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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Michael Bowen (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) /

24. Matches Malone

Portrayed by: Danny Schoch (masked) and Michael Bowen (unmasked)

First appearance: “Pilot” (masked) and “Wrath of the Villains: This Ball of Mud and Meanness” (unmasked)

It isn’t really a Batman story if you don’t talk about Bruce Wayne’s parents being killed, right? We all know it happened, but that doesn’t make it any less important to Bruce’s story. While he doesn’t go away in Gotham like he does in the comics, their death still impacts him in a way that leads him down the path to becoming Batman.

Matches Malone is the man who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne. Although, in the comics Joe Chill is the one responsible for their deaths. This also happened to be the first live-action version of Matches Malones. We don’t see a lot of him, but he’s crucial to Bruce’s story. Bruce needs to find him in order to be able to move forward.

Bruce is given the chance to confront him in the show’s second season and he could have easily killed Matches. He chooses not to, even though Matches doesn’t give him the name of the person who hired him. If Bruce had taken the shot, his trajectory would have been very different from what we’ve seen in the comics before.

Matches Malone makes the list here even though he doesn’t appear a ton because of what his actions mean to Bruce. Most of the other villains on this list won’t have as much of a personal impact as Matches.

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