| “ | For years, I fought the demons in the heads of those ungrateful little snots, while their coddling parents paid their garbage men more than me! Now I'm taking what I've earned! | „ |
| ~ Spellbinder |
Ira Billings, also known as Spellbinder, is an antagonist in the animated series Batman Beyond. He was formerly a psychologist at Hamilton Hill High School, who turned to crime after he feeling under-appreciated and underpaid in his job, by resorting to stealing, first from rich people by hypnotizing their children or servants into doing so, then by drugging children into stealing money from random passerby for him.
He was voiced by Jon Cypher.
What Makes Him a Hate Sink?[]
- He created VR Rooms, machines that allowed the user to live out their fantasies and greatest desires in their lives, and lured runaways into them, who mainly consisted of troubled teens. The machines, however, drugged the users, making them extremely addictive and giving harmful withdrawal effects to the users, meaning that Spellbinder drugged children and caused harm to them.
- He exploits the teens' addictions to the VR Rooms to make them steal money from random civilians and passerby to allow them to use the Rooms more.
- Some of the teenagers' "fantasies" in the Rooms are actually their very innocent and simple desires in their lives, like Jessie just wanting to succeed at asking her co-worker out, and Max only wanting to meet and be with her parents again (who are never there for her), and the reason for Donny's grandeur fantasies and using the VR Rooms in the first place is because of his horrible home life, living with a father who frequently abuses him and shows him no love at all. All of this makes Spellbinder's exploitation of these kids (and presumably many other kids like them) more contemptible.
- His excuses of him "feeling under-appreciated" and "being underpaid" no longer justify his actions at all, and his skills in creating technology like VR Rooms could have easily gotten him into a higher-paying job, making it clear that he only chose to create the VR Rooms to lure teenagers into solely out of sadism and a sheer hatred of children.
- He lacks any Evil Is Cool moments, and is nothing more than a greedy, sadistic, child-abusing monster.
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 Animated Universe Hate Sinks
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Bruno Mannheim | Cameron Kaiser | Tony Zucco | David Wheeler | Don Grasso | Dr. Long | Ferris Boyle | Lord Orm | Simon Stagg | Sewer King | Weather Wizard | Terrible Trio | Mongul | ||
 Hate Sinks
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Mainstream Comics Other Earths Live Action Animation Animated Universe
Arkhamverse: Comics/Novels See Also | ||
External Links[]
- Spellbinder on the DCAU Wiki
- Spellbinder on the Villains Wiki