at childbirth, which left him to be brought up by an abusive aunt

In Batman: The Animated Series, Killer Croc's origins are revealed to have been as a pro-wrestler who got bored with the legal life and turn to crime for excitement.

In The Batman animated television series, his origins take an even newer and more out-there twist. Killer Croc, in his appearance, hinted to having been a military genetic experiment gone wrong. This, of course, diverts totally away from his comic book origins. In this series, Killer Croc also possesses a Cajun accent and had two pet crocodiles that understood his every order.

As all-over-the-place as his origins are, even more twisted are the representations of Killer Croc's intelligence and appearance throughout his fictional life.

In the comics, Killer Croc's level of intelligence has shifted between the fairly smart and cunning to the totally berserk. In the Hush comic storyline, he was infected with a virus that sped up his mutation, turning him more and more monstrous and less intelligent alot quicker. And, as far as it goes, this condition was never cured. Although Waylon Jones is said to have been a high school dropout, he is more than capable of handling simple criminal-planning. But, more often than not, he is hired as muscle by other supervillains.

In Batman: The Animated Series, as crazed as he appears, Killer Croc was discovered to have been completely sane. It was in this television series that he was refused from being admitted to Arkham Asylum and was, instead, placed in Blackgate Penitentiary.

The best way to picture it would be to envision a person with all the mental capacities of a human, but the primal intelligence of a crocodile; meaning the speed and reflexes, the senses and swimming ability.

The best representation of Killer Croc, and the one I remember the best, had been in Batman: The Animated Series. He was shown as a being fairly human in appearance, except for the fact that his skin was painted a leathery gray. In one episode of The New Batman Adventures, Killer Croc was, once again, revamped and portrayed with green skin. Yet another version appeared in the Batman television series, in which he was portrayed more reptilian and, this time, with a tail.

See, it's complicated. And these mix-ups are all reflected in the toylines that are produced by Mattel and Kenner, and even Lego. No one knows how to make him look.

Killer Croc, however, is tough. His skin has hardened to the point that it is almost invulnerable to sharp cuts and low-grade projectile weapons. He is not only fast and able to swim, he is also strong enough to tear bank vault doors off their hinges. From time to time, his character has been shown to have regenerative capabilities; being able to repair his own broken bones and so on.

It has been shown that he can street-fight and wrestle, but he's not as competant at it as the Batman himself.

As far as the fans and comic writers know, Killer Croc's storyline hasn't ended yet. At one point in the Batman issues, Killer Croc escaped from Arkham Asylum to the swamps of Louisiana, at the calling of the Swamp Thing. It was a place where Killer Croc could finally give in to his total animalistic form and be free from human persecution.

It's a little bit of a shame that Killer Croc was never a solid character with a true origin and form. I, personally, don't know that many characters that have been treated with such uncertainty as this one has. And, if you ask me, it makes it all the more harder to appreciate such glamorous comic characters when all those editors, writers and painters want to do is keep changing scales.