Man-Bat

The Man-Bat (Dr. Robert Kirkland "Kirk" Langstrom) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Introduced in Detective Comics #400 (June 1970) as an enemy of the superhero Batman, the character belongs to the collective of adversaries that make up Batman's rogues gallery. Originally depicted as a supervillain, later stories would portray the Man-Bat as a sympathetic villain or antihero. In the original story, Kirk Langstrom was a zoologist who experimented with bat DNA, creating an extract that could supposedly give humans the acute sonar sense of a bat. After testing it on himself, he mutated into an anthropomorphic, feral half-bat hybrid, lacking sapience and acting purely on instinct. Batman managed to reverse the transformation, but Langstrom would return as the Man-Bat time and time again, albeit not necessarily as a villain, as Langstrom would sometimes retain enough sanity to use his powers for good. Several other characters have since appeared as similar Man-Bat creatures, including Langstrom's wife Francine, his father Abraham Langstrom, Francine's father Robert March, and some League of Assassins operatives that make up the Man-Bat Commandos. Since his debut at the end of the Silver Age of Comic Books, the Man-Bat has been featured in various media adaptations, including television series and video games. In 2017, the Man-Bat was ranked as IGN's 16th-best Batman villain.