Hello and welcome to Wasted Plotential, the show where we discuss the wasted potential
of our favourite plotlines.
This episode was selected by my buddy Chris Gildart as a reward for his completion of
my Warriors Orochi 4 God of War challenge a few months ago. I gave him a choice of videos
I'd make once Mortal May and Injustice 2 were out of the way, and this was the one he chose.
Ignore the fact that this video is clearly months late and let's get to it.
Arkham Knight is the final chapter in Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham series. Very few people seemed
satisfied by this conclusion to the story, and I can't say I blame them. For those not
familiar (which you should, because I made a lengthy A Line Through Time on this a few
years ago), the Arkham series began with 2009's Arkham Asylum, in which Arkham was taken over
by The Joker, and Batman had to take the island back. As a result of using an experimental
super drug, Joker became terminally ill, resulting in his death at the end of Akham City. City
itself saw a section of Gotham split off and turned into a massive prison city, as part
of a master plan by Ra's al Ghul and Hugo Strange, both of whom died by the end. Additionally,
Scarecrow was mauled by Killer Croc during the Asylum incident, swearing revenge on Batman,
despite it not being Batman's fault at all that Croc didn't want him to infest the sewer
water with fear toxin. To that end, he brings in the titular Arkham Knight, a mystery villain
who knows all of Batman's moves, has a personal vendetta against him, and uses military-grade
hardware. If you don't figure out he's Jason Todd from the moment he walks onscreen and
begins talking like a petulant teenager, you will when the Joker hallucination that follows
Batman around starts suddenly talking about Jason, who had only been alluded to one time
in the past. If not then, then hearing Troy Baker's voice coming from Jason like it does
the Knight is the point where any trace of denial is lost.
So, we have probably the most transparent twist identity for our titular antagonist,
and the main antagonist is motivated by revenge for something that wasn't even Batman's fault.
Honestly, both villains are incredibly weak choices as the conclusion to this storyline
that neither one has played a noteworthy role in up to now. This franchise is about Batman
and Joker, with the prequel game being the origin of their relationship, rather than
the origin of Arkham or of Batman.
Joker is dead, and Harley's revenge was wasted on City's DLC. So, we needed a new antagonist
with heavy ties to Joker. Sure, Jason suffered heavily because of him, but since he wasn't
part of this particular storyline before now, taking pretty much any characters who was
in one of the previous games would be a better choice for the Knight's identity, even if
they have no ties to The Joker. And worse, his story here is just a complete rehash of
the Red Hood storyline, and not nearly as well-told. Jason's return loses a lot of its
bite without the possibility for him to try and avenge himself against Joker, having that
scene where Jason is about to kill Joker, and Batman comes in, urging him not to go
down this path. The best pathos of that entire storyline is just not a possibility if The
Joker is dead. I don't want Joker to come back or anything, but he should probably factor
into the central plot, rather than just being a fun colour commentator inside Batman's head.
As for Scarecrow's grievance, it does tie back to the first entry, but this is really
just two guys having a massive temper tantrum that puts thousands of innocent people at
risk because Batman didn't kill Joker, or save Scarecrow from Croc. As the final antagonists
this Batman ever faces, that's pretty weak.
So, these are the things we need to address: bring the central plot more in-line with the
previous two games, do something more with the Joker plotline, and find a more compelling
central antagonist that isn't a total rehash of an existing storyline. We have a few other
goals, which I'll get to in due time.
My take will play out mostly the same overall: the Knight and Scarecrow are aligned with
other villains to wreak havoc on Halloween night. Scarecrow is the enforcer this time,
with the Knight as the mastermind. Scarecrow will be using fear toxin still, but the evacuation
of the city should be something Batman and Commissioner Gordon arrange. If the Knight
knows Bruce so well, he'll know he refuses to kill and will go out of his way to save
civilians. Keeping the citizens around would force him to be careful, rather than going
all out. We'll add in a little prologue where Bruce uncovers the fear toxin plot, which
he calls in to Jim. The city is evacuated, which is not what the villains wanted, but
the Knight is confident this one blow won't ruin their plans, and he has backup plans
in place.
My idealised version of the game would place greater emphasis on the Bat Family, with dedicated
missions for Nightwing, Robin, Catwoman, and newly-introduced Red Hood, Batwoman and Huntress.
It bugs me that the game has so many side missions for Batman to do that, even if he
could teleport, he wouldn't have time to do it all in one night, which he canonically
does. The idea, then, is for Bruce to focus on taking down the Knight, while each other
character gets one side mission in each of the game's three acts, activated by having
Alfred relay their reports to Bruce, initiating a flashback. These missions would also serve
to show that, even without Batman, Gotham will be safe with Dick, Tim and the others
watching over it. Examples of these missions include Catwoman getting payback against Two-Face,
Mad Hatter trying to brainwash Batwoman with Maggie Sawyer as one of the captive police
officers, and a few new scenarios, like Robin going up again Cluemaster with help from Spoiler.
This idea is perhaps a little unrealistic, and isn't vital to this story, so I won't
go any more into it, unless you guys want me to in a later video? If you'd like to know
more, you can check out a document in the description that lays this whole story out.
As for the main quest, it plays out with similar beats to the actual game, but with a few tweaks
to make it less frustrating or more interesting. Bruce is more accepting of the others helping
out, since it's idiotic for him to shoulder everything when he's tired and unstable, and
most of them live in Gotham. The mystery of the Knight is also a real mystery, with various
clues implicating numerous characters, like Jason Todd, Azrael, Hush, Joker, Ra's al Ghul,
Deathstroke and Thomas Wayne. Most of these are actual theories the fans had before release,
by the way. A lot of the story involves investigating these leads, crossing each one off the list
over the course of the story until the truth is revealed. Jason's backstory is tweaked
a bit, so that he wasn't being held by Joker under the Asylum at the same time as the island
takeover. That was dumb, fuck you. Instead, he died a few years ago, but was brought back
by the League of Assassins for some plot that will come into play later on.
For much of the first two acts, Bruce's main obstacles, besides the Knight's militia, are
Scarecrow and Harley Quinn. Scarecrow is planning to spread fear toxin across the entire city,
while Harley is taking hostages and trying to lure Batman into various traps to get her
revenge. The other Jokerised victims can still be a thing, but spread out over more of the
game instead of just the one section. Ideally, at least one should also be an existing Arkhamverse
character to make it hit home more. Maybe Barbara could be Jokerised to keep her from
helping Bruce, instead of the fake death she suffers in the real game. Barbara suffering
because of the Joker for a second time here drives a wedge between Bruce and Dick, instead
of Bruce and Tim. Tim and Barbara being a couple never made sense to me, especially
since there had already been hints of Dick and Barbara being a thing.
Dick starts to wonder if killing the villains is the better option, going through his own
arc as he meets both Tim and Jason during his quest to find a cure for Barbara, allowing
her to play a key role in stopping the Knight towards the end. Dick then proposes to Barbara.
Once the Joker victims are all cured or killed, Bruce and Selina manage to take Harley down
and Selina tries to help her get over Joker's death. Once these two are beaten and all but
one or two of the leads have been investigated, the Knight enacts the next phase of his plan.
Arkham Knight had a different writer from the previous two games, and we all know how
much of a fucking disaster changing writers at the climax of a trilogy can be. There were
a couple of game-length side stories in City that ultimately went nowhere. These two are
the missions involving Azrael and Hush. Azrael showed up in City multiple times to give Batman
a vague warning about future events. In Knight, Bruce gives him some simulator missions to
do, then he either attacks Bruce and gets locked up at GCPD, or he breaks free of his
brainwashing and goes after the ones that did it. It didn't even lead to a DLC story,
nor did he have his own moveset distinct from Batman. Utter waste! In my take, his storyline
is resolved early on, allowing him to assist in various events throughout the story, if
he doesn't succumb to his brainwashing. He could also hold valuable information that
assists Bruce's investigation, since he knew the prophecy concerning Batman's final mission.
As for Hush, he was a mysterious murderer that was killing people and taking specific
pieces of their faces. In the end, it turned out he was using them to create a perfect
face mask of Bruce Wayne, and then he left, planning to begin his scheme in earnest at
some later date. In Knight, this finally happens, when he walks into Wayne Tower and tries to
steal Bruce's fortune. That's it. While the reveal that we're playing as him when he takes
Lucius Fox hostage was a neat surprise, it really didn't feel like a satisfying payoff,
especially since he goes down in three hits once his guard is down. It's also a disservice
to Hush as a character, since he's a master manipulator who worked out Batman's identity
and organised a bunch of villains to fuck with him in the comics, but this game has
him as such an unbelievable fuck-up that he didn't even check to make sure he knew where
Bruce was at the time. We know this because dialogue from the side villains changes depending
on whether you beat them before or after Bruce's endgame unmasking. Even if you do it after,
he's shocked when Batman unmasks, while Lucius gets new dialogue.
In my version, Hush is the Knight, unmasking in a live broadcast as Bruce Wayne. As in
the real game, Bruce has spent the months between games helping rebuild Gotham as Bruce
Wayne. Hush is attempting to undermine that and destroy Bruce's public image. This is
how he gets the various villains to co-operate: offer them all revenge for specific things
they at least believe Batman has done to them in previous games. Joker's death, damage to
their operations, killing Ivy's plants, not killing Joker, and generally beating them
up. In a way that is unintentional, they're like the Victim Syndicate from the Rebirth
Detective Comics run. Hush himself is motivated, partly by jealousy over Bruce's fortune and
his family's fame that Thomas feels his family deserves instead, but also the severe scarring
to his face he received during the City Incident, which he blames on Batman. Hush's plan is
to ruin Bruce's public image, and then swoop in as Thomas Elliot to clean up Gotham's streets
by killing 'the Knight' in self-defence, thereby earning public favour without being convicted
of murder. Of course, he's also planned for the possibility of what Bruce does next.
To help mitigate the damage, Bruce, despite knowing this is all part of Hush's plan, unmasks
himself in a similar broadcast, using the public confusion to buy himself time to stop
Hush, as people are unsure whether to believe Bruce Wayne is the villainous Arkham Knight,
or the heroic Batman. Bruce takes Hush down, exposing his true identity. With his own identity
now compromised, Bruce arranges the Knightfall Protocol, here not formed after almost dying
to the fucking Calendar Man!
With only a few hours left, Bruce embarks on the last few missions of his Batman career,
teaming up with Catwoman and his sidekicks, having a final battle with Deathstroke that
doesn't suck for once, and deciding whether or not to allow the League of Assassins to
resurrect Talia, which is a more significant choice for the player to get to make than
deciding Ra's' fate. Bruce gets the entire family together to let them know he's proud
of them and then fakes his death, after which we get to see the family's reactions to this.
From here, I conceived new DLC missions for each playable character, that aren't just
random missions that don't amount to anything. Half the actual DLC missions are set after
the main story, so they really should be used to paint a picture of what's going to happen
now that Batman is supposedly dead. As such, mine are all setups, like Spoiler becoming
the new Batgirl, the three Robins encountering Damian Wayne and deciding who will train him
as the new Robin, Selina helping Harley to cope with Poison Ivy's death while reminiscing
about the old days, and Azrael working with Bane to take down the Order of Saint Dumas
in Santa Prisca, before struggling to fight off his brainwashing so as not to kill him,
since the two had fought each other back in the Arkham City days.
Again, setup for a future that, even if we don't explore it in sequels, still paints
a hopeful picture for the future of Gotham, until they get their thumbs out of their arses
and just make Batman: Arkham Beyond already!
And yes, before anyone asks, Selina and Bruce do get to be happy here. For once. Seriously,
I cannot think of a single continuity where Bruce and Selina get together without either
of them dying horribly. The Nolanverse did it, but that's so last minute, with so little
build-up ahead of time, and with so little chemistry betwene the two, it's about as valid
as Korrasami, and it may or may not all just be in Alfred's head anyway. Fuck you, Tom
King, you got my hopes up and you crushed them. I'm sure you're a nice guy with bigger
plans, but I'm not fucking having it!
But before we close off, I'd like to briefly discuss the current run of Detective Comics.
Like how Action Comics celebrated its thousandth issue by bringing back Superman's briefs to
give his costume proper colour balance again, Detective Comics decided to celebrate its
own milestone issue by introducing the Arkham Knight into mainline DC canon. However, since
Jason Todd is already back as the Red Hood, this version of the Knight was a complete
reinvention. The design is largely the same, but he carries a sword instead of guns, which
really clashes with the high-tech military aesthetic. Additionally, the Knight here is
actually a woman who is descended from the Arkham family, and has a misplaced vendetta
against Batman. So, she's Lady Arkham from the Telltale series.
If it had been up to me, the Knight would just be a new persona for Jason, since keeping
the Red Hood name when he's back in the Bat Family seems really disrespectful. But, if
we had to go the route we did, why not just make Lady Arkham canon and have the Knight
as her actual Knight - her primary enforcer that can go toe-to-toe with Batman. Lady Arkham
has the motive, and her Knight has the skills to fight for it. Either of these options would
be better than a girl who was born during an Asylum riot, in which even the Joker stopped
rioting to help her mother give birth out of sheer respect. And she must be really young
if even Harley Quinn was an active criminal by the time she was born. What is she, ten?
This is actually worse than the game version, and that's fucking saying something. If she
was black, I'd suspect she was yet another badly-written Mary Sue created by Brian Michael
Bendis for his daughters to self-insert as.
If you liked this video, why not subscribe and support me on Patreon liked these fine
people here? If not, then make sure to share it with your enemies so they can suffer along
with you.
Today's recommended video is, rather than something DC-related, Chris Gildart's Warriors
Orochi 4 God of War challenge video. My boy's done a few of my challenges already, and you
can send a few his way yourself. He's a really underrated creator who needs some love. Like
Stephanie, Cassandra and basically the entire DC Universe that isn't Batman, Joker or Harley
Quinn.