Batman and Spider-Man both have great rogues galleries with a lot of similarities and very different histories. Spider-Man's can seem more appealing for fans of classic supervillainy, since they fit into comics but most of them would have no place in the real world. Batman's world draws on a combination of pulp crime stories, noir cinema, and horror, giving fans of darker comics more to enjoy. It makes sense that Spider-Man's villains need their smarts to gain an advantage over the quick-thinking, superhuman Web-Slinger. Batman's foes are facing a more human adversary, so their brute force and extreme methods challenge the Caped Crusader's strength, intellect, and resolve.
I personally prefer Batman over Spider-Man because Batman's villains are darker. Although Spider-Man absolutely has his share of darker villains, it's hard for any hero's rogues gallery to match Batman's for sheer terror. Batman's supervillains are a combination of Golden Age cinematic horror and crime noir, while Spider-Man's foes have a more eccentric, Halloween-themed style. Batman's villains also each represent mental health problems, including Harvey Dent's dual personalities, Joker's compulsive chaos, and Riddler's obsessive personality. Even Batman's lesser foes, like Calendar Man, are driven by uncontrollable impulses and fixations. Batman's villains haven't always been darker, even if the hero was more whimsical during the 1940s and '50s, and became downright campy in the 1960s. However, even ridiculous foes like Mister Freeze have since been reimagined with dark origins and murderous intentions. Batman tales can always transform into horror stories.
Historically, Batman has also done much better with done-in-one villains, especially during the Bronze Age. From stumbling across creepy cults to one-off serial killers can make the world of Batman feel as much like a thriller as a superhero book. This has been helped along by stories like The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Batman: The Cult, and Shaman. In these stories, Batman's foes weren't eccentric asylum patients but rather the very real threat of organized crime and violent fanaticism. Spider-Man has had these same grounded foes, but even Kingpin feels like more than a simple crime boss. The Falcone crime family is only as big as its operation, while Kingpin is a musclebound genius who can go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man.
Batman's foes also each represent a unique threat and motivation, each presenting their own challenge to Batman. For instance, Riddler challenges Batman's intellect, presenting him with mysteries. Two-Face stories are about rehabilitation and justice. The Joker is an agent of chaos who shakes Batman's faith in order. Other enemies, like Scarecrow and Penguin, all bring different personalities, goals, and tactics to their fights with Batman. The hero's colorful and eccentric villains pose recurring threats to his war on crime. However, some challenge him more than others.
Batman's lesser foes also present specialized threats to him. The assassin-for-hire Deadshot, the evil scientist Hugo Strange, and the unrelenting serial killer, Victor Zsasz are very different but they operate on similar levels. The hero's modern stories have sought to build up great new villains, with Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee's Hush (Thomas Elliot) providing a solid example. This villain was one of Bruce Wayne's childhood friends, who returned to his life for revenge on the Waynes after Thomas Wayne foiled his plot to murder his parents for his inheritance. Hush also reminded readers about the threat Riddler posed, and the fact he had uncovered Bruce Wayne's secret identity made him a more credible threat.
Finally, Batman created many of his villains. The question of whether heroes create their villains has long been put to the test throughout comics, especially in the pages of Batman comics. Unlike Spider-Man, Batman actually caused the conditions that created some of his worst enemies, while other villains donned costumes just to grab his attention. Characters like Polka Dot Man and Killer Moth became supervillains with the specific goal of either getting the hero's attention or becoming his arch-nemesis. Batman even directly created threats like the Brother Eye satellite system and the Failsafe android. In other cases, tragic accidents helped create Batman's rogues. Famously, one of the commonly accepted origins for Joker involves Batman knocking him into a chemical vat, either breaking an innocent man or elevating an evil man until he was a supervillain.
Although Spider-Man's rogues have their share of tragic origins, Batman's rogues take the idea to the next level. As much as readers can empathize with a character like The Lizard, who wanted to regenerate his lost arm, the ongoing plight of characters like Mister Freeze, Harvey Dent, and Man-Bat reminds readers that not all villains are really evil. As much as some Spider-Man stories turn characters like Doc Ock into antiheroes, even this is more common in Gotham. Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Deathstroke and Red Hood have all either spent a while operating as an antihero or have been redeemed outright in the eyes of Batman and readers. Even Joker and Bane have been known to aid Batman and company in their missions.
