Should The Joker Have Not Been in Arkham Knight
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:42 am
I LOVE the Joker and Mark Hamill's performance of the Clown Prince of Crime is my all time favorite take on the character. But there is such a thing of to much of a good thing and Arkham Knight is, to date, the only time I actually grew tired of seeing the damn clown.
My problem with Joker's involvement in Arkham Knight is he honestly feels like Rocksteady had zero faith in their game if the Joker wasn't somehow involved which resulted in them over compensating. I get the idea of having the Joker appear as a result of Scarecrow's fear toxin, that makes sense and the idea of Batman's greatest fear becoming his worst enemy is an interesting one to explore.
What doesn't make sense, and why I dislike the approach of this idea, is that after getting hit by the Fear Toxin once Batman starts seeing the Joker all the fucking time. This is to the story's determent IMO because outside of the Season of Infamy DLC pack there is literally no villain the base game who doesn't share screen time with Joker unless you wait to do all their side quests until AFTER the main story.
It gives the impression that the developers think that Batman has only one true adversary and the rest are just side dressing which backup by the fact that most of the Rogues Gallery is regulated to side quests with them only appearing in the main story for one mission or worse one scene.
And then it gets worse, because of the retcon to Joker's blood.
So in Arkham Asylum Joker injected himself with Titan which turned him into a horrible final boss fight but a consequence of this is that he had a bad reaction to the Toxin which started to kill him over the course of a year which it eventually did. During the events of Arkham City Joker managed to inject his blood into Batman and said that he's been shipping his blood out the Gotham so he's literally poisoned Gotham in a "If I'm going down I'm taking you all with me." move. It's revealed that Joker's blood could be in 2000 people and that fatalities are expected soon enough. At the end of the game Batman is able to cure himself and apparently managed to find a cure for the rest of Gotham (how they got this cure when Joker destroyed the only remaining vile of it when stabbing Batman is never explained).
So naturally after spending a whole game explaining what Titan and how it was killing the Joker Arkham Knight then reveals, that Joker's blood is dangerous because it turned you into Joker... wait what?
Yeah, turns out having someone's blood in you gives you their personality, skin color, and obsessions. And Batman is likewise turning into the Joker cause remember he was infect with Joker's blood too... except he was CURED after only having it in him for 9 hours when everyone else was infected for months.
The fact that Joker was dying as a result of a toxin in his system is never brought up, like at all which makes me wonder, did the writers of this game play or even watch the original game? The lead writer for the first two games was Paul Dini who left the series after Arkham City and as far as I know he had no involvement in AK. That's not to say that the series needs Dini to be great Arkham Origins has what many fans consider to be one of the best stories in the series and Dini wasn't involved in that game either and while it has it's own continuity errors for the most part it does feel like the writers of that game played the first two games, they just wanted to put their own spin on it.
But in Arkham Knight it's just bizarre, Joker's blood was dangerous because of the Titan formula he injected himself with only for AK to go "No it's because Joker's blood is magic." like seriously what they do with this concept strains suspension of disbelief to the point of breaking it. Not only does the Joker's blood give you the Joker's personality and obsession with Batman but it also gives you his memories, what?!
Yeah, at the halfway point of the game Batman starts having flashbacks to the time when Joker kidnapped and tortured Jason Todd and we know these are flashbacks and not Batman's interpretation because the scene with Jason later in the game reveals that this is what happened. Somehow Batman getting Joker's blood somehow allows him to recall these events which he does here for no apparent reason.
Which leads me to another problem HOW DOES THIS ALL WORK! Some have assumed that this isn't actually Joker but just a fear toxin hallucination but it's firmly established in Arkham Knight that the effects of Fear Toxin only last a short while and if it doesn't that means you're trapped in your mind.
But that doesn't make any sense because the game flat out states that this isn't what's happening, it's literally in the text "They're becoming Joker."
And before anyone says it no I don't care about theories that could explain this. Yes I've seen several of them and some of them are really interesting but here's the problem THEIR JUST THEORIES!!! This isn't something that was put in the game, this was made by fans who have no involvement in the series so it doesn't matter. A theory by a fan is not canon and the game never bothers to explain this and the answer is simply, Rocksteady had no faith in their own game unless Joker was somehow involved so came up with this idea that having the Joker's blood turns you into Joker and gives you an imaginary fiend that follows you around.
This wouldn't be so bad if the Joker's dialogue wasn't so repetitive, Mark Hamill is giving this performance his all but his dialogue pretty much boils down to "I'm going to take control of you and kill everyone you love." "I killed your girlfriend and crippled Barbara" and finally "Everyone who's related to you sucks and every villain who isn't me also sucks." Just the same three tunes for 14 FUCKING HOURS!!!
There is no variation to this he just keeps saying the same thing slightly differently over and over and over and over and over AND OVER AGAIN!!! I honestly grew sick of it after the first hour! And after the next 9 hours, I wanted to murder him. I honestly yelled at Joker to shut up when he popped up to complain about Batman not killing people because I heard him saying that joke for about 3 hours.
Contrast this with Joker in Asylum where he's in most of the game, he does have a few things to say and he has different moods. He's get existed, angry, frustrated, confused, happy, snarky and threatening. In AK he's smug and he remains smug until the last 15 minutes.
Again I love Mark Hamill's Joker and I'm so sad that he's retiring from the role (I fully understand and support him but it's still kinda sad) but this was the one and only time I found him to be annoying and I know I'm in the minority on this as most said Joker was the best part of AK. But for me the game would have been better if Rocksteady had stuck to their guns and kept their word that Joker wouldn't be in this game.
My problem with Joker's involvement in Arkham Knight is he honestly feels like Rocksteady had zero faith in their game if the Joker wasn't somehow involved which resulted in them over compensating. I get the idea of having the Joker appear as a result of Scarecrow's fear toxin, that makes sense and the idea of Batman's greatest fear becoming his worst enemy is an interesting one to explore.
What doesn't make sense, and why I dislike the approach of this idea, is that after getting hit by the Fear Toxin once Batman starts seeing the Joker all the fucking time. This is to the story's determent IMO because outside of the Season of Infamy DLC pack there is literally no villain the base game who doesn't share screen time with Joker unless you wait to do all their side quests until AFTER the main story.
It gives the impression that the developers think that Batman has only one true adversary and the rest are just side dressing which backup by the fact that most of the Rogues Gallery is regulated to side quests with them only appearing in the main story for one mission or worse one scene.
And then it gets worse, because of the retcon to Joker's blood.
So in Arkham Asylum Joker injected himself with Titan which turned him into a horrible final boss fight but a consequence of this is that he had a bad reaction to the Toxin which started to kill him over the course of a year which it eventually did. During the events of Arkham City Joker managed to inject his blood into Batman and said that he's been shipping his blood out the Gotham so he's literally poisoned Gotham in a "If I'm going down I'm taking you all with me." move. It's revealed that Joker's blood could be in 2000 people and that fatalities are expected soon enough. At the end of the game Batman is able to cure himself and apparently managed to find a cure for the rest of Gotham (how they got this cure when Joker destroyed the only remaining vile of it when stabbing Batman is never explained).
So naturally after spending a whole game explaining what Titan and how it was killing the Joker Arkham Knight then reveals, that Joker's blood is dangerous because it turned you into Joker... wait what?
Yeah, turns out having someone's blood in you gives you their personality, skin color, and obsessions. And Batman is likewise turning into the Joker cause remember he was infect with Joker's blood too... except he was CURED after only having it in him for 9 hours when everyone else was infected for months.
The fact that Joker was dying as a result of a toxin in his system is never brought up, like at all which makes me wonder, did the writers of this game play or even watch the original game? The lead writer for the first two games was Paul Dini who left the series after Arkham City and as far as I know he had no involvement in AK. That's not to say that the series needs Dini to be great Arkham Origins has what many fans consider to be one of the best stories in the series and Dini wasn't involved in that game either and while it has it's own continuity errors for the most part it does feel like the writers of that game played the first two games, they just wanted to put their own spin on it.
But in Arkham Knight it's just bizarre, Joker's blood was dangerous because of the Titan formula he injected himself with only for AK to go "No it's because Joker's blood is magic." like seriously what they do with this concept strains suspension of disbelief to the point of breaking it. Not only does the Joker's blood give you the Joker's personality and obsession with Batman but it also gives you his memories, what?!
Yeah, at the halfway point of the game Batman starts having flashbacks to the time when Joker kidnapped and tortured Jason Todd and we know these are flashbacks and not Batman's interpretation because the scene with Jason later in the game reveals that this is what happened. Somehow Batman getting Joker's blood somehow allows him to recall these events which he does here for no apparent reason.
Which leads me to another problem HOW DOES THIS ALL WORK! Some have assumed that this isn't actually Joker but just a fear toxin hallucination but it's firmly established in Arkham Knight that the effects of Fear Toxin only last a short while and if it doesn't that means you're trapped in your mind.
But that doesn't make any sense because the game flat out states that this isn't what's happening, it's literally in the text "They're becoming Joker."
And before anyone says it no I don't care about theories that could explain this. Yes I've seen several of them and some of them are really interesting but here's the problem THEIR JUST THEORIES!!! This isn't something that was put in the game, this was made by fans who have no involvement in the series so it doesn't matter. A theory by a fan is not canon and the game never bothers to explain this and the answer is simply, Rocksteady had no faith in their own game unless Joker was somehow involved so came up with this idea that having the Joker's blood turns you into Joker and gives you an imaginary fiend that follows you around.
This wouldn't be so bad if the Joker's dialogue wasn't so repetitive, Mark Hamill is giving this performance his all but his dialogue pretty much boils down to "I'm going to take control of you and kill everyone you love." "I killed your girlfriend and crippled Barbara" and finally "Everyone who's related to you sucks and every villain who isn't me also sucks." Just the same three tunes for 14 FUCKING HOURS!!!
There is no variation to this he just keeps saying the same thing slightly differently over and over and over and over and over AND OVER AGAIN!!! I honestly grew sick of it after the first hour! And after the next 9 hours, I wanted to murder him. I honestly yelled at Joker to shut up when he popped up to complain about Batman not killing people because I heard him saying that joke for about 3 hours.
Contrast this with Joker in Asylum where he's in most of the game, he does have a few things to say and he has different moods. He's get existed, angry, frustrated, confused, happy, snarky and threatening. In AK he's smug and he remains smug until the last 15 minutes.
Again I love Mark Hamill's Joker and I'm so sad that he's retiring from the role (I fully understand and support him but it's still kinda sad) but this was the one and only time I found him to be annoying and I know I'm in the minority on this as most said Joker was the best part of AK. But for me the game would have been better if Rocksteady had stuck to their guns and kept their word that Joker wouldn't be in this game.