Batman Fluxx

A statistical analysis of the villains in Batman Fluxx

Well, I spoke too soon. In my review of Batman Fluxx, I was a little bummed that Looney Labs used the revamped artwork from the New Batman Adventures portion of Batman: The Animated Series. But I tried to look on the bright side: I pointed out that at least Scarecrow isn’t in the game, “so you aren’t subjected to the terrifying redesigned Scarecrow.”

Of course… now they’ve gone and released Scarecrow as a promo card.

Scarecrow? Really? If they were going to do another promo card, couldn’t they have picked someone else? Mad Hatter? Ra’s al Ghul?

The new-look Scarecrow just really grinds my gears. Originally, he was actually an interesting character: deranged scientist Jonathan Crane on a mission to get even with the world. We saw him both with and without his mask, showing a range of anger, fear, and gleeful insanity. The second incarnation of Scarecrow is just a skull-faced whisperer with the personality of a robot.

I mean… Scarecrow wasn’t even in that many episodes, was he?

I set out to prove that the choice of Scarecrow was a bad decision. With numbers.

Ranking the significance of villains

To determine which villains actually should appear in Batman Fluxx, it was necessary to determine the significance of each villain in The Animated Series. The obvious metric for this is: “How many episodes does each villain appear in?”

Using the DC Animated Universe Wiki, in conjunction with my own encyclopedic knowledge of Batman: The Animated Series from when I was eight, I wrote a Perl 6 script to document and tally up the number of episodes that each villain appears in throughout the primary Batman: The Animated Series canon. I counted an “appearance” as the character or a likeness of the character (such as a double, impersonator, robot, or photograph) appearing on screen in an episode.

I included all episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, and also any appearance in the related movies Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman and Mr. Freeze: SubZero, Mystery of the Batwoman, or the Chase Me short film. I excluded the recent Batman and Harley Quinn movie because it was released after Batman Fluxx, and also because it sucks. I didn’t include any related media like video games, or any of the non-contemporary-Batman-centric DC Animated Universe TV shows.

Total Appearances in Batman: The Animated Series

The following table shows how many episodes each villain appears in, along with whether or not they are included in Batman Fluxx. This excludes villains who only appear in one episode, as well as recurring henchmen like Ubu and Rhino. It also excludes The Creeper, because, technically, I guess he’s not a villain.

That gives us a list of 29 characters.

Villain	Appearances	Batman Fluxx?
Joker	28	Yes
Two-Face	21	Yes
Harley Quinn	18	Yes
Penguin	17	Yes
Poison Ivy	17	Yes
Catwoman	12	Yes
Scarecrow	10	Promo
Rupert Thorne	9
Mad Hatter	8
Killer Croc	7	Promo
Riddler	7	Yes
Clayface	6	Promo
Ventriloquist/Scarface	6
Mr. Freeze	5	Yes
Ra’s al Ghul	5
Roland Daggett	5
Man-Bat	4
Bane	3	Yes
HARDAC	3
Red Claw	3
She-Bat	3
Talia al Ghul	3
Arnold Stromwell	2
Baby-Doll	2
Clock King	2
Firefly	2
Kyodai Ken	2
Professor Milo	2
Tony Zucco	2

A number of things immediately become clear:

Joker appears in the most episodes, by a fairly wide margin.
Bane, with only three appearances, has the fewest appearances of any villain who also appears in Batman Fluxx.
Obviously I spoke too soon again, because Scarecrow (blech) is the highest ranked villain who would not otherwise appear in Batman Fluxx.

But not all “appearances” are created equal. The table above credits Joker and Penguin each with one appearance when, for example, Joker appears on a poster in the background for a few seconds in an episode that’s all about the Penguin. If we eliminate minor and insignificant appearances (like being on a poster), it will give us a better picture of who the most prominent villains in the show are, right? Surely someone will rise above Scarecrow if we take a closer look!

Total Non-Cameo Appearances in Batman: The Animated Series

Continuing to reference the DCAU Wiki and my DVD box set of Batman: The Animated Series that I’ve watched a million times, I classified all appearances by whether or not they qualify as a cameo. I defined “non-cameo” as “active participation by the character in more than one scene.”

This definition of cameo doesn’t line up exactly with what the DCAU Wiki calls an “uncredited” appearance, because occasionally a character will have a speaking role that is insignificant (e.g., Joker making a quip as Batman walks past his cell in Arkham), or a non-speaking role that is relatively prominent (e.g., Scarecrow pushing Batman around and swinging a scythe in “Trial”). However, this definition lines up very well with what we intuitively think of as a cameo. Going through the episodes, I discovered that, whenever a character appears in more than one scene, they almost always appear many times throughout the entire episode.

Only a couple appearances were truly challenging to classify as cameos or not. In “Second Chance,” Penguin and Rupert Thorne both sort of only appear in once “scene,” depending on exactly how you define what is a contiguous “scene.” However, they’re mentioned repeatedly in the surrounding scenes and act as major red herrings, so I ended up rating those as full appearances. On the other hand, Riddler appears multiple times in “Trial,” but he’s always just sitting in the back of the jury box and never says anything—I rated that as a cameo.

Villain	Appearances	Batman Fluxx?
Joker	20	Yes
Harley Quinn	13	Yes
Penguin	12	Yes
Two-Face	12	Yes
Catwoman	11	Yes
Poison Ivy	11	Yes
Rupert Thorne	9
Killer Croc	7	Promo
Scarecrow	7	Promo
Clayface	5	Promo
Mad Hatter	5
Roland Daggett	5
Mr. Freeze	4	Yes
Ra’s al Ghul	4
Ventriloquist/Scarface	4
Bane	3	Yes
HARDAC	3
Red Claw	3
Riddler	3	Yes
Talia al Ghul	3
Arnold Stromwell	2
Baby-Doll	2
Clock King	2
Firefly	2
Kyodai Ken	2
Man-Bat	2
Professor Milo	2
She-Bat	2
Tony Zucco	2

We still get the same 29 villains, but now they appear in a slightly different order. Joker is still on top, but Harley Quinn edges out Two-Face for second place. Also, Riddler drops down to a tie with Bane at only three real appearances.

And someone who’s not in Batman Fluxx jumped ahead of Scarecrow! Yes! Rupert Thorne! We may tend to forget just how much of Batman: The Animated Series focuses on Batman’s war against organized crime.

But… can I seriously say that Rupert Thorne should have gotten a promo card over Scarecrow? Gotham’s go-to gangster is not a “supervillain” and also never appears in the redesigned New Batman Adventures portion of the show. How would they even make a card for him if we don’t know what he looks like now? This is a hollow victory for statistics.

However, given that Batman Fluxx specifically uses the revamped look of the The New Batman Adventures and has The New Batman Adventures logo on the box, maybe we make a case for someone else over Scarecrow if we limit ourselves to just that portion of the show?

Total Appearances in The New Batman Adventures

Villain	Appearances	Batman Fluxx?
Harley Quinn	6	Yes
Joker	6	Yes
Poison Ivy	5	Yes
Penguin	4	Yes
Catwoman	2	Yes
Clayface	2	Promo
Firefly	2
Killer Croc	2	Promo
Mad Hatter	2
Riddler	2	Yes
Scarecrow	2	Promo
Two-Face	2	Yes
Ventriloquist/Scarface	2
Bane	1	Yes
Mr. Freeze	1	Yes

Unfortunately, if we just look at appearances in The New Batman Adventures, Scarecrow is merely tied with the villains who don’t have a Batman Fluxx card: Firefly, Mad Hatter, and the Ventriloquist. And he’s almost certainly the most famous of that bunch—he’s the only one out of that group to appear in a live action film—so it’s understandable why he got a card and they didn’t.

Also, note that this table again excludes villains with only one appearance—unless they also appear in Batman Fluxx. Bane and Mr. Freeze each only appear one time in the revamped show. These two found their way into Batman Fluxx while other villains who appeared more frequently were passed over.

At this point, we might as well take one last look at just non-cameos in The New Batman Adventures. Maybe that will make someone else jump ahead of Scarecrow?

Total Non-Cameo Appearances in The New Batman Adventures

Villain	Appearances	Batman Fluxx?
Joker	6	Yes
Harley Quinn	5	Yes
Penguin	4	Yes
Poison Ivy	4	Yes
Catwoman	2	Yes
Clayface	2	Promo
Firefly	2
Killer Croc	2	Promo
Scarecrow	2	Promo
Two-Face	2	Yes
Bane	1	Yes
Mr. Freeze	1	Yes
Riddler	0	Yes

Nope. No one is ahead of Scarecrow by this standard either.

Interestingly, Firefly is the only villain with two or more non-cameo appearances in The New Batman Adventures who doesn’t have a card in Batman Fluxx.

Also, note that Riddler is even worse off than Bane and Mr. Freeze—he has zero non-cameo appearances in the latter part of the show.

Final thoughts

After all that, I guess I have to admit that it made sense to put Scarecrow into Batman Fluxx. He’s as much a part of The Animated Series as any other villain. And the game is called Batman Fluxx, not Batman: The Animated Series Fluxx or The New Batman Adventures Fluxx, so it probably should include the most famous villains from Batman’s rogues’ gallery, even if they’re not the most prominent characters in the show.

Plus, ultimately, I’d thought that Looney Labs was done making promo cards for Batman Fluxx. I never expected another one, so I also have to admit that I was actually really happy to see it, even if it was Scarecrow.

So, at this point, given my track record, what else is there to say except I sure hope they don’t release any more promos. Like a Mad Hatter card. Or Ventriloquist. Or Man-Bat. Or Talia al Ghul. Or Firefly. It would sure be a shame if they did something like that and messed up all of my carefully constructed charts in this article. Or, you know, if they came out with more fun action cards like the “Two-Face Flip.” Or added some of the other hero characters like Nightwing. Or Gray Ghost. Or Montoya and Bullock. Surely that’s not going to happen.

Batman Fluxx – Games based on Batman: The Animated Series, Part 1

When I was little, we didn’t go to the movies or rent movies. I only got to see a movie if it happened to be on TV when I happened to be watching, or if read through the TV schedule section in the newspaper and set the VCR to tape record it (seriously, this is the kind of thing we did back then). If a movie wasn’t on TV at all, I never got to see it.

At some point, when I was in college and finally had a computer with a DVD drive, I realized that I could check out any movie I wanted from the college library. I could finally watch all of the movies I kept hearing were great. I started with Citizen Kane and kept going from there.

Later on, I realized that I wasn’t limited to things I’d recently heard were great, I could go back to things I’d wanted to see in the past… things that I’d wanted to see when I was little but never got to. Which, one day, led to me bringing home Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, if you’re not familiar with it, was a theatrically released movie based on Batman: The Animated Series. I watched Batman: The Animated Series all the time as a child and so did all of my friends, and I remember distinctly when Mask of the Phantasm came out, but I’d never gotten to see it. The movie was itself something a phantasm—the closest I got to as a child was cutting an article about it out of a magazine (again, this is the kind of thing we did back then) and unsuccessfully trying to find the Phantasm action figure at every toy store.

It turned out that Mask of the Phantasm was great, too (and also, oddly enough, strongly influenced by Citizen Kane)—slightly darker than the series, filling in some of Batman’s backstory, and delivering some surprising revelations—everything you could possibly want from a movie based on a show. Seeing the missing piece of my favorite childhood TV series did not disappoint, even though it took me years to realize that I could just get the movie and watch it if I really wanted to.

For kids of a certain age, Batman: The Animated Series defined our childhood. When we played, we were always Batman and Robin. We had action figures, and Batmobiles, and Robin’s hang glider. We were experts on Batman’s different grappling hooks, from the regular to the needle-that-sticks-into-anything. I remember one time, on a field trip, a kid tried to attack me using the O-Nemuri Touch from the “Day of the Samurai” episode. I say “tried” because, hey, I’d seen the episode, of course it wasn’t going to work. (Also, it’s from a TV show—it’s not a real martial arts thing.)

Even as I grew up, I was never far from whisperings of Batman: The Animated Series. I remember girls in college saying they put the show on in their room and it got guys to come over—like some kind of guynip.

For kids of a certain age, Batman: The Animated Series has followed us all of our lives. Initially, it spawned Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Batman Beyond, and a host of other shows and direct-to-video films. The voice actors reprised their roles for the Arkham Asylum series of video games. Harley Quinn has ascended from sidekick created for the show to iconic part of the Batman mythos and America’s most popular Halloween costume.

Oddly enough, Batman: The Animated Series is having something of a renaissance in the form of board games, too. In 2015, Batman Fluxx was released. In 2016, Batman: The Animated Series Dice Game came out. And, this year, in 2017, Batman: The Animated Series Almost Got ‘im Card Game hit the market.

This is pretty weird, right? It’d be weird for even one game to be based on a 25-year-old children’s cartoon show, let alone three games, right? I can only surmise that the people making these games are like me and grew up watching it and still love it. (Also, maybe those girls from college went on to become savvy marketing executives in charge of licensing old TV series?)

In this series of reviews, I’ll be taking a look at these new games, starting with Batman Fluxx.

Batman Fluxx is a Batman-ified version of the two-to-six-player card game Fluxx from Looney Labs. At the beginning of the game, each player gets a hand of cards and there are two rules: each turn you draw one card and each turn you play one card. The different types of cards you play either go in front of you (“keepers”), perform actions (like discarding or exchanging cards), or manipulate the rules of the game. For example, new rule cards can change the number of cards you draw each turn, change the number of cards you play each turn, or even change the victory condition (“goal”) of the game. The winner is the first person to have the keeper cards on the current goal card.

There are many, many different versions of Fluxx, from the basic, ‘unthemed’ game with keepers like love, war, milk, and cookies to licensed versions for everything from Monty Python to Firefly. They’re all largely the same, but each version has its own unique twists, from special rule cards, to different mixes of card types, to new card types like “creepers” (cards that prevent you from winning) and “surprises” (cards you can play on other people’s turns).

“He’s in a vehicle. It’s a black… tank.”

In Batman Fluxx, the keeper cards are Batman, his allies, and his Bat-gadgets. The creeper cards are villains from the series. There are also little Batman specific touches everywhere, like the Batcomputer gives a boost to your abilities, and you’re not allowed to have the Bruce Wayne card and the Batman card at the same time, and sometimes discarded villains go to Arkham Asylum (and then sometimes they break out again, too).

Gameplay

Essentially, Fluxx is about manipulating the rules of the game to make it easier for you to win and harder for other people to win. For example, you might play new rules that allow you to draw a lot of cards, but not your opponents. Or you might change the goal so it doesn’t include any keepers held by your opponents.

The first time I played Fluxx, I hated it. I thought it was a terrible, poorly-designed, aggravating, un-fun game. However, subsequently, I have totally changed my mind.

When I first played, it was basic Fluxx, version 4.0. The basic Fluxx deck, especially the 4.0 version, is somewhat meaner than other Fluxx derivatives. It has cards like “Hand Limit Zero” that can force other players to discard everything. It also has several creeper cards that, once you get them, are very difficult to get rid of. In fact, Looney Labs actually toned down the meanness of the game for the 5.0 version.

Batman Fluxx doesn’t have the harshest cards from core Fluxx, and while it does have a host of villain creepers, it has lots of cards that make them easy to get rid of or win with. For example, many of the goals require specific villains. Also, having any member of the Bat-family as a keeper allows you to discard one villain per turn, so there’s kind of a game on top of the game where you’re using the good guys to bust the bad guys.

I mean, it doesn’t feel like you’re playing a whole new game where you’re Batman tracking down crooks from the rogue’s gallery and catching them. You still feel like you’re playing Fluxx. But, Batman Fluxx is an exceptionally good version of Fluxx. Maybe not quite good enough to win you over if you’re still in the camp of people who hate Fluxx, but it’s good.

Artwork

In a manner of speaking, technically, Batman: The Animated Series never really existed. There was never actually a show with the title “Batman: The Animated Series” shown on screen. What we remember today as Batman: The Animated Series is one of two or three distinct but closely related shows. The series initially appeared with no title or words of any kind shown during the opening credits. During the second season, the opening was changed and the title shown as The Adventures of Batman and Robin. Two years later, a follow-on series—with slightly redesigned appearances for the characters—was produced with the title The New Batman Adventures.

Poison Ivy and Bane… I know I’ve seen them together somewhere before…

Batman Fluxx uses these later character designs. Frankly, I don’t think they are quite as good as the originals, but they are the standard look for Batman in the original DC Animated Universe. Also, Scarecrow isn’t one of the villains in the game, so you aren’t subjected to the terrifying redesigned Scarecrow.

The backs of the cards are the familiar “Fluxx” design to allow you to mix this with other types of Fluxx, however the fronts have detailed art deco borders with a tiny Bat-symbol to match the “dark deco” look of the series.

The box is the standard Fluxx box: a nearly perfect two-piece box with finger cutouts for easy opening and no wasteful air space inside. The cards are standard Fluxx quality: i.e., not thick or linen finished.

Promo cards

If you’re going to get Batman Fluxx, you should get the promo cards. The promo cards are the icing on top of the game. (Also, thank you to Looney Labs for selling their promo cards on their webstore so that they’re actually obtainable for people who aren’t able to get them at conventions or stores or wherever else promos come from.)

Flipping the coin makes you feel like an agent of chaos.

The first promo released was the “Two Face Flip” action card. Whenever you get this card, you can flip the included Batman coin to double your hand or lose all of your cards. This is maybe the single most fun card in the entire game. I always flip for it.

Clayface: a serious warning about the dangers of putting experimental pharmaceuticals in your makeup.

The second promo was Clayface. This is maybe the single most powerful card in the entire game because it can be used in place of any other villain. For example, if the goal requires two specific villains, you only need to get one of them and Clayface. This helps to keep the game from going too long (which is occasionally an issue with Fluxx) and brings a lot of extra intrigue because this card is so powerful that everyone tries to steal it.

On the other hand, the third promo is Killer Croc. He’s just a basic villain with no exciting powers. Which, you know, kind of describes Killer Croc for real, so it’s well-designed. But, since it doesn’t add any new rules to the game, it’s not as essential as the other two promos.

Final thoughts

I guess I’m finally old enough to be marketed to based on nostalgia. I remember when I was little, seeing advertisements on TV for things like Time Life boxed sets of 1960s music or commercials with people like Mickey Rooney, who I literally only knew from commercials. When you’re not the target audience, marketing based on nostalgia looks pretty transparent and pretty unappealing. However, now that I find myself on the receiving end of it, it looks a lot different.

Should I buy a card game based on a TV show I loved when I was in elementary school?

Back then, I couldn’t afford to buy every toy that was coming out based on Batman: The Animated Series. There were tons of them and I didn’t have an allowance that big (and sometimes I got into trouble and didn’t have any allowance).

Now, I set my own allowance.

Obviously nostalgia is a big selling point for Batman Fluxx. But there’s more to Batman Fluxx than just nostalgia; there’s an interesting game, too. Fluxx was originally released in 1997—it’s practically almost as old Batman: The Animated Series. Over the years, the game has been tweaked, polished, refined, and expounded upon. One end result of that is Batman Fluxx. If you like Batman and you’re looking for a fun, fast card game, this is well worth it.

Love Letter: A perfect honeymoon game

When I think of the game Love Letter, I’ll always remember our honeymoon train trip. The afternoon after our wedding, we set off on a week-long vacation. Walking into the train station downtown felt like stepping back in time. Since we’d booked a roomette (a private compartment with two seats that fold down into beds at night), we were able to wait for the train in the first class lounge. We enjoyed the comfortable couches and complimentary beverages, and then we boarded Amtrak’s Empire Builder. After we’d settled into our compartment and the locomotive carried us out of the city, I brought out the new card game that I’d bought for the trip: Love Letter.

I put a lot of thought into our honeymoon. I picked the historic hotel we stayed at on our wedding night. I bought a new train-friendly travel duffel so I didn’t have to try to maneuver a rolling suitcase through the train cars. And I’d heard about this new little 16-card-game-in-a-bag called Love Letter. It seemed almost too perfect: a game with a romantic name, small enough to take on the train, and inexpensive enough to fit in the budget even after we’d just paid for a wedding. I drove over to the nearest game store and bought a copy.

I’m still not really sure what the storyline of the game is. Nominally, it has something to do with getting a letter to a princess, but it doesn’t really simulate the process of doing that. When you’re playing, you always have one card in your hand. Each turn, you draw a second card and choose one of your two cards to play. There are eight different types of cards in the deck, and each one has a different character with a different ability. So, when you play, what you’re actually doing is using the characters on the cards, trying knock the other players out of the game, or else have the highest-numbered character in your hand at the end of a round.

It turned out to be the perfect game to bring on the train. We must have played dozens of times. At the beginning of each round, you’re mostly just bluffing and trying to guess what card the other player has. However, as each round goes on, more and more cards are revealed, so it gradually turns into a more deductive game where you can narrow down with certainty which card the other person has. I think, in part, Love Letter is so much fun because it takes advantage of our cognitive biases. At a subconscious level, there’s just something exciting about sitting across from another person and declaring, “You have the handmaid.” Logically, you know you’re just making a random guess, but cognitively you feel like you have ESP when you’re correct. There was a lot about our train trip that wasn’t enjoyable—like horrifying delays and a missing rental car—but those games of Love Letter are something that I will always treasure.

These days, there are countless different versions of the game, including the original Japanese version, Archer, Adventure Time, The Hobbit, Munchkin, Santa Claus, and more. Also, there is Love Letter: Batman.

Love Letter: Batman

A few months after our honeymoon, when Love Letter: Batman was first announced, I told my wife that it was what I wanted for my birthday. She probably got sick of me bringing it up all the time, but she did get it for me. Like some of the other versions of Love Letter, it has some minor rules differences from the original, but basically it’s the exact same game. I enjoy it, especially the tiny Bat Symbol tokens that replace the wooden cubes from the original version. However…

Ars Technica recently reviewed a number of the Love Letter versions and described Love Letter: Batman as, “The most kid-friendly version.” Love Letter: Batman is definitely not the most kid-friendly version. The artwork is very similar to the style of the recent Batman comics. And while I do like this style of artwork, the depictions of the female characters made me feel a little bit awkward that I’d asked my wife to buy it for me. It didn’t have to be like this.

Love Letter: Batman (top) compared to Batman Fluxx (bottom).

If you want to get your kids a Batman card game, get them Batman Fluxx. If you want to get your kids a Love Letter game, just get them the normal version.

Card quality

Have you ever noticed how traditional decks of playing cards always have a white border around the edge? There’s a reason for this: when you shuffle, deal, or otherwise handle cards, the edges get a lot of nicks and dings. If the cards have a white border, you probably won’t be able to see the marks. However, if the cards are printed edge to edge like in Love Letter, you’ll start to see marks after just a few minutes (also, storing them in a cloth bag doesn’t really do the cards any favors). Since Love Letter has a very small number of cards and involves trying to guess what other people have in their hand, a conspicuous mark on one of the cards can ruin the entire game. I’ve given up worrying about it and now depend on the fact that all of our cards are pretty much equally thrashed. But if you’re just starting out, it’s worth thinking about getting plastic card sleeves.

Love Letter card edge compared to typical playing card edge.

Reference cards

Love Letter is played with 16 cards, but it actually comes with 20 cards. The other four cards are reference cards (one for each possible player). I still find it useful to have a reference card even though I’ve played the game more times than I can count, but it’s really annoying that the reference cards have the exact same back as the game cards. I also can’t count how many times I’ve picked up the game and accidentally shuffled the reference cards in. Different types of cards should have different designs on the back.

Final thoughts

Supposedly, the human brain is the most complex object in the known universe. If that’s true, then love is as momentous and powerful as the collision of galaxies. Love is the definitive experience that we can have in this world. Sometimes, it’s very difficult to distill that into words. What do you put in a love letter? What do you say when your whole being is moved and consumed and focused into passion and desire? Love Letter doesn’t really have that much to do with love letters, so it probably isn’t going to help you figure that out. But, as a game to enjoy with someone you love, I highly recommend it.