Let's start the year with something interesting, a reproposal for a very nasty piece of mafia boss, as I now believe that he can't easily count taking in account stuff from the series and tie-in comics, so let's start, and happy 2025. Thanks to The Pro-Wrestler for permission to repropose this character.
What's The Work?[]
The Batman saga, is about the lastest live action movie starred by Robert Pattinson (this time not becoming a president to nuke the world like in the Pattinverse) and created by Matt Reeves. As a new incarnation of the character, these new universe go to a dark approach to Gotham, having Batman not fully experienced on being Batman, although not being a beggining either, where he has to fight against the much criminals of Gotham, more focused on revenge and rage, while the city is corrupted by horrible people.
In the only movie that has been made to the date, Batman is investigating multiple murders caused by a guy known as the Riddler, who pretty much guides him into discovering what is actually controlling the city, and all the corruption that there is, although the Riddler still has ideas to save Gotham that go in a very insane radical way to do it, you know, nearly populicide. Here, there is a very important character that controls Gotham, including the police, corrupting everyone and being in general a horrible person.
In the Penguin, that ocurrs after the movie and Riddler's mass murdering, the character known as Oz is pretty much trying to manipulate the mafias on his way, while also we can get more how he actually thinks as he tries to get on the top of everything after killing the new leader of the Falcone's family, while also having to be worried about the sister of this leader, the dangerous Sofia Falcone, which leds us to know about the atrocities that bringed her to that state, thanks to her father, the one who framed her for his crimes.
And for last, we have the Riddler Year One, a prequel of the movie, where we see a little of how this character became the mass murderer terrorist who seeks to save Gotham in his own way, while also getting some looks to how horrible this world is thanks to the mafia leader, who although doesn't appear, shows the influence that this person have, and how he has control over nearly everything.
But yeah, as you can see, we are going to talk about a very important character for this franchise, even when he doesn't really count as the main villain of neither of these works, but being the more influential of all, let's talk about Carmine Falcone, the one controlling Gotham from the shadows.
We have the pleasure of seeing you again, Mr. Falcone. (image just before framing his daughter of his serial killings, getting her on Arkahm and getting her tortured and abused for 10 years, you know, typic father behaviour)
Who is Him? What Has He Done?[]
Carmine Falcone, also known as the true Hanged Man, is the one behind the horrible state of Gotham, thanks to his corruption and how he is the true mayor of Gotham thanks to his mafia family's influence. For what we get of Falcone on the past, is that he had two children named Sofia and Alberto, becoming one of the two big mafia bosses (with the Maroni) of Gotham. Having a lot of control of Gotham, Falcone decides to steal money destined to the more needed, just to obtain more power, and then get the full blame on the Maroni, to get him locked up to have the full control, thanks to this, the orphanage had horrible conditions with babies dying frequently and rats appearing a lot, which would led to Edward becoming the Riddler in the future. For these times, Falcone got asked for help by Thomas Wayne, who wanted a reporter scared so this reporter wouldn't expose some stuff about his wife (just that some of her family had mental issues), which Falcone ended up just killing the guy, which horrified Thomas, which got him angry towards Falcone, and the next we know is that both Waynes got killed, which could have been Falcone's doing, but is never fully confirmed, as it could be because of Maroni or other stuff.
Now with even more power, Carmine ended up corrupting Gotham, taking control of the police and multiple business thanks to the money he stole. With this power, Falcone was pretty much untouchable, getting a lot of people executed if they snitched or just failed on their work, with all of these people working with him being afraid, as if they do anything wrong, they could loose everything, including their lives and the ones that they love, and of course, we have that in the comic, it is make specifically clear, that Falcone liked to get people ate alive by a crocodile, which we see with a guy who gets his head eaten by this animal.
On the Penguin, it is revealed to us that Falcone is also a serial killer of women, who he enjoys killing by strangulation, just to make it seem like a suicide later on, and yeah, one of his first victims was his own wife, as she wanted to leave with the kids because of how dangerous he was. Even in the movie of The Batman, we see these tendencies, with him strangulating Selina's mother, friend and tried to do it to Selina too...who was his daughter, having no problem on doing that even when he knew about this. In the series, it is also revealed that when his known daughter, Sofia, investigated a little of these murders and started to doubt his father, Falcone decided to leave what it seemed like love at the beggining behind him, and get her sent to Arkham for those crimes, just to pay the doctors to torture her with electroshocks for years, pretty much making her live a hell, and causing her to become the woman that she is now, so yeah, Falcone has caused the existence of multiple villains on this franchise.
But well, in the movie, we see a lot of how bad Gotham is thanks to him, as he has full control, having a big drug operation of Drop, a very addictive drug that he spreads all around the city, corruption all around the city, the police on his hands, but of course, we have the Riddler revealing bit by bit the reality of Gotham, and how the Mayor is just a minion to Falcone. So as I mentioned before, Falcone tries to kill Catwoman with no remorse and ends up having to face Batman too, who exposes his crimes to the press, and although Falcone thinks that he is going to be fine as he has the police on control, Gordon makes him know that he doesn't have everyone, so he gets arrested, although he is sure that he is not going to be there for too long, and well... he gets sniped by the Riddler and dies, ending with his control, as the Falcone never got to obtain the power that he had after this, and everything went downside for his legacy.
Mitigating Factors[]
Welp... how do I explain this?... he doesn't have anything actually redeeming, he had a wife, he had lovers, he had children, but welp, he literally killed his own wife and lovers with no remorse, even becoming his modus operandi as a serial killer. And with his children... well, he doesn't really seem to care for Alejandro, seeing him as weak and not capable of leading his organization, and although he seemed to care for Sofia, this is pretty much just because she would be good as a legacy, that being the only reason why he treated her well... but then he decided to get her to live hell just for going against her, getting her tortured for years on Arkham just for getting to know the truth about what he did, all of this with no remorse, while also destroying any relationship that Sofia could have with her family, by framing her for his crimes. And of course, he doesn't care about Selina, who he also tried to kill with not actual remorse, just for wanting revenge against him for killing her mother, all of this while taunting her.
And of course, he obviously doesn't care for his men, killing them for failing, and never getting to actually know personally any of them, they are just tools for him at the end, not showing any actual care or respect for them, and of course, we have how he can get them killed by a crocodile, so they are forced by him to work well, as he could kill their families if they don't.
For last, we have that he act a little nice to other people, like Bruce, but this is pretty much just to keep appearences and full pragmatism, being a good example of what is being Faux Affable, at the end, he doesn't care for no one but himself, and he wants to be feared or respected by the others as he gets to the top, all to have it all.
What Carmine Falcone got his own daughter to pass was really awful.
Heinous Standard[]
This was the issue that got him rejected the first time, and now the heinous standard is bigger thanks to being more villains like Penguin or Sofia Falcone, although his main issue was the Riddler, so how exactly does he pass?
Well, Falcone does stand out in the same way as the Riddler, going in a completely niche of crimes, plus a big rapsheet. Carmine Falcone is pretty much the reason of why Gotham ended up like we see it on The Batman, causing the Riddler to exist thanks to stealing the money for the orphanage, getting babies to die frequently in there and being a horrible place to live on thanks to the rats. He has personal villany towards Selina by killing her mother and friend by strangulation, while also having more personal villany towards Sofia by getting her mother killed and then sent her to Arkham for 10 years to be tortured by electroshock and abused there, with him not even intending on getting her freed later on (which led her to become a villain). We have how he is also a serial killer of women who have killed all of them by strangulation, while having a good kill count with this. We also can't forget how much damage his mafia have done to Gotham, having control of everything even the police, getting everything corrupted, having everyone working with him afraid of what he could do to them, regularly having any person that defies him in any way (like just failing to do a job) eaten brutally by an alligator, pretty much flooding Gotham with so many criminals that the few police that aren't on his control can't do anything about it, he even had the Mayor in his power, seeking to keep it all the way it was.
So as summary, what the Riddler has in therms of kill count, Falcone has it in therms of personal villany, cruelty and all the suffering that he have caused for years to the people of Gotham, after all, there had to be a reason of why people were more afraid of Falcone than the Riddler.
Final Verdict[]
Weirdly enough, I have to give him an easy yes, even with the competency of this new franchise, Falcone is pretty much responsible of everything, the existence of the Riddler, Sofia Falcone as a villain, the power that the Penguin had, the way that Gotham is, and all the corruption that there is in that world. Having nothing redeeming, this guy really stands out as the evilest person that we have seen on this new franchise.