Those assuming that Fox’s upcoming series Gotham would only feature the origins of iconic Batman villains have another thing coming, because according to star Ben McKenzie, a rather obscure DC character will give Jim Gordon hell in the series’ third episode.
McKenzie recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly, and the folks at Spoiler TV noticed this little gem in his comments about upcoming episodes:
“The second episode, for example, takes on a child-snatching ring that targets street kids for overseas export, and the third introduces Balloon Man, a killer who ties his victims to hundreds of balloons and sets them aloft. The crime is big and weird and eccentric and often has a lot of dark humor in it.”
We recently reported about the series’ second episode, titled “Selina Kyle,” but it’s the Balloon Man namedrop that has us the most intrigued. After a bit of digging, I was only able to find one mention of Balloon Man, and that’s an obscure Metal Men villain created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru in 1967. He appeared in “Metal Men #24,” but was erased from existence during the Crisis On Infinite Earths storyline in the 80s, and then recreated as Balloonatic in the post-Crisis DC Universe.
In the first instance, Balloon Man was an “ordinary toy balloon man,” according to Comic Vine, who could suddenly grow to enormous size. In the second iteration, Balloon Man was a creature created by Magna-Tech Industries who terrorized the city by capturing citizens using balloons.
From the sound of it, Gotham will be taking some liberties with the character. In any case, it’s interesting to see that the writer’s won’t just be resorting to classic Batman villains for the show, and are looking at bringing other baddies into the mix as well.
Gotham airs on Fox in less than a week, on Monday September 22nd.
Originally published September 16, 2014. Updated January 18, 2020.
