Max Shreck

"I got better fish to fry."

- Max Shreck

Maximillian Shreck, or simply, Max Shreck, is the main antagonist of Batman Returns. He serves as Selina Kyle's nasty boss and an unusual ally to the Penguin.

History
The businessman Max is well loved by the town and his son Chip, but nobody really knows his dark secrets which range from killing his best friend and flushing his body parts down the toilet, dumping toxic waste in the Gotham River, owning secret fire traps within Gotham City, murdering Selina Kyle, and presumably murdering his own wife.

Max appears to be giving and caring... when he's really aggressive and a big bully. Max wants to build a large power plant which he says will be good for the city when really it would eventually suck the power dry from Gotham, leaving a fortune of money in his legacy. But he ends up getting blackmailed by the Penguin into helping him become an important figure in Gotham but Schreck was manipulating the Penguin as much as the Penguin thought he was manipulating him. Schreck attempted to make Penguin mayor in order to attract good publicity for himself and control Gotham through the Penguin, or "Oswald Cobblepot" as the Penguin called himself. Max and Oswald appear to develop a strange kind of friendship. Max was born to poverty but fought his way to power through cunning and ruthlessness, developing criminal connections along the way. As such, like Oswald, he has a resentment of people such as Bruce Wayne who were born to wealth, "To the manor born with a silver spoon" as Max contemptuously refers to Bruce. Unfortunately when Oswald's criminal enterprises are exposed, Max abandons him. Oswald flees back to the sewers, once more taking on the name "Penguin" and vowing revenge. Meanwhile, Max's secretary Selina Kyle had been reincarnated as the supervillain Catwoman, and vowed vengeance against him for killing her. Also Batman determined to expose Schreck as the criminal he was and when you've got two supervillains and a superhero out to get you, you're in trouble! Max is killed in the end when Catwoman kisses him with an electric taser while she grabbed some exposed wires, frying him and leaving a frazzled corpse behind.

Despite being a horrible person, Max loves his son as he willingly took Chip's place when the Penguin came for him. It's likely Chip takes over his father's business.

Trivia

 * Shreck's role in the film was originally intended for Harvey Dent who would be played by Billy Dee Williams. He was only merely to be scarred at the climax of the film, which would make him his alter ego "Two-Face" which would follow into the next film, Batman Forever.