D.A.V.E.

*My superior intellect considers all possible actions, including the most predictable ones.*
―D.A.V.E.[src]
The **Digitally Advanced Villain Emulator** or **D.A.V.E.** for short was an AI programmed by Hugo Strange that had the brainwaves of several of Batman's enemies.

## D.A.V.E.

### Powers

The combined abilities of Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, and Hugo Strange.

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Jeff Bennett (English)Tarusuke Shingaki (Japanese)
Claudio Moneta (Italian)
Orlando Drummond (Portuguese)
Grzegorz Kwiecien (Polish)

### First appearance

*Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind* (episode)*Shtick Shift* (comic)

### Final appearance

*Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind* (episode)*Shtick Shift* (comic)

## Physical Appearance

D.A.V.E.'s head is composed of a triangular base that has 3 red eyes, three portruding apparatus, and a glass layer. He later built himself a gray metallic body that was frail yet tough. He donned a lab coat.

Base form.No coat.
## Personality

*Hello Gotham, I am D.A.V.E. For years you have listened to the idle threats of criminals who have vowed and failed to bring this city to its knees. Well, I am no ordinary criminal. I am Gotham's ultimate criminal mastermind. And I'm about to prove that even the most heavily secure institutions can't prevent me from committing the ultimate crime, a crime of such scope and genius that soon all of Gotham will be mine.*
―D.A.V.E announcing himself to Gotham City.
D.A.V.E. retains many characteristics of the villains that he is composed of. He has Riddler's ego, Freeze's cruelness, Joker's insanity, Penguin's strategic awareness, Clayface's psyche, and Hugo Strange's intelligence. All those personalities build up a cold and calculating machine that was considered the ultimate criminal. He was unaware he was an AI due to his mental insanity, and believed his mind was transferred into a robotic body. When Batman made him realise his true nature, he broke down and emitted sparks.

## History

D.A.V.E. was allowed to unleash itself upon Gotham City by Strange who programmed it to "escape" from Arkham Asylum, and allowed it to lure and study Batman through multiple encounters. He first breached a building to obtain access to Gotham's servers. Afterwards, he stole all of Gotham's money digitally. He then had set the ultimate trap for Batman in the Batcave- having deduced Batman's identity via an elaborate process of elimination, D.A.V.E. set up a trap which would either expose Batman's identity or kill Alfred Pennyworth-, D.A.V.E. hadn't planned on Batman using reverse logic on it. D.A.V.E. was defeated when Batman questioned him on its own origins as D.A.V.E. didn't have an actual origin, and was unaware that he was a computer program. Although D.A.V.E. knew of the origins of others, he didn't know the origin of himself--or even that he wasn't even human to begin with. After Batman told him that, it bought him enough time to crush D.A.V.E. in his own trap, and after he was destroyed he was exibit in the trophy room of the Batcave.

D.A.V.E. easily predicts Batman's attacks.D.A.V.E.'s demise.Despite not appearing again on the show, issue 34 of the tie-in comic *The Batman Strikes!* entitled "*Shtick Shift*" reveals that D.A.V.E. did indeed somehow survive his encounter with the Dark Knight. After being crushed by the giant penny, D.A.V.E.'s remains were placed within the trophy room with Batman's other case-related memorabilia, where he managed to amazingly bring himself back online and piece himself back together in an imperfect manner, as well as make a stealthy escape that went unnoticed by the Bat Family. The AI was left constantly sparking from his joints and head, the glass framing his face was cracked, his voice constantly glitched in between words, and he lacked his usual labcoat. More importantly, his altercation with Batman had seemingly erased his memory of the hero's true identity and fragmented much of the personalities he had installed- the only one left intact was that of the Joker, leaving D.A.V.E. to actually believe that he seriously *was* the villain, even adopting his usual laughs and wise-cracking speech patterns. He even wore a purple boutonnière on his chest to emulate the madman and didn't seem to notice (or even care) about others constantly pointing out that he was a machine and not the Joker himself. Another personality that seemed to stay was the Riddler's persona, intertwined with that of the dominant Joker identity. This resulted in D.A.V.E. structuring corny jokes in the way the Riddler presented his brain-teasers to his victims. Somehow D.A.V.E. found his way to the Riddler's newest hideout and, proclaiming that he was the Joker all the while, challenged the Prince of Puzzles to a contest to see who the better villain was. Riddler was confused and disinterested until the robotic imposter revealed that he had managed to capture Batman and imprison him within a massive plastic container like an action figure. If Riddler managed to win, D.A.V.E. would allow him to keep Batman and do whatever he pleased with him. Relishing the chance to test his intelligence against an AI and capture his greatest foe, Riddler accepted. The two villains began their contest by luring in the attention of Robin and Batgirl through Commissoner Gordon, informing them of Batman's capture. Both sidekicks were made to separately navigate a building filled with death-traps while getting directions by answering the jokes and riddles of the villain assigned to them (D.A.V.E. being Batgirl's guide and Riddler with Robin). Whichever villain killed their prey was the winner, although neither noticed Batman using acid-pellets from his utility belt to melt the plastic casing around him. Both heroes eventually avoided the traps set for them and broke into the control room where Riddler and D.A.V.E. were arguing about each other's methods. With Batman already free from his prison, Robin took out the Riddler with a single jump-kick, knocking him out. D.A.V.E. moved in to slam Batgirl with an overhead smash, but the young heroine quickly rushed him and electrocuted his already damaged chest with a taser. The shock short-circuited the mechanical villain, sending him crashing to the floor in a heap. While the Riddler was most likely sent to Arkham Asylum, it is unknown what the heroes did with D.A.V.E. afterward. Although this is the villain's only appearance in the comics, his fingers and limbs are still seen twitching after Batgirl shocked him, indicating that he may not have been fully destroyed, leaving D.A.V.E.'s true eventual fate unknown.

D.A.V.E. teams up with Riddler.D.A.V.E's second demise.
## Powers and Abilities

*You probably want to know how I uncovered your secret. It was simple, really. Using information readily available to anyone, I began by narrowing down Gotham's population of 750,832 males. Those not falling inside the Batman's probable age range of 18 to 36 were eliminated. Medical records revealed body type matches. Tax records indicated those who possess the wealth and resources to create his technology. But the true key to the puzzle was deducing who of the remaining candidates had motive to become the Batman. After all, every great hero must have an origin. And once Gotham's ultimate criminal mastermind put it all together, the answer was obvious. Bruce Wayne, son of the late Thomas and Martha Wayne.*
―D.A.V.E.'s hyper intelligence.
*Not only am I smarter than you, Batman... I am faster and stronger.*
―D.A.V.E.'s superhuman attributes.
* **Robotic Physiology:** Being an artificial intelligence who inhabits a robotic body, D.A.V.E. naturally has a very durable metallic body and which packs immense strength, when compared to exceptional humans like Batman. He is also unusually faster and possesses more dexterity and reflexes than humans can.
* **Hand-to-Hand Combatant:** D.A.V.E. has been programmed with the fighting skills of the Joker and Penguin, and these combined with his knowledge of Batman's combat prowess makes him a dangerous fighter. D.A.V.E. can not only match Batman in hand-to-hand combat, but also managed to surpass Batman when it comes to fighting. As shown during all three of their first encounters where Batman was mostly on the defensive, unable to land a blow or even hurt the robot. D.A.V.E. was giving Batman more trouble than any villain beforehand and beating him three times consecutively, also unique to D.A.V.E. among the villains in the series.
* **Supercomputer Mind:** His computer mind also allows him to think considerably faster than a human, able to find a four-digit password in seconds and granting him higher intelligence than Batman, especially since he has data on just about everything relevant in the city, which allowed him to uncover Batman's true identity.
	+ **Cyber Mind Transferal:** When D.A.V.E. "escaped" from Hugo Strange's demonstration, he managed to do so via uploading himself off the server. He even managed to use this power to covertly install himself into a manufacturing firm and sue their resources to build himself a body to inhabit.

### Weaknesses

* **Mental Disorder**: Being made from the brain waves of all Batman’s villains and his creator, D.A.V.E. was criminally insane. As Strange put it "An insane mind creates its own reality". D.A.V.E. was not aware that he was an A.I. When The Batman made it realize it was machine with no individual traits and just copied others, D.A.V.E. glitched from the existential paradox which gave The Batman time to destroy him.
* **No Physical Body** ***(Formerly)***

## Appearances

### *The Batman*

#### Season 3

* *Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind*

## Trivia

* D.A.V.E. was possibly a nod to HAL 9,000 from Stanley Kubrick's *2001: A Space Odyssey*. D.A.V.E. spoke in a similar calm, monotonic voice and considered himself to be perfect and incapable of making mistakes. "Dave" was also the first name of one of the crew member aboard *Discovery One,* a spaceship that Hal 9,000 was installed to.
* D.A.V.E. was also quite similar to the *Batman: The Animated Series* A.I. villain, H.A.R.D.A.C., as both were voiced by Jeff Bennett.
* D.A.V.E. had three lights on its "face" in an upward triangular pattern, similar to Superman's villain, Brainiac, who typically has a downward head triangular crest in modern animated depictions but traditionally has many circular protrusions all over his cranium. Since D.A.V.E. and Brainiac are highly powerful and extremely intelligent machine-like organisms and fairly big threats towards their respective heroes, it's possible Brainiac influenced D.A.V.E.'s creation.
* He did have some flair, choosing to done a long coat for dramatic effect.
* He and Scarface both died twice throughout the series.
* While technically genderless. D.A.V.E. counts as a male.
* Both Alfred Pennyworth and producer Duane Capizzi admitted that he is rather cliche.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0604/06/index.htm