Copperhead was a superb escape artist and assassin who worked for a Central American drug gang as a contract murderer. She possessed outstanding combat skills as well as reptile features such as a forked tongue, slit eyes, and lethal talons.
The character was created by Bob Haney and Bob Brown and originally appeared in issue 78 of “Batman: Brave and the Bold” The gender of the character has not been revealed, and there are multiple references.
She was a minor enemy and one of Black Mask’s eight assassins in Batman: Arkham Origins. Copperhead appeared to be the first assassin to figure out that the Joker was posing as Black Mask, as she did so before the Royal Hotel meeting.
THE FIRST COMIC BOOK APPEARANCE
Copperhead’s debut in comics was in “Batman: Brave and The Bold” issue 78, published in July 1968. The comic book series featured Batman in team-ups with different superheroes. Like issue 78 had Wonder Woman and Batgirl. The story begins with Batman being busy stopping goons in an armored truck. Using this as an opportunity, Copperhead, disguised as a beggar, steals the tiara from a visiting monarch.
Batman stops the goons and arrives at the spot to catch Copperhead, but he is too late. Commissioner Gordan is not happy and blames Batman for losing Copperhead. Batman goes back to his Batcave and devises a plan to catch Copperhead. He believed that Copperhead would try to steal the Golden Casque of Montezuma, and so he planted an electronic beam alarm to signal him if things went otherwise.
Copperhead had outsmarted Batman on previous occasions, so Batman plots a distraction. We see Wonder Woman and Batgirl going crazy for Batman and trying everything to impress him in a turn of events. The news spreads like wildfire, and the city witnesses Batman being busy stopping the two from fighting against each other. The two ladies plan to face each other in a competition to win Batman’s heart.
Copperhead notices this too and believes that it is the best time for him to steal the Golden Casque of Montezuma. However, he sends a common hood to check out the alarm to confirm if Batman has set up the entire event of romantic turmoil as a distraction, but when the first attempt did not cause Batman to run to the scene, he was confirmed about all these being real. When in the next attempt, he goes to steal, the ruse that Batman had put up started going against him as both the ladies were now truly in love with Batman.
They both offer to share their real identities and leave them in Gotham park for Batman to find out. Copperhead overhears this with the aid of a microphone hidden by him and learns about the location. He seeks to get the identities himself but is stopped by Wonder Woman, who burns the id cards. Before Wonder Woman could catch him he fires poison mist obtained from pure snakes.
This brings her down, but she survives due to her amazonian blood. Batman and Batgirl trace Copperhead from the signal Batman had planted in the Golden Casque of Montezuma and fight him down. He is then turned over to the police.
COPPERHEAD IN JUSTICE LEAGUE & SUICIDE SQUAD ANIMATED MOVIE
Copperhead was a hired supervillain with a snake-like disguise and abilities. Copperhead was a mercenary who possessed deadly snake-like abilities. He was employed as a member of the Injustice Gang by Lex Luthor, where he fell in love with femme fatale Cheetah. In the Gang’s first encounter with the Justice League, Copperhead was caught. He was transferred to Stryker’s Prison, where Superman interrogated him.
The demon also “bit” Batman during the confrontation, briefly injuring him. Copperhead reappeared, only to join Aresia’s second Injustice Gang, and when they were escaping from the Biotech, Batman pushed him and Shade to the ground. This one, however, was short-lived, since Aresia’s fatal poison was used to gas all male members of the Gang, including Copperhead. Copperhead, on the other hand, lived to tell the tale, collaborating with a slew of other crooks to get out of jail. Copperhead’s independence was short-lived as well, and he was arrested.
After Superman allegedly died, he formed an alliance with numerous other crooks, but he was apprehended again. Later, he assisted Cheetah, KGBeast, and Blockbuster in robbing a gold vault, but the Justice League intervened. Mordred exiled him, along with the others, to another dimension, leading him to suffer a panic attack, thinking it was judgment day. Copperhead later became a member of Grodd’s Doom Legion.
He was spotted getting flung by a gorilla while assisting the squad in their raid on Gorilla City. During this time, Luthor seized control of the Legion from Grodd, placing himself at its helm. Copperhead was one of the villains loyal to Grodd who were subsequently frozen by Killer Frost and eventually destroyed by Darkseid during the Legion’s rebellion.
Copperhead appeared quite a number of times in the Justice League storyline, like in, Justice League- “Injustice For All”, “Fury, Part I”, “Only A Dream, Part I”, “Hereafter, Part I” and in Justice League Unlimited- “Initiation”, “Kid Stuff”, “I Am Legion”, “To Another Shore”, “Dead Reckoning”, “The Great Brain Robbery” , “Alive!”.
And as for the appearances in the Suicide Squad movie, he is seen as a major part of the movie. Amanda Waller sends Task Force X, a covert unit of criminals with nanite explosives implanted in their heads led by the hitman Deadshot, to acquire a hard disc containing leaked intelligence from Tobias Whale three years ago. After the mission is completed, however, members Count Vertigo and Jewelee betray the crew and plot to take the drive, murdering Punch in the process.
Waller detonates Vertigo’s nanite bomb after overhearing the exchange through their communication system, while Deadshot mercy-kills Jewelee as Waller prepares to detonate her device. Waller finds she has a fatal disease in the present day, but she also discovers the presence of a powerful artifact: a card with the slogan “Get Out of Hell Free” written on its surface. According to folklore, everyone who dies with the card has the ability to bypass Hell and enter Heaven, regardless of the crimes they did during their lifetime.
The card is shown to be in the hands of male stripper Steele Maxum, who formerly wore the mantle of Doctor Fate, which was bestowed upon him by the spirit of Nabu. To acquire the card, Waller enlists the help of villains Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Killer Frost, Copperhead, and Bronze Tiger. Vandal Savage and his daughter Scandal, as well as speedster Reverse-Flash and his team of Silver Banshee and Blockbuster, all want the card and are competing with Waller’s crew.
The Reverse-Flash and his squad confront Waller’s team when they find Maxum performing in a strip club. Waller’s team defeats Reverse-crew, and Flash’s allows Maxum to escape. The gang discovers that the card was taken from Maxum by Scandal and her lover Knockout, causing Maxum to lose his Doctor Fate mantle. Waller’s crew extracts the card from Scandal and Knockout’s apartment, but they are interrupted by Savage and his men. Savage gets the card and fatally wounds Knockout.
Reverse-Flash sets a tracker on Savage’s spacecraft as he flees. Deadshot, meantime, is unable to locate his daughter Zoe and is compelled to rejoin the squad by Bronze Tiger. The Reverse-Flash kidnaps Killer Frost, removes her explosives, and convinces her to join his squad while stopping at a gas station. The Reverse-Flash uses Killer Frost to entice Waller’s squad and explode her device, injuring Tiger. Scandal betrays her father’s whereabouts in order to exact vengeance on him, and Savage captures Waller’s crew.
Before murdering Pyg, Savage had Professor Pyg implant the card into his chest. When Reverse-Flash locates Savage, he utilizes his powers to phase through his body and steal the card, killing Savage. Reverse-Flash tells Deadshot that he was killed by their version of Batman in another reality, but he was able to live by employing the most hazardous and powerful “Speed Force” ability to prolong his death while slowly fading out of existence. Reverse-Flash is double-crossed by Killer Frost, who kills Silver Banshee and Blockbuster.
Waller’s crew then tries to grab the card for themselves, killing Copperhead and Killer Frost in the process. Bronze Tiger fights Reverse-Flash, who gravely injures him with a little dagger, but after dropping the weapon, Bronze Tiger uses it to hurt Reverse-Flash and distract him: Reverse-Flash is shot through the skull by Deadshot, and the latter is finally erased from existence. Bronze Tiger receives the card from Deadshot and ascends to Heaven. Deadshot then hands the now worthless card to an unaware Waller, who pardons his decade-long jail term, enabling him to see Zoe.
WHY IS COPPERHEAD A DANGEROUS ENEMY?
Copperhead’s contortionist abilities allow him to squeeze into extremely tight areas. He was originally dressed as a snake. Bulletproof and resistant to practically any cutting-edge weapon, the suit was made of a mesh of metallic and elastic fibers with Kevlar covering vulnerable places. Copperhead’s suit had been coated with an extremely slick, water- and heat-resistant silicone gel that allowed him to glide across any surface and out of tight spaces.
The tail could be extended many feet long and was powerful enough to shatter stone and fractured bone. The helmet of the outfit included two seven-inch-long fangs that could pierce human skin and were coated in a powerful neurotoxin obtained from copperhead snakes.
The poison has the ability to paralyze a person virtually quickly, followed by death within 30 minutes. Copperhead was later converted into a human-snake hybrid after selling his soul to the demon Neron. He was given venomous fangs, a forked tongue, claws, and a prehensile tail, as well as improved reflexes and agility.
Clock King claims in “Terror Titans” that the second Copperhead has no superpowers, implying that he still wears snake-themed armor like the original. “The New 52’s” Copperhead has snake-like powers. In addition to being a superb martial artist, the female Copperhead does not appear to have any superpowers and instead employs various poison tools such as darts.
COPPERHEAD IN THE ARKHAM ORIGINS VIDEO GAME
Copperhead is one of the eight assassins ordered to murder Batman in Batman: Arkham Origins. She’s a svelte South American assassin who wields poisons and razor-sharp claws as weapons. While Batman is questioning Black Mask, she is spotted creeping upon him. She poisons him before he has a chance to fight her. As a result of the poison, Batman experiences hallucinations and sees a bunch of Copperheads.
After defeating them all, Batman obtains the antidote and defeats the real Copperhead. He binds her up and imprisons her in a vehicle. When Batman upgrades his bat computer, it is discovered that Copperhead is a member of a South American cartel and that the Copperhead pseudonym is used by numerous other cartel members. Rosa Salazar provided her voice. Later, this version of the character appeared in comic books.
Conclusion
To conclude Copperhead is an underrated villain who could bring havoc to the justice system in Gotham. His intelligence along with his skills is a bonus. He did manage to outsmart the best detective of Gotham, Batman and would certainly be great to watch in live-action.