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The United Underworld is an evil organization that is formed in the Batman spinoff movie.

Its main members are the four main enemies of Batman: The Catwoman, the Joker, the Penguin, and the Riddler. Several pirates were working for them, the only ones with names being Bluebeard, Morgan, and Quetch. Their base was inside a bar next to the ocean. Their objective was to take over the world, and to kill Batman and his partner Robin so they couldn't stop them.

Their logo is of a giant octopus squeezing the world with it's tentacles around the words: "Today Gotham City. Tomorrow the world."

First they kidnap Commodore Schmidlapp, though through illusions that he is still on a ship, he doesn't realize he has been kidnapped. Then, using an illegal projector, they project an image of the yacht to lure Batman and Robin into a trap, where Batman is attacked by one of the Penguin's exploding sharks, however Batman survives with a can of shark repellant. They are then attacked again by a submarine during an investigation, but survive once again when a nearby porpoise takes the hit of one of the torpedoes fired at them. After this, the Dynamic Duo discover that the Penguin has his own submarine, whose Polaris missiles the Riddler uses to write riddles.

They now have Commodore Schmidlapp's invention; the dehydrator, a device that extracts every bit of moisture from a human and leaves them as dust and intend to use it to bring the whole world to its knees. Though they are concerned after the Dynamic Duo escaped two of their traps twice so the Riddler comes up with a combination trap to get Batman before he got them: Catwoman would to disguise herself as Ms. Kitka with one of the Riddler's riddles, to lure a millionaire into a kidnap trap, and when Batman came to rescue him, he would step on the Joker's Jack-in-the-Box and go flying into the sea where he would be killed by the Penguin's exploding octopus. Unfortunately for them, the millionaire they choose is Bruce Wayne, and are unaware that he is Batman. A fight breaks out at their base, resulting in an unnamed henchman falling onto the Jack-in the-Box and being killed by the exploding octopus. Bruce escapes from them but is unaware that Ms. Kitka is really the Catwoman.

Afterward, the Penguin comes up with another plan and tells Joker to drop one his dream pills into the Commodore's tea and then carry him down to their submarine. He then disguises himself as Commodore Schmidlapp, and gets Batman and Robin to take him to the Batcave. However they see through his disguise and put him to sleep with Bat-sleep so he doesn't know their location. Unbeknownst to Batman and Robin, the Penguin has five dehydrated pirates (referred to as Guinea Pigs, as they are the first victims of the dehydrating device) with him, and rehydrates them. However, he accidentally uses heavy water instead of light water, resulting in the five guinea pigs vanishing when they touch anything.

After the Dynamic Duo are driving away and reawake the Penguin, he uses Penguin gas from his umbrella on them and steals the Batmobile. However this was all planned and the Dynamic Duo use their Batcopter to follow him using the signal from the stolen Batmobile. Meanwhile Joker, Riddler, Catwoman and their pirate henchmen are in their submarine heading for the United World Building to complete their diabolical plan. Riddler is keen to send out more of his riddles but both Catwoman and Joker are convinced it is a bad idea, especially if Penguin had failed to destroy Batman and Robin. Coincidently, the Polaris skywriter that Riddler uses, hits the Batcopter and causes it to crash. The three are delighted and are convinced they have seen the last of the Dynamic Duo.

Meanwhile the Penguin has made his way into the United World building where meets Joker, Riddler and Catwoman who tells them of the supposed Dynamic Duo's demise. They then proceed to dehydrate the nine members of the United World security council, place their dust remains in test tubes and carry them back to their submarine.

Just as they are leaving, they get the shock of their lives when Batman and Robin (who had narrowly escaped death by landing on foam when the Batcopter crashed) appear and order them to surrender.

Fortunately Catwoman stops them in their tracks by saying Ms. Kitka will die if they take one more step, which gives them time to escape. On board the submarine, they celebrate their victory and ask Riddler to make their demands via a Polaris skywriter to ask for a ransom of $1 billion from each country. Both Joker and Penguin make it clear that the messages should be firm and clear instead of Riddler's riddles.

However they soon find out that Batman and Robin are after them in the Batboat and decide to use first a Polaris missile and then torpedoes to stop them but both fail. The Dynamic Duo then draw the submarine to the surface by blasting Bat charges at them.

On board the submarine, the Dynamic Duo engages the villains in a fierce fist-fight. Catwoman watches as all the other villains are knocked over the edge into the water (some of them more than once, like the Riddler) and then chained to the side of the submarine. During the fight, Catwoman pushes Batman and Robin in the water too whilst she makes preparations to escape. The Dynamic Duo climb out and follow her back into the submarine where she trips and falls down and her mask falls off, revealing to Batman and Robin that she is Ms. Kitka, much to Batman's sorrow. Robin places her in Batcuffs and Batman calls the coast guard to pick up the submarine along with the villains, thus all the members of the United Underworld are captured.

Unfortunately Commodore Schmidlapp who is still on board the submarine, appears and accidentally breaks the test tubes containing the security council and sneezes, scattering all the dust.

The Dynamic Duo collect the dust and go back to the Batcave where they use a Super Molecular Dust Separator to filter the mingled dust. They afterwards manage to rehydrate the security council with one slight difference; each member isn't using their native language but Batman sees this "mixing of minds" as an opportunity for peace.

Notes[]

  • The credo for the United Underworld is, "Today Gotham City - Tomorrow the world". This is adapted by the German Nazi propaganda song "Es zittern die morschen Knochen" ("The Decayed Bones Tremble") in which we have the lyrics, "For today Germany belongs to us and tomorrow the entire world". These lines have become infamous for warlords and conquest-obsessed villains and for the quote to even by misattributed to being said by Adolf Hitler.
  • The four villains team up again in Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, though they are not called the United Underworld and three of them double-cross the Catwoman.

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