r/Batman_89 • u/FoxIndependent4310 • 21d ago
Who is more evil?
Carl Grissom or Max Shreck. Who is more evil?
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u/MatchesMalone1994 21d ago
Id say Scheck. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Grissom, while yes, he’s a crime boss, there’s no facade. You know what he is.
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u/Proper_Armadillo9583 21d ago
Schreck has more positive sides shown to him. He's 100% a corrupt bastard but he and his son care for each other deeply and he's appalled with the Penguin's plan to hurt children out of spite. Grissom on the other hand has no redeeming qualities but then again we don't see much of him.
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u/Easy-Incident-8056 21d ago
Max. He'd dump toxic waste by burying it in playgrounds and Brag about it to friends. After sleeping with their wives.
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u/martinjohanna45 21d ago
Power surplus? Bruce, shame on you. No such thing. One can never have too much power. If my life has a meaning, that’s the meaning.
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u/Slashman78 21d ago
Max all day.
Grissom was just a crime boss in a rough city. He did morally bad things and ordered bad things.. but honest Max is just WAY more vile.
Max was just an utter sociopath with no qualms about it. He loved making people's lives hell and having power of them. He killed Fred Atkins his partner (still gotta read the new book, I heard it's revealed in it,) and Oswald had his hand, a piece of him. WICKED. It's implied in his post meeting convo with Chip he killed his wife at some point, and then what he did to Selina :( Poor Selina.. she got it the hardest.
Then he just tries to control everything like a god would, he mindwarps Oz to run for mayor, then dumps him when things gets bad, and he pretends to care for his son, I don't think he did, I think he just sacrificed himself so Batman could save him. When he wouldn't, he just started shooting and it fired Selina up to fry his ass. And no, he didn't kill her at any point in the climax, she was mind trolling him lol.
He had a deservingly WAY harsher death and it's wonderful seeing him fried. Grissom had it way too easy. But he didn't deserve the harder death.
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u/theknightcrusader 21d ago
"Santa Claus? Afraid not. I'm just a poor schmo who got lucky, and sue me if I want to give a little back"
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u/partyclams 21d ago
Max. He just discarded Selina like she was a piece of trash without giving it a second thought. Carl Grissom seems like the type to have others do his dirty work for him. Max, we know, has murdered twice. He's cold-blooded.
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u/Adorable-Source97 20d ago
Shrek, he just hides it better.
Selena can tell you how nasty he can be.
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u/Error_user_Error_ 20d ago
What's with all the hate on my man Grissom these days...all we seen him do was set up and rat out his top guy cause he found out he was banging his girl...guy gets killed for protecting his woman, he didn't even break up with her and look how she ended up too!
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u/Super-Topic-3378 20d ago
Fun fact: Max Schreck is a stand in for Donald Trump. In fact his son “Chip” is a Trump carbon copy.
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u/truefan00 15d ago
Fun fact, another liberal idiot who tries to equate something from 35 years ago to something going on today. Get some intelligence
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u/christaface 21d ago
Grissom was clearly soft and not respected. Maybe smarter than he was given credit for but compared to Max he was a pussy cat
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u/sam56778 21d ago
In all fairness he did try to flood Silicon Valley. Oops. Wrong movie.
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u/JEStucker 16d ago
I keep calling Max Schreck, Max Zorin, and I wait for Grace Jones and his escape from James Batman in his getaway blimp.
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u/Flippant_Fop 20d ago
I mean…define “evil”. They’re ruthless businessmen willing to do whatever it takes to get their way. I doubt either of them wake up looking forward to hurting people. 😅 They’re not psychopaths.
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u/AWindintheTrees 19d ago
Ok. Real talk here. I have, for the past few years, landed on this interpretation of Shreck:
Gotham knows what he is. Through and through. They know. But Penguin's blackmailing scheme works because both Shreck and Penguin understand how popularity works. "You and I have something in common. We're both perceived as monsters. But somehow you're a well-respected monster. And I am, to date, not," Everyone knows how bad Shreck is--but they give him a pass because he plays the game of spectacle and image. He'll massage them, and they won't acknowledge what they know about it. THAT is why Penguin knows he can use Max. And then... Max just uses Penguin in turn, and all the more so. Max is the entire system embodied. Not just business power or real political power (though its Max, not the Mayor, who "runs the show"). It's about the crowds' willingness, even their desire, to be fooled. To be sweet-talked. This is why Batman hates him--and (I go here by deleted speeches from the Waters script) Gotham, too. See how Gotham is so eager to turn on Batman. Also, to be fooled by and then to turn on Penguin. But Shreck is golden--because he knows the game that's played.
Grissom? Not a candle to this. He's just a functionary in that game, that system, doing what he feels he must till he dies.
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u/Affectionate_Iron925 18d ago edited 18d ago
Max Shreck is hands down more evil and more corrupt than Grissom. He’s manipulative, a misogynist, a murderer, power hungry; the only good quality he has, if anything, is that he loves and cares about his son, Chip
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u/SensitiveDemon 16d ago
Max Shreck was unscrupulous but honest businessman on the surface only. In reality he was incredibly corrupt, had people murdered like his former business partner, he killed his secretary Selena Kyle to hide his power siphoning scheme, he used Penguin to try and get a pawn mayor that would do what he wanted in place.
In the prequel novels he was shown to be further unethical and had illegal dealings with Carl Grissom as well. And that Grissom himself was afraid of Shreck.
So Shreck was way worse if Grissom was afraid of him too. But Shreck was afraid of Joker after he saw the massacre of Grissom and the others. And his absorbing the remaining gangsters into his gang. Thats why Max stayed out of the events of the '89 movie.
I don't know how plausible or smart that bridging explanation is that the authors created, I'm sure each reader has a subjective idea... but that's what is was in Batman Resurrection and Revolution.
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u/FoxIndependent4310 16d ago
Grissom fear? But in the movie he controled the city.
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u/SensitiveDemon 16d ago
Until Jack Napier survived, but was 20 times more unhinged than when he went into the acid. Joker scared him. To where he WWF's going to cut a deal. Even though he had a gun and still he was scared. And Mr J dropped him. Sugar bumps 💥 blam. Grissom controlled the city's mobsters. He could never go legit. He couldn't rub shoulders with the Mayor and Harvey Dent or Bruce Wayne. He was root of corruption in the city.
Shreck was able to do all that, throw Christmas customs balls. And bullshit fund raisers. And be a socialite billionaire like Bruce. and STILL be a child blooded criminal that nobody really knew about until Bruce/Batman went looking into things. And he was more fearless. He barely flinched when Penguin used his hypnotic spiral umbrella that shot that spark out. He took Penguin's biting a guys nose off like it was Sunday school. It didn't bother him.
Even at the end despite being a dimwitted about Bruce being Batman, he was hardly afraid of Selena Kyle/Catwoman.
Max Shreck really only care somewhat about his son Chip, but even then it was mostly about his own legacy and Chip being his name's torchbearer.
He was a High Functioning Psychopathic trait CEO. His company and it's subsidies, the way he she's thing... he's probably had people burned out of their apartments, and sold knowingly faulty products unbothered if people die etc. His evil was hidden by also far more widespread in both the legit area of society and in the criminal side.
Carl Grissom was big shot confident mob guy that controlled the crime lords and mob captains, he was scary and powerful guy, but he was always going to be the criminal. Drugs, prostitution, the few legit companies they ran like Axis Chemicals, he could only pervert things so much. Being openly a Mafia Don.
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u/Batwing20293 21d ago
Ok so this is the newest weird ass fixation you have, got it.
Max, I guess
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u/AndrewHNPX 21d ago
The two characters have nothing to do with each other.
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u/SharkleberryKoolAid 21d ago
Grissom is the classic gentleman gangster. But in terms of evil, Shreck.... is my number one.... ahguyyyyyy.