The Cavalier's Cavalcade of Crimes!

The Cavalier, mid-crime!

Batman’s most common nemesis you’ve never heard of!

If you’ve been looking for a dumb, campy Bat-foe, look no further! 

Mortimer Drake, aka the Cavalier, is a relic of a bygone time in comics, so bygone that he missed out on the time he would’ve honestly been most at home! 

He first appeared in Detective Comics #81, in November 1943. A society fixture in his real identity and life (even an acquaintance of Bruce), Mortimer had an “exotic” collection of valuables and a taste for the more unusual. In addition, he has a fairly robust code of honor, which you wouldn’t know considering how much crime he does. 

For the sake of improving his collection, Drake dresses up in a musketeer-style outfit, wields a cutlass, and begins a criminal quest to accumulate unusual valuables! 

Mortimer Drake's Cavalier, lamenting his lack of success in his unique way.

I’ve been fascinated with Cavalier for a long time, particularly his tendency to cite a code of honor! He’s helped old ladies cross the street, refused to fight women, stopped a fight when the victory would require dishonor, and more. He’s also utterly ridiculous, with some of the most blatant secret identity shenanigans this side of Catman (you’ll hear about that guy later).

It’s ironic that his code of honor is so strict, considering his moral compass still allows for thievery and general villainy. I’m fascinated by villains with strict but skewed moral compasses, and what exactly their ideas of what’s right allow for. What’s next? Being okay with murder, but only in a duel?

I actually think that fits perfectly with Cavalier’s moral code, so never mind. 

Cavalier is also, more than the vast majority of multi-appearance villains debuting in his particular era, an absolute relic of his time. He’s effectively long gone by the earliest time Silver Age is considered to be (1956) let alone the latest, 1964. Don’t ask me why those times are so far apart, but it does illustrate how left behind the character is. 

And there are reasons for that! Cavalier is in the same era as a time where every couple issues of either Detective Comics or Batman would have an actual pirate, or ridiculous man in renaissance clothing, committing crimes befitting their clothing but without a villain name. There were stereotypical costumes, meant to evoke a particular era and image you might find in a cheap Halloween costume section of a store. It’s a bit rude, but that’s always been Cavalier’s vibe, particularly compared to the antics of later campy villains like Polka-Dot Man, Calendar Man, etc. Those costumes are ridiculous, but not exactly mass-producable. Cavalier looks like any other guy in a musketeer costume and wig. 

There’s another Cavalier, far later in continuity who also shares Drake’s code of honor and cutlass-wielding, but that’s a conversation for much later. For now, suffice to say that Mortimer Drake is a thing of the past, a character left behind as times changed around him both in comics and real life, and as fun as he is when we read him, he might be better off that way. 

Of course, this isn’t to say I’d be opposed to seeing an interesting take on Cavalier in an Absolute Batman story, or a version of him in a Batman: Year (whatever year it’s at at this point) type throwback. I think that’s perfect for him, because being a relic of a time turns you into a perfect fit for a museum-like story in that vein. 

But that’s really what Cavalier is at this point: a museum piece.

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