Published Jul 3, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT
Sean is a senior writer for ScreenRant and has been writing about new TV releases since December 2023. He has received multiple advance screenings of popular shows and ideated his own coverage read by hundreds of thousands of readers.
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An upcoming sequel to a Matt Reeves Batman story has officially gender-swapped one of the Dark Knight’s classic villains. Matt Reeves’ Batman Epic Crime Saga has already introduced a number of Batman’s greatest villains, like the Penguin, Carmine Falcone, and the Riddler. The Batman Part II, as well, is set to introduce Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, and his family when it premieres on October 1, 2027.
Before The Batman Part II, however, Matt Reeves is involved in another upcoming Batman story: Batman: Caped Crusader, where he works as an executive producer. Batman: Caped Crusader season 2 is set to premiere on Prime Video on July 31, and as its release date approaches, some of the villains who will be involved have been revealed. One of those villains is one of Batman’s oldest foes, but he’ll be nearly unrecognizable.
Caped Crusader season 2 is going to gender-swap an iconic Batman villain. Gender-swapping is far from a new invention, especially for comic books and animated shows. Caped Crusader itself even swapped the gender of the Penguin in its first season, changing Oswald Cobblepot to Oswalda. Since it’s part of its own continuity separate from the Batman Epic Crime Saga, Caped Crusader has chosen to give another villain, the Mad Hatter, the same treatment.
The trailer for Batman: Caped Crusader season 2 has revealed that the animated show has gender-swapped the Mad Hatter, a classic Batman villain. Traditionally in Batman comics, Batman: The Animated Series, and the Batman: Arkham video games, the Mad Hatter is a man named Jervis Tetch who is infatuated with Alice in Wonderland. He uses hats to control the minds of several people, including young women he sees as “Alice.”
Caped Crusader season 2, however, is taking a different approach. Thanks to some early images from the show (via IGN), it seems the Mad Hatter is now an older woman named Hattie who hosts a television show called “Hattie’s Tea Party.” In the trailer, Hattie asks her audience if the Batman has made their children safer. It seems that instead of mind-control hats, Caped Crusader’s Mad Hatter is controlling the minds of Gotham through television and the media.
The Mad Hatter’s new gender also continues Caped Crusader’s trend of reinventing the members of Batman’s rogues’ gallery. In season 1, the show changed the Penguin from a man to a woman, it gave Clayface a new, less sympathetic backstory, and it gave Harley Quinn more autonomy and an identity separate from the Joker. The Mad Hatter is simply the newest villain to be reinvented by Caped Crusader.
The Mad Hatter’s newest appearance also, at this point, seems to be making meaningful changes to the character. The Alice in Wonderland and mind-control hats thing has been done several times to great effect in previous Batman stories. Making Hattie a media pundit who uses misinformation and persuasive rhetoric to sway public opinion is a much more interesting take on mind control and a very meaningful way to update the Mad Hatter. Hopefully, Caped Crusader can handle her as well as it did Oswalda Cobblepot.
As interesting as the updates to the Mad Hatter are, it currently seems like she’ll only be a supporting episodic villain in Batman: Caped Crusader season 2. The show’s first season had several villains appear for a single episode, such as Clayface, Harley Quinn, and the Penguin. It also, however, had Harvey Dent as the main focus of the entire season, with his descent into criminality and his new identity as Two-Face serving as the entire show’s connective tissue.
The Joker is officially joining the cast of Batman: Caped Crusader even as Barry Keoghan’s potential return in The Batman Part II remains unclear.
Caped Crusader season 2 will presumably have a main villain in the same vein as Harvey Dent, but it’s not entirely clear who it will be yet. The trailer positioned both the Riddler and the Joker as major villains, and they seem like the most likely candidates. Bruce seemed concerned about the Riddler’s rise to power, and it seems he’s the main leader of Gotham’s criminal element. The Joker, however, seems to be Batman’s main philosophical and psychological rival this season.
Currently, it seems like the Riddler and Poison Ivy are the most likely villains of Caped Crusader season 2. The Riddler is presumably responsible for the uptick in Gotham’s crime mentioned in the trailer, and his romantic partnership with Poison Ivy seems to be a “Bonnie and Clyde” situation. The Joker may be a bigger figure in the second half of Batman: Caped Crusader season 2, but the Riddler will likely be the season’s main villain.
Batman: Caped Crusader ](/db/tv-show/batman-caped-crusader-2024/)
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Christina Sotta, Christopher Berkeley, Matt Peters
Greg Rucka, Bruce Timm, Ed Brubaker, Adamma Ebo, Adanne Ebo, Halley Wegryn Gross, Jase Ricci, Marc Bernardin
Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice)