The 25 greatest Gotham villains of all-time

GOTHAM: L-R: Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot / Penguin, Cory Michael Smith as Edward Nygma / The Riddler, Donal Logue as Detective Harvey Bullock, Ben McKenzie as Detective James Gordon, David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne, Chris Chalk as Lucius Fox, Camren Bicondova as Selina Kyle / the future Catwoman, Sean Pertwee as Alfred Pennyworth and Erin Richards as Barbara Kean. Season 5 of GOTHAM premieres Thursday, Jan. 3 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2018 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: JUSTIN STEPHENS / FOX /

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10. Barbara Kean

Portrayed by: Erin Richards

First appearance: “Pilot”

Barbara Kean is yet another character who has been resurrected. It happens a lot in Gotham apparently. Plus, we know that most of the villains can’t just be killed off before Bruce actually becomes Batman, right? While resurrection wasn’t exactly creative at this point, it was interesting to see the turn that Barbara took along the way.

In the comics, Barbara Gordon is known as Jim Gordon’s daughter. She becomes Batgirl and later Oracle. However, this version of Barbara was almost Barbara Gordon when she was engaged to Jim. The show opted to go a different direction, though, by breaking the two up and having her dive into the criminal underworld instead.

After being kidnapped by the Ogre, a serial killer who thinks she’s the one for him, it’s revealed that she killed her parents. This lands her a trip to Arkham and we see her spiral out of control a little before she makes her comeback. Theo Galavan gets her (and others) out of Arkham. From there, she starts making a name for herself in the criminal underworld, even being dubbed the Queen of Gotham at one point.

Barbara was also resurrected in a Lazarus Pit, courtesy of Ra’s al Ghul. She had a wild ride throughout the show’s run which was part of what made her character so memorable. She’s unpredictable at times and Gotham seems to thrive on that.

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