Batman Arkham Timeline - The Complete Story of the Arkhamverse (What You Need to Know!)

When Batman: Arkham Asylum released over a decade ago, it changed the landscape for superhero video games as we know it. Now that we’re getting two new DC Comics games from Warner Brothers: Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad, we here at Suggestive Gaming figured now would be a good time to take a look back at the story of the Batman Arkham series, including the additional media like comics and animated films as well. Because this is going to be a larger undertaking, I’ve enlisted the help of a friend of the show: Twitch Streamer Kreestin. Do note that while we will be covering the majority of the Arkham media, there are a couple things we’re going to skip: two mobile games (Arkham Underworld and Arkham City Lockdown) are no longer available, the Arkham Knight prequel comic series has some contradictory arcs that we’ll avoid for various reasons, and the comic series “Arkham Unhinged” is questionably canon and not very important to the overall story, so we’ll leave that out too. We hope this doesn’t take too much away from the experience. Also note that from what we’ve seen of the Suicide Squad game, some things don’t seem to match up quite right with what we’ll explain here, but lets hope that gets cleared up in the future. Now, without further ado, this is What You Need to Know about the Batman Arkham series. Our story begins as most Batman stories do: billionaires and philanthropists Thomas and Martha Wayne are leaving the Monarch Theatre in Gotham City with their son Bruce. As they walk through Crime Alley, they are stopped and held at gunpoint by petty thief Joe Chill. When Thomas tries to protect his family, he is shot dead by Chill, who proceeds to kill Martha as well. He then walks over to deliver a warning to the young boy: “that’s what happens when you try to be a hero.” Years later, we find Bruce Wayne, studying martial arts in a secret Korean castle under master Kirigi. From Kirigi, Bruce learns the ways of the shadow warrior, and how to use the shadows, theatrics, and fear to take down his adversaries. After proving himself by defeating Kirigi’s best student, Shiva, Bruce earns the dojo’s respect and masters their techniques. The next year we find Bruce Wayne, returned to Gotham City and taking up the mantle of the “Batman”, using the resources provided to him by his father’s company “Wayne Industries” to fashion a suit and various tools and technologies to fight the crime taking control of the city. With the help of his trusted life-long butler, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce tracks down “Red” Mahaffey, an underboss working for crime lord Roman Sionis. Bruce uses his intimidation and fear tactics as Batman to interrogate Mahaffey and learns that Sionis plans to take control of the Gotham City Police Department to further his crime efforts. Bruce and Alfred then use the newly built “Batcomputer” to investigate three corrupt members of the GCPD’s higher ranks: Commissioner Gillian Loeb, Lieutenant Howard Branden, and Detective Arnold Flass. Despite making several rookie mistakes, Bruce, as Batman, is able to investigate the GCPD’s corrupt dealings with another crime lord: Oswald Cobblepot, also known as “The Penguin”, and with the help of an unknown hacker speaking in “Riddles” learns that Roman Sionis and Cobblepot are working together to try to swing the upcoming Mayoral election to get the corrupt Commissioner Loeb elected. Batman heads to the Beacon Hotel and disrupts a meeting between The Penguin and Sionis, who is secretly working in the criminal underworld as the “Black Mask”. Afterwards, Penguin escapes to a house, and Black Mask arrives with the corrupt GCPD SWAT Team, who plan to deliver a hostage, sister to the District Attorney: Harvey Dent, to the Penguin to create a spectacle for the election the next day. Batman swarms in and prevents this plan, saving the hostage but unfortunately allowing both Penguin and Black Mask to escape. The next day, however, Dent postpones the election to allow for a full investigation of the events, including the potential connection to corruption in the police department. In the Batcave, Batman and Alfred discuss the outcome, with Bruce regretting that he was unable to take the criminals down himself, but is nonetheless happy with the city staying out of the criminals’ control. He then accepts his new duty to keep it that way. Later that year, on Christmas Eve, Bruce overhears police communication that Black Mask has taken Commissioner Loeb to the local Blackgate Prison, where a breakout is currently taking place. Bruce suits up and heads there, finding Black Mask along with one of his thugs: the giant reptile-like Waylon Jones, aka “Killer Croc”. The pair release another criminal, a date-obsessed killer named Calendar Man (who Batman had previously helped capture) from a gas chamber where he was to be executed. Black Mast states that he plans to set up a clean slate for himself, and throws Loeb in the chamber instead, killing him before the criminals leave. Batman follows them out, but Black Mask is able to escape via helicopter, leaving Killer Croc behind to fight Batman. While Batman emerges victorious, Killer Croc reveals that his boss has set a $50 million bounty on the Bat’s head, with 8 of the world’s top assassins vying to claim the prize by the end of the night. The GCPD arrive, with Captain James Gordon (one of the department’s few honest officers) witnessing Batman for the first time with his own eyes as he escapes in his plane: the Batwing. Bruce arrives back at the Batcave and analyzes a drone he recovered from the prison, and he learns of the identities of the assassins he is now up against: Killer Croc, mercenary Deathstroke, pyromaniac Firefly, venomous Copperhead, marksman Deadshot, pit fighter with shocking abilities Electrocutioner, chemically enhanced super soldier Bane, and none-other than Bruce’s former fellow-pupil Lady Shiva. Batman determines that the drone belonged to the Penguin, and “interrogates” some of his men to determine the crime lord’s location. On his way, he encounters the riddle-loving hacker once again: now known to Batman as Edward Nigma (an alias for the former head of the GCPD’s Cybercrime Division), also called “The Riddler”. The Riddler is revealed to be working for Black Mask to disable the radio towers in the city to distract Batman and give his assassins’ an easier way to kill him. Batman eventually tracks Penguin down to his hideout: a derelict ship called “The Final Offer”, where he is forced to fight through one of the assassins: Electrocutioner before finding and interrogating the Penguin, who reveals that there was a double murder at one of Black Mask’s safehouses: Lacey Tower. Suddenly, Batman is ambushed by Deathstroke, and the two battle, with Batman emerging victorious. However, the distraction allows Penguin to escape to his safe-room, leaving Batman to head out to investigate the murders at Lacey Tower. On his way out, Batman is stopped by a transmission from another vigilante, Anarky, who threatens to take matters into his own hands to stop the corruption in Gotham. Batman learns that the police have IDed the murder victims inside Black Mask’s safehouse: Tiffany Ambrose, Roman Sionis’ girlfriend, and the Crime Lord himself. However, upon investigating the crime scene, Batman determines the murders to have occurred days ago, leading him to conclude the body is not Black Mask’s (since he saw him earlier that night), but it is meant to appear to be with Penguin set up as the killer. Batman learns through his investigation that Ambrose was afraid of somebody named “the Joker”, connecting that figure to the murder. Obtaining DNA evidence from the scene, Batman leaves to infiltrate the GCPD Building to compare the samples against the Police Department’s database. There, Batman overhears Captain James Gordon arguing with his daughter, Barbara, about whether or not Batman is a hero or a menace, with Barbara believing the former, while her father thinks he should be operating within the confines of the law. Batman incapacitates the guards inside the building and makes his way to the server room. There, he finds Barbara, who helps Batman plan out a way to remotely access the criminal database from his Batcomputer. Batman sets off to find the telecom wires to create the connection, but encounters Jim Gordon on the way. While Batman pleads with Gordon to trust that they’re on the same side, he isn’t convinced, and Batman is forced to escape from arriving reinforcements. Batman enters the sewers and follows the telecom wires to an underground data center, where he finds Black Mask’s men. After dispatching them, he is able to connect to the database to learn that the Joker was planning to kill Black Mask, but Sionis used a decoy, which the Joker killed, allowing Sionis to get the jump on them and attack. The Joker emerged victorious however, and captured Black Mask before setting the safehouse aflame. Batman determines the Joker’s next step is to use the Black Mask to bypass the security at the mob owned Gotham Merchants Bank. After making his way to the bank, Batman finds Black Mask, and asks him where the Joker is. He responds by revealing a hostage: Roman Sionis, revealing the man who had been donning the Black Mask all night was none other than the Joker himself. After loading an ambulance full of money, the Joker takes off his mask to reveal his true face: that of a demented clown. Ending the pair’s first introduction, the Joker throws the bank manager to the ground, and she dies of some sort of uncontrollable laughter with a disfiguring smile as the clown and his men escape the bank with Roman Sionis. Batman tracks Joker down to the Black Mask’s Steel Mill, but only finds the captured Sionis inside. After freeing him from captivity, Batman is ambushed by Copperhead, who injects him with a toxin that gives him hallucinations, but he is able to fight them off and work with Alfred, who synthesizes and delivers an antidote, which Batman retrieves and uses to fight the effects of the poison, and defeat Copperhead, learning from her that the Joker plans to meet with the remaining assassins. Batman tracks them to the Royal Hotel, and observes the meeting. During the meeting, the Joker kills Electrocutioner as punishment for failing to kill Batman. He then sends the others off to kill the bat, but Bane stays behind, believing Batman will now come for the Joker, so he might as well just wait. This turns out to be a wise move, as Batman arrives shortly after. Bane makes short work of the Bat, manhandling him and dragging him to the Joker. Batman tries to attack the Joker, but Bane stops him and tosses him through a window. The pair then proceed to fight, with Bane using his super-soldier serum “Venom” to overpower his body to gain the upper hand. Alfred looks to even the odds by calling in the GCPD SWAT Team, but this only causes Bane to flee, but not before Batman plans a tracking device on him. Joker is then blasted off the Hotel’s roof, but Batman, not wanting to allow his death, saves him from the fall , much to the surprise of the Joker. Batman goes to detain the Joker, but the SWAT Team arrives. Batman slips away using the Batwing, and Joker is taken into police custody. In Blackgate Prison, the Joker is psychoanalyzed by Dr Harleen Quinzel, initiating a journey into his own mind. He relives the moment that turned him into the Joker: a failed break-in of Ace Chemicals while disguised as a figure called “The Red Hood”. During the break-in, he was discovered by Batman, who caused him to fall into a vat of chemicals, dying his skin white and hair green, as well as causing him to go mad from his “one bad day” that pushed him over the edge. As he realizes his connection to Batman, Dr Quinzel realizes hers with the Joker, who affectionately refers to her as “Harley”. Batman arrives back at the Batcave, and has his own mental struggle, reliving his own trauma that led to him taking on the mantle. Although Alfred snaps him out of it and tries to get Batman to take a break now that the Joker is behind bars, he refuses, knowing that while Bane is still out there, he cannot rest. Batman overhears police communication that they killed an overpowered, muscular criminal, and Batman heads off to the GCPD morgue to confirm it to be Bane. When he reaches the morgue, Batman learns that the body is not Banes, but another Venom user. However just then, the tracker that he planted on Bane begins to give off a signal, and he follows it. At its location, Batman finds a hideout, but Bane has already left. He finds evidence that Bane had been tracking his movements, and also may suspect that he and famous billionaire Bruce Wayne are one in the same. Batman destroys this evidence and leaves, warning Alfred to secure himself in the Batcave, as Wayne Manor is not safe. On his way, Batman learns that Firefly has taken hostages on Pioneers Bridge to draw him out, and he’s forced to head there to save them. Batman is able to distract Firefly with the Batwing, and he enters a room beneath the bridge to meet with Jim Gordon. Gordon blames Batman for ultimately causing the issue at hand, but Batman warns him about Firefly rigging the bridge with explosives and advises him to call off his officers to keep them out of harm’s way. Batman defuses all of the bombs, save for one. He is then forced to fight Firefly to distract him while Gordon and his team move in to disable the last bomb. Batman defeats Firefly, and leaves him strung up for the GCPD to retrieve. Afterwards, Batman and Gordon share a quick moment where they both realize they might have more to gain if they work together in the future, before Batman leaves in the Batwing to return to the Batcave. On his way, he calls Alfred, but the call is interrupted by Bane, who reveals that he has infiltrated the Batcave. Batman arrives to find the Batcave ablaze and Alfred barely alive. Batman is able to use the Electrocutioner’s gloves to defibrillate his old friend’s heart, narrowly saving his life. Now realizing that his crime fighting has not only put himself at risk, but his loved one as well, Bruce decides that he’s made a mistake and calls it quits. Alfred has a change of heart and reaffirms him, encouraging him that if Bruce allows his allies to help him, he can succeed. The pair then overhear that the Joker has staged a riot at Blackgate, and Alfred states that the police need him, to which he replies: “No, they need us.” Inside the prison, Batman finds Joker and Bane, and discovers Joker’s ultimate plan: to force Batman to break his moral code by killing one of the two criminals. Through an elaborate electric-chair tied to a heart monitor on Bane, either Bane’s heart stops, or the electric chair kills Joker. Batman refuses, and Joker forces his hand by capturing Gordon and threatening his life as well. Batman is able to outsmart the clown, however, by stopping Bane’s heart using the electric gloves, disabling the chair and allowing Gordon to escape; but this unfortunately allows the Joker to escape as well. Batman then resuscitates Bane, who injects himself with a prototype chemical called TN-1, similar to Venom but far more powerful. This transforms him into an even more giant creature, which Batman is narrowly able to defeat. Luckily, the TN-1 influence causes Bane to lose his memory of Batman’s secret identity, and afterwards, Batman heads out to find the Joker. On the way, Batman is captured by Killer Croc, but is saved by a nearby Gordon, causing Croc to flee. The pair then rescue Blackgate warden Martin Joseph, and the trio find the Joker in the nearby chapel. Batman reveals to Joker that Bane is still alive, and he wasn’t able to get Batman to kill. Joker then tries again by goading Batman into killing him, but he resists, instead mercilessly beating the clown instead, leaving him incapacitated. Gordon arrives and states that although his daughter believes Batman is a hero, he’s still required to take him in along with the Joker. When Gordon receives a call on his radio, however, Batman is able to slip into the shadows. Afterwards, the police detain the Joker and take him back into custody, while Gordon accepts that Batman is giving the city something to believe in. Later, politician Quincy Sharp speaks with reporter Jack Ryder about proposing to re-open the city’s historic Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane to house and rehabilitate this new breed of super-criminals, while Deathstroke is met in prison by government agent Amanda Waller, who recruits him for a task force of criminals called the Suicide Squad. Less than a week later, now New Year’s Eve, Bruce is hosting a ceremony at Wayne Manor commemorating Ferris Boyle, the CEO of research firm GothCorp. However, during the celebration, an explosion of ice suddenly occurs, and a bald man in a large suit arrives and begins to encapsulate the partygoers in ice with a giant freeze ray. The man demands that Ferris Boyle be brought to him before Bruce attempts to contact Alfred to try to keep Boyle safe. When Alfred doesn’t answer, Bruce goes looking for him, finding him being attacked by the villains’ henchmen. Bruce saves Alfred and they head off to reach the Batcave so Bruce can suit up to take on this new attacker. On their way, the pair find a group of guests, including reporter Vicki Vale, hiding out in one of the rooms, and Bruce leaves Alfred with the group as he heads off to the wine cellar to use a secret entrance to the Batcave. Bruce dons his suit and re-enters Wayne Manor as the Batman, finding it set ablaze by the henchmen. He loses communication with Alfred, who is found and captured along with the rest of the guests. Batman then finds and rescues Alfred and the others, clearing a path so they can escape. Soon after, Batman finds Ferris Boyle, but when he goes to rescue him, he is frozen in place by the ray-gun wielding villain, revealed by Boyle to be called “Mr. Freeze”, as the two seemingly know each other. Freeze takes Boyle as he leaves, and Batman is forced to break free from his icy captivity before taking out a group of henchmen. Batman interrogates one of the henchmen and learns that an arms dealer working for the Penguin has been providing the weapons for the crew, and Batman goes to search for him in south Gotham. Batman finds and questions the dealer, who informs him that Freeze made a deal with Penguin to provide weapons from GothCorp for Penguin’s help in kidnapping Boyle. Believing GothCorp to be a humanitarian company that would never make weapons, Batman goes to the company’s building to investigate. There, Batman finds Penguin holding Boyle at gunpoint, demanding Freeze hand over the weapons he was promised. When Batman tries to step in, Freeze uses his gun to trap everyone, including Penguin, in ice before grabbing Boyle. He then separates himself from Batman with a giant icewall before escaping with his captive. Afterwards, Batman questions a partially frozen Penguin, who reveals that Freeze captured Boyle because he has the codes to some kind of superweapon, which they are currently headed to. Penguin informs Batman that the only way to break through the icewall and trace Freeze is with a special cryo-drill his men are currently holding. Batman travels to their location, picking up a prototype “Extreme Environment” Batsuit on his way. Batman then retrieves the drill from Penguin’s men, but learns that in order for it to operate, it requires a fluid fuel source that is currently kept in GothCorp, in a lab previously occupied by Victor Fries (Mr. Freeze’s original name). Batman reaches Fries’ lab and learns that Victor had made a deal with Ferris Boyle to create prototype cryogenic weapons in exchange for GothCorp’s help in developing a cure for his wife Nora’s Huntington’s Chorea, who Fries had placed in a cryogenic sleep. However, Fries later learned that Boyle never intended to hold up his end of the deal, and Fries instead abandons his duties to try to find the cure himself. Angered, Boyle moved Nora to a different area of the facility and attacked Victor, causing his prototype weapon to fire, altering Fries’ biochemistry and causing his ice-cold body state. Fries was then forced to build a suit to maintain his body temperature before leaving to capture Boyle and gain access to the area his wife is being kept. Batman returns to GothCorp and gets past the icewall. On the other side, Batman finds Freeze and Boyle. Batman tries to reason with Freeze that he’ll make sure Boyle sees justice for what he’s done, and that hurting Boyle would only disappoint Nora. Freeze is unaffected by these words, capturing Boyle in a cryogenic freezing capsule next to Nora and explaining that the accident removed his ability to feel anything. Batman is then forced to disable three cryogenic tanks, which disables Nora’s freezing pod, distracting Freeze. Batman is then able to ambush Freeze, who he fights hand-to-hand. During their fight, Boyle escapes and freezes Batman in his place. Believing him to be dead, Boyle realizes that his only witness is Freeze, and he intends to force him to watch his wife die before being killed himself. Batman breaks free of his ice captivity and incapacitates Boyle. He then restores Nora’s cryo-containment and inserts a cryo-pod into Freeze’s suit, effectively saving both of them, leaving Freeze to stare at his still frozen wife, finally reunited. Afterwards, it is reported that Gotham Mayor Hamilton Hill is stepping down, and the frontrunner for the still-vacant Police Commissioner position is now Captain James Gordon. Vicki Vale then reports on Boyle’s arrest, and publicly thanks the Batman for his role in the arrest as well as saving her and the other guests at Wayne Manor. Three months later, Batman witnesses a cat burglar, Selina Kyle (appropriately nicknamed “Catwoman”) stealing something from a government building. He apprehends her to take her to Blackgate Prison, but is accosted by agents from the Department of Extranormal Operations who assume Batman and Catwoman are working together. In the confusion, Catwoman escapes, and Batman is forced to fight his way through the DEO agents before chasing down Catwoman. After apprehending her, he leaves her for the Gotham City Police Department to arrest and take to Blackgate Prison. Two weeks later, Captain James Gordon makes a call over the police radio for Batman to meet him near Blackgate. When Batman arrives, the two muse that they need a better way for Gordon to signal Batman before Gordon explains why he called the vigilante there: an explosion inside the prison triggered a riot with the prisoners taking hostages and initiating a standoff with the Blackgate guards. Batman enters the prison and finds Catwoman, who had attempted her own escape before being attacked by fellow prisoners. She informs Batman that the Joker, Penguin, and Black Mask have each taken control of a section of the prison. Batman learns that he must restore power in Black Mask’s section, then get cryptographic codes from Joker’s section, then finally make his way to Penguin’s section, The Arkham Wing, to free the hostages. Catwoman then makes a deal with Batman to help him in exchange for his help in getting her a shorter prison sentence in a lower-security facility. As Batman and Catwoman speak, they are surveilled by Amanda Waller along with her right-hand man, Rick Flag, who seemingly have some kind of stake in the events at hand. Batman soon comes across the Penguin, holding fights in an arena in the Prison yard. There, Penguin forces a reluctant prisoner named Bronze Tiger to fight Batman. After Batman emerges victorious, Bronze Tiger helps Batman take out the Penguin’s henchmen, holding them off to allow Batman to chase, and eventually apprehend the Penguin. Batman also comes across the Joker, who is holding the prison’s Warden, Martin Joseph, hostage in his office which has been rigged with bombs. Batman attempts to rescue him, but is attacked by Deadshot along the way, who has been hired by all three crime bosses to take out Batman. Batman is able to defeat the marksman, and rescues the warden. Shortly after, he is able to confront and incapacitate the Joker, obtaining the codes for the Arkham Wing. Finally, Batman rushes to stop Black Mask from overloading the power to the facility. On his way, he encounters the monstrous and immortal Solomon Grundy, but he is able to outsmart the brute and defeat him in battle. Afterwards, Batman finds Black Mask, incapacitates him, and stops his plan. When Batman finally takes the codes to the Arkham wing to rescue the hostages, he simply finds a weakened, Venom-less Bane. Catwoman then reveals that she had been using Batman from the start to free Bane for an unnamed employer. She then attempts to escape with Bane, but Batman catches up to them and apprehends Catwoman. When he asks her who her employer is, a group of federal employees arrive, led by Rick Flag. Flag reveals that they were able to capture Bane, and thanks him for his help with the prison before leaving with Catwoman. Afterwards, Joker is able to kill a group of Blackgate guards, disguising himself in one of their uniforms to escape. Penguin is released by a corrupt guard on his payroll (who he swiftly kills with his umbrella for not minding his manners). Finally, Black Mask takes a Blackgate guard hostage while others shoot at him, causing a pipe to explode in his face as he flees. Later, Amanda Waller and Rick Flag are leaving the scene in a helicopter, where it is revealed that they were the ones attempting to secure Bane from the prison by using Catwoman. Waller ordered them to release Catwoman, and thanks to Batman’s involvement, they were forced to return Bane to captivity in Blackgate. Flag considers the mission a failure, but Waller disagrees, seeing as their trip to the prison led them to picking up Deadshot and Bronze Tiger, whom she intends to recruit into her Suicide Squad. By the next year, Batman has gained a reputation from the citizens of Gotham as some kind of supernatural force. To combat this ideology, the city’s officials plan to present their own set of replica Bat armor and gear to the public. However, as they do so, the event is sabotaged by an attacking masked villain named The Killer Moth, who captures Commissioner Gordon with some kind of adhesive gel. His daughter, Barbara, who accompanied him to the event, secretly dons the replica Bat Suit and stops the Killer Moth, calling herself Batgirl. The pair fight, and eventually Moth tries to escape by distracting Batgirl with throwing Gordon to the ground below. She dives after him and saves him, and the real Batman arrives to take down the Killer Moth for good. Afterwards, Batgirl talks to Batman in private, and he warns her of her “dangerous new hobby”. She brushes this aside, however, stating that being the Bat is awesome. During this year, Batman meets a fellow orphan, Dick Grayson, and brings him in to become his young ward, giving him the name “Robin”. Around two years later, we find Barbara Gordon still working as Batgirl, despite Batman still denouncing her copycat tactics and growing tired of having to rescue her from the dangerous situations her crusading puts her in. At the newly reopened Arkham Asylum, Dr. Harleen Quinzel (now interning at the asylum) goes before the board to ask for The Joker to transfer to a less secure cell. The warden, Quincy Sharp, declines this request, and proceeds to remove the Joker from her care, fearing his manipulation tactics are starting to get through to her. She meets him back at his cell and the two lament that they won’t be together anymore, and Harleen offers to take Joker’s place spreading chaos in Gotham since he can’t break out. He accepts this proposal, and gives her the name “Harley Quinn”. Later, in Gotham Square, Barbara Gordon is visiting a traveling circus, before Harley Quinn, now donned in an appropriate costume, arrives with an explosive entrance. Batgirl suits up to take on this new foe. During their fight, Batgirl warns Harley about becoming a “copycat” of the Joker, and prevents her death-by-hippo like her hero would before Quinn escapes with two hyenas from the circus. Later, Batman meets with Batgirl to discuss the day’s events, and she expresses to him that she’s come to the realization that she isn’t a copycat, but rather wears the same symbol of hope for the city that he does. Back at the Asylum, Joker continues to manipulate Harleen, and she falls further in love with him while he plans to continue to use her while he’s stuck in his “cage”. Later that year we find The Riddler in an abandoned warehouse speaking with Amanda Waller, who reveals that she had been tracing his call. Suddenly, a group of her soldiers burst in and apprehend the Riddler. However, Batman quickly cuts the lights, takes out the soldiers, and captures the Riddler himself. This prompts Waller to assemble her Suicide Squad, officially named “Task Force X”, composed of villains Killer Frost, King Shark, Black Spider, Captain Boomerang, KGBeast, Deadshot, and finally Harley Quinn. Later on, the group wake up together unsure of why they’re there, except for Harley, Boomerang, and Deadshot, who reveal that they’ve been there before. Waller then arrives and explains that she has gathered them to indoctrinate them into a covert ops group, and warns them that if they don’t comply with her orders, a tracking device in their neck will detonate a nano-bomb, killing them immediately. KGBeast doubts this, and Waller dares him to exit the room, and when he does, her threat is proven as his head explodes after his first step. Deadshot then asks what she wants them to do, and Waller reveals that their mission is to break into Arkham Asylum to obtain the Riddler’s cane, which stores a hidden flash drive containing all of the information on every Suicide Squad recruit, which he had hacked and is threatening to leak onto the internet. Waller then knocks the team out again, and when they awaken, they find themselves on a plane being transported to Gotham to meet with an arms dealer to gather resources for their mission. When they airdrop in, they take the sewers, avoiding Batman, to eventually find their contact, The Penguin, at his club: The Iceberg Lounge. Penguin then hands over plans to sneak into Arkham, despite his reluctance to help out Harley, due to her association with the Joker. The team then spend the night blowing off steam, with Killer Frost getting a secret call from Waller about an assignment, and Deadshot and Harley sleeping together. The next night, Harley destroys a doll store to lure Batman, who demands that Harley give him information about a bomb the Joker has supposedly hidden within the city. Harley, who has “broken up” with the Joker, denies any knowledge of the bomb. The police then arrive, and Batman hands over Harley to take back to Arkham Asylum. Deadshot intercepts and poses as the officer taking her in, while Boomerang poses as an EMT dropping off a dead patient, who turns out to be Killer Frost, whose icy cold body allows her to pose as deceased. Meanwhile, Black Spider poses as an orderly to get in. However, the staff quickly catch on to both Killer Frost and Black Spider, as their appearances raise red flags. Meanwhile, Harley is reunited with the Joker, being held inside his own cell. He taunts her about their recent breakup, causing her to grab Deadshot’s pistol and start firing at the clown. The bulletproof glass of his cell protects him, but this causes security to rush in. Harley fights them off and is able to fire the pistol through Joker’s air holes, but misses each shot. Using the distraction, Deadshot is able to place a device on an exposed wire, infiltrating the facility’s network and allowing Boomerang and Black Spider to get past their security opposition, allowing them and Killer Frost to infiltrate the asylum successfully. Harley reveals to Joker that Deadshot is “her new man”, and more security arrives, forcing Deadshot to carry her away. Black Spider causes an explosion in the kitchen as a distraction, and the whole crew meet up near a sewer grate which they open to allow King Shark’s entrance with their gear. After suiting up, the Suicide Squad enter and take over the asylum’s main security hub. Harley then loops the previous day’s security footage soas to disguise their movements, and they make their way to the intensive treatment building to find Riddler’s cane. On their way, they are faced with some opposition from a team of guards, but the squad work together to take them out. Back in Gotham, serial killer Victor Zsasz has a woman captive, but Batman arrives to free her. As he enters his Batmobile, Alfred calls and the two discuss Harley’s strange behavior that night. Batman checks surveillance at Arkham just to make sure she arrived without issue, and notices that the footage is of the previous day’s employee crew. Now knowing something is wrong, Batman speeds to the Asylum to investigate. Meanwhile, the Squad have made their way to the Intensive Treatment building but find the property room to be locked. Luckily, Harley is able to use her knowledge of the facility gained from formerly working there to unlock the door. Inside, they look for the cane, where Harley finds her own mallet, Deadshot finds Riddler’s cane, and Killer Frost finds Mr. Freeze’s gun before Batman suddenly arrives and attacks. After a short battle with the Suicide Squad, Black Spider emerges victorious, holding Batman’s utility belt as a trophy. However, when Deadshot opens the cane’s secret compartment, he finds the flash drive to be missing, soon after, they notice Killer Frost is similarly nowhere to be found. Frost arrives at the Riddler’s cell, and explains that Waller sent her to assassinate him to set an example, but Riddler reveals that he had his own nano-bomb installed in his neck, but learned how to defuse it, prompting Waller’s desire to have him killed. In his own cell, Joker finds that Harley’s missed shots earlier opened a hole in his wall, which he is able to reach into to find wires that he is able to cross to open his cell-doors, allowing his escape. Waller calls Deadshot, who doesn’t reveal the missing flash drive quite yet, but Waller exclaims that a disturbance has been called into the Asylum’s medical center. The Squad head there and find Killer Frost and the Riddler, attempting to reach the center to obtain the tools to defuse their nano-bombs. The group work together again to reach the center, but Riddler is able to grab one of the guard’s pistols on the way. Inside the medical center, the Riddler defuses the Squad’s bombs using a powerful electrical shock, save for Black Spider, who decides to stay aside as a lookout. Waller finally realizes they’re up to something and triggers the killswitch for the entire squad. While the majority of them remain alive, King Shark’s head explodes, which the Riddler theorizes was due to his thick skin preventing the electrical current. Meanwhile, the Joker finds Batman in a hall of the Asylum, and pulls a gun on him. Curiously, the Bat’s own head explodes on its own just before the clown can pull the trigger. Back in the medical center, the Squad look over at a still alive Black Spider and realize that Batman has been posing as the criminal since their encounter. Riddler pulls his pistol, but Batman throws a Batarang at him, inadvertently cranking up the voltage of the electro-shock machine. Batman interrogates Deadshot, who reveals their mission from Waller. This leaves the detective confused, but he doesn’t have much time to think about it, as the Joker arrives soon after, shooting at the Bat as he enters. He also throws some small explosive devices on the ground, destroying the electroshock machine and allowing the Suicide Squad to escape, with Harley grabbing her mallet on the way out. Joker is able to chase Batman away with bullets, and he cuts off the Squad in the hall. Harley tries to reconcile with the Joker to lure him away, but he decides he has a score to settle with Deadshot. Deadshot distracts him, causing the Joker to fall down a laundry chute with Harley. In the laundry room, Joker opens Harley’s mallet to reveal the bomb that Batman had been searching for. Elsewhere, the Squad attempt to escape, but Batman arrives to ask where the Joker went. Deadshot tells Batman they disappeared with the mallet, and Batman determines that must be where the bomb is. Right on cue, Joker begins to broadcast a message through the Asylum’s PA system. To provide a distraction to detonate the bomb, Joker releases all of the Asylum’s inmates, including former District Attorney turned villain: Harvey Dent (now known as Two-Face due to the disfigurement that drove him mad), a re-venom-fueled Bane, the fear-inducing-toxin creating “Scarecrow” Dr. Jonathan Crane, botanist and plant-controlling Dr. Pamela Isley (known better as Poison Ivy), among all of the others. Batman leaves to find Joker to stop the bomb, while the remaining Suicide Squad instead plan to hijack a nearby helicopter to escape on their own. Their partnership is short-lived, however, as Frost and Boomerang each head off on their own to reach the chopper first. They fight their way through the escaped inmates, both super-powered and not to reach the chopper, where Deadshot is able to escape on his own. Batman arrives outside just in time to protect Commissioner Gordon from a charging Bane (detaching his Venom supply and throwing him into the water surrounding the island). Batman then calls his Batwing and enters to give chase to the escaping Deadshot. Inside the helicopter, the Joker reveals himself and Harley had been hiding inside, and he pulls a pistol on Deadshot. He attacks the clown before he can shoot, however, and the pair fight. Harley picks up the Joker’s gun and contemplates which one to shoot before being forced to take the helicopter’s controls to prevent its crash. Batman arrives and uses his grappling hook to board the helicopter, grabbing Harley and the mallet and jumping out of the helicopter, allowing it to crash into a nearby building which he and Harley also land inside. She attempts to attack him, while Joker and Deadshot have their own battle a few flights up. Batman knocks out Harley and gets the bomb while Deadshot emerges victorious in his own fight, pinning Joker to the helicopter and pushing it off the building. Batman is then able to diffuse the bomb just in time to watch the helicopter crash into the ground, with Joker caught in the blast it creates. Sometime later, Batman arrives at Waller’s office to confront her about her Suicide Squad plan while chastising her allowing Riddler to escape. Batman threatens to shut down her operation, but Waller shrugs it off, knowing he has no power over the federal Government. She then states that he has his own issues to worry about, considering Joker’s body was never found. He leaves her with one final warning before leaving. Waller turns around to notice the red dot from a laser scope traveling towards her head. We then see Deadshot, reunited with his daughter, aiming down the barrel of a sniper rifle, turning the tide and now holding Waller’s fate in his own hands. Throughout this same year, Batman’s extended family goes through some changes. Dick Grayson leaves the Robin mantle behind as he moves to the city of Blüdhaven to take on the new persona of “Nightwing”. Later, Batman discovers a troubled youngster, Jason Todd, committing petty crimes. The next year, Jason Todd takes up the mantle of Robin, working with Batman and Batgirl to protect Gotham. However, towards the end of the year he is captured by the Joker, who holds him hostage in a location unknown to Batman. A few months later, Batman meets another young man, Tim Drake, who uses his own natural detective skills to determine the caped crusader and Nightwing’s true identities. This impresses Batman, who (despite still holding guilt over losing his former Robin) allows Drake to become the new Robin. Shortly after, Batman receives a video recording from the Joker, showcasing him branding Jason Todd’s face with a “J” before shooting him in the chest, taunting Batman that he has killed his friend. The next year, The Joker captures Commissioner Gordon and takes him to the Seagate Amusement Park, prompting Batgirl to go there, calling in Robin for backup as Joker is threatening to kill Gordon if Batman shows up. The pair fight their way through Joker’s forces to rescue several captured Gotham City Police Officers and prevent several of Joker’s bombs from going off before confronting the clown prince of crime himself. The pair fight off a horde of Joker’s henchmen, incapacitating Harley Quinn and eventually the Joker himself. Batgirl is then able to free Gordon, but Joker threatens to kill Harley if they come any closer (knowing Batgirl, following in Batman’s footsteps, wouldn’t allow a death at her hands). He then fires at Robin (who Batgirl pushes out of the way in time), before pushing Harley away from him and jumping off the pier, pulling open a parachute to glide to his own escape. Batgirl heads off to chase him, but Robin stops her, claiming they’re work is done now that they’ve rescued Gordon and the GCPD. Gordon then turns to have Harley Quinn taken into custody, and when he turns back, the pair have disappeared into the shadows, a trait he claims “runs in the family”. Later that year, the Joker finds Barbara at her apartment, and shoots her point blank so her father can come home and find her. She survives the gunshot, but is left paralyzed from the waist down. Still wanting to help out the Bat family, she takes on a new mantle as “Oracle”, using her brilliance and technological expertise to assist Batman and Robin from a hidden base inside Gotham’s clocktower. Two years later, Batman begins to receive anonymous tips about his investigations. Following these tips, he is able to capture Zsasz and return him to Arkham Asylum. The next tip leads him to a test tube containing a green toxin much like the fear toxin created by Scarecrow, but far more powerful; this leads him to find Scarecrow and take him to Arkham as well. Finally, the third tip leads Batman to the Joker himself, about to kill Gotham’s Mayor. Batman thwarts this plan and starts to drive the Joker back to Arkham Island. Warden Sharp then begins a speech directed at the Arkham Guards to not let the Joker escape again. With them preoccupied, Harley Quinn (disguised as a nurse) arrives in Bane’s cell, about to administer him with an unknown green chemical. As Batman pulls up to the Asylum, he gets a gut feeling that considering how easy everything has been up to this point combined with the fact that many of Joker’s men had been transferred to Arkham after a fire at Blackgate Prison, something feels off. When Batman arrives, he hands over the Joker to Warden Sharp, and Arkham guards strap the clown to a standing cart to bring him to the Intensive Treatment Center. Batman decides to follow to make sure the Joker gets to his cell without any disturbances. On their way, they come across Killer Croc, being transferred around the facility, who leaves Batman with a sinister warning. When they reach the Intensive Treatment Center, they find Commissioner Gordon, and Batman shares his fears about the Joker planning something larger before two guards force them to stay behind as they take the Joker into a secure area. Once out of Batman’s reach, the Joker breaks free, and Harley Quinn is able to work the security to allow Joker’s escape into the Asylum while trapping Batman to fight a group of his thugs. Of course, Batman makes quick work of them, and afterwards he and Gordon discuss the trap they’ve seemingly fallen into. With Oracle’s help, Batman heads into the Asylum to search for the Joker. He quickly stumbles across Zsasz, threatening to kill a guard, but Batman is able to stealthily take him out for the rescue. Shortly after, Batman receives a video message from Harley Quinn revealing that she has kidnapped Warden Sharp, and refers to the night’s events as “Joker’s big homecoming”, with Batman being the guest of honor. When she hangs up, Batman gets more bad news, this time from Oracle, who calls and informs him that the Joker claims to have hidden bombs all over Gotham, which he’ll detonate if anybody else arrives on Arkham Island, leaving Batman without any outside help. Batman continues on and finds the Joker, but before he can attack, the clown lets loose a hulking, mutated Blackgate prisoner, which Batman is forced to fight. Afterwards, the beast falls to the ground, seemingly dying from its “treatments”. Joker then offers Batman a chance to end the events of the night early by knocking him off the suspended cage he’s standing on, but Batman knows this will kill the Joker so he refuses, much to the clown’s delight, who then escapes the room, leaving Batman behind. Shortly after, however, Batman receives a video message from Joker, who reveals that Officer Frank Boles is secretly working for him, and they have captured Gordon, who is now en route to Harley. Joker then warns Batman that if he tries to follow him, Harley will kill Gordon. Batman is able to use his detective tools to follow a scent trail left by Boles to track down Gordon, however, on his way he is met by Harley Quinn, who blows up an elevator to prevent Batman’s progress. This only slightly deters Batman, who is able to follow the trail to it’s unfortunate end: the corpse of Officer Boles, double crossed and murdered by the Joker. At this same time, Batman’s communications with Oracle are hacked by the Riddler, who leaves Batman with the challenge of finding all of his hidden riddles around Arkham Asylum. Batman makes his way out to the open area of the island and receives a call from Oracle that the Batmobile is currently under attack. He returns to it and fends off the group of Harley’s men attacking it, discovering a trail of tobacco left by Gordon to follow to his whereabouts. Batman finds Harley and Gordon, but is blocked by an electrical security field. He sets off to find another way to their location, eventually coming upon a group of doctors, which he frees, along with a former GCPD officer turned security guard named Aaron Cash. One of the Doctors, Penelope Young, has sparked a curious amount of interest from the Joker and his men. Because of this, Cash escorts her to the Arkham Mansion to collect her research, while Batman continues to search for Gordon in the morgue down below. Entering the morgue, Batman witnesses a group of inmates and officers going mad from fear before catching a glimpse of Scarecrow. As he continues into the morgue, he finally reaches Gordon… unfortunately he had been killed, with his dead body slouched against the wall. He tries to call Barbara to give her the news, but finds the line mysteriously disconnected. As he goes deeper into the morgue to search for Gordon’s killer, Batman opens a pair of body bags to find the reanimated corpses of his parents, pleading with him to help them. When he opens a third bag, Scarecrow emerges, taking Batman to a strange cyclone-filled landscape where he is forced to evade the now giant figure’s gaze in order to shine a spotlight on him and escape. Now back in the morgue unaffected by Scarecrow’s gas, Batman discovers the body he found was not Gordon’s, but an Arkham guard, leading him to realize the commissioner is still alive; and he finds him and Harley in a locked room shortly after. Batman breaks into the room from above, taking out Harley in the process. Batman frees Gordon, who warns Batman that he’s learned of something big that Joker has in store for them below. The pair then find Joker’s surprise: Bane, drained of his Venom by Dr. Young. Joker then injects him with a more powerful chemical, and with this newly acquired strength, Bane is able to break free of his confinement and attack Batman. The pair battle until the ceiling begins to collapse on Bane, giving Batman an opportunity to grapple to a sewer grate above and escape. Outside, he meets up with Gordon, who he decides he needs to get off the island as soon as possible. Soon after, Bane bursts through a nearby wall and grabs Batman, who is able to call in the Batmobile to crash into Bane, driving him into the bay surrounding the island. Batman and Gordon then head to the docks, where the commissioner boards a boat with an Arkham guard and sets off to return to the mainland. Batman then makes his way to a secret Batcave he installed on Arkham in case of an emergency and using the Batcomputer there to obtain information on Dr. Young. He discovers that she had been researching Bane’s Venom, and used that knowledge to create a more powerful version of it called “Titan”, which Batman realizes Joker intends to use for his big plan. Believing the Joker will be looking for Young and her research, Batman heads to Arkham Mansion to find her. There, Batman finds and rescues Aaron Cash once again, before reaching Dr. Young’s office. Batman notices that Young had already retrieved her research, and begins to follow a trail of her fingerprints to the nearby library to find where she hid her notes. He proceeds to destroy the notes so Joker can’t get his hands on them, but soon learns that Joker had sent his men to capture Dr. Young to get the formula out of her. While Batman heads off to find Young, he is again poisoned by Scarecrow, and is forced to relive the death of his parents before re-entering the cyclone filled landscape to shine the spotlight on the figure to emerge victorious and escape again. Afterwards, Batman finds Zsasz holding Dr. Young captive. He is able to stealthily use one of his Batarangs to incapacitate the villain and rescue the doctor. She then reveals that Joker has obtained gallons of the Venom she was using for testing, along with her formula for Titan. She then goes to open the Warden’s safe to find the security codes for a hidden lab in the nearby gardens, but instead finds one of Joker’s bombs. Batman tries to protect her from the blast, but he’s too late, and the doctor is killed by the blast, which also renders Batman unconscious. As he comes to, he sees Harley Quinn with the Warden, who drops his cane before he’s taken away. Batman wakes up and takes out Harley’s men before using the cane to trace the Warden’s tracks. On his way, he encounters Poison Ivy, who pleads with Batman to save her “babies”, the plants on the Island. He shrugs this off and reaches the control room where Warden Sharp has been held captive. He spots a security camera feed and sees Harley leaving, where she stumbles upon Poison Ivy and sets her free. Batman frees the Warden and gets his security code for the lab before running into Harley once again. He fights through a large horde of her goons before she attacks him herself, quickly being subdued and apprehended by the Bat. He then learns from her that Joker’s production facility for the chemical he intends to use to create a Titan-fueled army is in the Botanical Gardens, and he locks up Harley before heading off. Inside the Gardens, Batman finds the Joker’s secret production facility, but he escapes, forcing Batman to fight more Titan-powered henchmen. Afterwards, Batman learns that they’re somehow using Venom infused plants to create the Titan, and finds Ivy, who he questions, knowing that nothing would happen to the island's plants without her knowing. Ivy then informs Batman that there is a plant that could be used to synthesize an antidote, but it can only be found deep within the island: in Killer Croc’s lair. When Batman emerges back out onto the island, he finds Ivy’s plants to be overtaking the island, and Joker delivers a message that he had provided her with a sample of the Titan serum, causing her to grow far more powerful. Batman finds Aaron Cash, and asks him where they keep Killer Croc locked up. He informs him of a “special cell” underneath the Intensive Treatment Center, and Batman returns to that building. However when he does, he- Batman is poisoned by the Scarecrow once again, this time envisioning himself being locked up in Arkham by the Joker and Harley Quinn. He is able to once again use his willpower to overcome the fear and turn it back around onto Scarecrow. Back in the real world, Scarecrow runs off to flood the waters below with his fear toxin to spread it into Gotham. Before he can, however, he is attacked by Killer Croc, who drags him into the waters of the sewer, causing him to drop his bag of fear toxin. Batman heads into the depths of the sewers and finds the spores to create the antidote, avoiding an angered Killer Croc along the way. As he leaves, the giant beast emerges and charges at him, but Batman is able to trigger a blast that sends Croc to the depths below. Batman returns to the Batcave and uses the flowers to create an antidote, then sets off to take down Ivy before her plants destroy the island. On his way, Batman learns that the Joker also intended to taint the water supply, but with his Titan chemical. Batman is able to thwart this plan by destroying the pumping stations around the sewers. With that distraction out of the way, Batman returns to the Botanical Gardens to find Ivy. There, she explains that while she thought Young’s chemicals had been hurting the plants, they had actually been making them evolve and grow stronger. She uses these powerful plants to attack Batman, but he is able to defeat her, forcing her plants to retreat down into the ground, with Ivy inside. Outside, Joker informs Batman that it’s now time for the final surprise, and he heads to the Visitor Center to finally learn what it is. Inside, Batman finds the Joker, who greets him before quickly leaving, with a bomb exploding in his wake. When Batman follows, he finds his nemesis sitting atop a throne, playing with “Scarface”, a sinister puppet carved by an Arkham inmate that drove a man named Arnold Wesker (later known as “The Ventriloquist”) to kill. Joker throws Scarface to the ground and sends Titan-mutated Arkham Guards after him, which Batman is forced to incapacitate. After the battle, Joker reveals another surprise: Commissioner James Gordon, tied up after being captured during his attempt to leave the island. Joker pulls out a pistol containing Titan-filled syringes, and fires it at the Commissioner. However, Batman is able to dive in front of him just in time, and the syringe pierces him instead, starting to transform him nearly immediately. Batman is able to fight the transformation, but Joker tries to force it, unsuccessfully. Angered by Batman ruining his big plans for the night, Joker then shoots himself with a Titan dart. As news choppers begin to arrive, Joker, now transformed into a monstrous creature, carries Batman to the rooftop and hooks Gordon up to an electrified chair. Joker continues to taunt Batman, telling him that allowing himself to be mutated by the Titan was the only way he could take down his foe. Batman disagrees, and injects himself with the antidote, much to the Joker’s confusion. Batman is then forced to fight the overpowered Joker, along with several waves of his men. After pulling down the Joker with his grappling hook several times, the monstrosity falls through the electrified roof, weakening him. When he climbs back up to face the Bat, he lines his gauntlet with explosive gel and delivers an explosive punch to the Joker, finally rendering him incapacitated. Afterwards, the super criminals are taken back into custody and the Guards seize control of the asylum once again. The venom-induced inmates begin to seemingly go back to normal, including a severely injured Joker. Gordon calls Barbara to tell her about the events of the night, and Batman arrives to speak to him. Gordon tells Batman to get some rest, but just as he does, a call comes over the radio about Two-Face robbing a Gotham bank, and when he turns around, the Batman once again disappeared on him, and as he looks up, the Batwing flies towards the city for Batman to continue his night of crime fighting. As he flies off, though, a crate of Titan is seen floating in the water, and one of the villains Batman left in the water grabs it. After he’s taken back into custody in Arkham, Joker begins to fall deathly ill as a side-effect of the Titan formula. Harley Quinn learns of this from her own cell and promises that she won’t let anyone take Joker before his time comes. In the wake of the Arkham riots, Warden Quincy Sharp is seen as a hero among Gotham citizens, a reputation he is able to turn into a successful election run to become Mayor of Gotham City, with the help of his psychiatrist. In a televised interview with Jack Ryder and Vicki Vale, Vale reveals security footage from the Asylum that shows Sharp is not the hero he masquerades as, and was actually unconscious for most of the night of Joker’s attack. This doesn’t shake Sharp, who brushes the claims off and issues a warning to any would-be masked “super villains”. At the Gotham Police Department, Gordon and Batman watch the interview, with Gordon frustrated that Batman hasn’t gotten the credit he deserves for single-handedly taking down the Joker. Gordon then tells Batman about a pair of Titan enhanced siblings, Terry and Tracy Trask, who have been wreaking havoc since Joker’s incarceration. Batman then heads off their known associate, Two-Face, to learn if and how Titan has made its way from Arkham to Gotham. Batman finds the former District Attorney and asks him about the Trasks. Two-Face informs him that the Trasks were members of his gang, but after a few crates of Titan washed up along the shores of Gotham, the pair started taking it, learning of its immense power, and when they grew powerful, ended up killing half of Two-Face’s men in an attempted hostile takeover of the gang, and eventually the whole city. He then tells Batman that the pair have been laying low as of late, planning something big, which Batman determines to be the dedication of the new City Hall. During the ceremony, the Trasks take out the Gotham City PD security forces and rush the stage while Mayor Sharp gives his speech. Batman stops them with his explosive gel lined suit before Batman is able to hit Terry with a tranquilizer dart. The siblings then make a call to an unknown third party, referred to as “Prof”, who asks them to “do what must be done for our cause”, before the pair explode in a giant blast, with Batman barely escaping. This destruction causes Mayor Sharp to lobby for martial law in Gotham, sectioning off a piece of the city to be policed by a privatized military to contain the criminally insane. This section of the city, called “Arkham City” gives Batman pause, as he doesn’t think it was Sharp’s idea alone. This leaves him wondering who’s the mastermind in control here, as well as how he will stop them. Sometime later, Vincent Garrett, a highly ranked ex-Navy SEAL, meets with Professor Hugo Strange about an offer from the Mayor for a job as captain in his new security force, called Tyger. Strange proceeds to give Garrett a psychological evaluation, but during it, injects the man with an unknown serum. Afterwards, Strange begins to play a series of videos as an “orientation” to indoctrinate Garrett into Tyger’s ideals: total control with no opposition, including Batman. He then leaves him with a final message to “kill the Bat”, which Garrett begins to obsess over before Strange injects him with another serum to calm him down. With the “interview” now over, Strange welcomes the new captain into Tyger before telling him to forget everything about their meeting. As the man exits his office, Strange smashes a portrait of Mayor Sharp, knowing that when the time is right, his Tyger guards will obey him alone, and he’ll be able to seize complete control of Gotham City. Later that year, Arkham City is about to open, despite objections from Gotham’s citizens. Sharp appears on television with Ryder and Vale, promising that that the security in Arkham City will be strong enough to contain Gotham’s criminal insane while they learn to live in a society again. That night, Batman, still believing there’s a larger scheme at hand, drives to Sharp’s mansion to look for information. There, he finds that Sharp has been keeping detailed files on him, referring to him as “Enemy X”. Just when he finds the plans for Arkham City, a video call from Hugo Strange greets him. Suddenly, a turret appears and starts shooting Batman with rubber bullets, while a gas begins to fill the room as well. Batman realizes these defenses were not to kill him, but rather to learn his techniques, so he shuts down the building’s network before leaving in the Batmobile. In Arkham Asylum, Aaron Cash is reluctantly starting to send the patients to Arkham City. One inmate he doesn’t mind sending, however, is the Joker. While the Joker is being transferred, however, a group of guards instead take him into a room, tie him to a standing stretcher, and prepare to kill him as payback for his killing their partners during the Arkham riots. Just as one prepares to kill him, another guard throws a knife through his neck, taking off their disguise to reveal it’s an escaped Harley Quinn, who takes out the rest of the guards and takes Joker to the docks nearby to escape via boat. Batman gets an alert that his security systems have been triggered on Arkham Island, and he heads to stop whoever it is, learning on the way that it’s none other than the Joker. When Batman reaches Joker and Harley’s boat, he shoots a warning missile at it, but the pair return the favor with their own RPG. Batman returns fire, destroying their boat and forcing them to flee into the sewer system. When they emerge, the two find themselves in Arkham City, and Joker makes his way into the Sionis Industries building where they intend to set up shop as the “Mayor and Mayoress of Arkham City”. Sometime later, Jenna Duffy, known as The Carpenter, is at a bar when suddenly Tyger enters, looking for her. She leaves, and goes to break into an ATM to steal some money to run before Tyger grabs her. Batman catches her in the act, and chases her until her van crashes. She gets out with some power tools to take him on, but he defeats her in battle and the two have a discussion afterward. Batman helps Jenna by providing her with a one-way bus fare to her hometown, with the condition she leaves her van and tools behind to take on a less criminal life. She agrees, and sets off, while Tyger continues to round up everything from first time offenders to white collar criminals. Later, we find street criminal Lester Kurtz making his way into Joker’s headquarters in Arkham City to try to secure a “job” with the clown. After passing a few of the Joker’s “tests”, Kurtz is given a mask and a place to stay. Not satisfied with his limitations working for only the Joker, Kurtz heads to the headquarters of the other criminal trying to take early control of Arkham City: the Penguin. The Penguin immediately allows Kurtz to work for him and sends him along to steal a shipment of weapons before it reaches the security armory. Kurtz is able to use his unique skills to take down the secured Arkham City security truck, but the Joker’s men soon arrive to bring the shipment, and Kurtz, back to him. Having no other choice, Kurtz throws a grenade, allowing him and Penguin’s men to escape, but destroying the guns in the process. When they return to Penguin, he’s predictably very upset at the loss of the guns, and Kurtz is sent to his quarters with half pay. On his way, Kurtz attacks the guards accompanying him, and reveals himself to be Batman in disguise before escaping the Iceberg Lounge, now having the inside information on how both criminal masterminds are operating inside Arkham City. Batman muses about how he still doesn’t know the identity of the true mastermind behind Arkham City. Elsewhere, that same mastermind is observing his every move, growing tired of the game, but submitting to playing it through. In Arkham Asylum, The Riddler is met by an unknown associate of his who he’s hired to build him a new hideout. He then also pays Poison Ivy to help him break out of his cell. After he does, he picks up his signature outfit and arrives at his new base of operations, ready to create his new gang and place his signature riddles around Arkham City. While trying to figure out his way into the now secured Arkham City, Batman falls right into an explosive trap. He is “welcomed” into the city by the still unknown mastermind, who has set up the City’s defenses planning for Batman’s every move. The battle with Tyger is soon interrupted by a Semi truck smashing through, driven by none other than Catwoman, whose help Batman reluctantly accepts given the current situation. Catwoman reveals she went there to pick up the crime bosses stockpiled gold in the chaos of Gotham’s current crisis, but she reveals that instead, she had found the shipment of guns that Penguin and Joker were fighting over. She then used the weapons to help Poison Ivy escape imprisonment, hoping to gain her as an ally moving forward. Catwoman then left Ivy at the Central Gardens, where she set up her own base of operations. Batman leaves Catwoman with a warning to be careful with what company she keeps, before ejecting from the vehicle and leaving her alone. Meanwhile, Joker finds a doctor to examine him. The doctor confirms that Joker’s exposure to the Titan Formula continues to mutate his body, negatively affecting his vital organs. Joker has the doctor isolate a sample of the toxin from his blood, and he obliges, providing the clown with a vial of the poison before he is unknowingly sent off to his own death in the facility’s incinerator. Elsewhere in Arkham City, Batman then gets the drop on a Tyger guard, who he threatens to provide the name of the real mastermind behind the operation. Though the guard initially says the name Quincy Sharp, Batman intimidates him to finally reveal the true name he’s been looking for: Hugo Strange. Batman then returns to the Batcave to share this information with Robin and Alfred. They look up Strange on the Batcomputer to learn from deleted Arkham Asylum records that he was a mad psychologist with delusions of grandeur. Alfred then points out a nearby news report, where Mayor Sharp reveals his secret collaborator to the public, putting Strange in the spotlight with protection from the Mayor’s office. Batman then decides that he can no longer go after the professor… but Bruce Wayne can. The next day, Mayor Sharp holds a press conference about Arkham City, as well as the response from the reveal of his partner. Bruce Wayne arrives to present the files of Strange’s history of patient abuse, but he simply responds by claiming he was a fall guy for the other incompitent doctors of Arkham. He then turns the tables by asking why a billionaire “playboy” would spend so much time obsessing over a doctor he doesn’t know. Wayne tries to retort, but Strange shuts him down, claiming his city is now a reality, and his attempts to slander the professor are in vain. He later secretly congratulates himself on his preparations, including the release of Victor Zsasz, as well as his delight in secretly pitting the various supercriminals against each other. He then comes to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne is Batman, and looks forward to their next meeting in Arkham City. Meanwhile, Robin secures his own way into Arkham City, unbeknownst to Batman. He heads inside to scope it out, and finds Harley Quinn and a group of Joker’s men attempting to steal medication from some other inmates. Robin intervenes and breaks up this attempt before returning to the Batcave. There, Bruce reveals to Tim that he was aware of him getting into Arkham City, but allows him to continue. Inside Arkham City, Bane, who had since been transferred there after his last encounter with Batman, had found his former Venom stash and returned to his old fighting ring. There, he encounters his first Titan-enhanced challenger, sent by the Joker. Bane is able to defeat this foe due to Titan’s negative side-effects, but afterwards, having seen it’s danger, he sets forth with a new goal to eliminate the remains of the Titan formula. One day in Arkham City, one of Joker’s henchmen arrives and returns the Scarface puppet to him. He is elated at it’s return, but Harley quickly becomes annoyed by it and throws it into a pit of molten steel, later telling Joker it was an accident. However, much to her dismay, one of Joker’s men is able to repair him back to new, and the sentient doll now holds a grudge against Harley Quinn. Later, Mr. Freeze discovers that Hugo Strange has captured his frozen wife, Nora. Despite being chased by Batman, Freeze reaches Strange at his Advanced Cryogenics facility. Freeze demands his wife’s release, but the Doctor reveals he had simply baited Freeze there to propose a partnership between the two. Strange offers Freeze a fully stocked laboratory to find the cure for his wife, in exchange for his help with producing a series of serums and medicines for Strange. Freeze takes this offer and leaves shortly before Batman arrives to investigate. There, he finds the two men gone, but notices a ballerina in a snowglobe left in Freeze’s wake. Sometime afterwards, Two-Face sends his men to protect a safe containing something very valuable. Catwoman arrives, taking them out before opening the safe and retrieving a memory card containing a map of a building inside the city’s Park Row district. However, she is soon met by Two-Face, who holds a gun to her head, capturing her on the spot. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne holds a press conference outside of Arkham City’s walls to start a campaign to close it down. Tyger forces arrive, knock him out, and capture him. Now tied to a chair, Bruce is met by Hugo Strange, who reveals his knowledge of Bruce’s double-identity as Batman. Strange states that he is about to initiate “Protocol 10”, and if Bruce tries to stop him, he will reveal his secret to the world. Bruce meets with a fellow political prisoner: Jack Ryder, and attempts to help him through their “initiation” before Bruce is knocked out and taken before the Penguin. Cobblepot expresses his anger that the Wayne family took down the Cobblepots in the past, and attempts to beat down Bruce as revenge. Bruce breaks the Penguin’s hand and proves to be a formidable opponent to his men, taking them all out before reaching a nearby roof to call Alfred. Alfred airdrops in some gear for Bruce, who suits up to begin his night as Batman, searching for answers on this “Protocol 10”. After using an encryption key he stole from a guard, Batman is able to hijack Tyger communications to learn that Catwoman is being held by Two-Face at a nearby courthouse. Batman then heads there to find her to stop Two-Face and hopefully find out what she knows about Arkham City. Inside the Courthouse, Batman finds Two-Face holding Catwoman under “trial” for her crimes, planning to execute her. Batman intervenes and takes out Two-Faces men, but he shoots the Bat, incapacitating him. He walks over to Catwoman and attempts to kill her, but Catwoman escapes and stops him, before Batman is able to string him up above the same poison he tried to kill Catwoman with. Catwoman then takes her phone and the memory card back before speaking with Batman. He asks her about Protocol 10, but she’s unaware of it. She instead informs Batman that she’s heard Strange is working with Joker on something for Batman, which may be what he’s looking for. Just then, Joker tries to snipe at Catwoman through the window, but Batman pulls her away just in time. Batman follows the trajectory of the bullet to a nearby building, and when he enters, he finds Harley Quinn. She attempts to attack him, but he swiftly stops her. Her men hold civilians hostage to stop Batman from capturing her, and she tells him that Joker isn’t available for a meeting before leaving alone. Batman takes out the men to free the hostages, then heads up to the bell tower to learn that Joker’s gun was being controlled remotely. Joker then contacts him via video message to start a countdown for the bombs inside the room Batman is standing in. Batman escapes before the blast, but is able to gain a lock on the signal used to control the rifle. Batman follows the signal to the Steelworks and finds Harley Quinn once again. She locks him out of the Joker’s office, but Batman first releases a doctor captured by Harley who was forced to treat Joker’s Titan illness. Afterwards, Batman is able to force his way into Joker’s office, but is soon met by opposition, including a giant, hammer wielding villain known appropriately as “Mr. Hammer”. After fighting through this opposition, Batman reaches Harley and Joker, but just as he does, Joker flatlines, leaving Harley extremely distraught. As Batman goes over to examine the now lifeless body, he is ambushed from behind by the real Joker, who holds a mask over his face, forcing him to inhale an unknown gas before Harley Quinn knocks him out with her baseball bat. Meanwhile, Catwoman heads off to find Poison Ivy to ask for her help in her plan; to use the map she found on the memory card to infiltrate Strange’s vault and rob all of the valuables inside. Catwoman finds Ivy, but she immediately attacks her, still angry at a previous encounter when Catwoman forgot to water her flowers. Ivy then forces Catwoman to fight several henchmen enchanted by her mind controlling spores. Catwoman defeats them, but Ivy captures her herself, stringing the burglar up and holding her there. Back at the Steelmill, Batman awakens to find Harley attempting to take off his mask, but Joker stops her. Batman initially believes that Joker had been faking his sickness to trick Batman, but the Joker quickly reveals his new, ghastly figure, explaining that his blood is very much tainted; the same blood that he has transfused into Batman’s veins while he was passed out. Joker then reveals that he also shipped out samples of his blood to emergency rooms all over the city to further force Batman into helping him find a cure for his illness. Batman assumes this is Protocol 10, but Joker reveals that he’s never even heard of it. He then kicks Batman out a window, and after he crash lands, he calls him to tell him to search out Mr. Freeze to find the cure. Batman tracks Freeze down to an old Gotham City Police Department forensics lab. There, Batman learns that Freeze had been captured by Penguin’s men. After interrogating one of them, he further learns that Penguin has Freeze at the nearby Natural History Museum. Batman makes his way to Penguin, discovering a container of Titan formula on the way. Inside, Batman learns that Commissioner Gordon had sent in a strike team of ten officers to work undercover in Penguin’s gang. Batman goes to look for them but instead finds Penguin, who shoots one of the officers before revealing he has all of the others hostage, presenting one held by Mr. Hammer’s brother: Sickle. Before long, Penguin reveals a henchman empowered with Titan, who Batman is forced to defeat as Cobblepot walks off. Batman makes his way through the museum, freeing the hostages, before finding Mr. Freeze. After a fight with Sickle, Batman releases Freeze from captivity, and the two discuss the cure to this “Joker disease”. Unable to finish the cure without his suit, Freeze makes a deal with Batman to obtain it for his help. Batman finds Freeze’s suit and takes a security override chip from it to disable his weapons. He then finds Penguin, wielding Freeze’s ice gun, which he is able to disable by using said override chip. Batman then takes out Penguin, but he creates an explosion that sends Batman to the depths below. There, Batman encounters Solomon Grundy once again, and the two battle. After Batman emerges victorious, Penguin decides to take matters into his own hands, but he is dispatched quickly as well. Batman takes Penguin back to Mr. Freeze, who traps the man in a display case in the museum. Batman presses Freeze about the cure, and he admits that it’s unusable, due to its volatility. Freeze requires some kind of regenerative enzyme, which he won’t be able to synthesize for decades. Batman reveals that he knows a man exposed to that enzyme for centurie: a 600-plus year old assassin named Rā's al Ghūl. Freeze asks him to retrieve a sample of al Ghūl’s blood, and suddenly, Batman is attacked by a nearby assassin who was also in one of Penguin’s display cases. The assassin, a member of Rā's al Ghūl’s “League of Assassins” then runs off. Batman determines the assassin to be a member of al Ghūl’s daughter, Talia’s elite guard. He follows her trail but is soon ambushed by a group of the assassins. Robin arrives and helps, scaring them off. Batman gives Robin a sample of his blood, sending him to have all of the blood at the local hospitals tested for the disease that’s in it. Following the assassin’s trail, Batman finds his way underground into the abandoned “Wonder City”, where he begins to feel the effects of Joker’s infection. There, Batman finds several of al Ghūl’s “Mechanical Guardians” before he is able to use one of the assassin’s swords to open a secret passage. As he travels through, his vitals begin to drastically drop, and he begins to see visions of his parents asking him to walk into the light. He fights this off, and continues on to find Talia. Talia initially slaps Batman, mentioning his not calling her after a night they spent together in Metropolis. He asks her where her father is, but she only responds by trying to seduce him. When she pulls up his mask to kiss him, however, she notices his face adorned with the effects of his illness. Batman reveals to her that he finally intends to take his place as her right hand, leading her army together as her father intended. She takes him to complete “The Demon Trials”, and he enters a room where he speaks with the disembodied spirit of Rā's al Ghūl, who provides him with a taste of the “Blood of the Demon”, the drink that has allowed Rā's to live for so long. This helps to heal Batman enough to successfully complete the trials, emerging on the other end to find al Ghūl in the flesh. Rā's reveals the final test to take his place as the leader of the League of Assassins: killing him. Batman refuses, angering Talia, who had been lied to. Rā's offers Batman what he’s looking for: a sample of his blood… on the condition that he spills it all in a fight to the death. He then jumps into a nearby “Lazarus Pit” (a pool of arcane chemicals that give him his eternal youth), which restores his body to fighting shape. Rā's takes Batman to a dreamscape where the two battle, but Batman is able to best the assassin, despite his supernatural abilities in this environment. Back in the real world, Rā's takes Talia hostage and threatens to kill her unless Batman kills him first. Batman is able to avoid this, however, by knocking him out with a Batarang. Afterwards, Batman takes a sample of his foe’s blood, and Rā's reveals that he was pushing Batman to kill him so he could take his place leading the League of Assassins since he knows he can’t continue to live forever, having used the Lazarus Pit far too many times for his body and mind to handle. Batman leaves him with a warning to stop his actions before leaving. Batman begins to head back to Freeze with the blood sample, but learns that Mayor Quincy Sharp has been brought into Arkham City, with its inhabitants turned against him. Batman finds Sharp, rescuing him from a group of Two-Faces men. Batman interrogates Sharp, who reveals that Strange offered to help him win his campaign for mayor through his “powerful friends”, as long as he “turned a blind eye” to the Doctor’s experiments. Batman tries to learn who these “powerful friends” are, but Sharp doesn’t know, leaving him now useless to Strange, and Batman. Batman then returns to the forensics lab to give the sample of Rā's al Ghūl’s blood to Mr. Freeze, who uses it to complete the antidote. Freeze creates two vials, locking one up in a safe, and then surprisingly destroying the second. Freeze then forces Batman to return his wife, Nora, from Joker in return for the locked up vial. The two then proceed to fight, with Batman being able to defeat Freeze before suffering from the effects of the disease once more. Batman leaves Freeze and opens the safe, finding that Harley Quinn had accessed the safe from the other side and stolen the antidote. Freeze, still wanting to get back at Joker, provides Batman with some weaponry, and afterwards, Batman promises to find Nora before leaving to take on the Joker. However, Joker shoots down reporter Vicki Vale’s helicopter, forcing him to rush and save her, providing Harley with enough time to get back to the Steel Mill safely. Batman enters the mill and receives bad news from Oracle: Hugo Strange, using the reasoning of the spread of illegal firearms (which he secretly provided), is given the approval by Gotham City High Council to initiate Protocol 10 in a half an hour. Batman reaches the Joker, who reveals himself to be looking back to his old, healthier self. He then initiates a battle including himself, some goons, Mr. Hammer, and a Titan powered clown, before Batman defeats them all and goes after Joker. Before he can reach him, however, the ceiling crashes down on Batman, incapacitating him. Out of the shadows emerges Talia al Ghūl, who offers Joker to not kill Batman, and in return she will provide him with the secret of immortality. Joker prepares to leave with her, and Talia activates Batman’s tracking device on herself, telling him to “follow your heart” as the pair leave Batman behind to pass out from the battle. Meanwhile, Catwoman is still being held captive by Poison Ivy, who reveals that the last of her flowers is being kept alive in Strange’s vault, prompting Catwoman to offer a deal to let her free and help her get into the vault in exchange for Catwoman entering it and stealing the flower back. Ivy reluctantly agrees, letting her go and creating an entrance into the vault using her vines. Catwoman takes out the vault’s security and makes her way into the vault. On her way, she learns that Batman is in the Steel Mill, and killing him will be the first action of Protocol 10, which commences moments later. Catwoman finds Ivy’s plant… and destroys it out of spite. She then retrieves two cases with the valuables she was after, while hearing another report that they have gotten Batman. Catwoman heads to the vault’s exit, and sees the trapped Batman on a surveillance screen. She fights with herself on whether to take the money and run, or help her on-again-off-again friend-slash-foe. Ultimately she chooses to take the money and run, leaving him to die at the hands of Strange and Tyger, causing the death of Commissioner Gordon and allowing Joker to take over Gotham. Just kidding, she heads off to the Steel Mill, leaving the cases behind. Catwoman reaches Batman before Tyger does, and frees him from the rubble, returning his favor from earlier in the night. Catwoman leaves, and Batman exits the Mill to learn that Protocol 10 is Strange’s plan to eliminate all of the inmates, criminal or not, inside Arkham City with missile strikes from Wonder Tower. Batman orders Oracle to shut down the tower while he rescues Talia from Joker, but she and Alfred convince him to instead go to the tower to ensure the missile strikes are prevented to save all of the lives inside Arkham City. Batman is able to make his way into Wonder Tower, where Strange blames Batman for the events at hand, claiming that without him escalating the crime of Gotham City, Protocol 10 would have never been necessary. Batman fights his way up the tower to reach Strange in his office at the very top, and knocks him down before allowing Oracle to connect to the tower’s network to shut down the missile strikes. Afterwards, Batman pushes Strange up to the window, forcing him to look out at the destruction he’s caused. Strange maintains his sick sense of pride, and claims that he has powerful friends who will allow his work to continue. Before he can continue his speech, he is suddenly impaled through the abdomen by none other than Rā's al Ghūl. Rā's reveals himself to be the true mastermind behind the whole plan. Rā's reveals that after Strange learned Batman’s true identity, he informed him of the secret, which prompted Rā's to give Hugo a chance to prove his worth in order to claim his place at the throne of the League of Assassins, as well as the Lazarus Pit. Knowing now that Hugo failed, he sees no reason to let him live. Rā's looks out at the wreckage of Arkham City, asking Batman to join him in his quest to wipe out the criminals of the world. Batman refuses, claiming that Rā's has finally become what he’s always fought against. Interrupting their conversation, Strange lets out his dying breath with five words: “Activate Protocol 11. Pass-code: Wayne” Suddenly, a countdown engages and Batman tackles Rā's through the window just before the tower self-destructs in a giant blast. Batman lands safely, but Rā's falls on a spike, impaling him through the chest. Joker contacts Batman through a video message, revealing Talia is alive, but in his captivity. Batman heads to the nearby Monarch Movie theater to find Joker, but when he arrives, Joker mysteriously asks Batman to give him the cure, who states that Joker already took the cure. In the confusion, Talia is able to break free and stab Joker in the chest, seemingly killing him. She then reveals that she had stolen the cure from Harley Quinn before she was able to give it to Joker. Batman begins to think back on the inconsistencies of Joker’s sickness throughout the night, then realizes that somehow there are two Jokers, but just as he does, Talia is shot and killed by the real Joker, who reveals himself to be extremely sick. As Batman lays Talia’s body down, his dead doppelganger begins to rise, and transforms to reveal himself to be Clayface, a former actor named Basil Karlo with the ability to shape his appearance however he sees fit. The pair engage in a gruelling fight in the abandoned movie theater, with Batman eventually emerging victorious over the hulking creature. This prompts Joker to create an explosion, collapsing the ground and taking the pair down below to a secret room with a Lazarus Pit. Batman uses Talia’s blade to defeat clayface for good before drinking half of the Titan cure, keeping the rest to use to replicate to save the citizens of Gotham, along with Joker. Joker then attempts to jump into the Lazarus Pit to gain immortality, but Batman throws the sword into a nearby generator, which knocks Clayface into the pit, combining his body mass with the chemicals, creating an explosive reaction that destroys the pit and knocks out Batman. When he wakes up, Joker taunts Batman that even though he knows the Joker killed a woman Batman loved and poisoned Gotham, Batman will still save his life. Batman looks at the cure and knows that if he provides it to Joker, he’ll only continue to take lives and wreak havoc, but before he can make a decision, Joker lunges and stabs Batman, causing him to drop, and destroy the cure. Batman admits that even with everything he’s done, he still would have saved the Joker. This gives the Joker his last laugh, as the clown then dies with a smile on his face. Batman then exits the theater holding the dead body of the Joker in his arms, while his men, Harley Quinn, and Catwoman look on. Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD arrive, and Batman delivers Joker’s body before walking away without a word. After Joker’s death, Catwoman returns home, only to find her apartment booby trapped with an explosive that knocks her out. Afterwards, Two-Face’s men arrive, who she promptly dispatches. Noticing her things are missing, she interrogates one of the men to find that Two-Face has them at the museum. Catwoman heads there and works her way around Two-Faces men to eventually reach the crime boss alone. He reveals that he gave away half of her loot while keeping the other half, and she knocks him out before leaving, where she is met with Batman. Catwoman then heads off to find the rest of her belongings, while Batman stays to finish his work in Arkham City. Throughout the rest of the night, Batman provides other assistance in Arkham City, including helping Bane destroy Titan containers to prevent its spread, solving more of Riddler’s riddles, securing Nora Fries’ frozen body for Mr. Freeze, being observed by a man named Azrael who claims Batman is part of an ancient prophecy to save Gotham, taking down and capturing Deadshot, dealing with and capturing the delusional, mind-controlling “Mad Hatter” (real name Jervis Tetch), tracking down and capturing Zsasz before he claims more victims, and finally: solving a string of murders and mutilations supposedly committed by “Bruce Wayne”, who turns out to be Bruce’s childhood friend: Thomas Elliot, who hates the Wayne family and plans to transform himself into Bruce to ruin his life. As Batman goes to leave Arkham City, he is attacked by an electric shock and knocked out of the sky, falling to the ground to discover his attacker to be Electrocutioner; or rather his apprentice who has taken up the mantle. Batman is able to use the weaponry he got from Mr Freeze to quickly take this new Elctrocutioner down before leaving him to be picked up by Gotham PD. However, after he leaves, an unknown figure dressed in armor arrives and puts a gun to Electrocutioner’s head. He states that Batman’s greatest power is instilling fear in criminals before pulling the trigger, killing the Electrocutioner and stating that his greatest power is knowing how meaningless these criminals' lives really are. The next day, Bruce Wayne awakens inside Wayne Manor, where he learns that Commissioner Gordon and Aaron Cash have begun cleaning up Arkham City. Alfred has a talk with Bruce about using his public persona to help Gotham instead of Batman, but Bruce holds steady in his stance that Batman is more useful. At the morgue, a pair of doctors perform an autopsy on Joker’s corpse. They discover a flap of artificial skin, which they peel back to find a hidden flash drive. As they open it, a plume of green gas fills the room, killing the doctors and leaving their faces in a twisted smile. Elsewhere, a group of GCPD officers are lured and attacked by Harley Quinn, but she is knocked out and captured by Detective Harvey Bullock, who takes her into police custody. At GCPD, she’s met by her temporary psychiatrist, who proceeds to evaluate her condition. Harley then easily removes her handcuffs and escapes the facility, stealing explosives from lockup on her way. Her and the remains of Joker’s gang then capture a SWAT team and hold them hostage at the Steel Mill. At the Steel Mill, Gordon orders his men to stand down and Batman arrives to speak to him. He orders Gordon to protect the perimeter, while Batman heads inside to find the captured GCPD officers. After fighting several of Quinn’s men and freeing a few of the hostages, Harley arrives to confront Batman. She shoots at one of the officers, but he jumps in front of the bullet, knocking him on the ground, unconscious. The goons try to take his utility belt, but it electrocutes one of them, causing him to drop it to the ground. They then drag Batman away to take him captive. Two days later, Oracle becomes worried about Batman going missing, and sends Robin to follow the tracking beacon on his utility belt to find him. Arriving at the Steel Mill, Robin takes out swarms of Harley’s thugs before finally locating the tracking beacon on the discarded utility belt. Robin continues to fight his way deeper into the Steel Mill, eventually finding Batman trapped in a giant Joker monument. Robin then heads off to find the security key to open the monument, finding Harley Quinn herself, who he steals the key from before suspending her from a ledge. When he returns to the Joker monument, he’s forced to fight the remainder of Quinn’s men, before using the key to free Batman. Now released, Batman gets his belt from Robin just before Harley reveals the explosives she stole. Batman sends Robin to rescue the remaining police hostages while he takes care of the bombs. Batman is able to disable the bombs before Harley arrives and releases some of the Mechanical Guardians stolen from Wonder City to fight him. After Batman destroys the robot army, Harley reveals she has more explosives hidden in the Joker monument, and threatens to detonate them before Batman grapples up to her and takes her down, stealing the detonator. He soon discovers, however, that the detonator was simply a decoy, as the explosives were on a countdown, about to blow. Outside, Gordon approaches the facility, but just as he does, the blast occurs, with Batman and Harley emerging from it safely. Gordon reveals that Robin never made it out, leading Harley to gloat that now Batman knows how it feels to lose someone he loves. She then goes after him with a knife, but is stopped by a throwing bird, which is caught by Robin, alive after all with the rescued cops. Seeing his partner safe, Batman then leaves without much of a word. Several nights later, Batman is out on patrol cleaning up the remaining criminals in Arkham City, including cousins Tweedledee and Tweedledum before Alfred convinces him to come home for the night to rest up for a business meeting Bruce Wayne has in the morning. Batman reluctantly agrees and at the meeting the next day, Bruce proposes a plan to rebuild Gotham along with Wayne Enterprises President Lucius Fox. After a ten hour meeting, Bruce and Lucius (who knows of Bruce’s identity as Batman, helping him develop his technology) head home, discussing Jim Gordon’s absence in the meeting. Batman returns to the Batcave, where suddenly a video message from Joker appears on the Batcomputer, where he reveals before he died, he was able to infiltrate the radio and television network towers, which allows him to broadcast this final message to the entire city. The Penguin watches this message from his headquarters with reunited brothers Mr. Hammer and Sickle. Penguin has brought them together to execute his plan of going after Wayne Enterprises to bring the Cobblepot family to the top of Gotham once again. He starts with sending them to go find Scarecrow and bring him back to him. Joker’s video includes a bounty of a million dollars to whoever can return his body to Harley Quinn, as well as a warning to Batman that he’s hidden bombs all around Arkham Asylum set to explode that night. Batman remembers a room under the asylum, “the gallows”, where he kept Joker in solitary confinement while he rid his skin of toxins years earlier and heads there to look for the bombs. He doesn’t find the explosives, but instead, Joker’s “Dieary”, containing the list of every person he’s ever killed. Afterwards, he hears another message from Joker, and as he flips to the last page, he sees the final name: “Batman”. Joker’s message reveals the room Batman is currently in is rigged to explode, triggered by a pressure sensitive plate under the book. Outside the Asylum is the armored figure that killed Electrocutioner, who had learned about Joker’s plan to kill Batman, as well as having Clayface move the explosives to the abandoned asylum. The figure tries to prevent the explosion so Batman can die on his terms instead of Jokers, but the bomb goes off, taking down Arkham Asylum, the Batmobile, and Batman himself. The armored figure finds only Batman’s tattered suit in the wreckage, but also finds Joker’s Dieary, which he takes with him as he escapes before the police arrive. Detective Bullock arrives on scene at Arkham and discovers the explosion, the destroyed Batmobile, and the tattered suit. He calls Gordon to tell him the bad news, and Gordon walks to the other room, where he’s currently keeping Joker’s body, and realizes that now it’s just the two of them. Meanwhile, Jonathan Crane is seen plotting his revenge against Batman. As he repairs his Scarecrow mask, he vows that Batman will pay for what he’s done, while fear will “tear Gotham to Shreds”. At the Gotham docks, Batman washes up on shore and protects a man being mugged by a Joker thug, borrowing some clothes from him afterwards. Bruce finds a payphone and calls Commissioner Gordon, asking him to meet, then calls Alfred to request a gear drop. After suiting back up, Batman meets Gordon at a crematorium outside of Gotham City. Jim hands over the flash drive to Batman before putting Joker’s body in the furnace, finally destroying the Joker and hopefully bringing an end to the harm he has caused. As Batman returns to the Batcave, he uploads the contents of the flash drive to the Batcomputer, and Alfred examines it to discover it contains “The Last Will and Testament of the Joker”. In the video, Joker tells his “origin story”, including him being rocketed from space to land on Earth where he killed his two wealthy circus clown parents. He rambles on with this ridiculous tale, eventually revealing that he has one final gift for Gotham; something more subtle: a bomb without the blast. After he finishes, Batman gets a frantic call from Commissioner Gordon, who reveals that somehow, Joker has infected him with his “Joker venom” before falling into a fit of insanity. Gordon tries to kill himself before falling under complete control, but Aaron Cash, now Lieutenant, stops him just as Batman bursts through the window and takes Gordon away. Meanwhile, in New Blackgate prison (constructed after the fire destroyed the previous one during the Arkham Asylum riots), Harleen Quinzel is sitting in her cell when suddenly Batman arrives and blasts a hole in the wall, breaking her free and dragging her into the Batwing. Batman takes them to Joker’s old hideout at the Steel Mill, where he leaves Gordon in the Batwing while taking Harley inside. Batman demands that Harley hand over a cure for Joker’s venom, and she seemingly has a sudden change of heart and tells him he can find it downstairs. Batman heads down there and finds the cure, but unfortunately also finds Killer Croc, hired by Harley to wait there to kill Batman when he arrives. Croc attacks Batman and pins him to the ground before destroying his utility belt and leaving him helpless. Elsewhere, Penguin is met by Mr. Hammer, who lets him know that Sickle found a lead on where Scarecrow is hiding out. He also reveals that Harley Quinn has arrived and is asking for him. Cash arrives at the Steel Mill to watch over Gordon, and Batman calls him while struggling with Croc. Batman tells Cash to bring Gordon down to the sewers to make sure he can get the cure before Croc destroys it, and Cash agrees, despite his fear of Croc having losing his hand to the beast years prior. Batman and Killer Croc continue their battle until Cash arrives and shoots Croc, distracting him long enough for Batman to fetch his ice blasts to freeze him in place. Batman and Cash then force feed the cure to Gordon, effectively removing the Joker-like effects from him immediately. At Penguin’s hideout, Harley arrives to speak to him. She claims that Batman and the Commissioner should currently be dead, and with them, as well as the Joker, gone, Gotham city will need new “leadership”. She then offers a new partnership with him before taking his hat and planting a kiss on his lips. In Gotham City, a pair of Harley’s thugs kidnap the owner of the local baseball team, along with his wife and daughter. The armored figure arrives once again, and the thugs mistake him to be Batman, a claim he scoffs off. He then rips a page out of the Joker’s Dieary, shoves it in one of the thug’s mouth, and lights it aflame, rescuing the family, but killing the henchmen. Later, Bruce Wayne presents his plan to reinvent Gotham at a press conference outside the old Arkham City gates. It’s well received, but suddenly gunfire begins to erupt from the crowd. One of the assailants captures Bruce and puts a gun to his head, but Bruce is able to break free and take out the attackers single-handedly before taking Lucius Fox to safety. Suddenly, Harley Quinn’s men arrive and Bruce is forced to fight them off as well, with a little unexpected help from Lucius. Afterwards, Lucius gets in his car and begins to take out his tablet, but Harley bursts through his driver-side window with a blade, threatening him with it. Later, Harley returns to the Penguin. Although he’s upset that Harley failed to take down Bruce Wayne, she reveals a tablet, which she had taken from Lucius, that they can use to hack into Wayne Enterprises’ network. Penguin is angered that the tablet is locked down by fingerprint security, but Harley reveals she has the solution: Lucius Fox’s disembodied finger. In Gotham’s Chinatown, the brothers Hammer and Sickle follow their lead to discover a strange, Batman-like Scarecrow, knowing their quest to find Doctor Jonathan Crane is reaching its conclusion. Later, Batman visits Lucius at the hospital. Lucius isn’t worried about the tablet, as he had security precautions set for it to wipe if it ever went 15 minutes without him logging on; though he is a little upset he won’t be able to type as well anymore. Batman leaves and calls Oracle. He asks her to track the tablet and the pair contemplate asking her father to run for the open position of Gotham City’s Mayor. Back in Chinatown, the two brothers search the area but are captured by Scarecrow, who uses his fear toxin to make them envision their nightmarish father while he holds them captive. Batman returns to the Batcave and meets with Robin, where they discuss Bruce’s trip to Germany with Lucius to find a company that can produce a replacement Batmobile while Batman deletes the Joker training program from the Batcomputer’s simulator. Sometime later, Bruce and Lucius land in Germany, where he and Batman meet with a man named Zimmer to produce the new Batmobile, one with “experimental additions”. The next morning, the pair fly back to Gotham. Meanwhile, in the Iceberg Lounge, Mr. Hammer returns to Penguin, re-attached to his siamese twin brother, who is now filled with straw, and he delivers an unknown message to Cobblepot. Sometime later, Penguin and Harley discuss the tablet, as well as their inability to get into it. They are able to get in for a mere second, but Penguin was able to pull the date and location for an unknown event, one he finds interesting enough to find out what it is. He then sends Harley to find the Tweedle cousins to assist. In Gotham, Batman battles with Kid Shark, the son of King Shark, still upset that his father died as part of the Suicide Squad. Gordon arrives and the pair eventually take out Kid Shark, then discuss Gordon’s potential retirement from the force, which Batman recommends before zipping off. In the abandoned Arkham City hospital, Penguin oversees the operation to re-detach Hammer and Sickle, and the Tweedle cousins arrive to meet him. Penguin offers them the job, then presents a security measure: someone he calls their “third wheel”. The Tweedles then head off and attach cables from a heavy-lift helicopter to a semi truck’s trailer to take it away. Meanwhile, Bruce and Lucius are waiting for the truck to arrive, containing the new and improved Batmobile. However, they soon get a call about the truck being stolen, and Bruce heads back to the Batcave to suit up. As the Tweedles go to escape, Batman arrives in the Batwing to stop the theft. He jumps on to the suspended trailer to retrieve it, but the “third wheel” reveals himself: a genetically engineered giant third cousin named “Tweedle Die” that attacks. Batman eventually outsmarts the brute, dodging his attacks to make him fall to the streets below as Batman enters the trailer and drives the new Batmobile out of it. He then grapples back up to the helicraft and takes out the original pair of Tweedles. As Batman goes to leave, two Gotham City Police Officers stop him and ask why he left the Tweedles alive. Batman, confused, asks them what they mean. They then tell him the word around the street is that he killed Electrocutioner along with several others. This angers Batman as he speeds off in his new vehicle. Hours later, at the Gotham Central Holding Facility, the armored figure appears once again with his shotgun, and kills the three Tweedle cousins. Sometime later, Bruce Wayne meets with Jim and Barbara Gordon at a park in Gotham. Barbara and Bruce present the idea of Jim running for Mayor, with Wayne backing him financially. Gordon initially refuses, but the pair push him and convince him to at least set up an exploratory committee. As Barbara leaves on her own, she’s attacked by one of Harley’s goons, but she makes quick work of him and takes him out, putting on her Batgirl mask to feel like old times. That night, Batman learns of new activity at the Iceberg Lounge in the old Arkham City, and he heads there to find what Penguin is up to. When he gets there, however, he finds it booby trapped with automated RPGs that fire at him. He escapes and suddenly sees the Bat Signal (Gordon’s personal spotlight on the sky that tells Batman he’s needed). He then speeds off to answer the call. Elsewhere, Penguin and Harley watch the surveillance footage of Batman getting attacked at the old Iceberg Lounge, and eagerly await his arrival at their new location. On his way to Gordon, Batman gets sidetracked and meets Archie Freeman, living in the abandoned Arkham City. Archie tells Batman that he believes in him, and hopes he is able to turn the city around. When two thugs arrive to rob Archie, Batman hides under the floorboards to ambush them and take them out, claiming the building is under his protection to prevent them from returning. The two then share a cup of coffee as Archie tells Batman stories of Gotham’s past. Around this time, The Riddler starts to get the idea that he’s the one ready to pick up the mantle left behind by the Joker. He begins by taking over Wonder City, stealing back the mechanical guardians from the Steel Mill to use in his greatest challenge for Batman yet. Shortly after, a package containing a flash drive arrives at GCPD, addressed to Joker. Naturally, Gordon gives this package to Batman, and he takes it back to the Batcave, where Oracle remotely examines it. Stored on it is a program with a countdown timer. They soon find out that when this countdown expires, somebody in Gotham dies (killed by Deadshot, as they soon discover). Thus begins Batman and Robin’s quest to solve the riddles laid out before them. They soon find that they are forced to work separately, but in tandem, to progress in the puzzle. Batman fights through various super criminals hired by Riddler to help in the scheme, including Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, and Mr. Freeze, while Robin is forced through extreme physical and mental challenges below ground. After they solve the initial set of puzzles, Batman is able to take out Deadshot to stop his contract killings for Riddler, while Robin escapes his underground tunnels to find a robotic suit made out of the mechanical guardians. However, during his puzzles, Robin was forced to eat a piece of paper containing nanomachines that give Riddler control over his body while he is in the suit. Robin emerges into Gotham, with Riddler forcing him to cause mass destruction using the suit’s weaponry. Batman runs in to solve the final puzzle to free Robin, while Gordon reluctantly commands GCPD to fire on them to prevent casualties. Batman is able to prevent Robin’s destruction, while also solving the riddle and freeing him from the suit. At this point, Riddler frees his control of Robin, and leaves them with a message congratulating them on their success, as well as thanking them for helping him test his new tools. It’s then that Batman realizes Riddler is done, but only for now, as he has just sent a giant message to the criminal underworld that he’s looking to take charge. Months later, Tim Drake is with his classmates on a visit to Wayne Labs when it’s attacked by some low-level gangsters looking to steal reserves of Titan they assume Wayne is keeping there. Tim dons his Robin costume and takes them out, allowing them to be captured by GCPD. This whole ordeal is then revealed to have been set up by the armored figure, looking to test Batman’s ward to determine his threat level. Sometime later, as Killer Croc is being transported by GCPD, he is busted out by Deadshot and Captain Boomerang, who welcome him into the “All-New Suicide Squad”. This new Suicide Squad (including fourth member Harley Quinn), as it turns out, has been hired by Penguin to hunt down and kill Bruce Wayne. As the Suicide Squad tracks Bruce Wayne, so does the armored figure, revealing he knows Batman’s secret identity.. The Suicide Squad tries to attack Bruce Wayne, but Batman arrives to intervene, and the group begin to battle with him, with Deadshot killing Boomerang in the process. Elsewhere, Amanda Waller surveys the situation, revealing she’s behind this new Suicide Squad as well, trying to get information on Penguin’s trafficking operations. Gordon is called in from his duties with his Mayoral Campaign to deal with the issue, and likewise, Alfred calls Nightwing to help deal with the Suicide Squad. Harley escapes and returns to Penguin to let him know about Batman breaking up their assassination attempt. Penguin isn’t deterred by this, and claims that killing Wayne was only supposed to be a warm-up for a bigger task for the Suicide Squad: to steal some experiments from the nearby Stagg Industries building. Meanwhile, Killer Croc has gone rogue, and Batman and Deadshot are forced to take him down together. After they force him back into the sewers, Batman tries to take Deadshot in, but he reveals he is working for the government again, and Batman reluctantly works with him to figure out what Penguin is up to as well. The pair make their way into Stagg Industries to find what Penguin was looking for. Batman comes across giant tanks marked “Project: Meta”. A scientist arrives with some heavy weaponry and tries to stop them, ending up shooting one of the tanks, causing some kind of gaseous figure to appear and attempt to take him. Batman protects the scientist, and the figure dissipates and disappears down a hole. The scientist reveals that the project is an experiment on the remains of Clayface’s mud to create a part-human organic creature, one that just went looking for a new energy source. Batman and Deadshot then head down the hole to search for this “Metamorph”. Bruce then gets a call from Nightwing, who is arriving in Gotham City. However, he is soon attacked and halted by the armored figure, who steals his motorcycle. Batman and Deadshot continue to look for the Metamorph, but it happens to find them first, capturing Batman and draining his life from him. Batman asks Deadshot to shoot it off of him, and Deadshot takes aim… but Gordon jumps in and stops him. Batman is able to escape from the Metamorph’s grasp, then throws a handful of sonic Batarangs into it, causing it to explode. Afterwards, Deadshot and Batman explain the situation to Gordon, who takes Deadshot under arrest for his prior crimes. At the police station, Waller bursts in to scold Gordon for capturing her operative before promptly leaving. On the roof, Batman arrives and drops off Bruce Wayne to protect him from his would-be assassins. This Batman, of course, is a decoy, and returns to Alfred to reveal himself to be Dick Grayson, who dons his Nightwing suit right after. Meanwhile, the armored figure plots at his own hideout, revealing that he had stolen the software from Nightwing’s motorcycle and transferred it to his own, giant tank (which he calls a “Cobra”). The tank was also built by the same German manufacturer Batman used to build the Batmobile, revealing this armored figure is aware of the Bat’s every move. Elsewhere, another figure from Batman’s past: Calendar Man, plots the day when he’ll kill the vigilante. One that is very imminent. A few days later, Tim and Barbara begin to pursue a romantic relationship and go on a date. Elsewhere, Batman is looking for Calendar Man after he killed a group of innocent people on Labor Day. He eventually finds him at the courthouse, and Calendar Man attacks him with a pair of electric gauntlets from someone he states “seems to know a lot about his technology”. Calendar Man then unleashes Solomon Grundy, who overwhelms Batman, causing Tim and Barbara to leave their date as Tim suits up and looks for him. Grundy fights Batman for days, causing his allies to grow more and more worried about him. Also surprised at his going missing is the armored figure, who learns from Deathstroke, indicating some sort of partnership between the two. He then goes to Central America to check on his privatized military corporation, who have recruited hundreds and acquired an arsenal of armaments and vehicles. After his days of torture, Calandar Man gives Batman a list of 365 names, each of them having been poisoned. He tells Batman he has 24 hours to save them, and sends him off to do so. Robin picks up Batman and then learns of the list of names. He, along with Batman’s many shaky allies (including Catwoman, Azrael, and the GCPD) begin to warn the poisoned citizens, bringing them to hospitals immediately. Alfred nurses Bruce back to health, and meanwhile, Scarecrow finds and confronts Calendar Man. He injects him with the fear toxin, and reveals what he has been working on: a way to use Batman’s greatest weapon, fear, against him. He takes Calendar Man to the top of a bridge, where he drops a kidnapped baby, but Batman arrives in time for the save. Calendar Man expresses anger at Scarecrow for not allowing him to kill Batman, but the former doctor expresses that that day will come soon, and he’ll make sure Calendar Man is there when it does. Sometime later, Firefly reappears in Gotham, and he is met by the armored figure, who takes him out and steals the money Firefly was trying to get away with. He goes back to his hideout to reveal he has been working with Scarecrow on some kind of big plan for both of them to get revenge on Batman. They intend to use the stolen money to pay off Gotham’s Rogues Gallery to go after him on the same night. As they talk, Scarecrow injects the figure with his fear toxin, forcing him to live out his greatest fears as well as his secret origins. When the figure wakes up, Scarecrow reveals he did this to force the man to live through his worst fears so he is prepared when they actually face him. The figure states that he has killed his past, and he will finish it by killing Batman as well. He grapples off as he and Scarecrow prepare for Gotham’s final night. In Blüdhaven, Poison Ivy uses her plants to take over the Police Department after getting arrested. Harley Quinn travels there, with Penguin’s help, to recruit Ivy to be a part of Scarecrow’s plan. After fighting her way through the Blüdhaven officers, she finds Ivy in the building’s basement, but she is met by Nightwing. She is able to fend off his attack, and Ivy’s plants drag him away. Harley then convinces Ivy to leave with her. Sometime later, Batman finds a group of Riddler’s, Penguin’s, and Two-Face’s henchmen, leading Batman to believe that the three bosses must be planning something big. Just then Harley Quinn bursts in, and the pair fight, but she is able to slip away. Meanwhile, the armored figure watches Jim Gordon reflecting on his roof, musing to himself that Gordon should enjoy what little peace he has left, as soon he will have his revenge against Batman. Later, Alfred asks Bruce to meet him in the Batcave, and when he suits up and arrives, Alfred reveals that he has lost contact with both Robin and Nightwing. Batman then checks Nightwing’s tracker, and finds it online, but not moving. Batman heads to the tracker’s location and unfortunately finds his old friend dead, murdered by a much stronger foe that obviously understood his fighting style intimately. Using his detective skills, he learns that the murder was observed by one of Penguin’s men. Batman heads to the Iceberg Lounge to find Penguin to figure out his involvement, and after taking out his men, he is able to interrogate Cobblepot. He reveals that his man was there by chance, and was about to tell him who he saw kill Nightwing before he was mysteriously killed in an explosion, probably caused by the killer. Batman then heads to the morgue to see if he can find any clues on the explosion’s victims. By examining the corpses, he determines the killer to be based in the sewers, so he heads there, and thankfully finds Robin, trapped in a mechanical cage, however. Even more troubling is that Killer Croc is swimming in the waters surrounding them. Batman is able to hold off Killer Croc by electrifying the cage, but when Batman finally releases Robin, Croc uses the opportunity to jump out of the water and kill Robin, while Batman isn’t able to do anything but watch. Suddenly, Batman finds himself in an elevator taking him down to the Arkham Asylum Intensive Treatment facility. He makes his way to a trio of cells, where he finds Scarface, Victor Zsasz, and finally: the Joker. Batman turns and finds himself in Joker’s cell. He then is forced to relive his friends’ deaths, coming to the shocking realization that it was him who killed Nightwing and led Robin to his death, due to Joker’s blood finally taking control of his body. As the walls of the cell begin to close in on him, Batman finally looks into the mirror and sees his reflection: the Joker, telling him that the “dynamic duo are together at last”. He lets out a chilling laugh before it’s all over...merely a dream, or rather a nightmare of Batman’s greatest fear. At some point, Batman calls Gordon to his hideout inside the abandoned Panessa Studios movie studio. There, Batman reveals to Gordon that when Joker sent his infected blood to the hospitals of Gotham, four patients were treated with it before they were able to retrieve it, and those patients have begun to develop Joker-like traits as the blood mutates them. Batman has gathered those patients and is holding them until he can find a cure to reverse the blood’s effects. One patient, Henry Adams, has been infected the longest, but is symptomless; seemingly immune to Joker’s blood, leading Batman and Robin to use his blood to try to develop the cure. Batman then reveals a fifth cell, intending on using it for himself if the Joker’s blood in his own veins starts to take over. On the night before Halloween, Scarecrow finally unleashes his master plan: releasing his new fear toxin in a diner, then threatening to release it on the entire city. Nearly the entire city of Gotham evacuates overnight, leaving only the criminals, super and not-so-super, behind to enjoy the chaos. Naturally, Batman and Commissioner Gordon stay behind to deal with the new threat, and meet together to speak about it. Gordon gets off the phone with Barbara, who tells him she has evacuated the city safely. Gordon has no leads on Scarecrow, however, so Batman heads off to begin his night of investigation. He starts by calling Oracle, revealing she had lied to her father about leaving the city. He soon finds Poison Ivy, being held by one of Scarecrow’s henchmen in an isolated cell. Scarecrow releases his fear toxin into the cell, and Ivy reveals her immunity to it. As the henchman gets overwhelmed by fear, Ivy slams his head into the glass, knocking him out. She then leaves the cell and fills Batman in on what she knows about Scarecrow’s plan. Scarecrow called a meeting with all of the super villains of Gotham to form a shaky alliance to take down Batman to gain control of Gotham for themselves. Ivy didn’t agree with the plan, and as such, she was locked up by Scarecrow. Batman then takes her in his custody, but as he goes to leave, he is met by the privatized military force, equipped with their Cobra Tanks. Batman uses the new Batmobile to neutralize the threats, and places Ivy inside the Batmobile before taking her to the Gotham City Police Department lockup. Afterwards, Batman meets with Oracle to try to track down where Scarecrow is producing the fear toxin. This leads him to Ace Chemicals, where a group of Scarecrow’s crew is still operating. When he gets there, the armored figure finally arrives to face Batman in a helicopter. However, before he can shoot missiles at the detective to kill him, Scarecrow disables his weaponry, telling him to be patient. The figure flies off, leaving Batman to instead deal with the privatized militia. Oracle researches the militia and discovers their leader is an armored figure, the same Batman had just seen, who goes by the name: the Arkham Knight. Batman fights through the militia and finds some captured employees of the facility, who reveal that Scarecrow is manufacturing a massive bomb to cover the entire East coast with the fear toxin. As he goes to leave he is stopped by the Arkham Knight, who reveals that he knows intimate details about Batman and his armor. He then delivers a warning that he intends to kill Batman that night, before leaving. Batman is able to rescue the workers and make his way to Scarecrow. There, Scarecrow initially surrenders, but threatens that if Batman doesn’t let him go, he’ll kill Barbara Gordon, who the Arkham Knight has just kidnapped. Scarecrow then escapes during this distraction, and Batman is forced to try to reduce the blast radius of the fear bomb. However, during his attempts, he is exposed to the fear gas, causing it to mix with the remains of the Joker’s mutated blood pumping through him, awakening Joker within him, causing him to have hallucinogenic visions of his former rival, making his worst nightmare to come true. Batman is able to escape Ace Chemicals as it explodes, successfully reducing the blast radius to prevent the toxin from escaping the facility. Batman then meets with Gordon to reveal that Barbara had been taken by Scarecrow, much to the Commissioner's surprise. The pair head to the clock tower to find that her capture was true, and Gordon begins to blame himself for Scarecrow targeting Barbara. However, Batman then reveals to Jim that Barbara was working for him all along, and he blames Batman, regretting ever trusting him in the first place before leaving. Batman then finds Catwoman, who is being held captive by Riddler with an explosive collar, forcing the bat to once again solve his trademark riddles throughout the city to save her, using his robotic mechanical guardians to distract them. Afterwards, Batman finds a site where Barbara’s kidnappers had crashed their vehicle, where he locates a flash card she hid for him to find. He then calls Lucius Fox to help him decrypt the data in the drive to use to pinpoint the Arkham Knight’s position. He follows this lead to an underground tunnel, where he is ambushed by the Arkham Knight, who again shows his knowledge of Batman’s armor by finding his weak point and shooting a bullet directly into it. He then leaves, again warning Batman that he’ll kill him before the night is over. Growing desperate, Batman hunts down one of Arkham Knight’s men and starts crushing his head under the Batmobile’s tire before he gives up his boss’ current whereabouts: the Penguin’s hideout. As Batman heads there, he is met by Nightwing, who arrived in Gotham after hearing about Barbara’s capture. The pair interrogate Penguin to learn that Scarecrow and Arkham Knight have gone to an airship to meet with the CEO of Stagg Enterprises, Simon Stagg. Batman sends Nightwing to search for Penguin’s caches throughout the city, while he heads to the airship to search for Stagg. Batman eventually finds the CEO and learns that he worked with Scarecrow to create something called “the Cloudburst”. Before Batman can learn what it is, Stagg is doused with Scarecrow’s fear toxin and is unable to reveal any more information. Batman is then ambushed by Scarecrow, who sprays Batman with the toxin as well, and he’s forced to fight within his own mind. Scarecrow escapes with this “Cloudburst”, and afterwards Batman learns that Barbara is in the safehouse he previously found Poison Ivy. He quickly heads there to find her, also affected by the fear toxin. She then grabs a nearby gun and tries to shoot Batman, but finds that she can’t harm him through the bullet proof glass. Panicked, in her last resort she shoots herself to escape her fears. Batman blames himself for Barbara’s death, informing Alfred, who surmises that Cloudburst is some kind of device that can disperse the fear toxin across the entire city of Gotham. Batman then heads to Poison Ivy, hoping to use her immunity to Scarecrow’s fear toxin to create a spore they can use to protect the city against the Cloudburst. He takes her to find a large, extremely old tree then helps her clear it’s roots so she can use it to create and disperse the spores when Scarecrow releases his toxin. Batman goes to the movie studio to check on Robin’s progress developing a cure for the Joker infection, deciding to forgo telling Tim about Barbara’s death so he can focus on the issue at hand. Batman then leaves to take out some of the Arkham Knight’s security forces, but when he returns, he finds that Harley Quinn has learned of the Joker victim’s, and has taken over the studio, releasing the victims throughout the various sets so the remnants of the Joker can live free. Batman rounds up the Joker victims, bringing them back to their cells. During this event, he begins to have visions of the Joker beating and killing Jason Todd, fighting his guilt for both his second Robin and Oracles’ deaths through his inaction. When Batman and Robin return with the final victim, as well as a captured Harley Quinn, they surprisingly find all of the other patients they returned dead in their cells. The only survivor is Henry Adams; finally showing symptoms of Joker’s blood. Henry reveals that he killed the other Jokers to “purify the gene pool” so only the strongest Joker survived. He then looks to Batman and realizes he would be the strongest one, before shooting himself in the head, leaving Batman as the sole survivor with Joker’s blood. Robin decides that with Batman potentially becoming the Joker at any minute, they must lock him in the cell and let Robin handle Scarecrow. Remembering his last Robin’s death, however, Batman instead locks up Robin and heads back out into Gotham to continue his hunt for Scarecrow and Arkham Knight. Batman goes to Ivy, but when he gets to her, the Arkham Knight releases the Cloudburst, filling the entire city with Scarecrow’s fear toxin. The gas disables the Batmobile, forcing Batman to go back to Stagg’s airship to acquire a power cell to power it. When he installs the power cell in the Batmobile, Batman is forced to expose himself to the fear toxin again, allowing the Joker to awaken more and more inside of him. Using the Batmobile, Batman is able to unblock another tree’s roots, allowing Ivy to use it to fight the toxin. He then heads off to destroy the Cloudburst, which he is successfully able to do, rescuing the Arkham Knight from the blast, who escapes shortly after when Batman is distracted by another vision of Joker. Batman calls Ivy but receives no response. He goes to her, and finds that she was successfully able to produce the toxin-clearing spores to save the city, but is overwhelmed by the effort, leaving her to die and disintegrate within Batman’s arms. Her spores then fill Gotham, replacing the fear toxin entirely. It’s at this point that Batman takes care of the several other events in the city. Firefly reappears, and Batman stops him from setting local firehouses ablaze and returns him to GCPD lockup; Mister Freeze arrives to rescue a kidnapped Nora, who’s cryo-tube fails, causing her to unfreeze and forcing Batman to protect her from the militia. Unfortunately this ends with Freeze losing all of his research on the cure for her disease, and the two leave Gotham to spend the rest of their days together. Batman also comes across an extremely weak Rā's al Ghūl, who survived their last encounter, but only barely, and is near death due to the lack of a Lazarus Pit. Batman finds a sample of the Lazarus chemical, but is met by al Ghūl’s other daughter, Nyssa Raatko, who is leading a group of rebel assassins. At this point, Batman can either save Rā's by giving him the Lazarus, leading to him killing his daughter, or he can destroy the machines keeping Rā's alive, letting the man die naturally. Either way, the League of Assassins finally leave Gotham afterwards. Azrael also reappears and trains to become his successor, but Batman learns that he has been brainwashed by “the Order” to kill Batman to take his place. Azrael can then attempt to kill Batman, or go after the Order for what they did to him. Batman also saves Jack Ryder from the “Cult of Blackfire” and their leader, Deacon Blackfire, as well as Warden Ranken from a mutated Killer Croc. Two-Face and Penguin are also stopped from committing their various illegal activities and arrested. Hush also reappears, taking Lucius Fox hostage at Wayne Tower, forcing Batman to reveal that he is Bruce Wayne to his former friend, distracting him long enough for Lucius to break free and knock him out. The Mad Hatter also reappears, taking Batman to another mind-controlled madworld before Batman escapes and captures him. A strange scientist named Professor Pyg also goes around kidnapping people to create his “Dollotrons”, but Batman stops and captures him as well. Batman also finds a strange, bat-like creature that he is able to transform back into his human form: Dr. Kirk Langstrom, who mixed his DNA with a vampire bat’s, causing him to go mad and accidentally kill his wife, he then locks Langstrom at GCPD as well. Finally, Batman is able to solve all of Riddler’s riddles and save Catwoman as well. Later, Batman learns that Gordon has found Scarecrow, and is going to murder him as revenge for his daughter’s death. Batman goes to follow him, but is chased by the Arkham Knight, in a giant excavator, who destroys the Batmobile, forcing Batman to escape on foot to find Gordon, who is captured and tied to a chair. The Arkham Knight arrives once again and finally reveals who he is: Jason Todd; Batman’s former partner and protege, who had survived Joker’s gunshot and was later rescued by Deathstroke. Jason spent the years growing more and more hateful for Batman giving up on searching for him, and instead leaving him for dead. He aims his pistol at Batman, but he punches his former friend before escaping into the shadows. Jason then throws his Arkham Knight helmet aside, revealing the helmet underneath, resembling a metallic red hood. After the ensuing battle, Batman is able to incapacitate Jason, and tries to appeal to him once more. When Batman calls Alfred to tell him that he found Jason, the young man escapes without a trace. Batman then goes to Gordon, and the pair share their apologies. Gordon reveals that Jason revealed Batman’s identity, and Gordon tells him that he never forgot consoling a young Bruce Wayne the night his parents died. The pair make their way to the roof of the building, where they find Scarecrow. Suddenly, Jim points his gun at Batman, and it’s revealed that Barbara was alive the whole time (her death merely being a fear toxin induced hallucination), and Gordon made a deal with Scarecrow to turn over Batman in exchange for Barbara. Jim then shoots Batman, who falls off the building. Scarecrow goes back on his deal, capturing Gordon and pushing Barabra off the building. Batman swoops in and catches her, calling in a prototype Batmobile to take her to GCPD for safety. Batman is then forced to fight the Arkham Knight’s militia, now working for Scarecrow, at the GCPD, and after a very arduous battle, Batman learns that Gordon’s voice had unlocked the hideout at the movie studios. He rushes there to find Robin missing, and receives a call from Scarecrow revealing he has him captive. He then tells Batman to go to a nearby storage facility, where he will be forced to unmask himself publicly or else Scarecrow will kill Gordon and Robin. Batman enters a storage truck and is pumped with more fear toxin, suffering another hallucination, reliving his parents’ death one more time before “killing” the Joker. The truck drives to the abandoned remains of Arkham Asylum, and Batman is wheeled inside on a standing stretcher. Scarecrow then forces Gordon to remove Batman’s mask in front of a live camera broadcasting to all of the news stations in Gotham. Jim removes his mask, and the world learns that Batman is none other than billionaire Bruce Waye, taking even Scarecrow by surprise. Scarecrow then injects Bruce directly with his most powerful fear toxin to break him in front of the public, but this only causes Joker to fully awaken and take over inside of Bruce’s mind. As Scarecrow tries to break Bruce, he grows frustrated when the Joker personality instead taunts him. He delivers another heavy dose of the toxin, and we then see that inside Bruce’s mind, Batman forces the Joker to face his own greatest fear: being gone and forgotten. Batman then regains control, and locks Joker in his Arkham cell deep in his mind for good. Back in the real world, Scarecrow continues to try to break Bruce down, but he shows an extreme resilience to fear. Scarecrow then claims that “without fear, life is meaningless”, before pulling a pistol on Bruce. Before he can fire, however, Jason arrives and shoots the gun out of his hand. He then frees Bruce, who turns Scarecrow’s own fear toxin on him, causing him to go mad before Gordon knocks him out. Batman then leaves, taking Scarecrow to GCPD for lockup. He then calls Alfred to tell him to prepare the “Knightfall Protocol”, activating it with the code phrase: “Martha”. Batman then takes out and arrests Deathstroke, who had taken over the remaining Militia forces, before returning to GCPD. Batman heads to the Bat-Signal Gordon used to call him and removes his cowl, leaving it there to begin the Knightfall Protocol. He heads home to Wayne Manor and enters with Alfred, in front of all of the TV news crews. As they enter, however, the entire mansion explodes into flame, presumably killing them both, as well as “the Batman”, for good. Sometime later, Gordon is elected Mayor of Gotham, and Tim and Barbara get engaged. In an alley behind a theater, a family is being mugged by a pair of criminals. On a rooftop nearby, a caped figure stands and watches. The thugs aren’t scared, knowing Batman is long gone. However, the figure erupts into a fiery display of a bat; the fear still keeping the criminals in check in Gotham. After Batman’s disappearance, his various partners continue his legacy by fighting the various criminals remaining in Gotham. Catwoman begins by getting her revenge on The Riddler, finding his robot factory before shutting it down and stealing all of his money while he is forced to observe from his cell at GCPD. A month after the Knightfall Protocol, Jason has taken up the name of the “Red Hood”, focusing again on vigilante justice, but breaking Batman’s rule of no-killing. He eventually finds Black Mask, and kicks him out a large window in his office, letting the crime lord fall to his death before leaving. Seeing as Robin and Oracle are off on their honeymoon, Nightwing is called in to stop Penguin and his men from staging a breakout at GCPD. With Lucius Fox’s help, he is successful, and Cobblepot returns to his imprisonment. Unfortunately for Tim and Barbara, they are eventually forced to cut their honeymoon short and return to Gotham to stop Two-Face after he is able to break out of jail. Oracle provides support as Tim works his way through Two-Face’s new hideout to eventually find the man. Two-Face initially gets the upper hand in battle, but during his signature coin flip, Robin takes him out and calls in GCPD, telling Barbara that unfortunately “the honeymoon is over”. This is the last moment we see in the Batman Arkham timeline, at least for now. But as we all know, while Bruce Wayne may be gone, the symbol of Batman never will be. Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching, and a huge thanks to everybody that helped in the production of this video, including the folks at the Arkham Fandom Wiki for their work in mapping out the timeline of the Arkhamverse, and obviously the wonderful Kreestin, who you should go follow on Twitch right now. Also a huge thanks goes out to my lovely Patrons and Channel Members, whose support is really the main reason this video was even possible. Their names are on screen now, and yours can too if you like my content enough to support. If not, that’s cool too, I’m honestly just happy you watched around 2 hours of content right here. Also I have a twitter, @SuggestiveGames, so go follow that; and you can pop in to our discord to chat and suggest other franchises to cover. Links also in the description. Thanks again everybody, be safe out there!

Channel: Suggestive Gaming

Views: 1,581,253

Rating: 4.9208231 out of 5

Keywords: batman arkham storyline, batman arkham story timeline, batman arkham story explained, batman arkham story recap, arkhamverse timeline, arkhamverse story, batman arkham story so far, arkhamverse story so far, batman arkham story summary, batman arkham asylum story, batman arkham city story, batman arkham knight story, batman arkham origins story, batman assault on arkham, batman assault on arkham story, batman origins, batman arkham complete story

Id: OIfsm2lZa54

Length: 123min 56sec (7436 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2020