Character Spotlight: Kyodai Ken

Batman: The Animated Series was made at a time when adaptations, for whatever reason, mainly used original characters. It was only around the turn of the millennium that shows started to dive deep into continuity and use minor characters that would fit their stories. Before that, for the most part, if you weren't A-List, you didn't make it into an adaptation. Batman was better about this than others, but even then, the majority of its characters were original to the show. And yet, relatively few of those characters have made it back to the comics. Sure, you have your Harley Quinns and your Nora Frieses, but for each one of those, you have five Red Claws or Baby Dolls.

So I'm excited to announce another one making the list: Kyodai Ken!

Kyodai Ken first appeared in the episode "Night of the Ninja" (October 1992), the first - and one of the only - episodes of the show to delve into ow Bruce Wayne trained to become Batman.

In the episode, a group of ninjas starts targeting Wayne properties for thefts. It's originally revealed that the leader, Kyodai Ken, trained with Bruce under the tutelage of a ninja master in Japan named Yoru. Kyodai Ken was the only person able to beat Bruce, but he was expelled from the dojo when Bruce caught him trying to steal a sword. Kyodai Ken wants revenge, but Batman is able to finally defeat him in the present, and that seems to be that until Kyodai Ken shows up again a few months later in the sequel, "Day of the Samurai" (February 1993).

Over TWENTY-FIVE years later, Kyodai Ken finally appears in Detective Comics #996 (January 2019). In the lead-up to Detective Comics #1000, Batman realizes that someone is attacking all the people that made him the man he is today. Once he figures that out, he heads to Korea to make sure his old master, Kirigi (not Yoru, for some reason), is safe. And when he gets there, he's met by Kyodai Ken, Kirigi's lone remaining student.

He and Bruce don't seem to have any history, and it's hard to say if we'll ever see him again. But you never know with comics!