Batman: Arkham Asylum/Headscratchers


  • So, Lucius Fox created Arkham's locks. And he works for Bruce. Why could not Batman use Fox's technology and create himself a secret key? Thus he wouldn't need any codes and hacking equipment.
    • It is possible for him to do so, but it will also have the dangerous effect of leaving behind a trail that can risk reveling Batman's identity. Imagine if Bruce Wayne personally ordered a personal overwrite code for all the security systems designed by Wayne-Tec, then Batman uses the same code to unlock doors. It will not be too hard for someone to put the two together and discover who Batman really is.
      • I believe in the Arkhamverse, as in the moviesverse, Lucius is pretty aware who Batman and Bruce wayne is. He could give personally Wayne the "key", and set it so the overwrite code didn't leave any log, or left a corrupted log, or even Luciu's own log, which he can later claim he gave Batman after being personally requested since the situation was so extreme. No links with Wayne would even be needed.
    • Investigator: "Batman, how did you obtain the codes needed to hack these unhackible locks?"

Batman: "I'm Batman"

  • Allegedly, there are security cameras all over Arkham Asylum, and there are a few places in the game where you can see rooms full of camera screens. Despite this, neither Batman nor Joker seems to take advantage of surveillance devices to find his respective enemy. Instead, Joker is alerted to Batman's presence by the suicide collars on the inmates Batman beats senseless, and Batman just moves from objective to objective without using any of Arkham's security systems to his advantage.
    • My guess that I'm sure has much supporting evidence: Joker (and/or Riddler's) fiddling probably made it difficult for Bats to hack into the security feed (plus the inmates were probably smashing the majority of cameras they find). And the Joker was more interested in having fun.
    • In the beginning of the game when the inmates first escaped, Some of the TV screens around the building will show security footage of the prisoners escaping. If you keep on watching for long enough, eventually the escaped prisoners will start smashing the cameras and the footage will turn into static.
    • And given some of the comments the Joker is making regarding Batman's actions, he's clearly watching Batman; the reason he doesn't use this further is because, in his mind, it wouldn't be any fun.
  • If Batman could summon the Batplane any time he wanted, why not use it to bypass some of the level maps, or fight some bosses?
    • The island isn't that big. That'd be like getting into your car to go next door. Plus, Batman is sneaking around. The Batplane is less than subtle.
    • The Joker hid all those bombs and threatened to detonate them if Batman left the island. If he hops in the plane and starts buzzing around, the Joker might take that as an attempt to flee.
      • Wait, are you talking about the bombs Oracle mentioned at the beginning of the game? Because those were fake.
      • The one bomb they found was fake. That doesn't mean that all of the bombs were fake. It's totally in character for the Joker to fill 99 out of 100 bombs with kittens and marzipan and make the last one real, or vice versa.
  • Killer Croc is a mutant, sure, but he's not REALLY aquatic, is he? Even real crocodiles don't have gills. How does he stay underwater for so long?
    • Giant lungs.
    • Maybe the creepy hissing and dripping sounds you hear are Croc coming up for air.
      • Plus, real crocodiles emerge themselves just enough out of the water to let their nostrils above the surface so that they can get air into their lungs. Maybe Killer Croc is doing the same thing, but due to the condition/coloration of the water, Bats doesn't see him doing so.
  • Batman uses some kind of communicator to stay in touch with Oracle, okay, that's fine, and Batman calls her Barbara a lot too, that is also fine. The problem is that Edward Nygma was able to hack into the comms, so if the Riddler can do it, surely he can find out who Batman is... and what's stopping someone else, like the Joker or Two-Face from doing it?
    • But the Riddler wouldn't want to hear Batman's secret identity, because it's the single greatest riddle the Riddler has to solve. And this Troper remembers reading something about the Riddler actually figuring out that Bruce Wayne is Batman, then employing the shrinks at Arkham to have that memory wiped.
    • But isn´t "Who Is The Batman" the greatest riddle of all?
      • Precisely. It's cheating if you figure out the greatest riddle of all by simply hacking a radio transmission; he wants to figure it out the hard way, or it doesn't count as a real achievement.
      • In comics continuity at least, Nygma figured out who Batman is years ago, but is literally incapable of telling anyone else because just giving away the answer to a riddle like that goes against everything he is.
        • Actually, in 'Hush', the big blockbuster storyline from a few years back, Eddie actually plans on exploiting his knowledge to all of Batman's foes after it 'came to him' following a dunk in a Lazarus Pit. Batman then promptly tells Riddler that knowledge of his identity is about as useless as a fence sat on by an elephant - Given the number of people Eddie played during the story - Especially Ra's Al Ghul, who would not be best pleased by a criminal using one of his Lazarus pits. So it's more that Bruce's ID as Batman is worthless if he reveals it because Ra's will just kill him.
          • Having just reread 'Hush'... not so much. Batman presents the Riddler with a riddle: "What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?" The Riddler responds, "Time to get a new fence. Everyone knows that one, it's worthless." And Batman says that's why he doesn't have to worry about Nygma blowing his cover - if everybody knew the answer, it wouldn't mean anything. If he was the only one who knew it, though... well, he couldn't just ruin that. The part about the League of Assassins coming after him for the Lazarus Pit affair was only a threat on top of it. The Riddler's psychological compulsions mean it was never really a huge threat in the first place.
            • I'm sorry to interrupt with something so unrelated, but you guys are saying the Riddler fell in a Lazarus pit too? As did Joker and Clayface in Arkham City? And Joker in the comics, when he became briefly sane? Tell me, how many of the Batman villains fell in the accursed things over the continuities? I reckoned they were supposed to be rare.
    • I could be remembering wrong, but it seemed like the Riddler's "hack" was only one-way. It allowed him to talk to Batman, but they never had any kind of back-and-forth. Sure, it could be that Batman was just playing Bat-possum by not responding to him, but wouldn't Bats have a protocol in place for if he thinks his comms are compromised (like changing frequencies or encryption keys)? If I were Batman (and I'm not saying I'm not), I would probably change the frequency/encryption of my chats with Oracle, but keep a second line open with the old frequency so that I could still hear Riddler's chatter (which could contain useful information).
    • Bear in mind what happens when you solve all his riddles/find all his trophies. Batman reveals that he was playing along to buy time while Oracle pinpointed his location and called the police. Is it really that far of a stretch to say that Batman and Oracle, in a Batman Gambit, knew Riddler was at-large and knew he was trying to hack their communications... and so -let- him hack into their systems precisely so they could track him down since they knew he couldn't resist taunting them?
  • Wait, how the hell did the Batmobile get through the locked doors to plow into Bane after his fight? And why are the doors still there after Bane's gone? Shouldn't they be open or blown away?
    • It's Batman. He probably has the doors programmed to open for his car to let it get to different parts of the grounds, probably along with all the other crazy stuff that investing in Arkham lets him do.
  • Wait... if all of Batman's upgrades are Wayne Tech, why does he have to pay experience points? Doesn't he own the company? Who keeps track of this currency? Is he just telling himself that he doesn't deserve the upgrades? I'm confused.
    • It's perhaps explained by the idea of escalation - Batman isn't bringing out the big guns right away because he doesn't think he needs them just yet. He isn't going to use special batarangs on a pair of mooks just because he can.
      • Also just becuase he's filthy rich doesn't mean his budget is infinite.
      • Gameplay and Story Segregation? Acceptable Break From Reality? It's not like these upgrades ever get brought up in story.
        • To the troper above; hey dude, if you're the sort of person who brings "Gameplay and Story Segregation" and "Acceptable Break From Reality" to the table, the Headscratcher pages really aren't for you. Every single comment here can be countered with those two tropes. It's kind of the point of headscratchers.
  • Here is a good one: the whole Project Titan. It begins with Doctor Young trying to make weak inmates stronger so that they can endure the "treatments" administered to them. This already raise some questions as to what kind of psychological treatment would require such measures. Then, Young experiments on Bane, of all people. The dude who was part of a Super Soldier project, because his Venom formula is exactly what she needs. That's right, to survive treatments in Arkham, you need to be an ultra muscular 15 foot tall behemoth...and it only get worse from here.
    • Ah, but this is actually a Fridge Brilliance moment. Listen to the Spirit of Arkham tapes again and you'll notice how the spirit mentions he's found a young doctor who's akin to him... i.e., a certain Dr Young. From that to conclude that she's a sadistic monster, despite her change of heart, well... and she isn't experimenting on Bane, she's extracting the Venom from his body so that she can create Titan.
      • Considering the Breather Boss died because he used an early version of Titan, it would make sense she'd want to refine it. However it becomes clear that she wants no part of it, once she realizes the danger of the drug.
    • The real question is what is the logic behind Dr. Young's development of the Titan formula? When Batman analyzes it, he discovers that it revolves around making the venom chemical so potent that it can cause a Bane-like transformation without a huge tank. When you consider what Titan's purpose is supposed to be (i.e. making patients stronger so that they can handle more strenuous treatments), wouldn't it make more sense to create a watered-down version of venom that would make weak inmates just a little stronger, as opposed to a tiny amount turning them into hulking monsters? I'm not entirely sure of what the thought process is behind this medicine.
      • It isn't meant to be that strong a formula. The first test subject you fight is one of the Joker's first test runs with his adapted version of the formula. If you listen to the audio tapes, she's stopped working on Titan before the games even begins.
      • The Joker's an accomplished chemist, so, chances are, after he'd gotten the "base" formula from Young, he fiddled with it himself to increase its potency.
      • It's actually explained during one of the voiceovers in the Intensive Treatment centre, spoken by Dr. Young. She was attempting to refine the Titan formula so that it could strengthen the bodies of weak patients. That way, the patients could better withstand treatment. Of course, the question is, what kind of treatment are they getting that requires such a robust constitution?
  • Here's a big one: How the hell did Riddler hide all those trophies? Seriously, they're hidden behind walls, metal grates, on miniature islands outside the batcave, and generally placed in spots that require Batman to use the full extent of his multi-thousand dollar costume and gadgets, but a spindly little prick like Riddler was able to hide them with what he could get from Arkham?
    • Remember how in the Riddler's fist interview he was revealed to have been beaten by his father for allegedly cheating? This happened in the comics too, but it was more regular than implied in the interview and more because Edward's father was jealous of his sons genius intellect. This caused him to compulsively reveal any deceit he makes, it just so happens that riddles also tied into his childhood and he can get around his impulse to tell the truth by leaving a riddle because if solved it does expose the truth.
    • One of his interview-tapes suggests that Joker'd let Riddler in on his plot. It's possible that Riddler's part in events was to slow Batman down through making puzzles for him in order to give Joker extra time to set everything up.
    • Rule of Fun.
    • Moreover, why the hell would Riddler hide maps that show the locations of his riddles? Theoretically, one could argue that it's because he wants to prove that you can't solve the riddles without hints, but even if you do collect them, he still goes into a berserk rage and accuses Batman of cheating when the police arrive to haul his ass away.
      • The answer is because he has to. Seriously. It's part of his obsessive-compulsive disorder. He literally has to leave the clues to his riddles where someone can find them. In fact there's an old Batman comic where the Riddler tries to commit crimes without leaving clues and riddles for Batman to find, and he discovers he just can't do it. It would be like Adrian Monk trying to not wipe his hands after he shakes hands with someone or trying to not touch every parking meter as he walks down the street. He can't. He's compelled to. Almost obsessively compelled, you might say...
      • Alternatively; the maps aren't for Batman's benefit, they're for the Riddler's. It's quite clear that, for all the Riddler's taunts and boasting , he's not nearly as smart as he likes to think he is, and not nearly as smart as Batman. He creates and hides the maps to remind him where he's previously put a riddle / trophy or where he's found a secret message so he doesn't accidentally double-up.
    • Because he's insane? Part of that insanity is that his compulsive need to create riddles and clues because be believes he's so smart that even with said clues, no one can figure it out. That's precisely why his ending is the way it is. He simply can not believe that someone -could- figure out his supposedly engimas. It also ties into his backstory via the interviews - he won a school trivia contest or some other contest involving high intelligence... by -cheating-. If he - the Riddler - had to cheat for stuff he himself thinks are enigmas, things he believes to be enigmas to others then -must- also be solved by cheating. A bunch of Insane Troll Logic sure but again... he's insane.
      • Every single one of you missed the point of the question entirely. He asked how he hid them, not why.
        • He paid off others? Considering you find the Ratcatcher's gear in a vent, it's not that big of a stretch to think that Riddler would have paid off different people to hid stuff while they're escaping or working.
    • Right, how he did it. Well, the Riddler's interviews reveal that he's been compulsively leaving riddles around Arkham during his earlier confinements. Could be that the sum total of riddles and trophies have been put there across a great number of years, originally to test the doctors and orderlies of the asylum. When Batman arrives, Riddler can't resist the opportunity to challenge him to find every single one of them. As for the ones behind walls, one might figure that the walls are weak because something was put behind them. Most prisoners would dig tunnels to escape - Riddler would do it just to test if someone would be smart enough to find his hiding spot.
    • For some of the more out-of-the-way and difficult to access ones; he hid those while he was escaping in the past; a sort of 'catch-me-if-you-can' little taunt to the wardens and police to see if they could figure out how he did it. The fact that a whole load of them are clumped together might indicate a frequent escape route he takes, which is gradually closed off to him the more that Batman finds. In particular, the trophies; they're gloating little markers to indicate that 'the Riddler escaped through here, peons!'
    • Not to mention that Riddler isn't above getting henchmen of his own or teaming up with others. Or for that matter, being an Insufferable Genius. He may have challenged or asked others to place trophies where he couldn't access or where they thought he might not be able to figure out. He figured it out, gloats, and leaves it there with a different hint to see if anyone can rise to his challenge.
    • Truly the ultimate riddle.
  • If Batman is capable of carrying all his equipment at once (zipline, batclaw, batarangs, etc.), why doesn't he start off the game with all of it? It could have been easily Handwaved by having the Arkham guards insist that Batman leave all (or most) of his stuff behind for security reasons, or that the Crazy Prepared Batman doesn't always know exactly which of his toys to bring.
    • The explosive gel is used to blast objects on the side opposite its own. This is why an Explosive Gel takedown requires a wall between it and the mooks. So when Batman gelled up his hand and punched Titan Joker with it, wouldn't Batman take the worst of the attack, not Joker?
      • In a way, he did. After the scene, you'll notice that Batman's arm is hanging limp at his side, which almost certainly means he broke it. I.e., Joker received a punch, to the face, with enough power to break bones. Good thing he was in super mode, else he'd be dead!
      • A gel takedown doesn't require a wall to hurt people. You can just pop some on the ground, then detonate it when the enemy get too close - it's a cheap way to handle Knife Nuts. With the auto-detonator upgrade, you can use it as a landmine.
    • Escalation and need. For instance, the sonic batarang. Up until that point, the suicide collars weren't being used so there was simply no reason for him to use them as they'd be no more effective than the batarangs he was already using. And while he could carry any and all toys he has, there'd be little reason too - no sense in packing an entire set of scuba gear on the off chance you might have to swim for 10 minutes. Explosive gel for instance while handy, is also not something someone who relies on stealth would ordinarily use especially when he operates in an urban environment where he can't always guarentee that innocents won't get hurt (and he probably doesn't want to go around blowing up people's houses like that either). One of the reasons I can see his liberal use of it in the game is because he -knows- where all the good guys are and the amount of damage the Joker has already done (and any potential traps left over) would necessitate renovating Arkham anyway. Redundancy also plays a factor - other than pure horizontal movement, the grapple is more or less superior to the zipline - the grapple is also superior to the batclaw in most cases. As the initial post said, he doesn't know what to bring - the game implies then, that he brings the general all-purpose tools that work in most situations and is relying on the player to assume this. On a gameplay level, it simply allows for exploration. On a story level, it allows for development and mimicking the comics where Batman's ingenuity for having what he needs (or making what he needs) at the right time. Note the ultra-batclaw is not something he had but something he made. It's also a way to demonstrate how Batman doesn't -need- his toys or fancy gimmicks; you, as a player, can beat the game using only the single batarang, grapple, and no upgrades beyond the required ones if you so wish. For instance, right about the time you can earn the advanced combat moves is right about when the game starts throwing larger groups of mooks and Elite mooks - i.e. Batman doesn't need to throw or insta-takedown small groups of unarmed/gun wielding mooks because his basic tactics work perfectly fine. Once they start using knives and stun batons which he can't necessarily defend against as easily (try taking away a sharpie pen from a little kid that doesn't want to give it to you. Now imagine that each line he makes on you is a knife wound), then he starts getting more brutal. The only thing that can't really be explained away would be the health upgrades - though it can sorta be handwaved in that the progression at which you can get armor upgrades also matchs the size and strength of the mooks you're facing meaning, symbolically, it's representing Batman's increasing determination and will.
      • Oh (and to break up the last bit), one reason I could also see him being willing to use the explosive gel so freely in Arkham is evident only by looking carefully. Note that the security system in Arkham is Wayne Tech. So, he has an ulterior motive for doing a little creative demolitions (even without the gel) - then he can jump in as Bruce Wayne and fund the re-construction of the place. This would allow him intimate knowledge of the place and to influence and install whatever he wants, figure out how the Joker infiltrated (and how others escaped), and resupply/expand/rebuild the Batcave there. It also allows him to recover any technology he may have left there.
    • In Arkham city, when Batman sends a request for his line launcher, Alfred suggests that Bruce might want to wear a bigger belt to carry all his stuff. Bruce replies that it slows him down too much, so he only grabs what he thinks he needs.
  • Why is Batman affected by the Scarecrow gas in the first place? Oftentimes in the comics - and it can also be said for Batman Begins - it is mentioned that he has developed antidotes against this gas and other variations of the same if he is not immune already. It's not like the other gadgets which presumably take more space and, because he was making an initially momentary visit to Arkham, he wasn't carrying at the beginning of the game. Carrying a little vial with antivenom in his belt wouldn't have been out of character for him.
    • It's plausible that the Scarecrow regularly develops new strains of fear toxin that render old antivenoms useless.
      • In fact, in one of the interview tapes in which Scarecrow demonstrates that he knows the Joker is coming back, he mentions having a new, even more potent version of his fear gas.
      • It's also important to note his reaction compared to everyone else's reaction. Everyone else ends up mentally crippled with fear, so much so that they more or less can't interact with the outside world. Batman? He hallucinates and sees things twisted but other wise is able to function and do things. He retains his basic spatial awareness and so forth and can still beat up thugs. Or get inside a locked room. The second fear trip ends up with Batman in the Asylum belltower... which requires you to break out and glide down the tower one-way. In other words, while in fear, Batman scaled a 100 ft tall tower and locked himself inside until the effects wore off. It's likely just like getting a new strain of the common cold - it takes a little for your body's immune system to react and adjust. This is likely the symbolic meaning of the end parts of the Scarecrow stages. You're 'beating' the drug by symbolically avoiding the effects, fighting/moving through the effects, and overcoming the effects by 'beating' Scarecrow.
      • Gas? I thought that it was injected, thus likely to be more powerful.
      • It's a gas. Every time it happens, there's a brief bit where Batman starts coughing.
      • It may be a gas most of the time, but if Scarecrow's Freddy Kruger-style hand is any indication, he can inject the stuff as well.
      • One of the Riddler's riddles requires you to find Jonathan Crane's hidey-hole in Arkham which is, among other things, filled with pictures of Batman. It appears that Crane has been studying Batman specifically to develop a strain that is likely to affect him, and has probably been taking into account old versions which Batman has developed or demonstrated an increased resistance to.
  • Among all the other cracks to be made at Arkham Asylum's nutcase architecture, there's several rooms that just don't make sense. Not just the Lampshaded bell-tower Batman locks himself in, but other places like the top floor of the library or an office with Harley's memorabilia. If you look around, there's no actual way to get to these otherwise completely ordinary rooms without crawling through air-vents and other videogame antics, meaning only Batman or a very dedicated janitor could reach them.
    • As I read somewhere else, possibly on this site, Arkham is a very old place, and it's possible that these rooms are part of old sections that have been built around and walled off as new additions have been made.
      • The above statement can be further proven at Harley's old office. Granted, the way in is via an air duct, but if you look around the outside, you'll notice an oddly walled-off area with a heater set in front of it - both in the middle of the hallway. This indicates that they sealed her room off after she changed to Harley Quinn.
  • Why is the Joker so very A-Ok with his Mooks killing Batman? Giving his The Only One Allowed to Defeat You attitude, you'd think he'd be pissed off when a Mook guns you down, rather than laughing and taunting you.
    • Because he knows your death is only temporary.
    • Because Batman being beat up by Mooks isn't funny/what he wanted/expected out of Batman? And if Batman's going to be a poor sport and ruin the joke/Joker's big moment, the Joker's not going to have anything to do with it. Screw Batman, in that case, he'll go find some other play mate like Superman that will 'play along'.
    • Because he's the Joker. If he decides that "Batman gunned down by random thug" is as funny as "Batman driven mad by my elaborate scheme" on a whim, he'll do it. Besides, the chances of Bats actually getting killed by his goons are pretty low if you know what you're doing.
      • Bingo. If you listen to the Joker's commentary during Predator sequences, he seems to find their getting picked off entertaining to watch (when he isn't annoyed at his mooks' incompetence). In addition to buying him time, he acts like the whole thing is a prank on his own men.
    • Besides all that, after you 'die', there's usually a scene of the Joker looking over you and making some comment, which implies that the thugs have only beaten Batman up enough for the Joker to finish him off.
    • In some challenge mode endings (and I think somewhere in the main game?) there is a quote that effectively explains this: "Yaaawn-a-roony. We both know you eat thugs like those for breakfast! I've got some real surprises in store for you!" While you do get an ending if you lose, canonically, no-one ever beats the Bat like that, and the Joker is perfectly aware that sending half a dozen hardened criminals with semi-automatics, as well as giant monsters, is not sending an army to fight one man, but equivalent to sending a few unarmed, crippled old men into a pit containing several large, starving lions.
      • ...Okay, extreme simile, but still accurate. Except that Batman is much, much more dangerous.
  • If Batman is crazy prepared, why does he not have a first aid kit?
    • That's... actually a very good question. I suppose you could argue that the health regeneration you get after you defeat mooks is supposed to symbolize Batman using a first-aid kit on himself.
    • He doesn't need one since he just spontaneously heals between encounters, of course!
  • Why does Batman, well known for never using guns, have a bullet drop compensator in his zoom scope?
    • Because he still has devices that shoot things, just not bullets.
    • Sleep darts. Worked for Solid Snake, will work for Batman.
  • How is knocking someone out and leaving them face-down in a stream/pool of water considered "non lethal"?
    • It isn't - that's why such devices are called less than lethal not non-lethal.
      • The only way it would be less than lethal is if someone came along and pulled their head out of the water. It's particularly ironic given the scene where Batman drops a mook into a room full of happy gas, and then says "I can't just leave him to die".
        • Seeing as the beaten mooks disappear from the fighting sites, I guess they are promptly carried away and treated by their comrades.
        • Or carried away and tortured and murdered for failure, as Joker implies many times.
        • "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you."
  • Changing the subject, why is the medical facility's sanatorium the only area in Arkham to be experiencing a thunderstorm?
  • I know, I know, I shouldn't ask this, but... when a goon is shot by a Titan Dart and grows, where does the extra body mass come from?
    • It's just full of hot air.
    • I've always just assumed it's like how it is with any other Applied Phlebotinum that makes people/things grow. It causes growth on a cellular level. Just like a baby growing into an adult, only much, much, much faster. Could also explain why Joker looks so old and withered in the teaser trailer for the sequel. Now as to where does the energy come from? Ya got me.
      • Comic book physics - they're funny that way.
  • Batman is at peak physical condition, can take on dozens of thugs without taking a hit, could easily compete in the Olympics, and... can't swim?
    • Hey, all that equipment (plus a soaking wet cape) is heavy.
    • He does swim. Fall into the water around the docks, or anywhere else that isn't off a cliff and then into the ocean, and Batman will simply pull himself back out. In fact, in Croc's lair, if you tumble into the water, Batman surfaces without trouble and treads water for about half a second—before Killer Croc drags him down to his death. Batman can swim just fine, he just never needs to swim in the game.
  • Am I the only one who was disappointed at seeing Ivy in the boss fight? Given that she was injected with Titan, I was actually expecting her to look like the Hulked-out superheroines in the current World War Hulks storyline (i.e. tall, thick, and with even more exaggerated curves than what was already there). And yes, I know that it "affected her differently", but still, I'm rather disappointed by that.
    • You may be the only one who was disappointed by that. Bothered? No, I'm right there with you. But I wasn't disappointed, per se. But in all seriousness, a big part of Ivy's shtick is her seduction. She also doesn't fight people hand-to-hand, instead using plants, since she's no threat on her own. It makes a weird sort of sense that giving her something that would give her superpowers a massive boost would affect her that way. Ivy's powers, in the simplest terms possible, are growing plants and being sexy. The Titan formula really helped with that.
    • Ivy wasn't injected with Titan, the plants were.
    • Also, a minor quibble with the first reply to this question. The Titan formula wasn't designed to boost superpowers, it was implied to have been designed to help patients withstand "therapy" by exposing them to a modified strain of Bane's Venom to enhance their physical capabilities. "Therapy" such as electroshock therapy or even worse therapy that would kill normal people. See this link and scroll down to the Trivia section to see why Dr. Young believed this would work. Basically, she thought the patients' genetics had to be stronger to deal with her "treatment". Dr. Young has issues.
  • Okay, we are told that the "bombs" the Joker scattered around Gotham to keep people away from Arkham were in fact just marzipan and kittens. This raises two questions: First, when the police discovered this, why didn't they send backup to Arkham Island? Second, if the Joker actually did bother to scatter crates full of marzipan and kittens around Gotham... well, why didn't he just plant real bombs instead?
    • What part of "completely insane" do you not understand? As for why... the police couldn't be sure that it wasn't exploding marzipan and kittens. It would be entirely in character for him to do something like that.
      • But the point of these "bombs" was to discourage people from helping out Batman on Arkham Island. By not planting real bombs, Joker was risking his entire plan, which sounds more stupid than insane. Essentially, Joker's plan was counting on the Gotham police department to be complete morons (which they admittedly probably are, but still!).
      • We're told that one of the bombs is Marzipan and kittens. But this is still the Joker we're talking about. He could have 99 kitten bombs around the city, and one real one just to screw with you. Remember the episode "Wild Cards"? Some of the bombs were real, some of the bombs were duds just to fuck with the JL's heads.
      • It could also be a case where he wanted to distract the cops but also keep others focused on him when the time was right, if bombs were going off arond the city he might not have had a chance to get that new helicopter to record his victory over Batman as they would have been busy covering the destruction
      • Not to mention the fact that the general public doesn't know about the marzipan and kittens. The cops would still have to deal with the mass hysteria in Gotham. Batman said as much to Gordon after beating Bane. Which makes Two-Face's bank robbery at the end much easier to accomplish.
  • When the Joker shoots himself with a Titan injection before the final boss fight, why is there only a puff of smoke? Shouldn't the same thing that hit Batman when he jumped in front of Gordon have lodged itself into the Joker's throat?
    • Maybe it got stuck in the barrel?
    • If that were the case, Joker would have never been injected with Titan......
      • I think it meant the dart hit Joker, then got stuck in the end of the barrel.
  • Did they explain how the Joker captured Commissioner Gordon again? Boyles captures him, Batman moves Heaven and Earth to save him and finally gets him to a police boat to go get control of the city. Then he just abruptly appears in the cell block for the Joker's big finale. If he got jumped by his own men twice in the same night, he really, really needs to invest in better background checks.
    • Maybe it's Clayface?
    • Nah. You see Clayface in his cell after Gordon goes back to Gotham.
      • Note that the "Arkham guard" on the boat has a visor over his face, and his voice was muffled. It's entirely possible that that was a slightly less burly thug in disguise.
  • I know, I know, I shouldn't be thinking like this. But if the Joker was so upset that Batman was 'resisting the change' while injected with Titan, why didn't he just shoot him again ?
    • Maybe Joker wanted to dose both Batman and himself the whole time? It'd explain why he just stops chasing Bats and sicks henchmen on you; he got bored, sent them in to wear you down, and decided to take you down himself once you shocked him with the generators.
    • Titan's a pretty unstable drug to inject into a man. A double dose would probably be fatal to anyone, including Batman.
  • Something that makes me wonder is why Killer Croc attacked Scarecrow. Weren't they supposed to be allies against their common enemy the Batman?
    • Killer Croc is little more than a wild beast at this point. The need to feed overrode everything else.
    • Besides, there's no indication that Killer Croc was a part of the Joker's plans.
    • Yes, but he should at least has some understanding of who is the real enemy and who could be a helpful ally to him.
    • I assumed the Joker put them both up to it as some kind of theatrics to fool Batman, but we'll see in the sequel.
    • I actually found this to be a highly realistic depiction of insanity, as far as Bat-media as a whole is concerned. A horrendously big ego, couple with lack of foresight, tend to be hallmarks of criminal insanity (especially the flamboyant kind that the Bat-Rogues possess). In other words, Croc didn't care that Scarecrow might have been able to help him, because in his mind, he didn't need any help.
    • May I add that Scarecrow was going to throw the fear toxin into Croc's sewer? Killer Croc needed Scarecrow stopped as much as Batman did.
    • Croc wasn't allied with the Joker (or anyone else for that matter), he pretty much just does what he wants.
    • Scarecrow (and, hence, Batman) was treading into Croc's territory. Chances are, to him, anyone that wanders into his lair is easy prey.
  • Something which bugged me which I put down as a What an Idiot! moment for Batman. Shortly before Doctor Young died, she told Batman that there was a secret lab in the asylum gardens where Titan was being manufactured but she dies before having a chance to tell him where the lab is. Immediately after this, Batman goes chasing after Harley Quinn who has taken the warden hostage. The chase leads him through the cell-block for the super-powered inmates, where a pained Poison Ivy begs Batman for help as she can feel the suffering of the plants in the garden. His reaction to this news is to tell Ivy that he doesn't have time to deal with it and warns her not to try escaping because he has enough to worry about without her running loose. Granted that Batman is going to put the Warden's life first, but you might expect him to take this information and try and use Ivy as a means of locating the lab, since Ivy - crazed as she is - is usually depicted as being fairly honest when it comes to protecting "her babies".
    • You might also expect him to keep quiet on exactly how bad the situation is, if only to discourage Ivy from trying to make things even more difficult.
    • At that point, Batman has no evidence to draw any connection between Titan and the plants' suffering. He only realizes it's made with plants after he wrecks the lab.
    • Plus, this is Poison Ivy we're talking about here—she's always ranting on about how plants are suffering and in pain (usually due to those evil humans) whenever Batman encounters her; he probably thinks she's just dealing in her usual schtick and doesn't have time for it.
    • As for honesty, I might have had exposure to different stories than the OP but 'babies' or not, in most, if not all of their past dealings, Ivy has rarely, if ever, given Batman a reason why he should believe a single word she says under any circumstances; she has zero credibility with him. For all he knows, she is lying—and even if she's not, then for all he knows she's going to take the first opportunity she can to attack him, plants or not. Batman has no reason to trust Ivy under any circumstances, and she hasn't given him a reason why he suddenly should start trusting her now.
  • The mugs, thugs, and lugs can all fire heavy-duty machine guns at Batman and never ever once hit one of their own. Even when he's waded into a crowd of mooks.
    • Presumably the guns are given to sharpshooters, rather than just anyone.
    • I don't know about you, but if someone fires a rapid, propelled grappling hook at me, even if I know its coming, I can't just 'shrug-dodge' it.
      • You're presumably not a huge, muscle-bound thug though.
    • An explosion powerful enough to destroy a wall or floor only stuns thugs.
      • Note that Batman's own detective mode notes that the walls that the explosive is bringing down are practically falling apart anyway—you can see right through them in detective mode, even without it there's usually large holes in it, and once you get the final Bat-Claw you can pull them down fairly easily without explosives. Presumably the explosive is very mild but is nevertheless capable of bringing those walls down.
    • Batman can get worn down or tired out until he falls. The thugs must be knocked out cleanly and fully.
      • The mooks get pretty 'worn down' as well—usually, after you knock them down the first time, there's a moment where they just lie there dazed. Thing is, there's usually several of them and one Batman, meaning that if one of them goes down for a moment there's others to keep going while they get their wits back, while if Batman goes down that's it for him—note that one of them usually shouts "get him on the ground and stomp on his face!", meaning that if Batman goes down all the mooks assembled just keep whaling into him until he doesn't get back up again.
    • Until this game, I was unaware that knives and electric stun-batons enhance your health and serve as personal force fields.
      • IIRC, the mooks with knives were "high security patients" or something like that—perhaps the reason that they're high security is because they're really buff or whatever, and take more force to bring down?
      • Perhaps it's the other way around; they were dangerous, so the guards around their area carried knives and electric batons to deal with them. When the breakdown started, they were the ones near the guards with these weapons.
  • Is anyone else bothered by the fact that Batman telling someone to stay put because 'you should be safe' is pretty much the kiss of death? Seriously, with the exception of Cash and a few doctors in the medical wing literally every person Batman saves and gives the whole 'it's ok, you're safe now!' speech to dies a horrible, grizzly death the instant Bats turns his back. It all seems to stem from the fact that he doesn't bother to restrain any of the mooks he takes down with non-lethal force. A few hours later, these guys are waking up and they're still pissed over the pain of taking a batfist to the balls and they're looking to work that rage out on someone.
    • I agree, it made Batman look terribly ineffectual and having your triumphs constantly undone because cutscene-Batman wouldn't take his opportunity to put the Joker down was frustrating.
      • And to make matters worse, he shows more emotion when his car gets trashed than when the guards and orderlies get murdered. Save some guards, come back later to see their corpses strung up like pinatas and Batman won't say a thing (and if he does it's in a tone of vague annoyance). Go check on the Batmobile after its alarm goes off and Batman says, with noticeable anger in his voice, "Harley trashed the car..."
      • 'Ineffectual'? The man who essentially puts down an entire asylum of rioting prisoners practically single-handedly in one night? A bit harsh, surely? As for showing no emotion upon murdered orderlies, that's true in a few cases (but he perhaps reasons that finding and stopping the people who did this to them would be a more effective way of honouring them rather than breaking down and angsting about it), but then there's the scene in the Botanical Gardens where, after the Joker narrowly escapes from him, he comes across some orderlies he'd previously saved that the Joker killed. He sounds a lot more angry and sickened about that this than he does when his goons trash his car.
    • This isn't entirely fair to Batman. For one thing, in most cases of this kind of chatter it's not actually Batman who's saying that they're safe; it's the guards who upon seeing Batman sigh things like "it's okay, it's safe, we've got things under control now"; it's actually Batman who's telling them that they still need to be on the alert, and that the Joker is unpredictable and that things might happen that they might not expect. They're armed with machine guns and work at Arkham of all places, and he can't be everywhere at once and protect everyone; he can surely be forgiven for assuming they aren't going to just stand around with their thumbs up their asses and can take care of themselves to some degree. If memory serves, those who Batman does say are safe are those who he's just plucked from the clutches of death and are a bit freaked out and need some reassurance (and most of whom, if memory serves, actually do end up okay). He also presumably assumes that they understand that he's speaking relatively and that they shouldn't put their feet up and read the newspaper just yet; 'should be safe' isn't the same as '100% safe', after all.
      • Not to mention, you guys just pile everything on Batman's shoulders, don't you? You're saying Batman should not only beat inmate unconcious, but also zeal for the safety of the guards who were stupposed to be doing the job he is doing for them? If Batman breaks someone's arm in a takedown and then the guy gets up later, and with his ragtag bunch of bat-broken-bones-brothers kill security guards who are not only healthy, but also weraing better protection equipment and better weapons, I'm blaming the guards innefectuality at defending themselves. If it's not the thugs Batman breaks who kill the guards, but Joker himself or Harley Quinn, well, he can hardly be blamed for not having Superman's hearing to know the guards are in danger or Flash's speed to get there in time to save them. He did all he could given the situation.
  • How come that everybody sees the Spirit of Arkham, or Quincy Sharp, as a Complete Monster? Sure he wants to lobotomize Harley and burn Ivy alive, and other stuff but considering who they are, it's probably the most pragmatic decision that exists so far, and after taking their shits for so long, I think the people of Gotham would agree to let him do it without complaning.
    • ...You think wanting to burn someone alive for existing is "the most pragmatic decision"? Sweet Jesus, what is wrong with you?
    • Wel,l she has killed hundreds of people according to the interviews, and sending in the SWAT-team to take her down would be difficult with those powers of her. The burning part would probably be the best way to take her down before more lives are taken.
    • You do understand what "burning someone alive" means, right? It's not exactly a quick and painless way to kill someone. In fact, it's cruel, painful, and long. Calling it "pragmatic" in any way, especially when they have her locked up already is just plain wrong. If you really needed to end her life to save others, you could just shoot her. Not kill her in one of the most painful and cruel ways imaginable.
    • Still it doesn't justifice Sharp's Complete Monster status. Perhaps "burning her alive" is maybe a bit too far but he hasn't (yet, anyway) killed hundreds of innocent people just For the Evulz like the average complete monster does. Right now he's just in on the inmates, and lets face it: if he actually just shot them all, Gotham would be a much happier place.
    • And like I said before, just shooting her would be difficult thanks to her "creating giant monster plants" powers. Bullets doesn't work one single bit on plants, but flamethrowers do.
    • Yes, but a quick-acting poison would kill her as well, and it's not as painfully as burning alive. Also, this Troper got the impression that the messages we saw were only a small part of it, and that Sharp planned similar "Treatments" for every patient in Arkham, not just the one's specifically referred to in the messages.
    • Sharp wasn't speaking in the context of "She's broken out and is currently threatening the city and hundreds of thousands of lives." He was speaking in the context of, "We've got her tied up, she's not currently a threat to anyone, BURN THE WITCH! CLEANSE THE EVIL FILTH!" He's not talking about stopping a rampaging monster while she's on the rampage, he's talking about murdering someone in the most painful way he can come up with, just because she exists.
    • Yea, yea, I get it: you think burning a mass murderer to death is wrong but, as I said before, it still doesn't justifice his Complete Monster status. The burning part maybe at worst a Moral Event Horizon, but a Complete Monster is someone that cross them so many times that you begin to lose the count. But right now he hasn't crossed any form of it, at least physically. His MEHs are just thoughts in his head right now, which clearly had been pushed over the edge by the actual monsters. He's a supervillain hating Knight Templar at his worst, but not a Complete Monster. It takes more than just thinking of killing supervillains "for just existing" to be one.
      • Yea yea I get it: you think burning a mass murderer to death is wrong but as I said before: it still doesn't justifice his Complete Monster status. Yes. Yes it does. Your logic is so twisted it might as well be a pretzel. The fact that he takes a hard line against criminals and maniacs does not justify the means by which he intends to deal with them. Imagine, for a moment, if Adolf Hitler had only sent dangerous psychotics and criminals to the Nazi death camps. Would that have made him less of a monster?
        • Um, yes, it would. Killing innocents is rather a different kettle of fish to being extremely harsh towards the guilty.
          • No, it wouldn't. Criminals are still human beings. And unless they are fairly tried, convicted, and sentenced to be executed by a jury of their peers, they don't deserve to be killed. Furthermore, Arkham is first and foremost a hospital. It's meant to be a place of healing and therapy, not a private torture den for a sadistic maniac.
          • No, it would. The crime of Hitler's death camps was they were for the innocents; those put in them were guilty of nothing more than existing, and were not, fundamentally, dangerous to others. Had they been criminals and psychotics, they would be guilty; perhaps you could argue the magnitude of the punishment was not justified, but it's a far lesser crime to punish the guilty excessively than to massacre those who are not guilty. In fact, the very comparison is ludicrous; we're talking about unrepentant mass murderers, people who very much are guilty, who think nothing of torturing people for shits and giggles (Harley, Zsasz, Scarecrow), or murdering entire cities (Joker) or the entire human race and most other forms of life (Ivy). None of these people are innocent; they are dangerous as long as they continue to exist. The patient records make it plain that the professionals believe the Joker cannot be cured and that the Scarecrow might not even be insane. A better comparison, therefore, would be to say if you put Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and others like them into a death camp, would anyone give a flying shit what you did to them? And the answer is a big "no." You find the situation creepy because an ugly man wants to kill two attractive women and you find that triggers your chivalry reflex. That's all there is to it.
            • Actually, the answer is 'yes' for plenty of people. You don't lose your human rights because you're a disgusting evil human being. Because they're, you know, human rights.
              • Bullshit. There's a huge difference between those guilty of terrible crimes who have expressed no remorse whatsoever and those guilty of simply being Jews. The fact that you don't know what that difference is suggests you have a very tenuous grip on reality. You do lose some of your human rights as a criminal; you lose your right to privacy, your right to freedom of movement, and so on. Nevermind that Ivy is not in the strictest sense a human and certainly doesn't self-identify as one.
          • Third party here: the key word here is "dangerous". A drug lord that has murdered hundreds of people but is now unarmed and in custody is a criminal but not dangerous. The Joker can conceivably turn the contents of a janitor's closet into deadly nerve gas. There's just no comparison.
          • Another third party: Sharp's status as a Complete Monster really depends on WHO we are talking about here. In the case of Harley: yes, it would be horrendous for Sharp to give her a lobotomy, but there's a reason for that: Time. In the comics, we've seen that Harley actually does get better if the Joker isn't around to influence her. In some cases, she's even gone and done some super-heroing of her own. This proves that there is hope that Harley can make a recovery. Yet if we are talking about people like Killer Croc, Poison Ivy and the Joker, Sharp's reaction to them is very natural. They are monsters who, by their actions, have proved themselves to be a constant threat. And given that they can escape Arkham so easily, locking them up just amounts to delaying the danger long enough for new fodder to come along.
            • Well, that does rather depend on whether you consider that Harley to be the same one; certainly, a lot of the sympathy for game-Harley comes from her portrayals in other media (especially the adorable Animated version of her) but I'm not sure there's any reason to regard the one in the game as an extension of those characters rather than a character in her own right. Let's face it, usually Harley isn't the type to gun down, electrocute and torture people for the hell of it, either.
              • I can't help but notice that no one mentioned the fact that Sharp apparently beat an inmate to death, with his bare hands, for no reason other than that he was angry. He's a horrible person.
                • Yeah, it's worth remembering that surely Arkham doesn't JUST take people like the Joker, who are dangerous in or out. I mean, we're talking about an institution for the mentally ill, criminal or not, being used for some sort of sick revenge power trip. Where he apparently deliberately wants to use the most horrific forms of execution possible for no reason except personal desire, like burning people to death. That's... pretty damn fucked up, no matter what their crimes were.
                  • I think you'll find it's an instituition for the criminally insane, actually.
                  • Review the chronicles: He views every single inmate as little more than a gibbering animal that deserves nothing but torture and death. Look at the Asylum itself: Everything, from the procedures (the whole human experimentation thing) to the guards (a chronicle mentions guards that beat an inmate to a stain) to the equipment (electric floors, some very creepy stuff at the medical facility) is designed to go beyond "cautionary measures due to superpowered inmates" to "let's make their lives hell until we get an excuse to kill them". And much of the equipment is modern, which means Sharpe deliberately bought them to be such.
                    • Also: When he thought about torturing & lobotomizing Harley, she was still in the "good psychiatrist being seduced by the Joker" phase. No proof of heinous action, nor of unrecoverable madness.
      • Another third party: yes, most of the inmates of Arkham Asylum are themselves Complete Monsters and few would shed tears if they were disposed of in some fashion. But there's, say, shooting someone in the head and then there's burning someone alive. Both are forms of murder, but one is relatively quick and painless and the other is agonizing, long and sadistic. Sharp's a Complete Monster (at least on a theoretical level) because he wants to lower himself to the level of Complete Monsters like the Joker, Poison Ivy, etc—i.e. people who murder people gruesomely and sadistically for their own pleasure and amusement; it's fairly clear that, for all his high-falutin' talk about being Gotham's savior, Sharp gets off on the idea of burning Poison Ivy alive and lobotomising Harley Quinn. You don't stop being a Complete Monster just because your intended victims are also Complete Monsters.
      • I'm a fourth party! Alright, let us assume that Sharp's concern about letting supervillains live is justified. Let us also assume that none of the supervillains can ever be rehabilitated, ever. Well then, all Sharp has to do is tell Batman, "No, I don't want lunatics like Croc/Joker/Harley/Scarecrow/Ivy/Everyone Else You've Ever Brought Here in my hospital. Take these monsters to Blackgate and let them get the death penalty." Instead, he takes personal custody of creatures he thinks are monsters, developing his intention to kill them as soon as they walk in the door. Furthermore, he decides to kill them by torturous means; electrocution, or burning, when there is no evidence that any of these "animals," as he calls them, are immune to conventional weapons. That is why he is a monster; not because the ends he believes in are necessarily wrong, but because he pursues those ends in the most arbitrarily cruel way available to him. If you assume that the Chronicles are censored for his benefit, he looks even worse.
      • Fifth party! I'm going with the original poster. Quincy Sharp is NOT a complete monster. He's like the Punisher. He'll do horrible things to Killer Croc, the Joker, and Poison Ivy, but he's not going to slaughter children or burn pregnant women on a whim. He may be a bad guy, but he's still a good guy compared to the bad guys.
        • ..."Good guy compared to the bad guys." You realize that, in the case of Joker at least, that is a VERY easy criteria to meet? I think the real argument we need to be having here is whether or not a Well-Intentioned Extremist can also be a Complete Monster.
        • Well, do you consider the Punisher to be a Complete Monster?
          • Um, yes ? What, was that supposed to be a difficult question ? He's a murdering sociopath. If the Punisher was a real person he would be on the death row, and rightly so.
          • Then YMMV, because while I do not see him as a hero, I don't see him as a monster.
        • Sixth party; reread the spirit of Arkham bio once you have all the chronicles. He doesn't want to kill Joker or Ivy or Croc because they've killed people, he wants to kill them because they are insane. It says right there in his 'facts' section that he wants to kill all insane people as a result of self-loathing for his own problems. So he is nothing like the Punisher who, at heart, is a good person and only goes after the worst criminals while leaving the lesser ones alone. Sharp wants to horribly and painfully slaughter everyone with a hint of mental illness, which combined with his position as the head of an Asylum which is meant to help the insane makes him a Complete Monster. So yes, he would murder children and pregnant women if they are insane, because he views any form of insanity as a cancer on the city that needs to be purged.
        • Wouldn't that make Ra's al-Ghul and Quincy a lot alike? Both are, basically, Well Intentional Extremists. Also, if their intentions are good, can they still be considered Complete Monsters? It says on the Complete Monsters page that a Well Intentional Extremist cannot be considered a true, complete monster.
        • Seventh party. Someone delete this long, painful, and superfluous debate, please?
        • Sixth party again, no. This is the purpose of the headscratchers section. To the guy above you, no, Ghul and Quincy are nothing alike. Ra's al-Ghul wants to make a better world of the sake of making a better world no matter the methods, Quincy wants to kill insane people because he himself is insane and he can't accept that someone as 'good' as him has such a defect, so he has to take it out on anyone with mental illnesses, from the Joker all the way down to little babies. Read the Spirit of Arkham's facts section after you have all the clues; it spells his motivations out quite clearly that he's omnicidal against any form of mental illness.
        • Eight party. Okay, burning Ivy alive is wrong. But does she really have human rights anymore? I remember reading somewhere she considers herself a plant and not a human.
        • Nth Party—Ivy is also completely insane and delusional; she doesn't lose her human rights just because of that. Otherwise a lot of people who suffered the unfortunate delusion that they were extraterrestrials would also be in trouble. Granted, with her connection to plants there are certain physiological issues and affinities that could affect this and complicate the issue, but it's perhaps sufficient to say that she's human enough to qualify.
        • This here is a tenth party just coming to say that I agree with the second party. The one that said Quincy is a monster. The first party guy was quick to point out if Hitler only killed criminals, he'd be good (which I myself find a dubious claim), but Quincy isn't killing only criminals, he kills insane people. Even the ones who are harmlessy insane. You know that old man who lives under the bridge and who shouts at his cats? Burned alive. Know who else burned those? Hitler. Not the fake would-be hero Hitler either.
    • Going with this discussion - in Arkham City it apparently turns out that Sharp becomes the mayor of Gotham. How could this have happened? Batman would have definitely figured out who he was if the player can, so why didn't Batman go out of his way to stop Sharp especially given the kind of person he is and the fact that someone like that shouldn't be mayor of the whole city?
      • Even with the Chronicles on the island, Batman can't prove that Sharp was the one who wrote them. Riddler placed a huge amount of trophies and puzzles all over the island, so people who weren't on the island could just as easily say it was his work.
        • More to the point, though, would you walk into a lunatic asylum dressed as a bat and tell them to arrest the warden because a bunch of talking, paving slabs told you he was evil?
        • To be fair, if said man dressed as a bat had saved the city more times than could be remembered and was responsible for apprehending most of the psychotic lunatics housed within said asylum in the first place, bat-suit or not I'd probably give him the time of day at least.
  • Why don't any of the mooks wear shoes?
    • Perhaps there was a rush of violent shoe-murders at Arkham in the past...
    • Dangerous asylum inmates generally aren't allowed hard footwear, both to ensure they don't hurt anybody with them, and to make escape attempts more difficult. Presumably they decided to use the same standard on the Blackgate inmates while in Arkham.
  • Why is Killer Croc's old cell filled with skeletons? Like, seriously, there were like 30 or so skulls in there and two full skeletons. Are those real? If so, why werent they cleaned when Croc was confined to the catacombs before the start of the story and given a proper burial. If they are props, then who the heck gave him those and figured it would help rehabilitate him?
    • Probably real skeletons, and the Arkham staff just didn't care enough to get rid of them. They're not exactly a paragon of human decency.
    • FWIW, I don't think the staff at Arkham had any plans to rehabilitate him. If they did, they wouldn't leave him sealed up inside the catacombs. Wandering unsupervised through the sewers and eating dead cows can't be any better for Croc's mental health than sleeping in a room full of skulls. Clearly they've given up all hope of curing him. Well, maybe Dr. Young had aspirations to cure him, but she was young and naive despite her (alleged) medical brilliance. If she'd been working there as long as some of the other staff, she'd know better.
    • Why the hell was he even kept in Medical in the first place? Aren't there only doctors around there? And if you look at his jail cell, the bars have been torn apart. If he's meant to be shown as a monster, why didn't he go around killing all the doctors in Medical?
      • Considering that Croc can be described as a 'special needs' inmate, perhaps keeping him in Medical was initially thought the logical thing to do rather than the cell block? And presumably there would have been guards in the medical facility as well. And perhaps when he first came to Arkham, he wasn't quite as monstrous as he is now. Of course, it's also possible that when we look at that cell we see the reason they don't keep him there anymore?
  • Why doesn't Batman Just Batarang Joker in a few cutscenes? I know the justification for the elevator scene (it might have sent Joker falling to his death...not that Batman couldn't CATCH him, but that's beside the point), but Batman's face-to-face with Joker in several other scenes. The one that really got me was the cutscene preceding the time you fight a real Titan mook. Or rather a pair of them.. Joker is RIGHT THERE, with only two, easily-dispatchable untransformed mooks between you and him. Batarang or Batclaw Joker right then and there, and boom, game over.
    • The reasoning behind Batman's non-killing of villains is that if he takes the law into his own hands, he admits the system is so hopelessly broken that his claims of fighting for justice are meaningless. Killing the Joker would prove him right and mean everything Batman claims he stands for is a lie told for the sake of convenience. Not to say this is a perfect moral stance by any means, but Batman's goal is to help the police in their work, not replace the entire justice system with himself. In the latter cases, I don't think putting Joker down for a short time would really have helped any, and had he missed he'd have hit the cases of Titan formula and probably killed the lot of them.
    • The cases do get hit in the ensuing battle, with a small green explosion, as the Titan henchmen charge into them (Also, if you manage to beat the Titan Mooks without them destroying the tanks, you then have to do it yourself with some gel before the story will continue). That's why Batman says the production facility is "destroyed" even though he never does anything after the battle. A better justification might be that the Joker would just dodge it, since even regular Mooks can dodge Batarangs and Batclaws when they see it coming, and the Joker is probably quicker than the average Mook.
  • Why didn't Batman try to turn Ivy *against* the Joker when he first encounters her? She BEGS for his help because her 'babies' are in pain (presumably from being experimented on by the Joker), and, instead of taking this golden opportunity to pit a villain with actual superpowers (who he can, nonetheless, easily take down later) against the Joker, Batman is just a dick to her, and it ends up biting him in the ass later when she gets Titan'd. It really shows an uncharacteristic lack of planning on Batman's part.
    • Because he's Batman? Not only is releasing a dangerous supervillain something he, by definition, would never do, but Ivy could've easily killed the Joker (something Batman wouldn't allow) and she could've been a far bigger threat for the city (the Joker's bombs were fake and he was focusing on him, but we know a previous attack from Ivy would've killed everyone in Gotham if Batman hadn't stopped her) and she's both insane and unreliable... Not to mention, Batman doesn't know the Joker is going to release Ivy because he doesn't know the Joker needs Ivy. If she's in her cage, she's not a threat, but if he releases her, he knows for sure he's going to have to defeat her later. And you think Batman isn't planning?
    • At that point in time he did not know Titan was produced with plants. There was no information he could give her, even if he wanted to.
    • Still. How much effort would it have taken to humour her and say, "Sure, Ivy. Tell me where those flowers are and I'll try to help them out. Or at least not step on them." It's not like he had to actually follow through.[1] Every other villain in this damn place is on the loose, you'd think that taking a very simple precaution against one of them hating his guts and being out for his blood once she inevitably escapes would at least be a consideration. Also, if he had been a little nicer, he may not have had to strangle one of her "babies" to get her to help him, thus royally pissing her off. Nice move, genius.
      • Ivy is an insane murderous plant-monster supervillain. She is not, and never will be, on Batman's "side" and he damn well knows it. The very first thing Ivy would do if Batman set her loose is kill him and then kill anyone else who crossed her path. Batman would have to be a drooling moron to trust her for even one second.
        • I didn't say he should let her out or, god forbid, trust her. Because you are exactly right: She is insane. Hence why I didn't even mention opening her cell. I simply suggested that maybe being slightly less antagonistic toward a psycho when other psychos trying to kill you could easily let her out to hunt you down as well might have been a decent idea.
          • Just because she's mentally unbalanced doesn't mean she won't respond to intimidation and coercion. And Batman is all about intimidation and coercion. Also, if I may bring comics continuity into the discussion for a moment, it's been explained that Batman has much more to lose by acting "nice" to criminals than he has to gain. His #1 weapon is his ability to inspire fear. He can't inspire fear if it starts getting around how "nice" he is.
          • Yes, Ivy is insane. But why does Batman trust her when she says that the counter to Titan is hidden in Killer Croc's lair? Shouldn't he think "Hmm, I just pissed her off royally and she's sending me to the most dangerous place on the island." Maybe he should have checked everywhere else before going there. Hey, he could have thought about that plant hidden in a secret lab in the medical building or something.
          • At that point, they clearly have mutual goals; Batman's realized that she was right about the Titan, Ivy's already out, has no reason to lie and makes no secret of the fact that she wants Joker stopped, it's only later when the Titan's affecting her that she changes her mind. Sending Batman on a fool's errand is just going to delay her goals, so she has no reason to. In any case, the whole point of lying to someone in order to manipulate them into a trap is to make them think they're going somewhere reasonably safe but where there is actually an unexpected danger so that they're unprepared, not to tell them up front that there's huge danger waiting for them if they go there (say, a huge, pissed-off crocodile man who's made no secret of his desire to eat them) but they have to go there anyway for realsies; that way, they're already prepared for danger. And by that point, Batman's hand is kind of forced; he still clearly doesn't trust Ivy as far as he can throw her (even if he now does believe she was telling the truth about the plants), but he's on a bit of a clock and doesn't have the time or resources to scour the entire island before he goes to where she's sent him just in case she's lying.
    • Ivy in the game's continuity (as in other continuities) is a manipulative bitch who likes to play the Damsel in Distress card to get men to do what she wants. Presumably Batman knows this, and he's rough with her because he knows that if he gives an inch, she'll take a foot, and from there every acre of Arkham Island. Also, Batman's not the type to lie about what he's going to do, and he may have wanted to leave his options open in case it became necessary to burn the whole greenhouse, or something.
    • Plus, for all he knows at that point, she's lying, or is just dealing in her usual "plants are suffering because of those evil humans!" schtick, and it's not like he's got copious amounts of free time to humor her at that point.
    • The problem here is that Ivy, like the majority of Batman's Rogues gallery isn't insane as in random. She's insane with her gimmick. It was unlikely that she was lying about her babies being in pain and while letting her out wasn't really an option being polite was. Even let out the larger reason not to let her out isn't that she's be a threat to Batman but that she might kill Joker.
  • At the beginning of the game, Batman has about as much health as the mooks he's fighting. However, Batman's in a suit that's at least semi-armored, while the inmates have just their prison clothes, and because he's Batman, he's presumably going for maximum damage with every strike. The inmates can also get up after being knocked to the ground two or three times. Wouldn't you think that the superhero who routinely trains could do more damage than the men who have been sitting in prison for who-knows-how-long?
    • Not necessarily. Prisoners work out too, remember? And realistically, "training" only goes so far when it comes to increasing the amount of damage you can do with a punch. Batman may be Crazy Prepared but he's still a normal man with no special powers. He can only hit so hard.
    • Who says Batman has same health? Mook goes down in 3 hit combo, rolls around and unless knocked out by Ground Takedown, he will get up after a while. Compare Batman, who can take numerous punches, knive hits, stun battons and bullets and still keep going before he finaly falls down from exhaustion. Only reason why we don't see him getting up is that usualy there are several thugs ready to beat him while he is down, AKA Batman gets mug version of Ground Takedown. In 1-on-1 fight, Batman wins without much of a fight, 3 punches and while the guy rolss around trying to get his bearings, Batman punches him into face hard enough to knock him out. It's just that usualy there are atleast 3 mooks who don't wait you to finish with one guy.
  • Ground takedowns. Specifically, the inability to cancel them or interrupt them in any way, shape or form. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but one of the Cosmetic Awards requires you to use a ground takedown in a combo, and enemies usually try to attack you just as you're in the middle of one. Couldn't Batman, say, backhand his attacker while squatting on the guy on the ground, preventing him from getting while preventing his enemy from doing damage?
    • You can do a ground takedown at the end of a combo, such as when you've got three of them and they're all dazed on the ground. Still annoying though.
  • This technically has more to do with the sequel, but my problem springs from something in this game. OK, Warden Sharpe took credit for the defeat of the Joker and used that to springboard a successful mayoral campaign. But here's my question: how did he take credit for that? The final battle with the Joker was seen by several news helicopters, and it would be easy to tell that it was Batman who beat the Joker once and for all. The best I can think of is that Sharp claimed that he gave Batman a lot of advice on how to move through Arkham and take down the inmates. Granted, the sequel isn't even out, so it's possible there's a good answer to this that hasn't been revealed yet.
    • Well, do we know that the news copters were broadcasting the footage live? If not, then Sharpe could have somehow intercepted the footage and prevented it from being aired. I don't know how he would do this, but if he somehow did, then he could make up whatever story he pleased. The only people who can credibly argue against him would be the people on the helicopters at the time, but he could just pay those people off. Alternatively, he could have claimed that Batman just beat the Joker up at the end and it was Sharpe's leadership that held Arkham together and allowed the staff to regain control of the facility. A savvy political campaign coupled with a series of generous payoffs to silence whistle-blowers (and maybe a healthy dose of ballot fraud) could easily carry that message to an electoral victory.
      • Just checked Youtube. Yeah, at least one of those copters was broadcasting live. Your second theory sounds pretty good, though.
  • Why is it so degrading to use the internet to find everything the Riddler left out? Isn't it in Batman's style to use every resource he has to best the bad guys?
    • Fridge Brilliance!
    • ...Okay, fair point. But when dealing with the Riddler, the typical (or stereotypical) way Batman defeats his riddles is by simply thinking them out in his head. Likely an artifact from the days of the Silver Age when there was no internet to search for the answers.
    • Being Batman's style to use all resources doesn't mean the Riddler isn't going to take the piss out of him for getting answers, rather than solving the riddles himself.
    • No doubt someone like the Riddler, who places great premium on pure intellectual ability in unpacking complex puzzles, is going to view looking up answers on Google as 'cheating' somehow. It's also worth noting that accusations of using the Internet start coming less when the Riddler's in 'smug gloating' mode and more in 'getting pissed off now' mode; he's angry and hurling around accusations because it beats considering the alternative that Batman's just cleverer than him.
    • As said elsewhere, Riddler is insane. In Arkham City, he accuses Batman of cheating while cheating himself (the Have a Nice Death hint even says Riddler is cheating if you fail the shell game).
  • What was the Joker planning to do with all the people on his party list? The list, as shown when Batman took it off Harley, read Selina Kyle (Catwoman), Harvey Dent (Two-Face), Jervis Tetch (Mad Hatter), Basil Karlo (Clayface), Waylon Jones (Killer Croc), Oswald Cobblepot (Penguin), Arnold Wesker (Ventriloquist) and Luke Oliver (?). All the names except Karlo, Jones, and Oliver are crossed out. There are frowns next to the first three names, smiles next to the next two, and the others are unknown due to Batman's hand being in the way. Most of the people on that list don't show up in the game, and the only villains who are in the game to make it on the list are Clayface and Croc (And Clayface doesn't even contribute to the story). What does it mean?
    • Knowing the Joker? He might have just been, honest to gods, planning to have a party once Batman was out of the way. The first three probably have frowns because they're unable to attend (read: not in the game), while Clayface and Croc are smileys because they are in the game.
      • And Crane, Zsasz, Bane and Ivy weren't invited (In fact Ivy was definitively mentioned as not being invited)?
      • Crane would spike the punch, Zsasz would cheat at pin the tail on the Bat by stabbing people, Bane is a horrible dancer, and Ivy won't share her stash.
      • Regarding Luke Oliver, he was the winner of a Gamestop contest to get your name and likeness in the game. His face was used for the bearded thug in the red jumpsuit in the cell near Clayface.
    • Pained as I am to present a serious answer to the question after this wonderful little theory, it seems obvious - the frowny faces denote that the person in question is susceptible to the Titan formula. Think about it - Killer Croc and Clayface are the only two on that list with notably different biologies, due to being, respecitvely, repitlian and made of mud. Makes sense that they wouldn't be affected by the titan formula, or at least, not in the way the Joker wants. Presumably these are the people he's planning on turning into Bane 2.0. If nothing else, Luke Oliver's presence shows it's not big-name-exclusive. Those guys are probably the first names to come up. Plus, it would perfectly fit the Joker's warped sense of humour to have his army composed of his colleagues/allies/rivals/nemeses/whatever the Joker thinks of them this particular Tuesday.
    • Well, Catwoman is pretty much a good guy, and Two-Face is out robbing banks, so obviously they wouldn't be able to attend (besides the fact that Selina is never in Arkham anyway...). Mad Hatter already has his own tea party (it is sort of his thing), so he wouldn't endorse the Joker's non-Wonderland themed party. Scarface is found in Arkham, so we can guess that Wesker is currently 'cured' of his condition. The Penguin, meanwhile, is presumably out being the Penguin somewhere in Gotham. Meanwhile, Killer Croc, Clayface and Luke Oliver (aka the Tri-Limbed Menace) are in the Asylum, but Joker hasn't got around to inviting them yet: Killer Croc, because he's rampaging; Clayface, because he's disguised; and Luke, because no-one actually knows who he is.
  • Why don't the indoor guard posts, along with a number of other areas, have doors? Why is Arkham just relying on an electric force field to keep their staff safe in the event of a riot? Breakouts at Arkham might be easier to prevent, or at least contain, if every area of the building had actual, physical doors. Instead of, you know, a force field, because when that thing fails due to someone simply cutting the power, you now have absolutely nothing between your guard post and all of the lunatics in the building. Sure, a lot of the doors lock electronically—and therefore can conceivably be unlocked the same way—but at least you can blockade a door. Considering people in this game aren't affected by the Insurmountable Waist High Fence clause, shoving a desk in an open doorway once your force field fails won't help much.
    • Agreed. Most of the survivors from the night are ones that happened to be able to shut themselves behind a door or barricade of some sort, e.g. Doctors in the medical facility, Warden Sharp etc.
    • It's possible they do. Maybe there's some sort of failsafe that drops a three-inch metal door in place if the power cuts out. Of course the real answer is because it gave the devs a reason to include the frequency-matching mini game.
      • Totally agreed on the part about the dev team. In-game, however, it makes little sense. Wouldn't it be far more sensible (and, hell, cost efficient) to simply have plain old doors? Because if there really is a failsafe, clearly the safety part was a failure. Good old-fashioned doors still seems like the best option. I mean, make the doors as high tech as you want—lock electronically, require an assprint scan to open, whatever. But at least have them be reinforced doors that open inward. All a person would have to do then is shove a desk or other heavy object(s) in front of the door. Presto! Instant barricade. I'm not saying it'd be a perfect defense, but it's gotta be better than nothing at all.
      • Possible Fridge Brilliance: Warden Sharp is clearly making an effort to trump how 'modern', 'up-to-date' and 'effective' Arkham is as a psychiatric unit as part of his mayoral campaign (just look at the whole 'Arkham Care' branding and the advertisements in the Medical Facility), and part of this is getting stylish, up-to-the-minute electronic security doors rather than 'out-dated' regular ones. As with most things about Sharp, however, they sound a lot better on paper than they do in practice.
  • Why is the Batwing so loud? In the comics, it's got a stealth mode that's depicted as so silent that it could hover right above you and you wouldn't notice, as well as having an intimidation mode that is used to scare enemies into submission through its engine's thunderous roar. I don't get why Batman would have it's engines running at full noise level if there's no one to intimidate after the botanical gardens Titan fight. Or is it that there's no stealth mode on that one? Or is it just to create a very epic Crowning Moment of Awesome for the Batwing?
    • The "stealth mode" is probably an active system. Not running it when it isn't necessary (like when Batman is in an empty room with no one to hide from) saves power and fuel.
    • Plus, even with 'stealth mode' a large jet plane is going to be so quiet when it's right next to you. It's not a UFO, after all.
  • Why isn't The Joker's mental clarity and voice affected after he changes to a Titan? Everyone else that's injected ends up roaring, growling and charging at Batman, but the Joker is still able to taunt him and wave at news choppers. Granted the Joker is differently insane, but why doesn't his voice change?
    • If the devs are really the Batman fanboys they seem to be, maybe they were squeeing so hard at Mark Hamill's Joker voice that they couldn't bring themselves to distort it.
    • Batman was able to resist the change for a while, so it's possible that the Joker was able to resist the mental changes while still letting himself become a monster.
    • The Joker states outright that he is experimenting and asks nobody to even LOOK at him or they would ruin the surprise. He was actively testing on himself with what parts of the formula he DID know. He's also always been a master chemist, and his biology could very well be unique if he did take a dip in an acid bath. Also, the Joker is ALWAYS obeying whims, doing what he wants to. His voice never changed because he was always in line with the effects of the transformation. Also, it was THE PUNCHLINE. The Joker, Clown Prince of Crime, and the Bat dueling in front of all of Gotham as the monsters they really are... At least that was the plan. Bats turned him down, which made the entire point of the takeover lost. That's why the Joker loses interest in the fight, the party was ruined so he focused on the still fun future of tearing apart Gotham and having fun with that. It is a bit of a tragedy that Bats never changed, it would have been interesting to say the least. Lastly, his Titan at the end was definitely the good stuff, refined and tested thoroughly, he probably brought out the good China. Batman would have most likely maintained his sanity, or the lack of it, since the point was to have Bats experience what was already within him. In fact the controllable nature of that batch of Titan was probably why he could resist the effect. Batman was given a choice to accept his insanity and monstrous side with the extra incentive of being on equal footing with the Joker in that battle. It was a trap to fight Bats on even grounds, with Batsy and the Joker transformed into their inner beasts. The Joker would not have even cared if he LOST that battle, if it had happened the way it was meant to.
      • "It is a bit of a tragedy that Bats never changed"? Not in my book. That would have meant the Joker's warped worldview would have been entirely validated. That would have been the tragedy.
    • I thought about this one too and came up with a different explanation: Joker had been working on the Titan formula directly, refining and perfecting it. The Joker's transformation at the end of the game is physically very different from the others: He's far more dangerous than any regular Titan Mook. It's most likely that the Joker formulated the drug specifically for himself. Drugs are complicated things: To make a transformation like that possible, you'd need to take into account all sorts of factors: Weight, physical condition, prior medical history...The darts that he used were likely made to be a perfect match for him alone, thus allowing him to keep his voice and mind, and change even more dramatically than the standard thugs. He'd probably make targeted batches for his mooks, too, but that would take more time than he has and besides, it's funnier to turn them into hulking, subhuman beasts.
  • You know what JBM? The Ivy boss fight. Why? Because, at this point, I really, really thought we'd got past the whole "The boss continually taunts you while exposing themselves to your attacks and keeps doing so no matter how often they get hurt" business. It's especialy jarring here since the rest of the game is going for a more (for lack of a better word) realistic feel. And considering how they subverted the idiocy inherent in the Bullfight Boss (since you have to throw a batarang into their face, otherwise they'll just stop themselves before they hit the wall), the fact that they let this slide really breaks immersion.
    • Realism or not, these are still Batman villains we're talking about here; as if they would be able to stop themselves from going "Ha ha! I'm fucking pwning you now, Batman!"
    • I would argue the Ivy fight is no more a Tactical Suicide Boss than Bane is. At least the Titan soldiers' tendency to charge madly about can be justified by their clearly diminished intelligence. Bane, I'm pretty sure, is pumped up with Venom, not Titan. And even if I'm misremembering that, you can clearly hear Bane talking during the fight so he obviously kept his smarts. So why does he keep charging Batman over and over after Batman foils his first charging attack? Why doesn't Bane stick to punching and throwing things? Batman can still avoid those, but at least they don't leave Bane open to attack.
      • To be fair, when you hear Bane talk in his fight, it's him basically shouting things like "I will break you, Batman!" and laughing crazily. Lucid compared to the other Titan soldiers, sure, but hardly intelligent. Basically, he's fucked up on Venom and whatever else the Joker pumped into him and isn't thinking clearly. Plus, he's probably more used to having Venom (and derivatives) pumping through his veins, so he can handle it a bit better, but the Titan additions detract from this somewhat.
  • When he's navigated through the opening sequence, the Joker is carted through Arkham in his Hannibal Lector-style shackle trolley. Fair enough. So why didn't the guards keep him in it until they got him to his cell? The whole game could have been averted if they had.
    • Well... there were stairs on the way. Maybe they thought it was too much work to carry the shackle trolley all the way to Joker's cell, with all the stairs and stuff.
    • Joker did have a guard (whose name escapes me) working for him. Maybe he was the one who decided to take the Joker out of his restraints?
  • Why have none of the Arkham guards (or Orderlies, or Sharp himself, for that matter) just murdered the Joker quietly? Sure, Batman is insane, so continue to adhere to a code of behaviour that continually results in an increasing body count of innocent people in order to justify his own existence, but surely one of the hundreds of people who have lost friends or family to the Joker would have said "You know what? Enough is enough." and just shot him in the head while he was helpless in Arkham. To me, the failure of some random individual in Gotham to permanently remove some of the more extreme Bat-rogues shatters suspension of disbelief. By this point in the continuinity (As of right before the Aug 2011 DC-reboot), the Joker's body count is in the tens of thousands. SOMEBODY should have decided to murder him while he's in custody by now.
    • Probably something to do with the bystander effect. Everyone wants him dead, but nobody wants to be the one to do it, figuring someone else will do it eventually anyway. There's also fear of retaliation; what would Harley do to the person who killed her puddin'?
      • Plus, people have tried to kill the Joker while he was in Arkham. They all failed, because he is never 'helpless' in the Asylum. As stated time and time again, the Asylum is his home, but he's only ever there so long as he wants to be there. He's no doubt prepared for anyone deciding to try and kill him.
    • And this is the Joker we're talking about; as much as everyone wants him dead, everyone is also shit-scared of him, with good reason. Even leaving aside the fact that the Joker is a vicious psycho with a knack for murdering people in gruesome ways, he's also got a habit of playing mind-games and labyrinthine schemes which make people think they're doing one thing when in fact they're actually doing something else which is what he totally wants them to do—so if you're alone in his cell with a gun pointed at his head, part of you is probably going to wonder whether the reason you're there is not because you're so badass that you're gonna be the one to take out the Joker, but rather because he wants you to be there. On top of this, he also has a knack for coming back from the dead. Seriously, every time the Joker's been in a position where it looks like he's dead, he's totally back right as rain not long after. This would tend to build up an impression that he's practically indestructible. And yeah, as noted above, he's probably going to be really happy at the person who put him in that position in the first place. Basically, there's a whole mystique that's built up around the Joker that means that anyone who isn't Batman, much as they might want him dead, is probably too fucking scared of him to go anywhere near him if they don't have to. (And incidentally, the whole "Batman is insane" part is perhaps a tad unfair, but that's a discussion for another day.)
  • Anyone else bugged by the fact that Cash is clearly disabled, yet still allowed to keep his job guarding dangerous mental patients? Or would his hook provide a reasonable alternative to let him continue working?
    • Depends on what his duties are. I'm pretty sure Cash has an office so he's probably some kind of supervisor who doesn't have to physically restrain any of the patients. You don't need both your hands if most of your job is to sit at a desk and fill out paperwork.
    • Plus, Cash is one pretty tough cookie; aside from Croc for obvious reasons he displays little fear of the inmates (he's even willing to talk back to Joker), he can handle himself pretty well compared to most of the other Arkham employees, he's obviously quite strong, he seems pretty intelligent, capable and savvy... in short, hook or not, he's the kind of guy you want in a place like Arkham Asylum. And let's be honest, if you had to knock some sense into a inmate who's giving you grief, a bloody sharp hook isn't the worst thing you could ask for.
    • In the comics, Jeremiah Arkham (Arkham's director) actually begged Cash to return to his job, since he was the only one who could keep the inmates even somewhat in line. Of course, Jeremiah doesn't exist in this continuity...
  • I feel rather mean to say it, but Mark Hamill continuing to voice the Joker kind of bugs me. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE Mark as the Joker. He's probably the best there is, cartoon or live action, but it just sort of annoys me that we're always wanting him. I'm sorry if I can't word this right. I guess I would just like to see other people give it a shot and see Mark playing other roles. Like Skeleton King! He was a great Skeleton King. And while its a BIG YMMV, I did like the Joker from The Batman. It just bugs me, even though Mark makes the best Joker. Another thing related to this is how people always compared any of the other Joker's voice to Mark. When you compare something to the best, you'll always be disappointed, so why do it?
    • I doubt this one game kept his schedule tied up so much that he couldn't do anything else. And of course people always want him. He's the best! Why would you want anyone but the best? Mark Hamill will have to be dead in his grave before people stop clamoring for him to voice the Joker.
    • True, he probably is the best Joker, but I really would just like to see a different voice to it. A new portrayal. I love Mark as the Joker, but I also liked John Di Maggio when he played him in that Red Hood movie. I was probably one of the only people to simply nod my head in respect when he said that this game would be last time he voiced the Joker. Of course, then he took it back...
    • I think part of it is that you just don't see a lot of actors who can simultaneously terrify you and make you start grinning whenever their character comes on screen, and this quality is part of the essence of the Joker. Most other portrayals will tend to fall too far in one direction or the other. But in any case, as long as the best is available, why not get the best? There will be plenty of new actors dying to take a crack at the role once Hamill is really through with it, but in the meantime, I'd like to see him as the Joker as often as possible.
    • I suppose you're right...Still, I wouldn't mind seeing other people try voicing the Clown Prince of Crime.
    • I think it's simply that certain actors tend to become iconic in certain roles, to the point that they can't help but inform everything that comes before and after and where people want to see them again. For many people, for example, Tom Baker (or David Tennant for all you kids out there) will always be who they picture as Doctor Who, Christopher Reeve will always be Superman, William Shatner will always be Captain James T. Kirk, and so on. Of course, this doesn't mean that other people will never play these roles or never play them just as good (if not maybe better) than the original, but for better or worse they're just iconic, and people will always position the 'pretender' (for want of a better word) against the iconic version in their head. So if you can get the iconic version and s/he's willing to do it, why not get them on board and make everyone (or most people anyway) happy?
  • The third time you get all hopped up on Scarecrow toxin, Batman's hallucinations get a little... odd. The first two times, they centered around Batsy's immediate fear for Gordon's life, plus his lingering guilt issues and trauma over the Waynes' murder. Par for the course. The third time, however, all the hallucinations seem to imply that he's afraid he, himself, is insane. The Joker and Harley haul him into Arkham. We see numerous crazy Batmen. Scarface even calls him a "classic case of multiple personality". Now, I admit that I'm not especially well-versed in Batman canon, but this is the first time I've ever seen Bruce presented as even having his own disturbed nature give him a moment's pause - much less fear that he is or will turn into a crackpot. He always seems quite assured that what he is doing is perfectly rational, shrugging it off completely should anyone tell him otherwise, even disregarding it when people like Alfred and Leslie question whether dressing up like a cute fuzzy critter and punching people is healthy. So what's up with the seemingly sudden fears for his mental state?
    • Probably has something to do with Scarecrow shooting him up with enough fear toxin to kill an elephant.
    • That, and I do believe that the fear of Batman also being insane has been touched on in the comics.
    • He might brush it aside, but it's kind of a running theme for others to question whether he's any more sane than the people he's after.
    • Plus it turns out at the end that the point of the whole game has been about Batman and that. If he gives in the Joker wins. which fits in nicely with the first scare, where he fails and lets Gordon die. This time he fails and lets the Joker show how the supergood vigilante is no different from an insane criminal
  • Does anyone else wish we could see Harley in her comicbook outfit? Don't get me wrong, I love the nurse outfit and the leather outfit in the games, but I can't be the only one who wants to see her in her skintight, jester costume.
    • I concur, albeit for a different reason. Harley's classic costume is cute and unique, and people already found her attractive - we don't need tons of cleavage and fishnets and fetish outfits. That's just... cheap, and overdoing it, IMO.
    • It's also perfectly in line with the place and role she's filling at the time (The nurse outfit moreso). Just because she has an iconic costume doesn't mean she isn't gonna dress up in some roleplay gear, either to attempt to impress Joker, or just 'cuz.
  • Well, why are so many of Jokers thugs in Intensive treatment and not in the penitentiary where they belong? And wouldn't these lunatics that are released by Joker when you get the cryptographic sequencer fit better in Intensive Treatment? One could argue that you have to be crazy if you work for Joker, given the Warden's state of mind. And it's better to have "normal" enemies to teach you the basics of fighting instead of charging lunatics, but still..
    • They're from Blackgate. Remember, it was burned down just before the start of the game, so they're holding the prisoners at Arkham until they can move them someplace more correct. You just saw some of them being escorted away from intensive treatment while you were escorting Joker in, so presumably that's where at least some are being held.
  • Anyone else bugged by the way Batman just incapacitates thugs and leaves them on an unsecured island? I know he had no other choice, but throughout the game I felt, I'm knocking these guys out but with the island less and less in control, is that doing anything? In the one night idea of the games timespan that still means that Batman is probably going to be knocking the same guys out multiple times(unless he's hitting them hard enough to risk brain damage). It just didn't feel like he was achieving much. On the other hand it would be a Fridge Brilliance way to explain why Joker has such a vast number of disposable mooks. (Although he did have a prisons worth to start with)
    • But what else, practically, is he really supposed to do? He kind of has a lot on his plate, it's pretty urgent that he stop whatever the Joker's planning and get him securely contained ASAP, and he doesn't really have time to find somewhere secure to hold all of these mooks he's kicking the crap of and transport them back and forth once he's done beating them up, or no doubt enough cuffs to restrain what is pretty much the entire population of a prison (and that's at least hundreds of guys to start with, and any number of their comrades could happen upon them) and even if he did under the circumstances any number of their comrades could happen upon them and release them, thus rendering it pointless from the start. If they're knocked out, they're at least not really going to be any good to anyone for a while, until they regain consciousness and come around from the concussion, so he can focus on getting what he needs done at that moment without having to worry about them.
      • Thing is, Bats is not simply knocking them down, he is effectivelly breaking their bones and swisting their joints, causing concussions and etc. Even if they wake up, they won't be able to fight again, at least not in the exact same night the game takes place in.
      • That doesn't really change the essential point that he doesn't really have much time to do anything else with them, though.
  • Why did Bane attack in the first place? While it wasn't confirmed until the second game Bane in the Arkham verse is clearly an inteligent tactical individual. Attacking Batman serves absolutly no purpose and he's demonstrated in the past not only a willingness not to fight Batman for no good reason like in No Man's Land but occasionally to team up with Bats for when they have the same cause. Unless Venom drives you really really insane in the Arkhamverse Bane's response to being pumped full of Venom should have been a polite thank you to Joker followed by brushing Batman casually aside and going after the Brujah.
    • I thought he was being pumped full of Titan as well, which does drive you insane. And even if he wasn't, he's clearly been 'drained' of Venom by the time Batman and Gordon find him, and then he suddenly gets a whole crapload pumped directly into him all at once—rapidly going from a completely clean system to drugged up to the fucking eyeballs with something like that has to have some kind of destabilizing effect.
      • Withdraw + torture + sudden overdose of advanced steroids + extreme dislike of Batman = anger.
        • Perhaps I've read all the wrong comics but I had the impression that Bane's doesn't especially dislike Batman. He's a mercenary who happens to end up opposite Batman more often than not but their interaction in No Man's Land clearly demonstrates he's not fighting Batman for free. His lines and general attitude during the fight don't show him to be particularly insane but the Troper who suggested it's probably Titan not Venom and Bane just had a better reaction to it than the normals. Most likely because he's built up some sort of immunity to Venom so he just got really aggressive instead of outright crazy.
  • Why does Batman lack, of all things, a gas mask? Between Joker Venom and Fear Toxin there are a lot of enemies who use poison gas weapons. Shouldn't a Crazy Prepared Seen It All genius have one of these on him? (Or at least in the Batmobile, Batcave, etc...)
    • Considering how often Batman is attacked with various gases all the time in both this game and other media, why Batman doesn't have a Gas Mask on or at least carrying one at all times is a bigger question.
  1. ↑ Although he has time to track down Riddler's non-lethal puzzles, so why the hell not save some plants while he's at it?
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