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Killer Croc
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Real Name
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Waylon Jones
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First Appearance
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Batman (Vol. 1) #358 (April, 1983)
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Creators
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Gerry Conway, Gene Colan, Don Newton, Curt Swan
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Team Affliations
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The Secret Society of Super-Villains
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Aliases
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Croc, King Croc
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Base of Operations
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Gotham City
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Powers
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Superhuman strength, speed, agility, reflexes, stamina, durability, and senses, hard scale-like skin, razor sharp claws and teeth, Regenerative Healing Factor, Immunity to Toxins
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Skills and Abilities
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Expert swimmer, Expert Marksman, Experienced alligator wrestler
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Tools and Weapons
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None
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Killer Croc is a supervillain in the DC Universe, an enemy of Batman and recently an ally of Catwoman.
Origin
Born with a strange mutation that ostracized him from society, Waylon Jones eventually became a professional wrestler before becoming a deadly and cruel criminal in Gotham.
Biography
Childhood
Waylon Jones was born with a severe case of Epidermolytic Hyperkeratosis (a form of the condition known as atavism) which caused his appearance to resemble that of a crocodile. Waylon's mother died in childbirth and his father abandoned him, leaving the child to be raised by his alcoholic, abusive aunt. As a teenager, he had no friends and was repeatedly brought into juvenile detention facilities for his violent behavior (made more dangerous through his great strength) before being tried as an adult at age 16. He spent the next 18 years in prison, and was paroled despite murdering a fellow inmate for mocking his appearance.
Criminal Ambitions
After Waylon was released from prison, he joined a carnival sideshow, making money using his inhuman strength to wrestle alligators. After a while he realized that with both his strength to break the backs of alligators and his willingness to hurt others, he could profit quite handily in a life of crime. Calling himself Killer Croc (it is unclear if this was his stage name prior to being his criminal name), he plotted to muscle his way into Gotham's criminal underworld, with the assistance of mob ties from Tampa. After making a presence in Gotham and creating a gang, he returned to Florida to take lethal revenge on a deputy who badly beat him when he was 10 years old.
Upon Croc's return from his successful vendetta, he discovered that many of his men had changed sides and joined with the undead supervillain Solomon Grundy. Croc managed to keep his temper in check and leave peacefully whereas Grundy flew into a rage hours later, resulting in the death of Grundy's entire crew. With no crew, Croc allied himself with the gangster known as the Squid, who was looking to fill the void left by the downfall of rival gangsters Rupert Thorne and Tony Falco. At first, Croc was content working the Squid's protection racket but soon his ambitions caused him to feel unsatisfied. When he saw Batman escape one of the Squid's death traps, Croc decided that he could do better on his own. Croc shot the Squid to death and as Batman was trailing him for that murder, he crashed the Gotham's Tobacconist Club to announce his intent to take over Gotham's mobs.
In response, the club's president gave Croc an opportunity to prove himself: break into STAR Labs and steal a state-of-the-art airforce computer. The mission was a success and Croc returned home after being compensated and promised other jobs in the future. When Croc returned home, he found Batman waiting for him and the two battled (with Croc's house being destroyed) but after Croc took the battle to the sewer, he beat Batman, seemingly drowning him. He gathered together the city's criminals, calling himself King Croc and asking for the other criminals to fall in line, only to find many of them remaining allied with mob boss Tony Falco, who was incarcerated at the time. Croc then broke into prison and murdered Falco, which lead to another fight between him and Batman, which Croc won.
Meanwhile, Batman's sidekick Robin was assisting with a case to break a protection racket that Killer Croc. He gained assistance from Joe and Trina Todd, two acrobats from the Sloan Circus who were being targeted, who helped provide surveillance, but were eventually caught by Croc, who ambushed them, murdered them and left their bodies in a reptile house.
Around this time, criminal mastermind The Joker, taking notice of Croc's rise, started his own gang to seemingly oppose Croc, but in fact intended to set his gang against Croc hoping the two factions would take each other out. However, Batman overcame the Joker's plot and, for the first time, was able to completely defeat Killer Croc, who was promptly arrested.
Later, Ra's al Ghul, a mad eco-terrorist, freed many of Batman's enemies in an attempt to defeat Batman. In exchange for his freedom, Croc helped Ra's by breaking into Wayne Manor and abducting Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred Pennyworth.