Batman (1989) - The Joker

Batman Returns (1992) - Catwoman, The Penguin

Batman Forever (1995) - The Riddler, Two-Face

Batman & Robin (1997) - Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane

Batman Begins (2005) - Ra's al Ghul, Scarecrow

If the latest film succeeds, and I hope that the collaboration between Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale will be a rousing success, one wonders which villains will be left to populate the later films. The Mad Hatter? Clayface? Scarface? Firefly? Magpie? Killer Moth? Batman has the best and deepest rogues gallery in all of comicdom, but after the top ten are exhausted (and he is quite unique in having ten quality adversaries), the pickings become pretty slim fairly quickly.

Of course, it would be worse in a potential Superman franchise. Lex Luthor, Brainiac, General Zod, Bizarro, Darkseid... and after that it drops off pretty steeply. I mean, what, a Toyman movie?