The Ten-Eyed Man

Philip Reardon, a Vietnam veteran turned security guard, suffered an explosion that destroyed his normal vision. Surgeons reconnected his optic nerves to his fingertips, letting him see through them — but leaving his hands critically vulnerable, turning him into an unusual Batman adversary.

Few characters make their catalog debut in DC's legendary Who's Who reference series, but The Ten-Eyed Man earned that distinctive Copper Age introduction, stepping into the DC Universe's official directory in 1987 as a character worth cataloging and remembering. Over a surprisingly long publishing footprint stretching nearly four decades, this unusual figure has surfaced across the pages of Detective Comics and Animal Man, keeping some genuinely elite Gotham company — sharing issues with Batman, Bruce Wayne, Nightwing, and Renée Montoya, among others. With only a dozen catalog appearances, The Ten-Eyed Man is the kind of deep-cut DC curiosity that rewards the devoted reader hunting for the strange and singular corners of the universe. If you love the weird, wonderful fringes of Batman's world, this is exactly the sort of character worth tracking down.