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

When Batman: Arkham Asylum launched over a decade ago, it changed the landscape of superhero video games as we

know

them. Now that we're getting two new DC Comics games from Warner Brothers: Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad, we here at Suggestive Gaming thought it would be a good time to take a look at the hi

story

of the Batman Arkham series, including the additional games. media like comics and animated films as well. Because this will be a larger task, I enlisted the help of a friend of the show: Twitch Streamer Kreestin. Note that while we'll cover most of the Arkham media, there are a couple of things we'll skip: two mobile games (Arkham Underworld and Arkham City Lockdown) are no longer available, the Arkham Knight prequel comic series has some conflicting arcs that we'll avoid for various reasons, and the "Arkham Unhinged" comic series is questionably canon and not very important to the overall

story

, so we'll leave that aside as well.

We hope this doesn't detract too much from the experience. Also note that from

what

we've seen of Suicide Squad gameplay, some things don't seem to quite match up with

what

we'll explain here, but hopefully that will become clearer in the future. Now, without further ado, here's what you

need

to

know

about the Batman Arkham series. Our story begins like most Batman stories: billionaires and philanthropists Thomas and Martha Wayne leave the Monarch Theater in Gotham City with their son Bruce. As they walk through Crime Alley, petty thief Joe Chill stops them and holds them at gunpoint. When Thomas tries to protect the family from him, he is shot dead by Chill, who also kills Martha.

He then approaches to warn the young man: "that's what happens when you try to be a hero." Years later, we find Bruce Wayne, studying martial arts in a secret Korean castle with Master Kirigi. From Kirigi, Bruce learns the methods of the shadow warrior and how to use shadows, theatrics and fear to defeat his adversaries. After proving his worth by defeating Kirigi's best student, Shiva, Bruce gains the respect of the dojo and masters its techniques. The following year we find Bruce Wayne, returning to Gotham City and taking up the mantle of "Batman", using the resources provided to him by his father's company "Wayne Industries" to design a suit and various tools and technologies to fight crime. . taking control of the city.

With the help of his longtime trusted butler, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce tracks down "Red" Mahaffey, an underboss working for crime lord Roman Sionis. Bruce uses Batman's intimidation and fear tactics to interrogate Mahaffey and discovers that Sionis plans to take control of the Gotham City Police Department to further his anti-crime efforts. Bruce and Alfred then use the newly built "Batcomputer" to investigate three corrupt members of the GCPD's upper ranks: Commissioner Gillian Loeb, Lieutenant Howard Branden, and Detective Arnold Flass. Despite making several rookie mistakes, Bruce, as Batman, is able to investigate the GCPD's corrupt dealings with another crime lord: Oswald Cobblepot, also known as "The Penguin", and with the help of an unknown hacker who speaks in " Riddles" discovers that Roman Sionis and Cobblepot are working together to try to change the upcoming mayoral election so that the corrupt Commissioner Loeb is elected.

Batman heads to the Beacon Hotel and interrupts a meeting between The Penguin and Sionis, who secretly works in the criminal underworld as the "Black Mask." Penguin then escapes to a house, and Black Mask arrives with the corrupt GCPD SWAT team, who plans to deliver a hostage, sister of the district attorney: Harvey Dent, to the Penguin to create a spectacle for the next day's elections. Batman bursts in and prevents this plan, saving the hostage but unfortunately allowing Penguin and Black Mask to escape. However, the next day, Dent postpones the election to allow for a full investigation of the events, including the possible connection to corruption in the police department.

In the Batcave, Batman and Alfred discuss the outcome, and Bruce regrets that he was unable to defeat the criminals himself, but is still content with the city remaining out of criminal control. He then accepts his new duty to keep it that way. Later that year, on Christmas Eve, Bruce overhears police communication that Black Mask has taken Commissioner Loeb to the local Blackgate Prison, where a breakout is underway. Bruce puts on the suit and heads there, finding Black Mask along with one of his goons: the reptile-like giant Waylon Jones, also known as "Killer Croc." The pair free another criminal, a dating-obsessed killer named Calendar Man (whom Batman had previously helped capture) from a gas chamber where he was to be executed.

Black Mast claims that he plans to wipe the slate clean and instead throws Loeb into the chamber, killing him before the criminals leave. Batman follows them, but Black Mask is able to escape via helicopter, leaving Killer Croc behind to fight Batman. As Batman emerges victorious, Killer Croc reveals that his boss has set a $50 million bounty on the Bat's head, and 8 of the world's best assassins compete to claim the prize at the end of the night. The GCPD arrives, and Captain James Gordon (one of the department's few honest officers) witnesses Batman for the first time with his own eyes as he escapes in his plane, the Batwing.

Bruce returns to the Batcave and analyzes a drone he recovered from the prison, and discovers the identities of the assassins he now faces: Killer Croc, the mercenary Deathstroke, the arsonist Firefly, the venomous Copperhead, the marksman Deadshot, the wrestler with shocking Electrocutor abilities, chemically enhanced supersoldier Bane and none other than Bruce's former student, Lady Shiva. Batman determines that the drone belonged to the Penguin and "interrogates" some of his men to determine the crime lord's location. On his way, he once again encounters the puzzle-loving hacker: now known to Batman as Edward Nigma (an alias of the former head of the GCPD's Cyber ​​Crimes Division), also called "The Riddler." It is revealed that Riddler is working for Black Mask to disable the city's radio towers to distract Batman and give his assassins an easier way to kill him.

Batman eventually tracks Penguin to his hideout: an abandoned ship called "The Final Offer", where he is forced to fight one of the killers: Electrocutioner before finding and interrogating Penguin, who reveals that there was a double murder on one of Black Mask Shelters: Lacey Tower. Suddenly, Batman is ambushed by Deathstroke, and the two fight, with Batman emerging victorious. However, the distraction allows Penguin to escape to his safe room, leaving Batman to investigate the murders at Lacey Tower. On his way out, Batman is stopped by a transmission from another vigilante, Anarky, who threatens to take matters into his own hands to stop the corruption in Gotham.

Batman learns that the police have identified the murder victims inside Black Mask's safe house: Tiffany Ambrose, Roman Sionis' girlfriend and the Crime Lord himself. However, upon investigating the crime scene, Batman determines that the murders occurred days ago, leading him to conclude that the body is not that of Black Mask (as he saw it that same night), but must appear to be with Penguin. like the murderer. Batman discovers through investigating him that Ambrose was afraid of someone called "the Joker", connecting that figure to the murder. Obtaining DNA evidence from the scene, Batman leaves to infiltrate the GCPD building to compare the samples to the Police Department's database.

There, Batman overhears Captain James Gordon arguing with his daughter, Barbara, about whether Batman is a hero or a threat, and Barbara believes the former, while her father thinks he should operate within the confines of the law. Batman incapacitates the guards inside the building and heads to the server room. There, he finds Barbara, who helps Batman plan a way to remotely access the criminal database from her Batcomputer. Batman sets off in search of the telecommunications cables to create the connection, but encounters Jim Gordon along the way. As Batman pleads with Gordon to trust that they are on the same side, he is not convinced and Batman is forced to escape from arriving reinforcements.

Batman enters the sewers and follows the telecommunications cables to an underground data center, where he finds Black Mask's men. After sending them, he is able to connect to the database to learn that the Joker was planning to kill Black Mask, but Sionis used a decoy, which the Joker killed, allowing Sionis to jump on them and attack. However, the Joker emerged victorious and captured Black Mask before setting the safe house on fire. Batman determines that the Joker's next move is to use the Black Mask to bypass security at the mob-owned Gotham Merchants Bank. After heading to the bank, Batman finds Black Mask and asks him where the Joker is.

He responds by revealing a hostage: Roman Sionis, revealing that the man who had worn the Black Mask all night was none other than the Joker himself. After loading an ambulance full of money, the Joker removes his mask to reveal his true face: that of a demented clown. At the end of the couple's first presentation, the Joker throws the bank manager to the ground, and she dies of a kind of uncontrollable laughter with a disfiguring smile while the clown and her men escape from the bank with Roman Sionis. Batman tracks Joker to Black Mask's steel mill, but only finds Sionis captured inside.

After freeing him from captivity, Batman is ambushed by Copperhead, who injects him with a toxin that causes him to hallucinate, but he is able to fight them off and work with Alfred, who synthesizes and administers an antidote, which Batman retrieves and uses to fight. He weathers the effects of the poison and defeats Copperhead, learning from her that the Joker plans to meet with the remaining assassins. Batman tracks them to the Royal Hotel and observes the meeting. During the meeting, the Joker kills Electrocutioner as punishment for not killing Batman. He then sends the others to kill the Bat, but Bane stays behind, believing that Batman will now come for the Joker, so he might as well wait.

This turns out to be a success, as Batman arrives shortly after. Bane makes quick work of the Bat, manhandling him and dragging him towards the Joker. Batman tries to attack the Joker, but Bane stops him and throws him out a window. The pair then proceed to fight, and Bane uses his "Venom" super soldier serum to overpower his body and gain the advantage. Alfred seeks to even the odds by calling in the GCPD SWAT team, but this only causes Bane to flee, but not before Batman plans a tracking device on him. Joker is then thrown from the roof of the hotel, but Batman, not wanting to allow his death, saves him from the fall, much to the Joker's surprise.

Batman goes to stop the Joker, but the SWAT team arrives. Batman escapes using the Batwing and Joker is arrested by the police. At Blackgate Prison, the Joker is psychoanalyzed by Dr. Harleen Quinzel, beginning a journey into his own mind. She relives the moment that turned him into the Joker: a botched raid on Ace Chemicals while he was disguised as a figure called "Little Red Riding Hood." During the robbery, he was discovered by Batman, who made him fall into a vat of chemicals, dyeing his skin white and his hair green, as well as causing him to go crazy because of his "one bad day" that pushed him. the edge.

When he realizes her connection to Batman, Dr. Quinzel realizes hers to the Joker, who affectionately refers to her as "Harley." Batman returns to the Batcave and has his own mental struggle, reliving his own trauma that led him to take on the mantle. Although Alfred gets him back and tries to get Batman to take a break now that the Joker is behind bars, he refuses, knowing that as long as Bane is still out there, he can't rest. Batman overhears the police report that a muscular, overpowered criminal was killed, and Batman heads to the GCPD morgue to confirm that it is Bane.

When he arrives at the morgue, Batman discovers that the body is not Banes', but another Venom user. However, just then, the tracker he placed on Bane starts emitting a signal and he follows it. At his location, Batman finds a hiding place, but Bane is already gone. He finds evidence that Bane had been tracking his movements and may also suspect that he and the famous billionaire Bruce Wayne are one and the same. Batman destroys this evidence and leaves, warning Alfred to secure himself in the Batcave, as Wayne Manor is not safe. On his way, Batman learns that Firefly has taken hostages at the Pioneer Bridge to get him out, and is forced to head there to save them.

Batman is able to distract Firefly with the Batwing and enters a room under the bridge to meet Jim Gordon. Gordon blames Batman for ultimately causing the problem at hand, but Batman warns him that Firefly is planting explosives on the bridge and advises him to call his officers to keep them out of harm's way. Batman defuses all the bombs except one. He is then forced to fight Firefly todistract him while Gordon and his team move forward to defuse the last bomb. Batman defeats Firefly and leaves him hanging for the GCPD to retrieve. Batman and Gordon then share a brief moment in which they both realize that they could have more to gain by working together in the future, before Batman leaves for the Batwing to return to the Batcave.

Along the way, he calls Alfred, but the call is interrupted by Bane, who reveals that he has infiltrated the Batcave. Batman arrives to find the Batcave in flames and Alfred barely alive. Batman is able to use the electrocutor gloves to defibrillate the heart of his old friend and narrowly save his life. Now, realizing that his fight against crime has not only put himself at risk, but also his loved one, Bruce decides he has made a mistake and leaves him. Alfred changes his mind and reaffirms him, encouraging him that if Bruce allows his allies to help him, he can succeed.

The pair then hear that the Joker has staged a riot at Blackgate, and Alfred states that the police

need

him, to which he replies, "No, they need us." Inside the prison, Batman finds Joker and Bane, and discovers Joker's final plan: to force Batman to break his moral code by killing one of the two criminals. Through an elaborate electric chair strapped to a heart monitor on Bane, Bane's heart stops or the electric chair kills the Joker. Batman refuses and Joker forces him to capture Gordon and threaten his life as well. However, Batman is able to outsmart the clown by stopping Bane's heart using the electric gloves, disabling the chair and allowing Gordon to escape; but unfortunately, this also allows the Joker to escape.

Batman then resurrects Bane, who injects himself with a prototype chemical called TN-1, similar to Venom but much more powerful. This transforms him into an even more gigantic creature, which Batman is able to narrowly defeat. Fortunately, TN-1's influence causes Bane to lose his memory of Batman's secret identity, and Batman then sets out to find the Joker. Along the way, Batman is captured by Killer Croc, but is saved by a nearby Gordon, causing Croc to flee. The pair then rescue Blackgate guardian Martin Joseph, and the trio find the Joker in the nearby chapel. Batman reveals to the Joker that Bane is still alive and that he couldn't get Batman to kill.

Joker then tries again by goading Batman into killing him, but he resists and instead mercilessly beats the clown, leaving him incapacitated. Gordon arrives and states that although his daughter believes Batman is a hero, she has yet to take him in along with the Joker. However, when Gordon receives a radio call, Batman is able to slip into the shadows. The police then arrest the Joker and return him to custody, while Gordon accepts that Batman is giving the city something to believe in. Later, politician Quincy Sharp speaks with reporter Jack Ryder about the proposal to reopen the city's historic Elizabeth Arkham Asylum. for Criminally Insane to house and rehabilitate this new generation of super criminals, while Deathstroke finds himself in prison with government agent Amanda Waller, who recruits him for a criminal task force called the Suicide Squad.

Less than a week later, on New Year's Eve, Bruce hosts a ceremony at Wayne Manor commemorating Ferris Boyle, CEO of the research firm GothCorp. However, during the celebration, an ice explosion suddenly occurs and a bald man in a big suit arrives and begins encasing the partygoers in ice with a giant icy ray. The man demands that Ferris Boyle be brought to him before Bruce attempts to contact Alfred to try to keep Boyle safe. When Alfred doesn't respond, Bruce goes to look for him and finds him attacked by the villains' henchmen. Bruce saves Alfred and they head to get to the Batcave so Bruce can suit up to face this new attacker.

Along the way, the pair find a group of guests, including reporter Vicki Vale, hiding in one of the rooms, and Bruce leaves Alfred with the group while he heads to the cellar to use a secret entrance to the Batcave. Bruce puts on his suit and re-enters Wayne Manor as Batman, only to find it burned down by henchmen. He loses communication with Alfred, who is found and captured along with the rest of the guests. Batman then finds and rescues Alfred and the others, clearing the way for them to escape. Shortly after, Batman finds Ferris Boyle, but when he goes to rescue him, the ray gun-wielding villain freezes him, and Boyle calls him "Mr.

Freeze," as the two apparently know each other. Freeze takes Boyle away when leaves, and Batman is forced to free himself from his frozen captivity before eliminating a group of henchmen. Batman interrogates one of the henchmen and discovers that an arms dealer working for the Penguin has been supplying the crew with weapons. , and Batman goes to search for him in southern Gotham, Batman finds and interrogates the dealer, who informs him that Freeze made a deal with Penguin to provide him with GothCorp weapons in exchange for Penguin's help in kidnapping Boyle Batman. GothCorp is a humanitarian company that would never make weapons, he goes to the company building to investigate.

There, Batman finds Penguin holding Boyle at gunpoint, demanding that Freeze hand over the weapons he was promised. When Batman tries to intervene, Freeze uses his gun to trap everyone, including Penguin, in the ice before grabbing Boyle. He then separates himself from Batman with a giant ice wall before escaping with his captive. Batman then interrogates a partially frozen Penguin, who reveals that Freeze captured Boyle because he has the codes to some kind of superweapon, which they are currently targeting. Penguin informs Batman that the only way to get through the ice wall and track Freeze is with a special cryogenic drill that his men currently have.

Batman travels to his location and, along the way, picks up a prototype "extreme environment" swimsuit. Batman then recovers the drill from Penguin's men, but discovers that in order for it to work, it requires a fluid fuel source currently being kept at GothCorp, in a laboratory formerly occupied by Victor Fries (Mr. Freeze's original name). ). Batman arrives at Fries' lab and discovers that Victor had made a deal with Ferris Boyle to prototype cryogenic weapons in exchange for GothCorp's help in developing a cure for his wife Nora's Huntington's chorea, whom Fries had put in prison. a cryogenic dream. However, Fries later learned that Boyle never intended to fulfill his end of the deal and instead, Fries abandons his duties to try to find the cure himself.

Angry, Boyle moved Nora to a different area of ​​the facility and attacked Victor, causing his prototype weapon to fire, altering Fries' biochemistry and causing him to become frozen. Fries was then forced to construct a suit to maintain his body temperature before setting out to capture Boyle and gain access to the area where his wife is located. Batman returns to GothCorp and passes the ice wall. On the other side, Batman finds Freeze and Boyle. Batman tries to reason with Freeze to make sure Boyle sees justice for what he has done and that hurting Boyle will only disappoint Nora.

Freeze is unaffected by these words, capturing Boyle in a cryogenic freezing capsule alongside Nora and explaining that the accident removed his ability to feel anything. Batman is then forced to disable three cryogenic tanks, which disables Nora's freezing capsule, distracting Freeze. Batman is then able to ambush Freeze, whom he fights hand-to-hand. During their fight, Boyle escapes and freezes Batman in his place. Believing him to be dead, Boyle realizes that his only witness is Freeze and intends to force him to watch his wife die before he kills him himself. Batman breaks free from his captivity in the ice and incapacitates Boyle.

He then restores Nora's cryocontainment and inserts a cryogenic capsule into Freeze's suit, saving them both, leaving Freeze looking at his still-frozen wife, finally reunited. Subsequently, Gotham Mayor Hamilton Hill is reportedly resigning and the front-runner for the still-vacant position of Police Commissioner is now Captain James Gordon. Vicki Vale then reports Boyle's arrest and publicly thanks Batman for his role in her arrest and for saving her and the other guests at Wayne Manor. Three months later, Batman witnesses a cat thief, Selina Kyle (appropriately nicknamed "Catwoman") stealing something from a government building. He stops her to take her to Blackgate Prison, but is approached by agents from the Department of Extranormal Operations who assume that Batman and Catwoman are working together.

In the confusion, Catwoman escapes and Batman is forced to fight his way through the DEO agents before pursuing Catwoman. After arresting her, he leaves her behind so the Gotham City Police Department can arrest her and take her to Blackgate Prison. Two weeks later, Captain James Gordon makes a call over the police radio for Batman to meet him near Blackgate. When Batman arrives, the two muse that they need a better way for Gordon to tell Batman before Gordon explains why he called the vigilante there: an explosion inside the prison sparked a riot in which the prisoners took hostages and started a riot. confrontation with Blackgate guards.

Batman enters the prison and finds Catwoman, who had tried to escape before being attacked by other prisoners. She informs Batman that the Joker, Penguin and Black Mask have taken control of a section of the prison. Batman learns that he must restore power to Black Mask's section, then obtain cryptographic codes from Joker's section, and finally head to Penguin's section, The Arkham Wing, to free the hostages. Catwoman then makes a deal with Batman to help him in exchange for her help in getting him a shorter prison sentence in a lower security facility. As Batman and Catwoman talk, they are watched by Amanda Waller along with her right-hand woman, Rick Flag, who apparently have some sort of interest in the events at hand.

Batman soon encounters the Penguin, who is fighting in an arena in the prison yard. There, Penguin forces a reluctant prisoner named Bronze Tiger to fight Batman. After Batman emerges victorious, Bronze Tiger helps Batman eliminate the Penguin's henchmen, keeping them at bay to allow Batman to pursue them and eventually stop the Penguin. Batman also encounters the Joker, who is holding prison warden Martin Joseph hostage in his bomb-bombed office. Batman attempts to rescue him, but is attacked by Deadshot along the way, who has been hired by the three crime bosses to take down Batman. Batman is able to defeat the shooter and rescues the warden.

Shortly after, he manages to confront and incapacitate the Joker, obtaining the codes to the Arkham Wing. Finally, Batman rushes to stop Black Mask from overloading the facility's power. On his way, he encounters the monstrous and immortal Solomon Grundy, but is able to outwit the brute and defeat him in battle. Subsequently, Batman finds Black Mask, incapacitates him, and stops his plan. When Batman finally takes the codes to the Arkham wing to rescue the hostages, he simply finds a weakened Bane without Venom. Catwoman then reveals that she had been using Batman all along to free Bane for an unnamed employer.

She then tries to escape with Bane, but Batman catches up to them and stops Catwoman. When he asks who her employer is, a group of federal employees arrive, led by Rick Flag. Flag reveals that they were able to capture Bane and thanks him for his help with the prison before leaving with Catwoman. Later, Joker is able to kill a group of Blackgate guards, disguising himself in one of his uniforms to escape. Penguin is freed by a corrupt guard on his payroll (whom he quickly kills with his umbrella for not caring about his manners). Eventually, Black Mask takes a Blackgate guard hostage while others shoot him, causing a pipe to explode in his face as he flees.

Later, Amanda Waller and Rick Flag leave the scene in a helicopter, where it is revealed that they were the ones who tried to break Bane out of prison using Catwoman. Waller ordered them to free Catwoman and, thanks to Batman's involvement, they were forced to return Bane to captivity at Blackgate. Flag considers the mission a failure, but Waller disagrees, as his trip to the prison led them to pick up Deadshot and Bronze Tiger, whom he intends to recruit into his Suicide Squad. The following year, Batman gained a reputation among the citizens of Gotham as some kind of supernatural force.

To combat this ideology, city officials plan to present their own set of replica Bat armor and equipment to the public. However, as they do so, the event is sabotaged by an attacking masked villain called The Killer Moth, who captures Commissioner Gordon with some kind of adhesive gel. His daughter, Barbara, who accompanied him to the event, secretly puts on the replica Bat Suit and stops Killer Moth, calling herself Batgirl. The pair fight and eventually Moth tries to escape by distractingBatgirl throwing Gordon to the ground. She goes after him and saves him, and the real Batman arrives to take down Killer Moth for good.

Batgirl then talks to Batman privately and he warns her about her "dangerous new hobby." However, she brushes this aside and states that being the Bat is awesome. During this year, Batman meets a fellow orphan, Dick Grayson, and recruits him to become his young ward, giving him the name "Robin." About two years later, we find Barbara Gordon still working as Batgirl, even though Batman still denounces her copycat tactics and grows tired of having to rescue her from the dangerous situations he puts her in for her crusade. At the newly reopened Arkham Asylum, Dr. Harleen Quinzel (now interning at the asylum) appears before the board to request that the Joker be transferred to a less secure cell.

The warden, Quincy Sharp, rejects this request and proceeds to remove the Joker from her care, fearing that her manipulative tactics are beginning to take a toll on her. She meets him in her cell and the two lament that they will no longer be together, and Harleen offers to take the Joker's place, wreaking havoc on Gotham as he cannot escape. He accepts this proposal and gives her the name "Harley Quinn." Later, in Gotham Square, Barbara Gordon is visiting a traveling circus, before Harley Quinn, now dressed in an appropriate costume, arrives with an explosive entrance. Batgirl suits up to face this new enemy.

During their fight, Batgirl warns Harley against becoming a Joker "copycat" and prevents his hippo death from her hero before Quinn escapes with two hyenas from the circus. Later, Batman meets with Batgirl to discuss the day's events, and she expresses to him that she has realized that she is not a copycat, but rather she uses the same symbol of hope for the city as him. Back at the Asylum, Joker continues to manipulate Harleen, and she falls even more in love with him as he plans to continue using her while trapped in his "cage." Later that year we find TheRiddler in an abandoned warehouse talking to Amanda Waller, who reveals that she had been tracking her call.

Suddenly, a group of his soldiers burst in and stopped the Riddler. However, Batman quickly turns off the lights, eliminates the soldiers, and captures the Riddler himself. This leads Waller to form her Suicide Squad, officially called "Task Force The group later wakes up not knowing why they are there, except for Harley, Boomerang, and Deadshot, who reveal that they have been there before. Waller then arrives and explains that she has gathered them to indoctrinate them into a black ops group, and warns them that if they do not comply with her orders, a tracking device on her neck will detonate a nanobomb, killing them immediately.

KGBeast doubts this, and Waller challenges him to leave the room, and when she does, her threat is demonstrated when his head explodes after his first step. Deadshot then asks what he wants them to do, and Waller reveals that their mission is to break into Arkham Asylum to obtain the Riddler's Staff, which stores a hidden flash drive containing all the information on every Suicide Squad recruit, which he had hacked and threatens to kill. leak to the Internet. Waller then knocks out the team again, and when they wake up, they find themselves on a plane transporting them to Gotham to meet with an arms dealer and gather resources for their mission.

When they arrive from the air, they take to the sewers, avoiding Batman, to finally find his contact, The Penguin, at his club: The Iceberg Lounge. Penguin then hands over his plans to sneak into Arkham, despite his reluctance to help Harley due to his association with the Joker. The team then spends the night blowing off steam, Killer Frost gets a secret call from Waller about an assignment, and Deadshot and Harley sleep together. The next night, Harley destroys a doll store to lure out Batman, who demands that Harley give him information about a bomb that the Joker has supposedly hidden within the city.

Harley, who has "broken up" with the Joker, denies any knowledge of the bomb. The police then arrive and Batman hands Harley over to take her back to Arkham Asylum. Deadshot intercepts and poses as the officer taking her in, while Boomerang poses as a paramedic dropping off a dead patient, who turns out to be Killer Frost, whose frozen body allows him to pose as a deceased person. Meanwhile, Black Spider poses as an orderly to get inside. However, the staff quickly take notice of Killer Frost and Black Spider, as their appearances raise red flags. Meanwhile, Harley reunites with the Joker and finds herself being held inside his own cell.

He mocks her about her recent breakup, causing her to grab Deadshot's gun and start shooting the clown. The bulletproof glass in his cell protects him, but this causes security to rush in. Harley fights them off and is able to fire the gun through the Joker's air holes, but misses each shot. Using the distraction, Deadshot is able to plant a device on an exposed wire, infiltrating the facility's network and allowing Boomerang and Black Spider to overcome their security opposition, allowing them and Killer Frost to successfully infiltrate the asylum. Harley reveals to the Joker that Deadshot is her "new man" and more security arrives, forcing Deadshot to take her away.

Black Spider causes an explosion in the kitchen as a distraction, and the entire team gathers near a sewer grate which they open to allow King Shark to enter with his team. After getting dressed, the Suicide Squad enters and takes control of the asylum's main security center. Harley then plays security footage from the previous day to disguise her movements and they head to the intensive treatment building to find Riddler's staff. Along the way, they face opposition from a team of guards, but the team works together to eliminate them. Back in Gotham, serial killer Victor Zsasz is holding a woman captive, but Batman arrives to free her.

As he enters his Batmobile, Alfred calls and the two discuss Harley's strange behavior that night. Batman checks the surveillance at Arkham just to make sure he arrived safely and notices that the footage is of the employee team from the day before. Now that he knows something is wrong, Batman quickly heads to the Asylum to investigate. Meanwhile, the squad heads to the intensive treatment building, but discovers that the property room is locked. Fortunately, Harley is able to use his knowledge of the facility gained from working there previously to open the door. Inside, they search for the staff, where Harley finds his own mace, Deadshot finds the Riddler's staff, and Killer Frost finds Mr.

Freeze's gun before Batman suddenly arrives and attacks. After a brief battle with the Suicide Squad, Black Spider emerges victorious, holding Batman's utility belt as a trophy. However, when Deadshot opens the staff's secret compartment, he discovers that the flash drive is missing, and soon after, they realize that Killer Frost is also nowhere to be found. Frost arrives at Riddler's cell and explains that Waller sent her to kill him to make an example, but Riddler reveals that he had his own nanobomb installed on her neck, but learned to deactivate it, sparking Waller's desire to have it. delicate. In his own cell, Joker discovers that Harley's missed shots earlier opened a hole in her wall, which he can reach to find wires that he can cross to open the doors to his cell, allowing him to escape.

Waller calls Deadshot, who has yet to reveal the missing flash drive, but Waller exclaims that there has been a disturbance at the Asylum's medical center. The squad heads there and finds Killer Frost and Riddler, trying to get to the center to get the tools to defuse their nanobombs. The group works together again to get to the center, but Riddler is able to grab one of the guard's guns along the way. Inside the medical center, Riddler deactivates the squad's bombs using a powerful electrical discharge, except for Black Spider, who decides to stay aside as a lookout. Waller finally realizes they're up to something and flips the kill switch for the entire squad.

While most of them remain alive, King Shark's head explodes, which Riddler theorizes is because his thick skin impedes the electrical current. Meanwhile, the Joker finds Batman in a hallway of the Asylum and points a gun at him. Curiously, the bat's head explodes on its own just before the clown can pull the trigger. Back at the medical center, the squad looks at a still-alive Black Spider and realizes that Batman has been posing as the criminal since their encounter. Riddler pulls the gun on him, but Batman throws a Batarang at him, inadvertently increasing the voltage of the electroshock machine.

Batman interrogates Deadshot, who reveals his mission to Waller. This leaves the detective confused, but he doesn't have much time to think about it, as the Joker arrives shortly after and shoots the Bat as he enters. He also throws some small explosive devices onto the ground, destroying the electroshock machine and allowing the Suicide Squad to escape, with Harley grabbing the sledgehammer from him on the way out. Joker is able to scare Batman away with bullets and cuts off the squad in the hallway. Harley tries to reconcile with the Joker to get him away, but decides that he has a score to settle with Deadshot.

Deadshot distracts him, causing the Joker to fall down a laundry chute with Harley. In the laundry room, Joker opens Harley's mallet to reveal the bomb Batman had been looking for. Elsewhere, the squad tries to escape, but Batman arrives to ask where the Joker went. Deadshot tells Batman that they disappeared with the sledgehammer, and Batman determines that must be where the bomb is. Right on cue, Joker begins broadcasting a message over the Asylum's public address system. To distract himself and detonate the bomb, Joker frees all of the Asylum's inmates, including former district attorney-turned-villain Harvey Dent (now known as Two-Face due to the disfigurement that drove him insane), poison-fed Bane. , the fear-inducing toxin that creates "Scarecrow," Dr.

Jonathan Crane, botanist and plant controller Dr. Pamela Isley (better known as Poison Ivy), among everyone else. Batman leaves to find Joker to stop the bomb, while the remaining Suicide Squad plans to hijack a nearby helicopter to escape at his expense. Their partnership is short-lived, however, as Frost and Boomerang set off on their own to reach the helicopter first. They fight their way through the escaped inmates, both of whom have superpowers, to avoid reaching the helicopter, where Deadshot is able to escape at his expense. Batman arrives outside just in time to protect Commissioner Gordon from a charge from Bane (separating his supply from Venom and throwing him into the water surrounding the island).

Batman then summons his Batwing and goes in to chase the escaping Deadshot. Inside the helicopter, the Joker reveals himself and Harley had hidden inside, and points a gun at Deadshot. However, he attacks the clown before he can shoot and the pair fight. Harley takes the Joker's gun and contemplates which one to shoot before being forced to take the controls of the helicopter to prevent it from crashing. Batman arrives and uses his grappling hook to board the helicopter, grabbing Harley and the sledgehammer and jumping out of the helicopter, allowing him to crash into a nearby building which he and Harley also land on.

She tries to attack him, while Joker and Deadshot have their own battle a few floors above. Batman knocks out Harley and gets the bomb while Deadshot emerges victorious in his own fight, pinning Joker to the helicopter and pushing him off the building. Batman is then able to diffuse the bomb just in time to see the helicopter crash to the ground, with Joker caught in the explosion it creates. Some time later, Batman arrives at Waller's office to confront her about her Suicide Squad plan while he scolds her for allowing the Riddler to escape from her. Batman threatens to shut down her operation, but Waller ignores him, knowing that he has no power over the federal government.

He then states that he has his own problems to worry about, considering that Joker's body was never found. He leaves you with one last warning before leaving. Waller turns to notice the red dot of a laser scope heading toward her head. We then see Deadshot, reunited with his daughter, aiming the barrel of a sniper rifle, turning the tide and now having Waller's fate in her own hands. Throughout this same year, Batman's extended family goes through some changes. Dick Grayson leaves the mantle of Robin behind and moves to the city of Blüdhaven to take on the new character of "Nightwing." Later, Batman discovers a troubled young man, Jason Todd, who commits petty crimes.

The following year, Jason Todd takes on the role of Robin and works with Batman and Batgirl to protect Gotham. However, towards the end of the year he is captured by the Joker, who holds him hostage in a location unknown to Batman. A few months later, Batman meets another young man, Tim Drake, who uses hisown natural detective skills to determine the true identities of the caped crusader and Nightwing. This impresses Batman, who (despite still feeling guilty about losing his old Robin) allows Drake to become the new Robin. Shortly after, Batman receives a video recording from the Joker, which shows him marking Jason Todd's face with a "J" before shooting him in the chest, taunting Batman by telling him that he killed his friend.

The following year, the Joker captures Commissioner Gordon and takes him to Seagate Amusement Park, prompting Batgirl to go there and ask Robin for backup, as the Joker threatens to kill Gordon if Batman shows up. The pair fight their way through the Joker's forces to rescue several captured Gotham City police officers and prevent several of the Joker's bombs from exploding before confronting the clown prince of crime himself. The pair fight a horde of the Joker's henchmen, incapacitating Harley Quinn and eventually the Joker himself. Batgirl is then able to free Gordon, but Joker threatens to kill Harley if they get any closer (knowing that Batgirl, following in Batman's footsteps, would not allow a death at her hands).

He then shoots Robin (whom Batgirl pushes out of the way in time), before pulling Harley away from him and jumping off the dock, opening a parachute to glide to his own escape. Batgirl heads off to chase him, but Robin stops her, claiming that they've finished the job now that they've rescued Gordon and the GCPD. Gordon then asks for Harley Quinn to be detained, and when he returns, the pair have disappeared into the shadows, a trait he says "runs in the family." Later that year, the Joker finds Barbara in her apartment and shoots her at point-blank range so that her father can return home and find her.

She survives the shot, but is paralyzed from the waist down. Still wanting to help the Bat-Family, she takes on a new role as "Oracle", using her technological brilliance and expertise to help Batman and Robin from a hidden base inside Gotham's clock tower. Two years later, Batman begins to receive anonymous tips about his investigations. By following these tips, he is able to capture Zsasz and return him to Arkham Asylum. The next tip takes you to a test tube containing a green toxin much like the fear toxin created by Scarecrow, but much more powerful; this leads him to find Scarecrow and bring him to Arkham as well.

Finally, the third tip leads Batman to the Joker himself, about to kill the mayor of Gotham. Batman foils this plan and begins to take the Joker back to Arkham Island. Warden Sharp then begins a speech directed at the Arkham Guards so that they do not let the Joker escape again. With them worried, Harley Quinn (disguised as a nurse) arrives at Bane's cell, about to administer an unknown green chemical to him. When Batman arrives at the Asylum, he has a feeling that, considering how easy everything has been up to this point, combined with the fact that many of the Joker's men had been transferred to Arkham after a fire at Blackgate Prison, something feels wrong.

When Batman arrives, he hands the Joker to Warden Sharp and Arkham. The guards tie the clown to a cart to take him to the Intensive Treatment Facility. Batman decides to follow him to make sure the Joker gets to his cell safely. Along the way, they encounter Killer Croc, being transported through the facility, who leaves Batman with an ominous warning. When they arrive at the Intensive Treatment Facility, they find Commissioner Gordon, and Batman shares his fears that the Joker is planning something bigger before two guards force them to stay behind while they take the Joker to a safe area.

Once out of Batman's reach, the Joker is freed and Harley Quinn is able to work security to allow the Joker to escape to the Asylum while she traps Batman to fight a group of his goons. Of course, Batman makes quick work of them, and then he and Gordon discuss the trap they've apparently fallen into. With Oracle's help, Batman heads to the Asylum to find the Joker. He quickly runs into Zsasz, threatening to kill a guard, but Batman is able to sneak him out to rescue him. Shortly afterward, Batman receives a video message from Harley Quinn revealing that she has kidnapped Warden Sharp and refers to the night's events as "the Joker's big homecoming," with Batman being the guest of honor.

When he hangs up, Batman receives more bad news, this time from Oracle, who calls and informs him that the Joker claims to have bombs hidden throughout Gotham, which he will detonate if anyone else reaches Arkham Island, leaving Batman without any. external help. Batman continues on and finds the Joker, but before he can attack, the clown releases a huge mutated Blackgate prisoner, which Batman is forced to fight. The beast then falls to the ground, apparently dying from its “treatments.” Joker then offers Batman the chance to end the night's events early by knocking him out of the suspended cage he is standing in, but Batman knows this will kill the Joker, so he refuses, much to the delight of the clown, who then escapes from the room, leaving.

Batman behind. However, shortly after, Batman receives a video message from the Joker, who reveals that Officer Frank Boles is secretly working for him and that they have captured Gordon, who is now targeting Harley. Joker then warns Batman that if he tries to follow him, Harley will kill Gordon. Batman is able to use his detective tools to follow a scent trail left by Boles to locate Gordon; However, along the way he encounters Harley Quinn, who blows up an elevator to impede Batman's progress. This only slightly deters Batman, who is able to follow the trail to its unfortunate end: the corpse of Officer Boles, betrayed and murdered by the Joker.

At the same time, Batman's communications with Oracle are hacked by the Riddler, who leaves Batman with the challenge of finding all of the riddles hidden from him in Arkham Asylum. Batman heads out to the open area of ​​the island and receives a call from Oracle informing him that the Batmobile is currently under attack. He returns to him and defends himself from the group of Harley's men who attack him, discovering a trail of tobacco left by Gordon to follow to his whereabouts. Batman finds Harley and Gordon, but is blocked by an electrical security field. He sets out to find another way to get to his location and eventually encounters a group of doctors, whom he frees, along with a former GCPD officer turned security guard named Aaron Cash.

One of the doctors, Penelope Young, has sparked a curious interest on the part of the Joker and his men. Because of this, Cash escorts her to Arkham Mansion to collect research from her, while Batman continues searching for Gordon in the morgue below. Upon entering the morgue, Batman witnesses a group of inmates and officers go crazy with fear before catching a glimpse of Scarecrow. As he continues towards the morgue, he finally reaches Gordon...unfortunately he had been killed, with his dead body leaning against the wall. He tries to call Barbara to give her the news, but finds the line mysteriously disconnected.

As he ventures into the morgue to search for Gordon's killer, Batman opens a pair of body bags to find the reanimated corpses of his parents and begs him to help them. As he opens a third bag, Scarecrow emerges, taking Batman to a strange cyclone-filled landscape where he is forced to avoid the now-giant figure's gaze to illuminate it and escape. Now back at the morgue that was unaffected by Scarecrow's gas, Batman discovers that the body he found was not Gordon's, but that of an Arkham guard, leading him to realize that Commissioner He is still alive; and soon after finds him and Harley in a locked room.

Batman bursts into the room from above, taking out Harley in the process. Batman frees Gordon, who warns Batman that he has learned something big that the Joker has in store for them next. The pair then encounter the Joker's surprise: Bane, who has had his poison removed by Dr. Young. Joker then injects him with a more powerful chemical, and with this newfound strength, Bane is able to break free from his confinement and attack Batman. The pair fight until the ceiling begins to collapse on Bane, giving Batman the opportunity to grab onto a sewer grate and escape. Outside, he meets Gordon, whom he decides that he needs to get off the island as soon as possible.

Shortly after, Bane crashes through a nearby wall and grabs Batman, who is able to summon the Batmobile to crash into Bane and take him into the bay surrounding the island. Batman and Gordon then head to the docks, where the commissioner boards a ship with an Arkham guard and sets off to return to the mainland. Batman then heads to a secret Batcave he set up in Arkham in case of an emergency and uses the Batcomputer there to obtain information on Dr. Young. He discovers that she had been researching Bane's poison and used that knowledge to create a more powerful version called "Titan", which Batman realizes Joker intends to use for his grand plan.

Believing that the Joker will seek out Young and her investigation, Batman heads to Arkham Mansion to find her. There, Batman finds and rescues Aaron Cash once again, before arriving at Dr. Young's office. Batman realizes that Young had already recovered his research and begins to follow the trail of her fingerprints to the nearby library to find where he hid his notes. He proceeds to destroy the notes so that Joker can't get them into his hands, but soon discovers that Joker had sent his men to capture Dr. Young to get the formula from her. As Batman heads out to find Young, Scarecrow poisons him again and is forced to relive the death of his parents before re-entering the cyclone-filled landscape to illuminate the figure and emerge victorious and escape again.

Batman then finds Zsasz holding Dr. Young captive. He is able to stealthily use one of his Batarangs to incapacitate the villain and rescue the doctor. He then reveals that Joker obtained gallons of the poison he was using for testing, along with his formula for Titan. He then goes to open the Guardian's safe to find the security codes to a laboratory hidden in the nearby gardens, but instead finds one of Joker's bombs. Batman tries to protect her from the explosion, but he arrives too late and the doctor is killed by the explosion, which also leaves Batman unconscious.

When he comes to, he sees Harley Quinn with the Guardian, who drops his staff before they take him away. Batman wakes up and takes out Harley's men before using the staff to track down the Guardian's footprints. On his way, he encounters Poison Ivy, who begs Batman to save her "babies," the island's plants. He shrugs and arrives at the control room where Warden Sharp has been held captive. He sees a security camera and watches Harley leave, where he runs into Poison Ivy and frees her. Batman frees the Guardian and obtains the security code from him for the lab before meeting Harley once again.

He fights off a large horde of thugs before she attacks him herself, being quickly subdued and stopped by the Bat. He then learns from her that Joker's production facility for the chemical he intends to use to create a Titan-powered army is located in the Botanical Gardens, and he locks Harley up before leaving her. Inside the gardens, Batman finds the Joker's secret production facility, but escapes, forcing Batman to fight more Titan-powered henchmen. Batman then discovers that they are somehow using Poison-infused plants to create the Titan, and finds Ivy, whom he interrogates, knowing that nothing would happen to the plants on the island without her knowing.

Ivy then informs Batman that there is a plant that could be used to synthesize an antidote, but it can only be found deep inside the island: in Killer Croc's lair. When Batman returns to the island, he discovers that Ivy's plants are overrunning the island and Joker sends him a message that she had provided him with a sample of the Titan serum, which caused her to become much more powerful. Batman finds Aaron Cash and asks him where Killer Croc is being kept locked up. He informs him of a "special cell" beneath the Intensive Treatment Center, and Batman returns to that building.

However, when he does so, Batman is poisoned by Scarecrow once again, this time imagining himself locked in Arkham by the Joker and Harley Quinn. He once again can use his willpower to overcome his fear and return it to Scarecrow. Back in the real world, Scarecrow runs off to flood the waters with his fear toxin to spread across Gotham. However, before he can, he is attacked by Killer Croc, who drags him into the sewer waters, causing him to drop his bag of fear toxin. Batman heads deep into the sewers and finds the spores to create the antidote, avoiding an angry Killer Croc along the way.

As he leaves, the giant beast emerges and charges at him, but Batman is able to set off an explosion that sends Croc into the depths. Batman returns to the Batcave and uses the flowers to create an antidote, then sets out to take down Ivy before her plants destroy the island. In itsAlong the way, Batman discovers that the Joker also intended to contaminate the water supply, but with his Titan chemical. Batman is able to foil this plan by destroying the pumping stations around the sewers. With that distraction removed, Batman returns to the Botanical Gardens to find Ivy.

There, he explains that while he thought Young's chemicals had been harming the plants, they had actually caused them to evolve and become stronger. She uses these powerful plants to attack Batman, but he is able to defeat her, forcing her plants to retreat to the ground, with Ivy inside her. Outside, Joker informs Batman that it's time for the final surprise and heads to the Visitor Center to finally find out what it's all about. Inside, Batman finds the Joker, who greets him before quickly leaving, a bomb exploding in his wake. When Batman follows him, he finds his nemesis sitting atop a throne, playing with "Scarface", a sinister puppet carved by an Arkham inmate who led a man named Arnold Wesker (later known as "The Ventriloquist") to his death. .

Joker throws Scarface to the ground and sends Titan-mutated Arkham Guards after him, which Batman is forced to incapacitate. After the battle, Joker reveals another surprise: Commissioner James Gordon, tied up after being captured during his attempt to leave the island. Joker pulls out a gun containing syringes filled with Titan and shoots the Commissioner. However, Batman is able to dive in front of him just in time, and the syringe pierces him, beginning to transform him almost immediately. Batman is able to fight the transformation, but Joker tries to force it, to no avail. Angry that Batman ruined his big plans for the night, Joker shoots himself with a Titan dart.

As the news helicopters begin to arrive, Joker, now transformed into a monstrous creature, takes Batman to the rooftop and hooks Gordon to an electrified chair. Joker continues to taunt Batman, telling him that allowing himself to be mutated by the Titan was the only way to defeat his enemy. Batman disagrees and injects himself with the antidote, much to the Joker's confusion. Batman is then forced to fight the overpowered Joker, along with several waves of his men. After knocking the Joker down with his grappling hook several times, the monstrosity falls through the electrified ceiling, weakening him. When he goes back up to confront the Bat, he covers his glove with explosive gel and delivers an explosive punch to the Joker, ultimately incapacitating him.

Afterwards, the super criminals are arrested again and the guards take control of the asylum again. The poison-induced inmates apparently begin to return to normal, including a severely injured Joker. Gordon calls Barbara to tell her about the night's events and Batman arrives to talk to him. Gordon tells Batman to get some rest, but just as he does, a call comes over the radio about Two-Face robbing a Gotham bank, and as he turns around, Batman once again disappears before him, and when he looks Up, the Batwing flies into the city for Batman to continue his night of crime fighting.

However, as he flies off, a Titan box is seen floating in the water, and one of the villains Batman left in the water grabs it. After being detained again in Arkham, Joker begins to become deathly ill as a side effect of the Titan formula. Harley Quinn finds out about this from her own cell phone and promises that she won't let anyone take Joker before his time comes. In the wake of the Arkham Riots, Warden Quincy Sharp is seen as a hero among the citizens of Gotham, a reputation he is able to parlay into a successful election campaign to become mayor of Gotham City, with the help of his psychiatrist.

In a televised interview with Jack Ryder and Vicki Vale, Vale reveals Asylum security footage showing that Sharp is not the hero he pretends to be, and was actually unconscious for most of the night of the Joker's attack. This doesn't rattle Sharp, who ignores the claims and issues a warning to any potential masked "supervillains." At the Gotham Police Department, Gordon and Batman watch the interview, and Gordon is frustrated that Batman hasn't gotten the credit he deserves for single-handedly defeating the Joker. Gordon then tells Batman about a pair of enhanced Titan siblings, Terry and Tracy Trask, who have been wreaking havoc since Joker's imprisonment.

Batman then turns to his known associate, Two-Face, to find out if and how Titan has arrived from Arkham to Gotham. Batman finds the former district attorney and asks him about the Trasks. Two-Face informs him that the Trasks were members of his gang, but after some Titan crates washed up on Gotham's shores, the pair began taking him in, learning of his immense power, and when they became powerful, they ended up killing him. half of Two-Face's men in an attempted hostile takeover of the gang and, eventually, the entire city. He then tells Batman that the pair have been in hiding lately, planning something big, which Batman determines will be the dedication of the new City Hall.

During the ceremony, the Trasks eliminate the Gotham City police security forces and take the stage while Mayor Sharp gives his speech. Batman stops them with his explosive gel-lined suit before Batman can hit Terry with a tranquilizer dart. The brothers then call an unknown third party, known as "Prof", who asks them to "do whatever is necessary for our cause", before the pair explode in a giant explosion, from which Batman barely escapes. This destruction causes Mayor Sharp to push for martial law in Gotham, setting aside a portion of the city to be policed ​​by a privatized army to contain the criminally insane.

This section of the city, called "Arkham City", gives Batman pause, as he does not believe it was solely Sharp's idea. This leaves him wondering who the mastermind is in control here and how he will stop them. Some time later, Vincent Garrett, a high-ranking former Navy SEAL, meets with Professor Hugo Strange about an offer from the mayor for a job as a captain in his new security force, called Tyger. Strange proceeds to give Garrett a psychological evaluation, but during it, he injects the man with an unknown serum. Strange then begins playing a series of videos as “orientation” to indoctrinate Garrett into Tyger's ideals: total control without opposition, including Batman.

He then leaves him a final message to "kill the bat", which Garrett begins to obsess over before Strange injects him with another serum to calm him down. With the "interview" over, Strange welcomes the new captain to Tyger before telling him to forget all about meeting him. As the man leaves his office, Strange tears up a portrait of Mayor Sharp, knowing that when the time is right, Tyger's guards will obey only him and he will be able to take full control of Gotham City. That same year, Arkham City is about to open, despite the objections of the citizens of Gotham.

Sharp appears on television with Ryder and Vale, promising that security in Arkham City will be strong enough to contain Gotham's criminally insane while they learn to live in society again. That night, Batman, still believing there is a greater plan at hand, drives to Sharp's mansion to search for information. There, he discovers that Sharp has been keeping detailed files on him, referring to him as "Enemy X". Just as he finds the plans to Arkham City, he receives a video call from Hugo Strange. Suddenly, a turret appears and begins shooting Batman with rubber bullets, as a gas begins to fill the room as well.

Batman realizes that these defenses were not to kill him, but to learn his techniques, so he shuts down the building's network before leaving in the Batmobile. In Arkham Asylum, Aaron Cash is reluctantly starting to send patients to Arkham City. However, one inmate he doesn't mind shipping is the Joker. However, while the Joker is being transferred, a group of guards take him to a room, tie him to a stretcher, and prepare to kill him as revenge for killing his companions during the Arkham riots. Just as one prepares to kill him, another guard throws a knife at his neck and removes his costume to reveal that he is an escaped Harley Quinn, who eliminates the rest of the guards and takes Joker to the nearby docks to escape. on a boat.

Batman receives an alert that his security systems have been activated on Arkham Island and heads out to stop whoever he is, discovering along the way that he is none other than the Joker. When Batman arrives at Joker and Harley's ship, he fires a warning missile at her, but the pair return the favor with their own role-playing game. Batman returns fire, destroying his ship and forcing them to flee into the sewer system. When they emerge, the two find themselves in Arkham City, and Joker heads to the Sionis Industries building, where they intend to establish themselves as "mayor and mayor of Arkham City." Some time later, Jenna Duffy, known as The Carpenter, is at a bar when Tyger suddenly enters, looking for her.

She leaves and goes to break into an ATM to steal some money and run before Tyger catches her. Batman catches her in the act and chases her until her truck crashes. She emerges from it with some power tools to confront him, but he defeats her in battle and the two have an argument afterwards. Batman helps Jenna by providing her with a one-way bus ticket to her hometown, on the condition that she gives up his van and her tools to lead a less criminal life. She agrees and sets off, while Tyger continues rounding up everyone from first-time criminals to white-collar criminals.

Later, we find street criminal Lester Kurtz heading to the Joker's headquarters in Arkham City to try to get a "job" with the clown. After passing some of the Joker's "tests", Kurtz is given a mask and a place to stay. Not satisfied with the limitations of him working only for the Joker, Kurtz heads to the headquarters of the other criminal attempting to take early control of Arkham City: the Penguin. The Penguin immediately allows Kurtz to work for him and sends him to steal a shipment of weapons before it reaches the security armory. Kurtz is able to use his unique abilities to take down Arkham City's secured security truck, but the Joker's men soon arrive to bring the shipment to him and Kurtz.

Having no other choice, Kurtz throws a grenade, allowing him and Penguin's men to escape, but destroying the weapons in the process. When they return to Penguin, as expected, he is very upset about the loss of the weapons and Kurtz is sent to his quarters on half pay. On his way, Kurtz attacks the guards accompanying him and reveals himself to be Batman in disguise before escaping the Iceberg Lounge, and now has inside information on how both criminal masterminds are operating within Arkham City. Batman reflects on how he still doesn't know the identity of the real mastermind behind Arkham City.

Elsewhere, that same brain watches his every move, tires of the game, but submits to playing it to the end. In Arkham Asylum, The Riddler encounters an unknown associate of his whom he hired to build him a new hideout. He then also pays Poison Ivy to help him escape from her cell. After doing so, he picks up his signature suit and arrives at his new base of operations, ready to create his new gang and place his signature puzzles in Arkham City. While trying to find his way to the now safe Arkham City, Batman falls into a booby trap.

He is "welcomed" to the city by the as-yet-unknown mastermind, who has prepared the city's defenses by planning Batman's every move. The battle with Tyger is soon interrupted by a crashing Semi truck, driven by none other than Catwoman, whose help Batman reluctantly accepts given the current situation. Catwoman reveals that she went there to collect the gold that the crime bosses had stored in the chaos of Gotham's current crisis, but she reveals that she had instead found the shipment of weapons that Penguin and Joker were after. fighting. She then used the weapons to help Poison Ivy escape from prison, hoping to gain her as an ally of hers in the future.

Catwoman then dropped Ivy off at Central Gardens, where she set up her own base of operations. Batman leaves Catwoman with a warning for her to be careful about the company she keeps, before ejecting from the vehicle and leaving her alone. Meanwhile, Joker looks for a doctor to examine him. The doctor confirms that Joker's exposure to the Titan Formula continues to mutate his body, negatively affecting his vital organs. Joker asks the doctor to isolate a sample of the toxin from his blood, and he agrees, providing the clown with a vial of poison before he is unknowingly sent to his own death in the facility's incinerator. .

Elsewhere in Arkham City, Batman attacks a Tyger guard, whom he threatens to reveal the name of the real mastermind behind the operation. Although the guard initially says Quincy Sharp's name, Batman intimidates him to finally reveal the real name he was looking for: Hugo Strange. Batman then returns to the Batcave to share this information with Robin and Alfred. They look for Strange inthe Batcomputer and discover in deleted Arkham Asylum records that he was a crazy psychologist with delusions of grandeur. Alfred then points out a nearby news report, where Mayor Sharp reveals his secret collaborator to the public, putting Strange in the spotlight with the protection of the mayor's office.

Batman then decides that he can no longer pursue the Professor... but Bruce Wayne can. The next day, Mayor Sharp holds a press conference about Arkham City, as well as his partner's response to the revelation. Bruce Wayne arrives to present files on Strange's history of patient abuse, but simply responds by stating that he was the scapegoat for Arkham's other incompetent doctors. He then turns the tables by asking why a billionaire “playboy” would spend so much time obsessing over a doctor he doesn't know. Wayne tries to retort, but Strange shuts him up, claiming that his city is now a reality and that his attempts to smear the professor are in vain.

He later secretly congratulates himself on his preparations, including the release of Victor Zsasz, as well as his pleasure in secretly pitting the various supercriminals against each other. He then comes to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne is Batman and looks forward to his next meeting in Arkham City. Meanwhile, Robin finds his own way to Arkham City, unbeknownst to Batman. He goes in to check it out and finds Harley Quinn and a group of Joker's men trying to steal medicine from other inmates. Robin intervenes and interrupts this attempt before returning to the Batcave. There, Bruce reveals to Tim that he was aware that he had entered Arkham City, but allows him to continue.

Inside Arkham City, Bane, who had since been transferred there after his last encounter with Batman, found Venom's old hideout and returned to his old fighting ring. There, he meets his first Titan-enhanced challenger, sent by the Joker. Bane is able to defeat this enemy due to the negative side effects of Titan, but then, seeing the danger from him, he sets himself a new goal: eliminating the remains of the Titan formula. One day, in Arkham City, one of the Joker's henchmen arrives and returns Scarface's puppet to him. He is elated at his return, but Harley quickly becomes upset and throws him into a pit of molten steel, later telling Joker that it was an accident.

However, much to his dismay, one of the Joker's men is able to repair it and make it good as new, and the sentient doll now holds a grudge against Harley Quinn. Later, Freeze discovers that Hugo Strange has captured his frozen wife, Nora. Despite being pursued by Batman, Freeze reaches Strange at his advanced cryogenics facility. Freeze demands the release of his wife, but the Doctor reveals that he had simply goaded Freeze into proposing a partnership between the two. Strange offers Freeze a fully equipped laboratory to find a cure for his wife, in exchange for his help in producing a series of serums and medications for Strange.

Freeze accepts this offer and leaves shortly before Batman arrives to investigate. There, he discovers that the two men are gone, but notices a ballerina in a snow globe left behind Freeze. Some time later, Two-Face sends his men to protect a safe containing something very valuable. Catwoman arrives, takes them out before opening the safe and retrieving a memory card containing a map to a building within the city's Park Row district. However, she soon encounters Two-Face, who points a gun at her head and catches her in the act. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne holds a press conference outside the walls of Arkham City to start a campaign to shut it down.

Tyger's forces arrive, knock him out and capture him. Now tied to a chair, Bruce meets Hugo Strange, who reveals his knowledge of Bruce's dual identity as Batman. Strange states that he is about to initiate "Protocol 10", and if Bruce tries to stop him, he will reveal his secret to the world. Bruce encounters a fellow political prisoner: Jack Ryder, and attempts to assist in his "initiation" before Bruce is knocked unconscious and brought before the Penguin. Cobblepot expresses his anger that the Wayne family defeated the Cobblepots in the past and attempts to defeat Bruce as revenge. Bruce breaks Penguin's hand and proves to be a formidable opponent for his men, knocking them all down before reaching a nearby roof to call Alfred.

Alfred airdrops some equipment for Bruce, who suits up to begin his night as Batman, searching for answers about this “Protocol 10.” After using an encryption key he stole from a guard, Batman is able to hijack Tyger's communications and discover that Catwoman is being held by Two-Face in a nearby courthouse. Batman then heads there to find her and stop Two-Face and hopefully find out what she knows about Arkham City. Inside the Courthouse, Batman finds Two-Face putting Catwoman on "trial" for her crimes and plans to execute her. Batman intervenes and eliminates Two-Face's men, but shoots the Bat, incapacitating him.

He approaches Catwoman and tries to kill her, but Catwoman escapes her and stops him, before Batman can hang him over the same poison he tried to kill Catwoman with. Catwoman then retrieves the phone and memory card from her before speaking to Batman. He asks her about Protocol 10, but she doesn't know. She instead informs Batman that she has heard that Strange is working with Joker on something for Batman, which may be what she is looking for. Just then, Joker tries to shoot Catwoman through the window, but Batman pulls her away just in time. Batman follows the bullet's path to a nearby building, and when he enters, he finds Harley Quinn.

She tries to attack him, but he quickly stops her. Her men take civilians hostage to prevent Batman from capturing her, and she tells him that Joker is not available for a meeting before leaving alone. Batman takes the men out to free the hostages, then heads to the bell tower and discovers that the Joker's gun was being controlled remotely. Joker then contacts him via video message to start a countdown for the bombs inside the room Batman is in. Batman escapes before the explosion, but is able to jam the signal used to control the rifle. Batman follows the signal to the Steelworks and finds Harley Quinn once again.

She locks him out of the Joker's office, but Batman first frees a doctor captured by Harley who was forced to treat the Joker's Titan illness. Batman then manages to force his way into the Joker's office, but soon runs into opposition, including a giant hammer-wielding villain known appropriately as “Mr. Hammer". After fighting off this opposition, Batman catches up with Harley and Joker, but just as he does, Joker stops, leaving Harley extremely distraught. When Batman approaches to examine the now lifeless body, he is ambushed from behind by the real Joker, who holds a mask over his face, forcing him to inhale an unknown gas before Harley Quinn knocks him out with her baseball bat.

Meanwhile, Catwoman goes to find Poison Ivy to ask for her help in her plan. ; use the map she found on the memory card to infiltrate Strange's vault and steal all the valuables it contains. Catwoman finds Ivy, but she immediately attacks her, still angry from a previous encounter when Catwoman forgot about him. watering her flowers, Ivy then forces Catwoman to fight several henchmen enchanted by her mind control spores. Catwoman defeats them, but Ivy captures her herself, ties up the thief, and holds her there. Back at Steelmill, Batman wakes up to find Harley trying to remove her mask, but Joker stops her.

Batman initially believes that Joker had been faking his illness to fool Batman, but Joker quickly reveals the gruesome new figure of him, explaining that his blood is heavily contaminated; the same blood he transfused into Batman's veins as he passed out. Joker then reveals that he also sent samples of his blood to emergency rooms across the city to further compel Batman to help him find a cure for his illness. Batman assumes it is Protocol 10, but Joker reveals that he has never heard of it. He then kicks Batman out a window and, after he crashes, calls him to tell him to find Mr.

Freeze to find the cure. Batman tracks Freeze to a former Gotham City Police Department forensic lab. There, Batman learns that Freeze had been captured by Penguin's men. After interrogating one of them, he discovers that Penguin is keeping Freeze at the nearby Natural History Museum. Batman heads to Penguin and discovers a container of Titan formula along the way. Inside, Batman learns that Commissioner Gordon had sent a strike team of ten officers to work undercover on Penguin's gang. Batman goes to look for them, but finds Penguin, who shoots one of the officers before revealing that he is holding everyone else hostage, presenting one held by Mr.

Hammer's brother: Sickle. Before long, Penguin reveals a Titan-powered henchman, whom Batman is forced to defeat while Cobblepot walks away. Batman tours the museum, frees the hostages, and finds Mr. Freeze. After a fight with Sickle, Batman frees Freeze from captivity and the two discuss the cure for this "Joker disease." Unable to finish the cure without his suit, Freeze makes a deal with Batman to obtain it in exchange for his help. Batman finds Freeze's suit and removes a security override chip to disable his weapons. He then finds Penguin, wielding Freeze's ice gun, which he can deactivate using said override chip.

Batman then eliminates Penguin, but creates an explosion that sends Batman into the depths. There, Batman encounters Solomon Grundy once again and the two fight. After Batman emerges victorious, Penguin decides to take matters into his own hands, but is quickly dispatched as well. Batman takes Penguin back to Mr. Freeze, who traps the man in a display case in the museum. Batman presses Freeze about the cure and he admits that it is unusable due to his volatility. Freeze requires some kind of regenerative enzyme, which he won't be able to synthesize for decades. Batman reveals that he knows a man exposed to that enzyme for centuries: a 600-plus-year-old assassin named Rā's al Ghūl.

Freeze asks him to retrieve a sample of al Ghūl's blood and suddenly, Batman is attacked by a nearby assassin who was also in one of Penguin's display cases. The assassin, a member of Rā's al Ghūl's “League of Assassins,” flees. Batman determines that the killer is a member of al Ghūl's daughter, Talia's elite guard. He tracks him down, but is soon ambushed by a group of assassins. Robin arrives and helps, scaring them. Batman gives Robin a sample of his blood and sends him to have all the blood tested at local hospitals for the disease it contains.

Following the killer's trail, Batman finds his way underground to the abandoned "Wonder City", where he begins to feel the effects of the Joker's infection. There, Batman encounters several of al Ghūl's "Mechanical Guardians" before being able to use one of the assassin's swords to open a secret passage. As he travels, his vital signs begin to drop drastically and he begins to have visions of his parents asking him to walk towards the light. He fights this and continues searching for Talia. Talia initially slaps Batman, mentioning that he didn't call her after a night they spent together in Metropolis.

He asks her where her father is, but she only responds by trying to seduce him. However, when she lifts his mask to kiss him, she notices her face adorned with the effects of her illness. Batman reveals to her that he ultimately intends to take her place as her right-hand man, leading her army as her father intended. She takes him to

complete

"The Trials of the Demon", and he enters a room where he speaks with the disembodied spirit of Rā's al Ghūl, who provides him with a sample of the "Demon's Blood", the drink that has allowed Rā's live so long This helps heal Batman enough to successfully

complete

the trials, emerging on the other side to find Al Ghūl himself.

Rā's reveals the final test to take his place as leader of the League of Assassins: kill him. Batman refuses, angering Talia, who had been lied to. Rā's offers Batman what he's looking for: a sample of her blood... on the condition that he spills it all in a fight to the death. He then jumps into a nearby "Lazarus Pit" (a pool of arcane chemicals that give him eternal youth), which returns his body to fighting form. Rā's takes Batman to a dreamscape where the two fight, but Batman is able to defeat the assassin, despite his supernatural abilities in this environment.

Back in the real world, Rā's takes Talia hostage and threatens to kill her unless Batman kills him first. However, Batman is able to prevent this by knocking him out with a Batarang. Batman then takes a sample of his enemy's blood, and Rā's reveals that he was pressuring Batman to kill him so he could take his place at the head of the League of Assassins, as he knows he can't go on living forever, after of having used the Lazarus Pit. too many times for her body and his mind to handle. Batman leaves him with a warning to stophis actions before leaving.

Batman begins to return to Freeze with the blood sample, but discovers that Mayor Quincy Sharp has been taken to Arkham City and its inhabitants have turned against him. Batman finds Sharp and rescues him from a group of Two-Face's men. Batman interrogates Sharp, who reveals that Strange offered to help him win his mayoral campaign through his "powerful friends" as long as he "turned a blind eye" to the Doctor's experiments. Batman tries to find out who these "powerful friends" are, but Sharp doesn't know, leaving him now useless to Strange and Batman. Batman then returns to the forensic lab to give Rā's al Ghūl's blood sample to Mr.

Freeze, who uses it to complete the antidote. Freeze creates two vials, keeps one in a safe, and then surprisingly destroys the second. Freeze then forces Batman to return his wife, Nora, to the Joker in exchange for the sealed jar. The two then proceed to fight, and Batman is able to defeat Freeze before suffering the effects of the disease once again. Batman leaves Freeze and opens the safe, discovering that Harley Quinn had accessed the safe from the other side and stolen the antidote. Freeze, still wanting revenge on the Joker, provides Batman with some weapons and then Batman promises to find Nora before leaving to confront the Joker.

However, Joker shoots down reporter Vicki Vale's helicopter, forcing him to rush in and save her, giving Harley enough time to return to Steel Mill safely. Batman enters the mill and receives bad news from Oracle: Hugo Strange, using the reasoning of the proliferation of illegal firearms (which he secretly provided), receives approval from Gotham City's High Council to initiate Protocol 10 in half an hour. Batman reaches out to the Joker, who reveals himself to be looking back at his former, healthier self. He then starts a battle that includes himself, some thugs, Mr. Hammer, and a Titan-powered clown, before Batman defeats them all and chases after the Joker.

However, before he can reach it, the ceiling collapses on Batman, incapacitating him. From the shadows emerges Talia al Ghūl, who offers the Joker not to kill Batman and, in exchange, will provide him with the secret of immortality. Joker prepares to leave with her, and Talia activates Batman's tracking device on herself, telling him to "follow her heart" as the pair leave Batman behind to pass out from the battle. Meanwhile, Catwoman is still held captive by Poison Ivy, who reveals that the last of her flowers is kept alive in Strange's vault, prompting Catwoman to offer a deal to set her free and help her enter the vault in exchange for let Catwoman come in. and steal her flower.

Ivy reluctantly agrees, lets her go and creates an entrance to the vault using her vines. Catwoman removes the security from the vault and enters it. Along the way, she learns that Batman is in the Steel Mill and killing him will be the first action of Protocol 10, which begins moments later. Catwoman finds Ivy's plant... and destroys it out of spite. She then recovers two cases with the valuables she was looking for, while she listens to another report that they have gotten Batman. Catwoman heads to the vault exit and sees Batman trapped on a surveillance screen. She fights with herself over whether to take the money and run, or help her on-again, off-again frenemy.

In the end, she decides to take the money and run, leaving him to die at the hands of Strange and Tyger, causing the death of Commissioner Gordon and allowing Joker to take over Gotham. Just kidding, she heads to the Steel Mill, leaving the boxes behind. Catwoman gets to Batman before Tyger and frees him from the rubble, returning the favor from earlier that night. Catwoman leaves and Batman leaves the Mill to discover that Protocol 10 is Strange's plan to eliminate all inmates, criminal or not, within Arkham City with missile attacks from Wonder Tower. Batman orders Oracle to shut down the tower while he rescues Talia from the Joker, but she and Alfred convince him to go to the tower to ensure the missile attacks are prevented and save all lives within Arkham City.

Batman manages to reach Wonder Tower, where Strange blames Batman for the ongoing events, claiming that without him escalating crime in Gotham City, Protocol 10 would never have been necessary. Batman fights his way up the tower to reach Strange in his office at the top and knocks him down before allowing Oracle to connect to the tower's network to stop the missile attacks. Batman then pushes Strange towards the window, forcing him to look at the destruction he has caused. Strange maintains his sick sense of pride and claims that he has powerful friends who will allow his work to continue.

Before he can continue his speech, he is suddenly impaled in the abdomen by none other than Rā's al Ghūl. Rā's is revealed to be the real mastermind behind the entire plan. Rā's reveals that after Strange learned Batman's true identity, he informed him of the secret, leading Rā's to give Hugo the chance to prove himself to claim his place on the throne of the League of Assassins, as well as the Lazarus Pit. . Now that he knows Hugo failed, he sees no reason to let him live. Rā's observes the remains of Arkham City and asks Batman to join him in his quest to wipe out the world's criminals.

Batman refuses, claiming that Rā's has finally become what he has always fought against. Interrupting their conversation, Strange lets out his dying breath with five words: "Activate protocol 11. Passcode: Wayne." Suddenly, a countdown activates and Batman attacks Rā through the window just before the tower self-destructs in a giant explosion. Batman lands safely, but Rā falls on a spike and impales him in the chest. Joker contacts Batman via video message, revealing that Talia is alive, but in captivity. Batman heads to the nearby Monarch cinema to find the Joker, but when he arrives, Joker mysteriously asks Batman to give him the cure, who claims that Joker already took the cure.

In the confusion, Talia is able to break free and stab Joker in the chest, seemingly killing him. He then reveals that he had stolen the cure from Harley Quinn before he could give it to the Joker. Batman begins to think about the inconsistencies of the Joker's illness throughout the night, then realizes that somehow there are two Jokers, but just as he does so, Talia is shot dead by the real Joker, who is revealed to be extremely ill. When Batman leaves Talia's body, her dead double begins to rise and transforms to reveal himself as Clayface, a former actor named Basil Karlo with the ability to shape his appearance as he sees fit.

The pair engage in a grueling fight in the abandoned movie theater, and Batman ultimately emerges victorious over the enormous creature. This causes Joker to create an explosion, collapsing the floor and taking the pair to a secret room with a Lazarus Pit. Batman uses Talia's sword to defeat Clayface for good before drinking half of the Titan's cure, saving the rest to replicate and save the citizens of Gotham, along with Joker. Joker then attempts to jump into the Lazarus Pit to gain immortality, but Batman throws the sword into a nearby generator, which knocks Clayface into the pit, combining his body mass with the chemicals, creating an explosive reaction that destroys the pit and knocks him out. to Batman. .

When he wakes up, Joker taunts Batman by saying that even though he knows that Joker killed a woman Batman loved and poisoned Gotham, Batman will still save his life. Batman looks at the cure and knows that if he provides it to the Joker, he will only continue to take lives and wreak havoc, but before he can make a decision, Joker lunges and stabs Batman, causing him to fall and destroy the cure. healing. . Batman admits that even with everything he's done, he still would have saved the Joker. This gives the Joker his last laugh, as the clown dies with a smile on his face.

Batman then leaves the theater holding the Joker's corpse in his arms, while his men, Harley Quinn and Catwoman look on. Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD arrive, and Batman hands over Joker's body before walking away without a word. After Joker's death, Catwoman returns home, only to find her apartment trapped with an explosive that renders her unconscious. Two-Face's men then arrive, whom she quickly dispatches. Realizing that her things are missing, she interrogates one of the men and discovers that Two-Face has them in the museum. Catwoman heads there and fights her way through Two-Face's men to finally reach the crime boss alone.

He reveals that he gave away half of her loot and kept the other half of hers, and she knocks him out before leaving, where she meets up with Batman. Catwoman then heads off to get the rest of her belongings, while Batman stays behind to finish his job in Arkham City. For the rest of the night, Batman provides other assistance in Arkham City, including helping Bane destroy the Titan containers to prevent its spread, solving more of Riddler's puzzles, securing Nora Fries' frozen body for Mr. Freeze, being watched by a man named Azrael. who claims that Batman is part of an ancient prophecy to save Gotham, take down and capture Deadshot, deal with and capture the delusional, mind-controlling "Mad Hatter" (real name Jervis Tetch), track down and capture Zsasz before he claims more victims. , and finally: solve a series of murders and mutilations supposedly committed by “Bruce Wayne”, who turns out to be Bruce's childhood friend: Thomas Elliot, who hates the Wayne family and plans to transform into Bruce to ruin his life .

When Batman leaves Arkham City, he is attacked by an electric shock and falls from the sky, falling to the ground and discovers that his attacker is Electrocutioner; or rather his apprentice who has taken command. Batman is able to use the weaponry he obtained from Mr Freeze to quickly take down this new Elctrocutioner before leaving him for the Gotham Police to pick up. However, after he leaves, an unknown figure dressed in armor arrives and points a gun at his head. He claims that Batman's greatest power is instilling fear in criminals before pulling the trigger, killing the Electrocutor, and claims that his greatest power is knowing how meaningless the lives of these criminals really are.

The next day, Bruce Wayne wakes up inside Wayne Manor, where he learns that Commissioner Gordon and Aaron Cash have begun cleaning up Arkham City. Alfred has a conversation with Bruce about using his public persona to help Gotham instead of Batman, but Bruce remains steadfast in his stance that Batman is more useful. At the morgue, a pair of doctors perform an autopsy on Joker's corpse. They discover a piece of artificial skin, which they remove to find a hidden flash drive. When they open it, a column of green gas fills the room, killing the doctors and leaving a crooked smile on their faces.

Elsewhere, a group of GCPD officers are lured and attacked by Harley Quinn, but she is knocked out and captured by Detective Harvey Bullock, who takes her into police custody. At GCPD, she is met by her temporary psychiatrist, who proceeds to evaluate her condition. Harley then easily removes the handcuffs and escapes the facility, stealing explosives from the brig along the way. She and the remnants of the Joker's gang capture a SWAT team and hold them hostage at the Steel Mill. At the Steel Mill, Gordon orders his men to stand down and Batman arrives to talk to him.

He orders Gordon to secure the perimeter, while Batman enters to find the captured GCPD officers. After fighting off several of Quinn's men and freeing some of the hostages, Harley arrives to confront Batman. She shoots one of the officers, but he jumps in front of the bullet, knocking him to the ground, unconscious. The thugs try to take the tool belt from her, but she electrocutes one of them, causing him to fall to the ground. They then drag Batman away to take him captive. Two days later, Oracle becomes concerned about Batman's disappearance and sends Robin to follow the tracking beacon on his utility belt to find him.

Arriving at Steel Mill, Robin takes out swarms of Harley's thugs before finally locating the tracking beacon in the discarded utility belt. Robin continues to make his way deeper into the steel factory and eventually finds Batman trapped in a giant monument to the Joker. Robin then heads off to find the security key to open the monument and finds Harley Quinn herself, from whom she steals the key before suspending it from a shelf. When she returns to the Joker monument, he is forced to fight the rest of Quinn's men, before using the key to free Batman. Now freed, Batman obtains his belt from Robin just before Harley reveals the explosives he stole.

Batman sends Robin to rescue the remaining hostage police officers while he deals with the bombs. Batman is able to defuse the bombs before Harley arrives and frees some of Wonder City's stolen Mechanical Guardians to fight him. After Batman destroys the robot army, Harley reveals that she has more explosives hidden in the Joker monument and threatens to detonate them before Batman grabs her and knocks her down, stealing the detonator. He soon discovers, however, that the detonator was simply a decoy, as the explosives were on a countdown, about to explode. Outside, Gordon approaches thefacility, but just as he does so, the explosion occurs and Batman and Harley emerge safe and sound.

Gordon reveals that Robin never made it out, leading Harley to gloat that now Batman knows what it feels like to lose someone he loves. She then goes after him with a knife, but is stopped by a throwing bird, which is caught by Robin, alive after all with the rescued police officers. Seeing his partner safe, Batman leaves without saying much. Several nights later, Batman is on patrol clearing out the remaining criminals in Arkham City, including cousins ​​Tweedledee and Tweedledum, before Alfred convinces him to return home for the night and rest up for a business meeting Bruce Wayne is having later. tomorrow.

Batman reluctantly agrees and at the next day's meeting, Bruce proposes a plan to rebuild Gotham along with the president of Wayne Enterprises, Lucius Fox. After a ten-hour meeting, Bruce and Lucius (who knows Bruce's identity as Batman and helps him develop his technology) return home, discussing Jim Gordon's absence from the meeting. Batman returns to the Batcave, where a video message from Joker suddenly appears on the Batcomputer, where he reveals that before dying, he was able to infiltrate the radio and television network towers, allowing him to broadcast this final message to the entire Batcave. the city. Penguin watches this message from his headquarters with the assembled brothers, Mr.

Hammer and Sickle. Penguin has brought them together to execute his plan to go after Wayne Enterprises to bring the Cobblepot family to the top of Gotham once again. He begins by sending them to find Scarecrow and bring him back. Joker's video includes a million-dollar reward for anyone who can return his body to Harley Quinn, as well as a warning to Batman that he has bombs hidden throughout Arkham Asylum that will explode that night. Batman remembers a room beneath the asylum, "the gallows", where years before he kept Joker in solitary confinement while he cleansed his skin of toxins and heads there to search for the bombs.

He finds not the explosives, but the Joker's "Diary", which contains the list of all the people he has killed. Then he hears another message from Joker and, turning to the last page, sees the final name: "Batman." The Joker's message reveals that the room Batman is currently in is primed to explode, caused by a pressure-sensitive plate under the book. Outside the Asylum is the armored figure who killed Electrocutioner, who had learned of the Joker's plan to kill Batman, as well as having Clayface move the explosives to the abandoned asylum. The figure attempts to avoid the explosion so that Batman can die on his terms instead of the Jokers, but the bomb explodes, bringing down Arkham Asylum, the Batmobile, and Batman himself.

The armored figure only finds Batman's tattered suit in the rubble, but also finds the Joker's diary, which he takes with him as he escapes before the police arrive. Detective Bullock arrives at Arkham and discovers the explosion, the Batmobile destroyed, and the suit in tatters. He calls Gordon to tell him the bad news, and Gordon walks into the other room, where he is currently keeping Joker's body, and realizes that it is now just the two of them. Meanwhile, Jonathan Crane is seen planning his revenge against Batman. As he repairs his Scarecrow mask, he promises that Batman will pay for what he has done, while fear will “tear Gotham apart.” At the Gotham docks, Batman comes to shore and protects a man who is being assaulted by the Joker's thug, then asks to borrow some clothes.

Bruce finds a pay phone and calls Commissioner Gordon, asking him to meet, then calls Alfred to request the equipment be delivered to him. After putting the suit back on, Batman meets Gordon at a crematorium outside Gotham City. Jim hands the flash drive to Batman before putting the Joker's body in the oven, finally destroying the Joker and hopefully putting an end to the damage he has caused. When Batman returns to the Batcave, he loads the contents of the flash drive into the Batcomputer and Alfred examines it and discovers that it contains "The Joker's Last Will and Testament." In the video, Joker tells his "origin story," including launching him by rocket from space to land on Earth, where he killed his two rich circus clown parents.

He continues this ridiculous story and finally reveals that he has one last gift for Gotham; something more subtle: a bomb without an explosion. After finishing, Batman receives a frantic call from Commissioner Gordon, who reveals that Joker has somehow infected him with his "Joker poison" before falling into a fit of madness. Gordon attempts suicide before he is completely under control, but Aaron Cash, now a lieutenant, stops him just as Batman bursts through the window and takes Gordon away. Meanwhile, at New Blackgate Prison (built after fire destroyed the previous one during the Arkham Asylum riots), Harleen Quinzel is sitting in her cell when Batman suddenly arrives and blasts a hole in the wall, freeing her and dragging her away. towards the Batwing. .

Batman takes them to Joker's old hideout at Steel Mill, where he leaves Gordon in the Batwing while he takes Harley inside. Batman demands that Harley give him a cure for the Joker's poison, and she apparently suddenly changes her mind and tells him that he can find it downstairs. Batman heads there and finds the cure, but unfortunately he also finds Killer Croc, hired by Harley to wait there and kill Batman when he arrives. Croc attacks Batman and pins him to the ground before destroying his utility belt and leaving him defenseless. Elsewhere, Penguin meets with Mr. Hammer, who informs him that Sickle found a clue to where Scarecrow is hiding.

He also reveals that Harley Quinn has arrived and asks about him. Cash arrives at Steel Mill to keep an eye on Gordon, and Batman calls him while he fights Croc. Batman tells Cash to take Gordon to the sewers to ensure that he can obtain the cure before Croc destroys it, and Cash agrees, despite his fear that Croc has lost his hand to the beast years before. Batman and Killer Croc continue their battle until Cash arrives and shoots Croc, distracting him long enough for Batman to reach for his ice blasts to freeze him in place. Batman and Cash then force-feed Gordon the cure, effectively removing the Joker-like effects from him immediately.

At Penguin's hideout, Harley arrives to talk to him. She states that Batman and the Commissioner should currently be dead, and that with them, as well as the Joker, Gotham City will need new "leadership." She then offers her a new partnership with him before taking her hat and planting a kiss on his lips. In Gotham City, a pair of Harley's goons kidnap the owner of the local baseball team, along with his wife and daughter. The armored figure arrives once again and the thugs mistake him for Batman, a claim which he scoffs at. He then tears a page out of the Joker's diary, stuffs it into one of the thugs' mouth, and sets it on fire, rescuing the family, but killing the henchmen.

Later, Bruce Wayne presents his plan to reinvent Gotham at a press conference in front of the old gates of Arkham City. He is well received, but suddenly, shots begin to erupt from the crowd. One of the attackers captures Bruce and puts a gun to his head, but Bruce is able to free himself and eliminate the attackers single-handedly before carrying Lucius Fox to safety. Suddenly, Harley Quinn's men arrive and Bruce is forced to fight them too, with a little unexpected help from Lucius. Lucius then gets into his car and begins to take his tablet, but Harley bursts through the driver's side window with a blade, threatening him with it.

Later, Harley returns to the Penguin. Although she is upset that Harley failed to defeat Bruce Wayne, she reveals a tablet, which she had taken from Lucius, that they can use to hack into Wayne Enterprises' network. Penguin is angry that the tablet is locked for fingerprint security, but Harley reveals that she has the solution: Lucius Fox's disembodied finger. In Gotham's Chinatown, the Hammer brothers and Sickle follow his lead to discover a strange Scarecrow-like creature. to Batman, knowing that his quest to find Doctor Jonathan Crane is coming to an end. Later, Batman visits Lucius in the hospital. Lucius isn't worried about the tablet, as he had security precautions in place so that it would be wiped if 15 minutes ever went by without him logging in;

Although he is a little upset, he won't be able to write as well anymore. Batman leaves and calls Oracle. He asks her to track the tablet and the couple contemplates asking her father to run for the vacant position of mayor of Gotham City. Back in Chinatown, the two brothers search the area, but are captured by Scarecrow, who uses his fear toxin to make them imagine his nightmare father while he holds them captive. Batman returns to the Batcave and reunites with Robin, where they discuss Bruce's trip to Germany with Lucius to find a company that can produce a replacement Batmobile while Batman removes the Joker's training program from the Batcomputer simulator.

Some time later, Bruce and Lucius land in Germany, where he and Batman meet with a man named Zimmer to produce the new Batmobile, one with "experimental additions." The next morning, the pair fly back to Gotham. Meanwhile, at the Iceberg Lounge, Mr. Hammer returns to Penguin, re-attached to his now straw-filled Siamese twin brother, and delivers an unknown message to Cobblepot. Some time later, Penguin and Harley talk about the tablet, as well as their inability to access it. They may enter for a mere second, but Penguin was able to obtain the date and location of an unknown event, one that he finds interesting enough to find out what it is about.

He then sends Harley to find the Tweedle cousins ​​to help him. In Gotham, Batman fights Kid Shark, King Shark's son, still upset that his father died as part of the Suicide Squad. Gordon arrives and the pair finally eliminate Kid Shark, then discuss Gordon's possible retirement from the force, which Batman recommends before leaving. At Arkham City's abandoned hospital, Penguin oversees the operation to separate Hammer and Sickle again, and the Tweedle cousins ​​arrive to meet them. Penguin offers them the job and then introduces them to a security measure: someone he calls his “third wheel.” The Tweedles then head over and attach cables from a heavy-lift helicopter to a truck trailer to take it away.

Meanwhile, Bruce and Lucius are waiting for the truck containing the new and improved Batmobile to arrive. However, they soon receive a call about the truck being stolen and Bruce returns to the Batcave to get dressed. As the Tweedles try to escape, Batman arrives in the Batwing to stop the robbery. He jumps onto the suspended trailer to retrieve it, but the “third wheel” reveals itself: a giant, genetically engineered third cousin called “Tweedle Die” that attacks. Batman eventually outsmarts the brute, dodging his attacks to make him fall to the streets below as Batman enters the trailer and pulls out the new Batmobile.

He then climbs back into the helicopter and takes out the original pair of Tweedles. As Batman goes to leave, two Gotham City police officers stop him and ask him why he left the Tweedles alive. Batman, confused, asks them what they mean. They then tell him that rumor on the street is that he killed Electrocutioner along with several others. This angers Batman as he speeds off in his new vehicle. Hours later, at Gotham Central Detention Center, the armored figure appears once again with his shotgun and kills the three Tweedle cousins. Some time later, Bruce Wayne meets Jim and Barbara Gordon in a park in Gotham.

Barbara and Bruce present the idea of ​​Jim running for mayor, with Wayne supporting him financially. Gordon initially refuses, but the pair pressure him and convince him to at least set up an exploratory committee. When Barbara leaves alone, she is attacked by one of Harley's goons, but she makes quick work of him and takes him out, putting on her Batgirl mask to feel like old times. That night, Batman learns of new activity at the Iceberg Lounge in the old city of Arkham, and heads there to find out what Penguin is up to. However, when he gets there, he finds it booby-trapped with automatic RPGs that shoot him.

He escapes and suddenly sees the Bat-Signal (Gordon's personal spotlight in the sky that tells Batman that he is needed). He then speeds up to answer the call. Elsewhere, Penguin and Harley watch surveillance footage of Batman's attack on the old Iceberg Lounge and eagerly await his arrival at his new location. On his way to Gordon, Batman takes a detour and meets Archie Freeman, who lives in the abandoned Arkham City. Archie tells Batman that he believes in him and hopes he can change the city. When two thugs arrive to rob Archie, Batman hides underground to ambush them and take them out, claiming the building is under his protection to prevent them from returning.

The two then share a cup of coffee while Archie tells Batman stories from Gotham's past. Around this time, The Riddler begins toget the idea that he is the one ready to take up the mantle left by the Joker. He begins by taking over Wonder City, recapturing the Steel Mill's mechanical guardians to use in his greatest challenge to Batman yet. Shortly after, he arrives at the GCPD with a package containing a flash drive addressed to Joker. Naturally, Gordon gives this package to Batman and Batman takes it back to the Batcave, where Oracle examines it remotely. A program with a countdown timer is stored in it.

They soon discover that when this countdown expires, someone in Gotham dies (killed by Deadshot, as they soon discover). Thus begins Batman and Robin's quest to solve the puzzles presented to them. They soon discover that they are forced to work separately, but together, to progress the puzzle. Batman battles several super criminals hired by Riddler to assist in the plan, including Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, and Mr. Freeze, while Robin is forced to overcome extreme physical and mental challenges underground. After solving the initial set of puzzles, Batman is able to eliminate Deadshot to stop the Riddler's contract killings of him, while Robin escapes from his underground tunnels to find a robotic suit made from mechanical guardians.

However, during his puzzle, Robin was forced to eat a piece of paper containing nanomachines that give Riddler control over his body while he is in the suit. Robin emerges in Gotham, and Riddler forces him to cause mass destruction using the suit's weaponry. Batman races to solve the final puzzle and free Robin, while Gordon reluctantly orders the GCPD to shoot them to avoid casualties. Batman is able to prevent Robin's destruction, at the same time he solves the riddle and frees him from the suit. At this point, Riddler releases his control over Robin and leaves them a message congratulating them on his success, as well as thanking them for helping him test out his new tools.

It is then that Batman realizes that the Riddler is done, but only for now, as he has just sent a giant message to the criminal underworld that he is looking to take over. Months later, Tim Drake is with his classmates on a visit to Wayne Labs when he is attacked by low-level gangsters seeking to steal Titan reserves that they assume Wayne keeps there. Tim puts on his Robin costume and takes them out, allowing the GCPD to capture them. It is then revealed that this entire ordeal was organized by the armored figure, who sought to test Batman's protection to determine his threat level.

Some time later, while Killer Croc is being transported by GCPD, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang catch him and welcome him to the "New Suicide Squad". It turns out that this new Suicide Squad (including fourth member Harley Quinn) has been hired by Penguin to hunt down and kill Bruce Wayne. As the Suicide Squad tracks down Bruce Wayne, so does the armored figure, revealing that he knows Batman's secret identity. The Suicide Squad attempts to attack Bruce Wayne, but Batman arrives to intervene and the group begins to fight him, with Deadshot killing Boomerang. in the process. Elsewhere, Amanda Waller analyzes the situation and reveals that she is also behind this new Suicide Squad, trying to obtain information on Penguin's trafficking operations.

Gordon is called away from his duties with his Mayor's Campaign to deal with the problem and, likewise, Alfred calls Nightwing to help him deal with the Suicide Squad. Harley escapes and returns to Penguin to inform him that Batman stopped the assassination attempt on him. Penguin is not deterred by this and states that killing Wayne was only supposed to be a warm-up for a bigger task for the Suicide Squad: stealing some experiments from the nearby Stagg Industries building. Meanwhile, Killer Croc has gone rogue and Batman and Deadshot are forced to take him down together. After he is forced back into the sewers, Batman attempts to take in Deadshot, but reveals that he is working for the government again, and Batman reluctantly works with him to find out what Penguin is up to as well.

The pair head to Stagg Industries to find what Penguin was looking for. Batman encounters giant tanks marked "Project: Meta." A scientist arrives with heavy weapons and tries to stop them, he ends up shooting one of the tanks, causing a kind of gaseous figure to appear and try to take him away. Batman protects the scientist and the figure dissipates and disappears through a hole. The scientist reveals that the project is an experiment with the remains of Clayface's mud to create an organic half-human creature, one that simply went in search of a new energy source. Batman and Deadshot then head towards the hole to search for this "Shapeshifter".

Bruce then receives a call from Nightwing, who arrives in Gotham City. However, he is soon attacked and detained by the armored figure, who steals his motorcycle. Batman and Deadshot continue searching for Metamorph, but it turns out that he finds them first, capturing Batman and taking his life. Batman tells Deadshot to shoot him, and Deadshot takes aim... but Gordon jumps in and stops him. Batman is able to escape Metamorph's clutches and then throws a handful of Sonic Batarangs at him, causing him to explode. Deadshot and Batman then explain the situation to Gordon, who arrests Deadshot for his previous crimes.

At the police station, Waller bursts in to scold Gordon for capturing his agent before immediately leaving. On the roof, Batman arrives and leaves Bruce Wayne to protect him from would-be assassins of him. This Batman, of course, is a decoy and returns to Alfred to reveal himself as Dick Grayson, who dons his Nightwing suit immediately afterwards. Meanwhile, the armored figure plots in his own hideout, revealing that he had stolen the software from Nightwing's motorcycle and transferred it to his own giant tank (which he calls "Cobra"). The tank was also built by the same German manufacturer that Batman used to build the Batmobile, revealing that this armored figure is aware of the Bat's every move.

On the other hand, another figure from Batman's past: Calendar Man, plots the day he will kill the vigilante. One that is very imminent. A few days later, Tim and Barbara begin to develop a romantic relationship and go on a date. Elsewhere, Batman is searching for Calendar Man after he killed a group of innocent people on Labor Day. He eventually finds him in the courthouse and Calendar Man attacks him with a pair of electric gauntlets from someone who, he says, "seems to know a lot about his technology." Calendar Man then unleashes Solomon Grundy, who overwhelms Batman, causing Tim and Barbara to abandon their date while Tim gets dressed and looks for him.

Grundy fights Batman for days, causing his allies to become increasingly worried about him. He is also surprised by the disappearance of his armored figure, which he learns from Deathstroke, indicating some sort of partnership between the two. He then travels to Central America to check on his privatized military corporation, which has recruited hundreds and acquired an arsenal of weapons and vehicles. After days of torturing him, Calandar Man gives Batman a list of 365 names, each of them poisoned. He tells Batman that he has 24 hours to save them and sends him to do so. Robin picks up Batman and then finds out about the list of names.

He, along with Batman's many unstable allies (including Catwoman, Azrael, and the GCPD) begin warning the poisoned citizens and rush them to hospitals immediately. Alfred nurses Bruce back to health, and meanwhile, Scarecrow finds and confronts Calendar Man. He injects him with fear toxin and reveals what he's been working on: a way to harness Batman's greatest weapon, fear. , against him. He takes Calendar Man to the top of a bridge, where he drops a kidnapped baby, but Batman arrives in time to save him. Calendar Man expresses anger at Scarecrow for not allowing him to kill Batman, but the former doctor expresses that that day will come soon and he will make sure Calendar Man is there when he does.

Some time later, Firefly reappears in Gotham, and encounters the armored figure, who takes him out and steals the money Firefly was trying to get away with. He returns to his hideout to reveal that he has been working with Scarecrow on some kind of grand plan for both of them to get revenge on Batman. They intend to use the stolen money to pay. Gotham's Rogues Gallery will chase him that same night. As they talk, Scarecrow injects the figure with his fear toxin, forcing him to live out his greatest fears as well as his secret origins. When the figure wakes up, Scarecrow reveals that he did this to force the man to live out his worst fears so that he would be prepared when they actually face him.

The figure claims that he has killed the past of him and that he will end it by killing Batman as well. He fights as he and Scarecrow prepare for Gotham's last night. In Blüdhaven, Poison Ivy uses her plants to take over the Police Department after being arrested. Harley Quinn travels there, with the help of Penguin, to recruit Ivy to be part of Scarecrow's plan. After fighting his way through Blüdhaven's officers, he finds Ivy in the basement of the building, but is greeted by Nightwing. She is able to fend off her attack and Ivy's plants drag him away.

Harley then convinces Ivy to go with her. Some time later, Batman finds a group of Riddler, Penguin, and Two-Face's henchmen, leading Batman to believe that the three bosses must be planning something big. Just then, Harley Quinn bursts in and the pair fight, but she manages to escape. Meanwhile, the armored figure observes Jim Gordon reflecting on his roof, thinking to himself that Gordon should enjoy what little peace he has left, as he will soon take revenge on Batman. Later, Alfred asks Bruce to meet him in the Batcave, and when he dresses and arrives, Alfred reveals that he has lost contact with both Robin and Nightwing.

Batman then checks Nightwing's tracker and finds him online, but not moving. Batman heads to the tracker's location and unfortunately finds his old friend dead, killed by a much stronger enemy who obviously intimately understood his fighting style. Using his detective skills, he discovers that the murder was observed by one of Penguin's men. Batman heads to the Iceberg Lounge to find Penguin and discover his involvement, and after eliminating his men, he is able to interrogate Cobblepot. He reveals that his man was there by chance and was about to tell him who he saw kill Nightwing before he mysteriously died in an explosion, likely caused by the assassin.

Batman then heads to the morgue to see if he can find any clues about the explosion victims. Examining the corpses, he determines that the killer is in the sewers, so he heads there and luckily finds Robin, trapped in a mechanical cage. Even more worrying is that Killer Croc is swimming in the waters around them. Batman is able to contain Killer Croc by electrifying the cage, but when Batman finally frees Robin, Croc takes the opportunity to jump out of the water and kill Robin, while Batman can do nothing but watch. Suddenly, Batman finds himself in an elevator taking him to Arkham Asylum's intensive treatment center.

He heads to a trio of cells, where he finds Scarface, Victor Zsasz and, finally, the Joker. Batman turns around and finds himself in Joker's cell. He is then forced to relive the death of his friends and realizes that it was he who killed Nightwing and led Robin to death, because the Joker's blood finally took control of his body. As the cell walls begin to close in on him, Batman finally looks in the mirror and sees his reflection: the Joker, telling him that "the dynamic duo is finally together." He lets out a chilling laugh before it's all over... just a dream, or rather the nightmare of Batman's greatest fear.

At some point, Batman calls Gordon to his hideout inside the abandoned Panessa Studios film studio. There, Batman reveals to Gordon that when Joker sent his infected blood to Gotham's hospitals, four patients were treated with it before they could get it back, and those patients began to develop Joker-like traits as the blood took them. mutates. Batman has rounded up those patients and is holding them until he can find a cure to reverse the effects of the blood. One patient, Henry Adams, has been infected the longest, but has no symptoms; apparently immune to the Joker's blood, leading Batman and Robin to use his blood to try to develop the cure.

Batman then reveals a fifth cell, intending to use it for himself if the Joker's blood in his own veins begins to take over. The night before Halloween, Scarecrow finally unleashes his master plan: release his new fear toxin in a restaurant and then threatens to unleash it on the entire city. Nearly all of Gotham City is evacuated overnight, leaving only the criminals, super and not-so-super, behind to enjoy the chaos. Naturally, Batman and Commissioner Gordon are left behind to deal with the new threat and meet to talk about it. Gordon speaks on the phone to Barbara, who tells him that she has safely evacuated the city.

However, Gordon has noclues about Scarecrow, so Batman heads out to begin his night of investigation. He begins by calling Oracle and revealing that he had lied to his father about leaving town. He soon finds Poison Ivy, being held by one of Scarecrow's henchmen in an isolated cell. Scarecrow releases her fear toxin into the cell and Ivy reveals her immunity to it. When the henchman is overcome with fear, Ivy slams his head into the glass, knocking him unconscious. She then leaves the cell and tells Batman what she knows about Scarecrow's plan. Scarecrow called a meeting with all of Gotham's supervillains to form an uneasy alliance to defeat Batman and take control of Gotham.

Ivy did not agree with the plan and as such, Scarecrow locked her away. Batman then takes her into his custody, but when she leaves, she encounters the privatized military force, equipped with her Cobra tanks. Batman uses the new Batmobile to neutralize the threats and places Ivy inside the Batmobile before taking her to the Gotham City Police Department brig. Batman then meets with Oracle to try to locate where Scarecrow is producing the fear toxin. This leads him to Ace Chemicals, where a group of Scarecrow's crew is still operating. When he gets there, the armored figure finally arrives to confront Batman in a helicopter.

However, before he can fire missiles at the detective to kill him, Scarecrow deactivates his weaponry and tells him to be patient. The figure disappears, leaving Batman instead to deal with the privatized militia. Oracle investigates the militia and discovers that their leader is an armored figure, the same one Batman had just seen, called: Arkham Knight. Batman fights off the militia and finds some captured employees of the facility, who reveal that Scarecrow is making a massive bomb to cover the entire East Coast with the fear toxin. As he goes to leave, Arkham Knight stops him and reveals that he knows intimate details about Batman and his armor.

He then warns that he intends to kill Batman that night, before leaving. Batman is able to rescue the workers and reach Scarecrow. There, Scarecrow initially surrenders, but threatens that if Batman doesn't let him go, he will kill Barbara Gordon, whom the Arkham Knight has just kidnapped. Scarecrow then escapes during this distraction, and Batman is forced to try to reduce the explosion radius of the fear bomb. However, during his attempts, he becomes exposed to fear gas, causing it to mix with the remnants of the Joker's mutated blood that pumps through him, awakening the Joker within him, causing him to have hallucinogenic visions of his old rival, which becomes his worst nightmare. come true.

Batman is able to escape Ace Chemicals when it explodes, successfully reducing the blast radius to prevent the toxin from escaping the facility. Batman then meets with Gordon to reveal that Scarecrow had taken Barbara, much to the Commissioner's surprise. The pair head to the clock tower to discover that his capture was true, and Gordon begins to blame himself for the fact that Scarecrow targeted Barbara. However, Batman later reveals to Jim that Barbara was working for him the entire time, and he blames Batman, regretting trusting him before leaving. Batman then finds Catwoman, who is being held captive by Riddler with an explosive collar, forcing the Bat to once again solve her trademark puzzles throughout the city to save her, using her robotic mechanical guardians to distract them.

Batman then finds a spot where Barbara's kidnappers had crashed her vehicle, where he locates a flash card she hid for him to find. He then calls Lucius Fox to help him decrypt the data on the disk and use it to identify Arkham Knight's position. He follows this lead to an underground tunnel, where he is ambushed by the Arkham Knight, who again demonstrates his knowledge of Batman's armor by finding his weak spot and firing a bullet directly at him. He then leaves, again warning Batman that he will kill him before he ends the night. Increasingly desperate, Batman pursues one of Arkham Knight's men and begins to crush his head under the Batmobile's tire before revealing the current whereabouts of his boss: the Penguin's hideout.

As Batman heads there, he encounters Nightwing, who arrived in Gotham after learning of Barbara's capture. The pair interrogate Penguin and discover that Scarecrow and Arkham Knight have boarded an airship to meet with Stagg Enterprises CEO Simon Stagg. Batman sends Nightwing to search Penguin's hideouts throughout the city, while he heads to the airship to search for Stagg. Batman eventually finds the CEO and discovers that he worked with Scarecrow to create something called "Cloudburst." Before Batman can learn what he is, Stagg is sprayed with Scarecrow's fear toxin and is unable to reveal any more information. Batman is then ambushed by Scarecrow, who also sprays Batman with the toxin, and forces him to fight inside his own mind.

Scarecrow escapes with this "Cloudburst", and then Batman learns that Barbara is in the safe house where she previously found Poison Ivy. He quickly heads there to find her, also affected by the fear toxin. He then grabs a nearby gun and attempts to shoot Batman, but finds that he cannot harm him through the bulletproof glass. Panicked, as a last resort he shoots himself to escape his fears. Batman blames himself for Barbara's death and informs Alfred, who assumes that Cloudburst is some kind of device that can disperse fear toxin throughout Gotham City. Batman then heads to Poison Ivy, hoping to use his immunity to Scarecrow's fear toxin to create a spore that they can use to protect the city against Cloudburst.

He takes her to find a large, extremely old tree and then helps her clean the roots of it so that he can use them to create and disperse the spores when Scarecrow releases the toxin from her. Batman goes to the movie studio to check on Robin's progress in developing a cure for the Joker's infection and decides not to tell Tim about Barbara's death so he can focus on the problem at hand. Batman then leaves to eliminate some of Arkham Knight's security forces, but when he returns, he discovers that Harley Quinn found out about the Joker's victim and took over the studio, releasing the victims on the various sets for them to use. remains of the Joker.

Joker can live free. Batman rounds up the Joker's victims and takes them back to their cells. During this event, he begins to have visions of the Joker beating and killing Jason Todd, fighting his guilt over both the death of his second Robin and the Oracles through his inaction. When Batman and Robin return with the final victim, as well as the captured Harley Quinn, they surprisingly find all the other patients they returned dead in their cells. The only survivor is Henry Adams; He finally shows symptoms of the Joker's blood. Henry reveals that he killed the other Jokers to "purify the gene pool", so only the strongest Joker survived.

He then looks at Batman and realizes that he would be the strongest, before shooting himself in the head, leaving Batman as the only survivor with the Joker's blood. Robin decides that since Batman can turn into the Joker at any moment, they should lock him in the cell and let Robin deal with the Scarecrow. However, remembering Robin's last death from him, Batman locks Robin up and returns to Gotham to continue his search for Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight. Batman goes to Ivy, but when he reaches her, Arkham Knight releases the Cloudburst, filling the entire city with the Scarecrow's fear toxin.

The gas disables the Batmobile, forcing Batman to return to Stagg's airship to acquire a power cell to power it. When he installs the power cell in the Batmobile, Batman is forced to expose himself to the fear toxin again, allowing the Joker to awaken more and more within him. Using the Batmobile, Batman is able to unlock the roots of another tree, allowing Ivy to use it to combat the toxin. He then heads out to destroy the Cloudburst, which he successfully manages to do, rescuing the Arkham Knight from the explosion, who escapes shortly after when Batman is distracted by another vision of the Joker.

Batman calls Ivy but gets no answer. He goes to her and discovers that she managed to produce the spores that eliminate toxins to save the city, but is overwhelmed by her efforts, leaving her to die and disintegrate in Batman's arms. Then, her spores fill Gotham, completely replacing the fear toxin. It is at this point that Batman takes care of the other events in the city. Firefly reappears and Batman stops him from setting fire to the local firehouses and returns him to the GCPD brig; Mister Freeze arrives to rescue the kidnapped Nora, whose cryotube fails, causing her to be unfrozen and forcing Batman to protect her from the militia.

Unfortunately, this ends when Freeze loses all of his research into the cure for his illness and the two leave Gotham to spend the rest of their days together. Batman also encounters an extremely weak Rā's al Ghūl, who survived his last encounter, but barely, and is on the verge of death due to the lack of a Lazarus Pit. Batman finds a sample of the chemical Lazarus, but encounters al Ghūl's other daughter, Nyssa Raatko, who leads a group of rebel assassins. At this point, Batman can either save Rā's by giving him the Lazarus, which will lead him to kill his daughter, or he can destroy the machines keeping Rā's alive, leaving the man to die naturally.

Either way, the League of Assassins finally leaves Gotham. Azrael also reappears and trains to become his successor, but Batman discovers that "the Order" has brainwashed her into killing Batman and taking his place. Azrael can then try to kill Batman or go after the Order for what they did to him. Batman also saves Jack Ryder from the "Cult of Blackfire" and their leader, Deacon Blackfire, as well as Warden Ranken from a mutated Killer Croc. Two-Face and Penguin are also stopped from committing their various illegal activities and are arrested. Hush also reappears, taking Lucius Fox hostage in Wayne Tower, forcing Batman to reveal to his former friend that he is Bruce Wayne, distracting him long enough for Lucius to free himself and knock him out.

The Mad Hatter also reappears, taking Batman to another mind-controlled mad world before Batman escapes and captures him. A strange scientist named Professor Pyg also kidnaps people to create the "Dollotrons" from him, but Batman stops him and captures him as well. Batman also encounters a strange bat-like creature that he can transform back into his human form: Dr. Kirk Langstrom, who mixed his DNA with that of a vampire bat, driving him insane and accidentally killing Batman. his wife. Langstrom at GCPD too. Finally, Batman is able to solve all of Riddler's puzzles and also save Catwoman. Later, Batman learns that Gordon has found Scarecrow and is going to kill him as revenge for the death of his daughter.

Batman goes to follow him, but is pursued by Arkham Knight, in a giant excavator, who destroys the Batmobile, forcing Batman to escape on foot to find Gordon, who is captured and tied to a chair. The Arkham Knight arrives once again and finally reveals who he is: Jason Todd; Former sidekick and protégé of Batman, who survived being shot by Joker and was later rescued by Deathstroke. Jason spent the years hating Batman more and more, who gave up looking for him and instead left him for dead. He points his gun at Batman, but hits his former friend before escaping into the shadows.

Jason then tosses his Arkham Knight helmet aside, revealing the helmet underneath, which resembles a metallic red hood. After the ensuing battle, Batman is able to incapacitate Jason and attempts to appeal to him once more. When Batman calls Alfred to tell him that he found Jason, the young man escapes without a trace. Batman then goes to Gordon and the pair share their apologies. Gordon reveals that Jason revealed Batman's identity, and Gordon tells him that he never forgot to comfort young Bruce Wayne the night his parents died. The pair head to the roof of the building, where they find Scarecrow.

Suddenly, Jim points his gun at Batman and it is revealed that Barbara was alive the entire time (her death was simply a hallucination induced by a fear toxin), and Gordon made a deal with Scarecrow to hand over Batman in exchange for Barbara. . Jim then shoots Batman, who falls off the building. Scarecrow reneges on his deal, captures Gordon, and pushes Barabra out of the building. Batman swoops in and catches her, summoning a prototype Batmobile to take her to the GCPD for safety. Batman is then forced to fight the Arkham Knight militia, now working for Scarecrow, in the GCPD, and after a very arduous battle, Batman learns that Gordon's voice had unlocked the hideout in the studios. cinema.

He rushes there to find Robin missing and receives a call from Scarecrow revealing that he is holding him captive. He then tells Batman to go to a nearby warehouse, where he will be forced to publicly unmask himself or else Scarecrow will kill Gordon and Robin. Batman enters a storage truck and is injected with morefear toxin, suffers another hallucination and relives the death of his parents once again before "killing" the Joker. The truck heads to the abandoned remains of Arkham Asylum, and Batman is carried inside on a standing stretcher. Scarecrow then forces Gordon to remove his Batman mask in front of a live camera broadcast to all of Gotham's news stations.

Jim removes his mask and the world discovers that Batman is none other than billionaire Bruce Waye, taking even Scarecrow by surprise. Scarecrow then directly injects Bruce with his most powerful fear toxin to break him in front of the public, but this only causes Joker to fully awaken and take over Bruce's mind. As Scarecrow attempts to break Bruce, he becomes frustrated when the Joker's personality mocks him. He administers another strong dose of the toxin, and then we see that inside Bruce's mind, Batman forces the Joker to face his greatest fear: disappearing and being forgotten. Batman then regains control and locks the Joker in his Arkham cell deep inside his mind forever.

Back in the real world, Scarecrow continues to try to take down Bruce, but shows extreme resistance to fear. Scarecrow then states that "without fear, life is meaningless", before pointing a gun at Bruce. However, before he can shoot, Jason arrives and fires the gun in his hand. He then frees Bruce, who applies the Scarecrow's fear toxin to him, driving him insane before Gordon knocks him out. Batman then leaves and takes Scarecrow to the GCPD to lock him up. He then calls Alfred to tell him to prepare the "Knightfall Protocol", activating it with the key phrase: "Martha". Batman then takes out and arrests Deathstroke, who had taken charge of the remaining Militia forces, before returning to GCPD.

Batman heads to the Bat-Signal that Gordon used to call him and removes his cowl, leaving it there to begin the Knightfall Protocol. He heads to his house in Wayne Manor and enters with Alfred, in front of all the television news crews. However, when they enter, the entire mansion explodes into flames, presumably killing them both, as well as "Batman", for good. Some time later, Gordon is elected mayor of Gotham and Tim and Barbara become engaged. In an alley behind a theater, a family is assaulted by a pair of criminals. On a nearby rooftop, a cloaked figure watches.

The thugs are not afraid, knowing that Batman is gone. However, the figure explodes into a display of bat fire; Fear still keeps criminals at bay in Gotham. After Batman's disappearance, his various associates continue his legacy by fighting the various criminals left in Gotham. Catwoman begins by taking revenge on The Riddler, finding his robot factory before shutting it down and stealing all of his money while he is forced to watch from his cell at the GCPD. A month after the Knightfall Protocol, Jason adopted the name "Red Hood", again focusing on vigilante justice, but breaking Batman's no-kill rule.

He finally finds Black Mask and kicks him out a large window of his office, letting the crime lord fall to his death before leaving. Since Robin and Oracle are on their honeymoon, he calls in Nightwing to stop Penguin and his men from staging a breakout at the GCPD. With the help of Lucius Fox, he succeeds and Cobblepot returns to his imprisonment. Unfortunately for Tim and Barbara, they are ultimately forced to cut their honeymoon short and return to Gotham to stop Two-Face after he is able to escape from prison. Oracle provides support as Tim fights his way through Two-Face's new hideout to finally find the man.

Initially, Two-Face gets the upper hand in the battle, but during his signature coin toss, Robin takes him out and calls GCPD, telling Barbara that unfortunately "the honeymoon is over." This is the last moment we see in the Batman Arkham

timeline

, at least for now. But as we all know, even though Bruce Wayne is gone, the Batman symbol will never go away. Hello everyone, thank you so much for watching and a big thank you to everyone who helped in the production of this video, including the folks at Arkham Fandom Wiki for their work mapping the Arkhamverse

timeline

and obviously the wonderful Kreestin . , who you should follow on Twitch right now.

I also want to say a huge thank you to my lovely sponsors and channel members, whose support is really the main reason this video was possible. Their names are up on the screen now, and yours can too if you like my content enough to support it. If not, that's fine too. I'm honestly glad you watched about 2 hours of content here. I also have Twitter, @SugestiveGames, so follow it; and you can enter our discord to chat and suggest other franchises to cover. Links also in the description. Thanks again everyone, stay safe out there!