Characters / Batman: Arkham Series – Rogues Gallery (Asylum)

aka: Batman Arkham Series The Riddler

Bane

^{Bane in Arkham Origins}

Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City), JB Blanc (Arkham Origins, Arkham Underworld), John DiMaggio (Assault on Arkham) ^{Other voice actors}Jean-Claude Sachot (Fr; Asylum, City), Jérémie Covillault (Fr; Origins), Luca Ghignone (It), Guilherme Briggs (Br.Pt)

Bane grew up in the infamous Santa Priscan prison to serve his dead father's sentence. He was subjected to horrific military experiments involving Venom, which turned him superhumanly strong. Combined with his intellect, this allowed Bane to escape. He set out to Gotham City to forge a criminal empire, and made his name on Christmas Eve by recruiting his right-hand man, Bird, and joining a team of eight assassins hired by Black Mask in an attempt to kill Batman. However, he was eventually defeated by Batman and imprisoned in Blackgate. Years later whilst imprisoned, he was secretly transferred to Arkham Asylum, where Dr. Penelope Young experimented on him to create the Titan formula. Bane managed to escape and sought revenge, but was defeated by Batman again. After being imprisoned in Arkham City, Bane started a fight club and learned that containers of Titan had been scattered throughout the prison and dedicated himself to destroying them to prevent others from suffering the horrific effects it causes.

Provides examples of:

• Adaptational Early Appearance: Origins established that this Bane first fought Batman while Bruce was still new to the role, unlike the comics, where Tim Drake had just become Robin III.
• Affably Evil: In Batman: Arkham City, Bane is rather polite to Batman, but still won't hesitate to lie or attempt to kill him.
• Anti-Hero: One of the "Gotham City Stories" in Batman: Arkham Knight is about Bane returning to Santa Prisca, setting aside his obsession with Batman and focusing his violence instead on the drug cartels that run the country.
• Badass Decay: In-Universe, and noted consistently throughout. His desire to beat Batman ultimately overwhelms him to the point where he injects himself with a drug that destroys his mind and leaves him incapable of remembering all that he'd learned about the Dark Knight, just for one more chance at killing him. By the time of Arkham Asylum, he's been reduced to a guinea pig for Dr. Young's experiments. Lampshaded by The Joker, who calls him "Has-Bane". By the time he escapes from imprisonment following his side mission in City, he's reduced by his addiction to Titan to being a tool of nameless, low-level mooks, rather than the other way around. The decay ends in Knight, however, where it's revealed that after leaving Gotham, he broke his Titan addiction and returned to Santa Prisca to take down the drug cartels running the country, indicating that he's starting to return to being the Genius Bruiser that he was in Origins.
• Bag of Spilling: The TN-1 formula cost him vital information about Batman, and withered his body away into a tiny husk of what he once was.
• Bald of Evil: As seen when he's not wearing his mask. A piece of concept art reveals that WB Montreal considered giving Bane his traditional mohawk hairstyle from the comics, however.
• Best Served Cold: Statements by the Joker, overheard conversations between Bane's men, and a comment from Bane himself indicate that the bounty isn't the reason he's going after the Bat in Origins. However, what Bane wants revenge for, why the Batman's death will "finally bring him peace", is never stated in-game. This might be alluding to the comics, where Bane believes Batman is the same as the demonic bat that tormented him in dreams and visions as a child, and breaking him is his destiny.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: With the Joker in Arkham Origins. Joker hired Bane as his muscle, though Bane ended up becoming a Wild Card who acted in his own interests.
• Body Horror: When Batman and Gordon come across him in the first game, Dr. Young had the Venom compound completely drained from his blood, leaving him bone-thin and gasping for breath. Then Joker injects him with an experimental dose of the Titan formula, bulking him up to full size in seconds. Also, he sounds like he's in pain when he's changing.
  • When he injected TN-1 towards the end of Origins, you can see and hear his muscles tear and his bones snap as his body rapidly reacts to grow bigger versions quickly. He even briefly pukes up some of the formula. He’s misshapen into a horrific mass of muscles straight out of The '90s superhero art.
  • His transformation throughout the timeline. In Origins, he's a pretty big guy, but not too out of the ordinary, and his Venom equipment is easily hidden. In Asylum, he's so huge he needs to brace himself to run (some players have noticed that TN-1 Bane is faster than in the earlier games), and his equipment involves a storage tank integrated into his spine and Venom tubes that feed directly into his shoulders. He hasn't changed in City, but he's still giant sized, suggesting he can't shrink down to a normal height.
• Boring, but Practical: In Arkham Origins, what ingenious scheme did Bane employ to uncover Batman's secret identity? He put surveillance on him, studied the movements of the Batwing and just paid attention to Batman's vocal tics, all together providing solid links to Bruce Wayne. This is almost exactly what he did in the comics, except he had more help, and it was the Batmobile instead.
• Car Fu: Gets flattened with a remote-controlled Batmobile in Asylum. As revealed in City, Batman knew it wouldn't kill him.
• Composite Character: He uses Venom and has a similar system for feeding it into him like in the comics, but his outfit in Origins recalls his costume in The Dark Knight Rises, sans the mask.
• Cool Mask: As is tradition, he wears the mask of a Mexican luchador.
• Dragon-in-Chief: It's pretty clear Bane is the most dangerous assassin in Arkham Origins and the one who hired the assassins, Black Mask knows it. Bane also has his own agenda and nearly crushes Batman both physically and emotionally.
• The Dreaded: In "Arkham Origins". Batman describes the assassins that are after him, their M.O.s, and their expertise. Then he gets to Bane, and all he has to say is:
  Batman: Bane? Here, in Gotham?
• Easy Amnesia: Over the course of Origins, we learn that Bane knows Wayne is Batman, and he goes after Alfred in the Batcave, causing a Heroic BSoD. However, in the game's finale, Bane decides he can only take down the Bat using the as yet unperfected TN-1 superserum, which causes severe memory loss, leaving Bane without his charisma/intelligence, but retaining his strength and obsession with Batman.
• Empowered Badass Normal: His Venom formula makes him much stronger than a normal man. That said, he was still much stronger than a normal man even before he used Venom.
• Enemy Mine: He forms a temporary alliance with Batman to destroy the caches of Titan stashed all over Arkham City. But he really just wanted it all for himself. Which Batman knew.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Bane isn't above working with his greatest enemy to destroy batches of Titan to keep Arkham City's criminals from using it. His motivations are selfish, however.
• Evil Sounds Deep: As befitting a man of his stature. In Origins, his voice goes even deeper than normal when using Venom.
• Final Boss: Of Arkham Origins. He's the last of the eight assassins that Batman faces in a boss battle during the main game and the Joker is more or less a Cutscene Boss.
• Genius Bruiser: Dr. Young notes that he is highly intelligent. So intelligent, in fact, that in Batman: Arkham Origins not only does Bane synthesize another, more powerful version of Venom by himself, he also deduces that Bruce Wayne is Batman.
• Godzilla Threshold: Bane views using the TN-1 formula on himself as this. He's aware of the long-term damage it can do to his body but after Batman nearly kills him, yet revives him instead, rather than realising Batman saved his life Bane decides to fight with the only weapon he has left; a TN-1 injection.
  Bane: You leave me no choice, Mr. Wayne!
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has scars on his face that match the pattern on his mask.
• Gratuitous Spanish:
  • Refers to Dr. Young as "the bruja" (meaning "witch"), but otherwise speaks English in the rest of his dialogue.
  • Subverted in the comic, where his only spoken line is in Spanish, but his thoughts are in English.
  • In City and Origins, he refers to Joker as "crazy clown", in Spanish.
    Bane: I'll be coming for you, payaso loco!
  • He also refers to the citizens of Arkham as "basura," meaning "garbage."
• Greater-Scope Villain: Unintentionally, but he nonetheless is arguably the one ultimately responsible for the events of the first game and beyond. He personally created an upgrade of Venom called TN-1, which is almost certainly a prelude to the Titan formula from the first two games, and his blood post-injection is what was used to create Titan. Also counts as Laser-Guided Karma since it means he is at least partially to blame for his own predicament in the first game too.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: In the multiplayer in Origins. After he does a Neck Lift on a mook, he can either slam him to the ground, killing him, or throw him at another mook, killing them both.
• Heal Thyself: In his boss fight in the first game, if you don't remove the tubes from his neck, then he'll get back a good chunk of health. Everytime you take away a tube, however, he'll lose that mini-healthbar.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • He claims to have made one in City, planning to go straight and asking for Batman's help in destroying the remaining Titan formula. He was lying, wanting the stuff all to himself. Batman anticipated this, and prepared a contingency plan.
  • Pulls a legitimate one around the time of Arkham Knight, going back to his country, shedding his grudge with the Batman and working to get rid of the Drug Cartels puppeteering his country.
• Hoist Hero over Head: One of his counter moves in Arkham Origins is snapping Batman's spine on his leg. It's not nearly as debilitating to Batman, unless it happens to be the hit that kills the player. In Arkham Asylum, his Batbreaker is used in a game over quote.
• I Shall Taunt You: After their first fight in Origins, Batman places a tracker on him. When he arrives at Bane's hideout, he is nowhere to be found and instead follows the tracker to a computer room, where he finds various photographs of his vigilante persona. When he finds the tracker, he picks it up and inadvertently activates the computers' monitors, which show a side-by-side comparison of Bruce Wayne and Batman saying "You just ran out of time!", causing Batman to realize that Bane knows his identity. Batman then angrily punches the monitor and blows up the computer room.
• It's Personal: Heavily implied to be Bane's motive for going after Batman in Origins; all that's known is that he believes that killing Batman will bring him "peace," and that his men already identify Batman as "the one from his dreams" — a nod to his origin story, where he suffered visions of a terrible bat-creature every night inside Peña Duro, and thus became fascinated with the legend of Batman upon his escape. In the prequel comic to Arkham Knight, it is also revealed that Santa Priscan migrant laborers built most of Old Gotham, which Bane now considers his birthright to rule over as a king.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Calls off his first fight with Batman when the police arrive.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Come the end of Origins, his knowledge of Batman's Secret Identity is forgotten due to his rampage on the prototype Titan formula, reducing him to a temporary mindless brute who is left hanging by 2 chains by Batman.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Batman runs over Bane with the Batmobile in Asylum. This didn't seem particularly significant at the time, but Arkham Origins establishes that Bane actually attacked the prototype of the Batmobile earlier in his career, making its later use in defeating him quite karmic.
• Lightning Bruiser: In Origins, Bane is noted to be surprisingly faster than he was in Asylum. Even when hopped up on TN-1 and turned into a hulking mass of muscle, he still can move with frightening speed.
• Mercy Kill: He ends up having to do this to a Joker henchman laced with the Titan formula who had Bane at his mercy, because the henchman in question was suffering from a cardiac arrest and experiencing a very painful death.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Bane" has all sorts of scary meanings.
• Neck Lift: One of his special moves in multiplayer.
• No Indoor Voice: He shouts almost all of his lines in Arkham Asylum.
• Noodle Incident: It's implied in Origins that he and Batman have faced each other before, as Batman shows surprise that Bane is one of the assassins after him.
• One-Winged Angel: Injects himself with TN-1 during the final boss fight of Origins. This turns him into a hulking mass of muscles and feral rage that even Batman can't fight directly.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: To an extent, in Asylum: he shows up once to fight Batman and gets taken down immediately, unlike the other villains who all come back at least once. His indirect role in the plot, however, is greater: Joker plans to use a derivative of the Venom formula in his blood to make rampaging monsters out of all of Gotham.
• Ret-Canon: His appearance in Asylum and City was initially the basis for Bane's New 52 design (it's since been tweaked to include a vest and cargo pants).
• Screaming Warrior: He tends to yell a lot during combat, especially in Asylum.
• Sinister Minister: In the debatably canon prequel comic to Arkham Knight, he attempts to regain power by leading a sect of devoted followers to reclaim Gotham for Santa Prisca, claiming that he has been ordained by God to rule the city. Batman sees right through the deception, arguing that while Bane may be a fanatic, "the last thing you are is a believer".
• Small Role, Big Impact: His only appearance in the first game is a brief confrontation, but his Venom serum is the catalyst for the game's plot.
• The Starscream: In Origins, Bane is unusually open about his plans to turn on Joker and take over Gotham once Batman is dead. Joker doesn't seem to mind.
• Stealth-Based Mission: In Arkham Origins, the final phase of the boss fight against Bane requires Batman to rely on stealth, as Bane has become a hulking behemoth due to using TN-1.
• Someone Has to Die: Before his final boss battle in Origins, he drops this line to decide which of the 3 subjects will die: if Batman does not kill Bane (or so he says anyway), Joker (and by extension Gordon) dies by electric chair powered by the heart monitor on Bane's chest. Batman circumvents this with the Shock Gloves, much to the Joker's annoyance when he finds out Batman really didn't kill Bane.
• Super-Strength: He is much stronger than Batman without the Venom, which makes him borderline superhuman. Strong enough to easily lift two Enforcers one in each hand and break their necks.
• Timed Mission: The Final Battle against Bane in Origins; if you take too long Bane will gain the ability to kill Batman in one hit.
• Took a Level in Badass: Is stated in Knight to have finally overcome his Titan addiction after long months of painful withdrawal, and has returned to his native Santa Prisca to overthrow its corrupt military juanta, implying he's slowly becoming the fearsome leader of men he used to be.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: He somehow goes from a Genius Bruiser in Origins to a gradual loss of intelligence over the course of Asylum, City, and afterwards. This is due to the brain-damaging side-effects of TN-1.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Outside of Origins, Bane is grotesquely overmuscled on his torso and arms, while his legs are disproportionately small.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In Arkham Origins, after Batman goes through the trouble of making Bane's heart stop and have it beat again (so he does not have to kill either the Joker or Bane), Bane continues his attempt to kill Batman.
• Villain Team-Up: In addition to being one of the eight assassins working for Black Mask in Origins, he also seems to have a fragile alliance with The Joker.
• Volcanic Veins: Has glowing green Venom/Titan pulsating throughout his body.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: If the digital graphic novel prequel to Arkham City is anything to go by, Bane might want to destroy the source of Titan by any means necessary. But the end of his sidequest reveals he only wanted the Titan for himself, not to destroy it. Batman already knew from the start.
• The Worf Effect: A prequel comic for Knight shows the Knight killing him. However, as this conflicts with the information the game provides, it's most likely non-canon.
• Would Harm a Senior: In Arkham Origins, after learning that Bruce Wayne is Batman, he breaks into the Batcave and attacks Alfred, almost killing him.

Clayface (Basil Karlo)

Voiced by: Rick D. Wasserman (as Clayface), Tom Kane (as Commissioner Gordon and Quincy Sharp), Duane R. Shepard Sr. (as Aaron Cash), Mark Hamill (as the Joker) ^{Other voice actors}Philippe Dumond (Fr), Simone Savogin (It)

Basil Karlo is an iconic horror film actor who starred in the classic film "The Terror". When he discovered that it was being remade, Karlo went insane and murdered several people involved with the new film before being stopped by Batman and Robin. He later stole and injected himself with an experimental compound that turned him into a mass of living clay, allowing him to mimic anything or anyone, and he became the monstrous Clayface. When Joker took over Arkham Asylum, Clayface eventually escaped by impersonating Warden Quincy Sharp and stayed on the run in Gotham City, constantly changing his identity to avoid being thrown into Arkham City.

Provides examples of:

• Acrofatic: Despite looking quite lumpy and obese, he is a Lightning Bruiser who can jump enormous distances or charge towards Bruce at staggering speeds.
• Adaptational Badass: Arguably Basil's most powerful depiction in any media, being depicted as Bats' most dangerous villain in terms of sheer strength, toughness and brute power. And, while comic book Batman usually has to get creative when defeating Clayface, he is still able to subdue him nonlethally without resorting to extreme methods, even in the case of iterations of the character that possessed actual superpowers. In the Arkham series, Batman is outright forced to use lethal force in order to stop Clayface, since literally nothing else at hand will work.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the original comics, Basil Karlo lost all his subtlety after gaining superpowers and became a bit of a blunt instrument, while his New 52/Rebirth incarnation was notorious for his poor impulse control. Karlo's Arkham portrayal is a sly, calculating trickster that manages to escape from the Asylum through disguise rather than brute force, and spends Arkham City playing the part of Joker so masterfully that even Batman doesn't suspect anything until the end.
• Ascended Extra: Goes from a cameo in the first game where he doesn't actually have his own model to the Final Boss of the second.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: He is a gigantic slimy Humanoid Abomination with no skeleton composed of a clay-like substance that not only can take any shape he wishes, but makes him damn near invincible, since he can even be cut to pieces and survive in smaller separate bodies.
• Body Double: To the Joker in the second game, ensuring that his gang doesn't lose faith in him as his health continues to falter.
• Chekhov's Gunman: His cameo appearance in the first game leads to the shocking twist of the second game.
• The Dragon: To the Joker in Arkham City.
• Elemental Shapeshifter: He's a walking mountain of mud, and can use his powers for shapeshifting or brute strength.
• Evil Sounds Deep: With courtesy of Rick D. Wasserman
• False Innocence Trick: In the first game, you can see Clayface in a glass cell. But in fact, he changes his appearance each time the camera wanders away from him and tries to trick you into releasing him. Good thing the game doesn't offer you the opportunity to free him, or quite a few people would. A rare example of Arkham security working correctly: he's in a unique, hermetically sealed cell with no easy way for one person to open and warning signs clearly explaining the problem with its occupant. But if you can advance the plot (including optional parts) far enough, he'll stop pretending - not the disguise, just pretending he is that person. And since he can't fake internal organs or a skeleton, he shouldn't be able to fool Batman's detective vision.
• Final Boss: For the main story in Arkham City.
• Flunky Boss: The second round of the fight against Clayface has him sending parts of himself in humanoid form to attack Batman.
• For the Lulz:
  • Given that he didn't seem too disappointed at Batman recognizing him in the first game, coupled with the burst of laughter, it's likely that he was playing for cheap laughs.
  • Patient notes on Clayface reveal that he has a habit of transforming into Dr. Young during her attempts to interview him, apparently just for the sake of annoying her.
• Funny X-Ray: Using detective vision reveals that Clayface has no skeleton due to his nature as a blob-like creature.
• Game-Over Man: Both during his own boss fight, and when he's posing as the Joker.
• Godzilla Threshold: Aside from Solomon Grundy, he's the only enemy Batman uses lethal force on. He goes really far with Clayface, freezing him, then slicing him into pieces and ripping him apart from the inside out.
• Graceful Loser: If Clayface is found out while he's still disguised as Warden Sharp or Aaron Cash, he politely congratulates Batman. As Commissioner Gordon, he only laughs tauntingly.
• Kill and Replace: Should you die during his boss battle, Karlo will gloat that his next role will be as Batman himself.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: He can sculpt himself into almost anything with his powers, the only limit being his imagination; with his brand of shapeshifting, it's a given.
• Large Ham: Given Karlo's background as an actor, it comes as no surprise that he's prone to this. Not only does he ham it up in his boss fight, but his game over taunts are also quite over-the-top.
  Clayface: Next, I will become YOU, Batman!
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite being the largest character in the series and looking like mobile sludge, he can move at an incredible pace during the final boss battle, leaping across the theatre in a single bound and enacting a Rolling Attack with the speed of a freight train. Even though the Freeze Blasts can be thrown very quickly, it's difficult to get more than one or two hits in between his attacks.
• Literally Shattered Lives: The only way Batman can stop him is by freezing him to paralysis, then shattering him to pieces. It actually does some damage, relative to everything else.
• Mad Artist: As with his comic counterpart, he's an actor who went on a killing spree when his masterpiece film was remade without him, and regularly talks up the value of his acting ability. However, Karlo's incarnation in this series is even more insane, given that he continues to pursue unique roles no matter how depraved the character: in Arkham City, he's serving as a Body Double to the Joker in the belief that playing the part of the Clown Prince of Crime would be "the role of a lifetime," and it's indicated that he plans to assume the role of Batman after killing him.
• Master Actor: The second game sees him pull off a near-flawless imitation of the Joker. Even Joker himself applauded him for doing "a damn fine job" of standing in for him.
• Mood-Swinger: According to Dr Young, he's prone to "wild shifts in affect," which he defends as evidence of his acting ability.
• Mirror Routine: Secretly reintroduced to the player through one of these, and it's not until the climax that the player becomes aware that the "mirror" was just a hole in the wall through which the real Joker could be seen.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Batman has one gadget with enough firepower to dent him: Freeze Blasts. Even then, it takes a truly staggering amount to slow him down, and about double that plus a lot of smacking him in the face with a sword to do any significant harm.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Clayface spends most of his time attempting to fool someone into letting him out of his cell or playing pranks on his jailers. However, when Warden Sharp unexpectedly leaves his hiding place against Batman's advice, Clayface sounds genuinely confused when he alerts Batman to the fact and doesn't even attempt to joke about the subject; given that Sharp had left the relative safety of the security booth in favour of roaming Arkham Island in the latter stages of Joker's takeover, Clayface's reaction is well warranted.
  • Also provides one for Batman himself: Clayface is one of exactly two people in the entire Arkham franchise for whom Batman instantly abandons non-lethal tactics. Batman attacks Clayface with cryogenic grenades, explosives, and a sword the second he realizes Clayface is about to engage him, and he doesn't stop until Clayface can no longer continue fighting. This isn't a lapse of Batman's standards, or his Sanity Slippage kicking in, it's just that Karlo is that dangerous.
• Rolling Attack: Will use this against Batman in the boss battle, though players can trick Clayface into smashing into some nearby explosives if they wish to.
• Sapping the Shapeshifter: In the finale of Arkham City, Batman discovers that the giant shapeshifter's vulnerable to the ice grenades Victor Freeze gave him... but even with this on your side, Clayface is so resilient that you have to laboriously chip away at his hit points with dozens upon dozens of grenades until he freezes, allowing you to grab a sword and hack his solidified body to bits. Though Clayface quickly reforms from being frozen and shattered, he shapeshifts more aggressively every time he loses a health bar, until the third iteration, when Batman inflicts so much damage on Clayface that he can't retain consciousness and collapses into inert goop.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Unlike the other inmates of Arkham Asylum, he isn't kept in an ordinary cell, but in a hermetically-sealed room with an unbreakable glass observation window. he stays that way throughout the first game. Not so much in the second game.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: He's a gargantuan monstrosity, towering well above anybody in the game including TITAN henchmen and Bane. And yet he takes the form of the Joker, one of (if not the) thinnest character in the game.
• Shapeshifter Identity Crisis: Dr Young claims in her notes that his identity is at risk of fracturing due to his habit of adopting the forms of other people as opposed to his own and Karlo is already beginning to demonstrate a rather mercurial personality as a result.
• Shape Shifter Weapon: He can create several weapons to use, which include an axe, a sort of quarterstaff, and a hammer.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: He tries to impersonate Gordon and Cash in the hopes that Batman will let him out of his cell. It doesn't work.
• Shapeshifting Trickster: Karlo loves impersonating Arkham staff members, sometimes for the sake of staging a breakout but mostly just to mock them; this forms the basis of his escape from Arkham in the tie-in comics, and he spends the next few months flitting wildly between roles so that nobody can identify him.
• Sizeshifter: Being a shapeshifter, he can shrink himself down to a person's size when taking their form.
• Spin Attack: Part of his fight strategy involves spinning really fast in order to shred his opponent with his shapeshifter weapons.
• Spot the Thread:
  • Scanning him with Detective Vision reveals he has no bones, no matter what form he's taken. You can spoil the twist by scanning "Healthy Joker" with Detective Vision during his boss fight.
  • Also, he's in the habit of occasionally using British phrases even when he's meant to be playing an American role (likely a nod to the fact that Karlo is British in the comics, much like his real-life inspiration, Boris Karloff). An early hint that "Healthy Joker" isn't the real deal is when he snaps "bully for you" at Talia.
  • Finally, he doesn't address Batman with any nicknames or aliases, simply calling him "Batman." This is the only true flaw in his performance as the Joker, who normally has a whole host of pet names for Batman, most prominently "Bats."
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Over the course of his boss fight, he gets blown up several times, frozen and chopped into small pieces, ripped apart from the inside out, and then finally thrown into the molten Lazarus Pit.
• Transhuman Abomination: Clayface is unlike anything Batman's ever faced, sporting powers that even the strongest members of the rogues' gallery can only dream of and existing in a state of being that's nothing short of nightmarish to witness... His sheer power is displayed on his bossfight, where he proves to be both indestructible and invincible, easily shapeshifting between various horrific forms and resisting any attack thrown at him, before becoming a One-Winged Angel that looks like a stain on the floor that ocasionally morphs into a screaming face, all the while creating little lanky emanations of him to kill you.
• Uncanny Valley: Invoked when he masquerades as Healthy Joker: he looks the part well enough, but there's something ever-so-slightly off about his skin; in fact, it almost seems reminiscent of molded plasticine. It's not known why this is the case, given that he was able to mimic other characters without such problems, but it's possible that given that the Joker had been covered in diseased pustules for so long that Clayface just didn't know how to mimic his "natural" skin tone.
• Uncertain Doom: It's unknown if he survived the Lazarus Pit's destruction. Judging by Batman deciding to keep him in the Batcomputer’s simulations despite removing the Joker, Batman doesn’t know either.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: He can imitate any human being, regardless of build, but can also sculpt his clay body into just about anything in combat.
• Walking Spoiler: Everything involving his appearance in Arkham City.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He's one of the very few villains who isn't referenced in any way, shape or form in Arkham Knight, except Batman's Joker hallucination mentioning him once. The tie-in comics reveal that while Batman removed the Joker from his simulations after his death, he didn't remove Clayface, meaning he likely doesn't know what happened to him either.

Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Quinzel)

^{Harley Quinn in Arkham Asylum}

^{Harley Quinn in Arkham City}

^{Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League}

Dr. Harleen F. Quinzel is a former psychiatrist turned criminal after becoming obsessed with the Joker and becoming his right-hand girl, becoming Harley Quinn. She is obsessed with gaining Joker's approval at any cost, but is just as violent and unpredictable as him. She was vital to his takeover of Arkham Asylum, and later busted him out while he was weakened by TITAN illness, taking him to set up base in Arkham City. Due to Joker's illness, she ran most operations for their gang herself, with her mental state deteriorating significantly as he got worse.

Provides examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating: None of the Joker's Mooks are happy that she has taken over. Once Joker dies, they say she's become even crazier than he was. In the end they abandon Harley, not wanting to put up with her anymore.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Downplayed. Most versions of Harley don her criminal persona not long after meeting Joker. Predating Arkham Asylum by three years, the Matter of Family DLC shows that Harley was an Arkham psychiatrist for five years, able to connect Edward Burke with Dr. Young. ^note Origins was in Batman's second year, and Asylum was eight years later.
• Adaptational Skimpiness: Asylum is a major reason why she has been getting this in recent years and currently provides the page image. Her first costume in the series was a Naughty Nurse Outfit with a short skirt (providing many panty shots), thigh-high boots, a corset baring her midriff and a top that showed off so much cleavage that it didn't even cover her bra. City removes the skirt and gives her outfit pants. Assault made her outfit show off a lot of her midriff and exposed her arms. Knight downplays this the most. She has tights under her skirt and covers her midriff, but she still has a large amount of cleavage showing. The Batgirl: A Matter of Family DLC is the only one that keeps a genuinely faithful adaptation of her costume.
• Adaptational Villainy: In most media, Harley is depicted as the Joker's abused girlfriend who has the strong potential to reform if she could get free of his psychological grip on her. In this series, she never reforms, she's just as crazy and dangerous as Joker, and after his death, some of the Joker's men imply she's even worse than he was. In Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, she clearly has no intent to reform even after she's been five years removed from him by now, while comics!Harley was beginning to get the urge to drop the anti- part and become an actual hero after a few years without him and even started working with the Bat Family a bit.
• Adaptational Wimp: Of a sort, and oddly for this series. While the Joker trusts her with more than he usually does in other media, including being his main agent and controlling his gang, she's on the whole far less intelligent or capable a combatant than most other incarnations. Likewise, she lacks the (admittedly mild) super-strength and agility of her comics counterpart. Though it should be noted that she was capable of defeating Nightwing in her DLC (with some help from Ivy), so the wimp part seems to be more due to Batman being on a whole other level compared to his apprentices. She becomes significantly more competent in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and displays the combat prowess she’s known for in the comics.
• Affably Evil: Ditzy, energetic, and even friendly at times, almost makes you forget she has willingly killed as many people as her boyfriend.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: A December 2015 update to Arkham Knight can allow you to wear her classic jester costume in DLC.
• Angrish: During her Mayhem Mode, she can only splutter in furious, child-like tantrums while taking down multiple enemies.
• Ax-Crazy: Slightly less so than her lover, but if pissed off or feeling murderous, you'll get an idea of how screwed up she is. Joker's death seems to have cranked up her instability to the point where it's now arguably worse than even Joker himself.
• Bad Boss: Her mooks in Harley Quinn's Revenge remark that Harley is an even worse boss than the Joker, who himself was a very Bad Boss.
• Bad "Bad Acting": In contrast with her original origin story, in which she did sound professional, her interview tapes have her speaking in the same tone of voice as her Harley Quinn persona, whilst trying to maintain her status as an Arkham psychiatrist. Origins fixes this a bit, as she starts out sounding rather mellow when she interviews the Joker... but slowly starts to sound more like the Harley we know as he turns on the charm.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: She is seen topless at one point in Assault on Arkham with enough of her breasts exposed where the player would see her nipples if it weren't for this trope.
• Batter Up!: She wields a baseball bat at several points, including in her playable campaign. It also means that she can't silently take out enemies since her metal bat is incredibly loud.
• Big Bad: Of Batman: Arkham City's "Harley Quinn's Revenge" Downloadable Content.
• Bound and Gagged: Talia found her and took the cure from her before she could get it to Joker. It seems she chose to leave her this way afterwards. If the player finds her, they can have fun gagging and ungagging her and listening to her reactions.
• The Cameo: Shows up a few times in Origins, before she became Harley Quinn, in the first times she met Joker.
• Casual Kink: Well, maybe that isn't the right word, but in Arkham City, Joker is implied to have incorporated BDSM into their "love life" to help cope with his looming death. Some pieces of concept art actually had her wearing fluffy handcuffs on one hand.
• Combat Parkour: The closest thing she has to a grappling hook is a higher-than average jump (although it cannot reach most vantage points, she can jump distances enemies need a ladder for), and her evade move seems to be better at avoiding bullets than anyone else's.
• Critical Psychoanalysis Failure: The tapes of her "curing" the Joker. The first of her tapes though is her applying for the job, where she says she's so fascinated by the powerful villains that end up in Arkham. And Arkham still hired her. Presumably because all competent Doctors recognized the pattern and applied for jobs anywhere else, and because she was probably competent during her time in Blackgate.
• Crocodile Tears:
  • In Asylum, after being recaptured, she sits in her cell sobbing pitifully with her face buried in her hands. However, she occasionally looks up to make sure that Batman is still looking at her, and Detective Vision reveals that her emotional state is still registering as 'Calm'.
  • She does it again in City when the Joker fakes his own death and she pretends to cry for him. It is finally subverted at the end, though, when she sees that her Mr. J has truly died of Titan poisoning due to his Idiot Ball and impatience for the cure that became his downfall.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Her attempt to fight Batman after all her Mooks were taken out in Arkham Asylum ended with one move on Batman's part, and her first appearance in Arkham City goes much the same way. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't get any more competent come Arkham Knight. Interestingly, however, she is significantly more capable against the Dark Knight in Assault On Arkham.
• Cute and Psycho: She's always been this, but after the Joker's death in Arkham City, it goes to new heights. Her goons think she is worse than the Joker. By Knight, she's regressed to a full-on Psychopathic Womanchild.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: She's as loud as she is cute. She lampshades it herself in her playable episode in Knight, saying that "quiet" isn't in her vocabulary.
• Cutscene Boss: In Asylum, and is defeated about as easily in City. Less so in "Harley Quinn's Revenge", though, where Robin has to take some effort in order to take her down, akin to Catwoman's battle with Two-Face.
• Damsel in Distress: She gets tied up along with the hostages during the Joker's Blackgate Prison takeover near the end of Origins.
• Dark Action Girl: In the comic, we see her take out Arkham guards with as much skill as the playable characters, and she's able to trade more blows with Robin than her goons could. Arkham Knight takes this as far as it can go by making her playable via pre-order.
• Darker and Edgier: One of the most lethal and villainous versions of Harley Quinn there is, actually rivaling the Joker himself. While she is shown to be manipulated by the Joker, she is almost as monstrous and depraved as he is and isn’t shown in a sympathetic light compared to her other interpretations in the franchise.
• Dark Mistress: For the Joker.
• Death Seeker: Became one after Joker's death in an attempt to be with him in the afterlife. Her plot in "Harley Quinn's Revenge" was an attempt to at least attempt Revenge by Proxy to make Batman suffer, at most an attempt to take him down with her.
• Demoted to Extra: In the grand scheme of Arkham Knight she doesn't really play much of a role. Her DLC focuses on her busting out Ivy so she can join the villain meet-up with Scarecrow and later on she finds out about the Joker-infected and tries to bust them free as a twisted form of tribute to the Joker. Batman and Robin subdue her easily and that's the end of her role in the story.
• Depraved Bisexual: Downplayed, she is depraved, but is usually loyal to The Joker.
• Destructo-Nookie: With Deadshot in Assault on Arkham.
• The Ditz: Lampshaded by Batman himself in both games: "She never was very bright." In the Arkham Asylum and repeated, but with "smart" in Arkham City. It makes one wonder how she became a doctor in the first place. Even the captured cops get in on it in Harley Quinn's Revenge.
  Harley: Quiet, bozos, I'm trying to think!
  Cop: Does it hurt?
  • Somewhat subverted in Harley Quinn's Revenge, where she not only manages to reanimate Ra's al Ghul's century old robots, but also manages to capture Batman in a death trap for two days while leaving him completely defenseless. She also has a backup bomb for the other three bombs that she distracts Batman with. It's unclear, though, how much of this she came up with herself.
• Domino Mask: In Asylum and Assault on Arkham.
• The Dragon: To The Joker, as always. She's always by his side, always goes along with all of his plans, and is completely obsessed with him. Too bad she's not that good at executing his plans.
• Dragon Ascendant: After Joker's death, she becomes the full leader of the gang.
• Dumb Blonde: She's really psychopathic, but still a ditzy girl.
  • Once she's out of the Joker's shadow (similar to her runs in the comics), she's a lot more capable. This is often the case with people whose partners are... violently and unpredictably abusive.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: In the DLC "Harley Quinn's Revenge," she actually becomes a lot more evil than before, and apparently she either let her natural brunette haircolor out (assuming she isn't a real blond), or she dyed it black.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In Knight, she's visibly horrified when Henry Adams kills the other Joker Infected in cold blood on the grounds of "purifying the gene pool." At one point she was also offered, by Penguin, to become one of his Harem after the Joker... ahem... cracked his last. She said no, knowing what it entailed and staying loyal to her now most definitely dead and burned puddin' .
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Wearing red-and-blue, and later red-and-black, on different sides is kind of her thing.
• Faux Action Girl: Surprisingly so for someone shown to be a capable fighter throughout the franchise. Harley is shown to be the Joker’s right hand woman and leads his gang in his place after his death with many of the goons shown to fear her. However, every time she has faced against Batman has had her posterior handed to her with minimal effort and easily incapacitated. That said, she does manage to take out a bunch of cops and Nightwing in her story campaign in Arkham Knight. It’s averted in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League where she’s as competent and capable as the rest of the squad.
• Feed It a Bomb: In Kill The Justice League, using her Suicide Strike on a Bomber has her forcefeed the brute a grenade.
• Fighting Clown: In Knight, she fights with a mix of goofy karate kicks, confetti bombs, explosive jack-in-the-boxes and a metal bat, but is no less of a fighter than the bat family are.
• Foil: She's quite dangerous herself, but Joker's constant abuse, belittlement, and exploitation of her shows he's by far the nastier of the two. When he eventually dies, people are still comparing her to Joker - by fearfully admitting she's now worse than he ever was.
• Friendless Background: Hints in Origins that she has few, if any, friends in her private life; even before Joker, the people she interacted with most were unhinged, murderous maniacs.
• Game-Over Man: In some scenes when you die in both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Also occurs in Arkham Knight.
• Genki Girl: She's very energetic, at least until Joker's death.
• Girlish Pigtails: Her trademark hairstyle.
• Goth: Her new look in the "Harley Quinn's Revenge" DLC for the second game.
• Hand Cannon: Sports an absolutely massive one in "Harley's Revenge" that seems to operate like a one-handed Grenade Launcher. Batman Taking the Bullet for a cop she's trying to kill with it is how he's knocked out and captured.
• Hero Killer: As she has been tasked with killing the Justice League by Waller, Harley has to become this or die. What really qualifies her is that she personally puts the final round into Batman after his fight with the team.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: Harley Quinn's favourite weapon is a giant mallet whose head is large enough to cover her own head and chest. This trait is shared with most of the character's other depictions at the time, but this time it's actually an important plot point: The hammer's size makes it the perfect hiding place for the Joker's dirty bomb, which Batman spends most of the film trying to locate.
• Hypocrite: She has a habit of calling people "dumbass" even though she isn't too bright herself.
  • She gives Batman a "The Reason You Suck" Speech in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League by saying how he severely physically and mentally damages his enemies, but that's ironic coming from her. Since she has done a lot of terrible things throughout the Arkham games.
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: To the point of a Running Gag. She does this in both Asylum and City as well as the "Harley Quinn's Revenge" Downloadable Content for the second game. At least in the latter case, one of her mooks has the decency to tell her that she did so.
  • Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Usually the result, whether finding it out on her own or being told by a mook.
• Ironic Echo: In the Suicide Squad game she says that Batman always said she "Never was very bright" shortly before putting a bullet in Batman's head.
• Joke Character:
  • Although the Predator maps in her Knight DLC weren't particularly difficult, having been specially designed for her abilities, she's by far the hardest to play in the normal challenges featuring medics, drones, and turrets that she was patched into since she lacks a grapple (severely reducing her mobility), doesn't have many gadgets or abilities as the rest of the cast and can't perform silent takedowns.
  • Unsurprisingly, Harley is also the worst character in the combat maps too. Though a patch made her significantly better just by giving her critical strikes, among other changes, she still lacks many abilities and gadgets that the other characters have. She does, however, have the smallest enemy pool in the game; she cannot fight ninjas, electrified thugs, or brutes, so they're absent entirely from her maps, making her a much simpler character to play compared to others. In addition, her animations and speed are similar to Catwoman, making her a decent if under-realized character.
• Kick Chick: As a playable character, if she's not beating people with her bat, she's kicking them in the face.
• Lack of Empathy: In Origins we get a look at her behavior as a psychologist, and she somehow manages to be both this trope and Too Much Empathy; she only seems interested in patients as material for a book (she'll even revoke an insanity diagnosis, risking a patient getting the death penalty, when someone convinces her it'll sell more copies), but also breaks clinical detachment protocol by sending them vaguely flirtatious notes.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: You thought she was bad in the second game? Wait until you see her in the DLC "Harley Quinn's Revenge," as she gets even worse.
• Mad Love:
  • She volunteered to interview Joker because she was fascinated with him, and fell in love with him during their interviews. If what one of the mooks in Batman: Arkham City stated is true, apparently the Mad Love evolved into Unholy Matrimony. She even says that she's a "widow" in Harley Quinn's Revenge.
  • Then in Knight, she develops feelings for Adams when he proposes an alliance with her. Of course, being like the Joker, he screws her over in the end.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: In her playable appearance in Knight, Harley Quinn cannot get to vantage points unless they are low enough for her to jump on and can't perform silent takedowns (only loud takedowns, which alert nearby enemies). She can however, turn berserk and dodge bullets once she knocks out enough enemies, and can perform up to four special takedowns before the effect ends.
• Mini Dress Of Power: Her outfit in Knight is a bustier and a white frilly miniskirt.
• Mistaken Identity: As shown in Origins, this is why she's in love with the Joker. He spoke to her about someone "special" he had met that night (Batman) who had changed his outlook on life, and how they are meant for each other. She thought he was flirting with her and meant her the entire time.
• Ms. Fanservice: Played up with her Naughty Nurse Outfit in Arkham Asylum and her Hell-Bent for Leather number in Arkham City. She gets many a Male Gaze (and also Panty Shot in Asylum). It’s downplayed in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League where she’s a gorgeous woman whose default outfit displays her midriff, but aside from that she isn’t heavily sexualized in design and the camera never really gazes at her body.
• Mugged for Disguise: The comic book prequel to Arkham City has Harley murder a female security guard and steal her outfit. How she managed this isn't clear, as the mugging happens entirely offscreen.
• Naughty Nurse Outfit: The first game replaces Harley Quinn's traditional black and red jester catsuit with a blue and red corset, kinky thigh-high platform boots and an extremely abbreviated nurse outfit.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Each of her three outfits in the series have one, and her character profile in the first game depicts her traditional jester look as having one too.
• Over-the-Shoulder Carry: In Arkham Knight, after Harley and her goons are defeated by Batman and Robin at the movie studios, Batman carries her on his shoulder to be taken to a holding cell (while giving the player a very suggestive view of her ass along the way◊) and, likewise, isn't too thrilled about it, as exampled by her continuous kicking and screaming and repeated attempts at hitting him. She remembers this in Suicide Squad and after the team defeat him, Harley carries Batman this way to an elevator. Complete with a shot of his ass to finish the joke.
• Palette Swap: Downplayed: Her playable version shares some minor animations with Catwoman (counter animations mostly), but has her own set of takedowns, and plays very differently. She also shares the cartwheel evade with Catwoman, just like most male characters share their evades with each other.
• Perky Female Minion: Wouldn't be Harley otherwise.
• Post-Final Boss: For the second game, considering the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC takes place after the story ends.
• Pretender Diss: After killing the Brainwashed and Crazy Batman following his boss fight in Suicide Squad, she sees a Bat signal up in the sky and convinces her teammates to go help whoever it's trying to communicate, saying the real Batman would want that.
• Promoted to Playable: In her story pack for Arkham Knight, which was a pre-order bonus.
• Psycho Psychologist: She was the therapist for the Joker and ended up falling completely in love with him, quickly becoming his sidekick.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: She acts much more like a bratty, petulant, thoroughly weird little girl in Arkham Knight. Losing the Joker appears to have impacted her psyche for the worse in the long-term.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Her costume in Arkham City.
• Revenge: Her motivation towards Batman after Joker's death.
• Sexy Jester: As is tradition. She even points out her "pretty hot" new outfit in Asylum to Batman, though Batman doesn't care how she looks.
• Self-Serving Memory: In Harley Quinn's Revenge a henchman says he believes Harley's claim that Batman killed Joker because she was there to witness it. He is shocked to learn that she was actually outside the theater with the rest of the gang when Batman carried out Joker's body.
• Shockwave Stomp: Her Traversal Attack in Kill The Justice League has her grapple to the ground at high speed, blasting away anyone at her landing point.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Villainous example. By the end of Arkham City, Joker's dead... and Harley has a positive pregnancy test.
  • Subverted in Harley Quinn's Revenge. There are many objects used for pregnancy tests in a room with Scarface in a crib painted like Joker. They all show negatives, and a box for one of them says that it is possible to get a false positive on the test. There's also a theory that Harley could have miscarried between the positive test and the negatives. Although, in her headquarters, you find posters for Cadmus Labs, known mostly in the DCU for cloning experiments... And you find them near a Joker mannequin.
  • In Knight, She considers the Joker-infected to be this after she finds out about them.
• Split Personality: In her playable DLC, when activating Psychosis Vision, she'll occasionally hear the voice of Harleen Quinzell telling her that they're not healthy and should return peacefully to the asylum, to which Harley will tell the voice of Harleen to shut up and that she doesn't need therapy.
• Start of Darkness: Heard in the interview tapes of Arkham Asylum. And seen in Arkham Origins when the Joker tells her about his past and starts to sway to his side the more she hears his story.
• Super Mode: As a playable character, she can activate "Mayhem Mode", which turns all of her attacks into takedowns.
• Supermodel Strut: As a playable character, her slow walking animation has her strutting around while swaying her hips.
• Taking You with Me: Her ultimate plan for Batman in Harley Quinn's Revenge is to kill Batman while taking her own life in the process. Barring that, she also wants him to know the pain of losing a loved one, in this case, Robin; and seemingly succeeds at first...until Robin shows up alive and well and knocks her out.
• Talking to Themself: During her playable DLC stint in Arkham Knight, her version of Detective Mode is called "Psychosis Vision". When it's active, a female voice credited as "Harleen" in the subtitles will attempt to talk to Harley. Harley shuts her down including flat out saying "Shut up, Harleen" or, more rarely, just ignoring her. Notably the Harleen voice uses third person pronouns and the name Harley to refer to Harley. She uses "We" once in reference to being free of the Joker.
• Tattooed Crook: As of Kill the Justice League, she's gotten an elaborate sleeve on her right arm in memory of Poison Ivy and her hyenas ("Bud x Lou x Red").
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Her version of Detective Mode, "Psychosis Vision," portrays all surfaces with crazy scribblings and messages.
• Took a Level in Badass: Zigzagged. Comes off as a lot more competent in the second game than she was in the first, since she's managing all of Joker's goons while he's inactive - but on the other hand, even Joker's minions disrespect Harley the moment she's out of earshot. Most people, including Batman, don't take her particularly seriously, believing her to be a doormat who's only scary because of The Joker. Because of this, Harley's portrayal here is a bit more pathetic than in other media, and she's one of the few to get a threat downgrade of sorts: not only does she get no respect, but it's a Running Gag in the series that Batman can always easily take her out in one hit. She is, however, far less sympathetic, here viewed from Batman's perspective as worthy of just as much pity as the Joker himself. Played straight in Arkham Knight, however, since this game (set approximately a year after City) shows that Harley has been able to regain control of Joker's former gang (including the members who were plotting to defect or overthrow her) and has become one of Gotham's most powerful gang leaders. However she is still defeated just as easily.
  • In the Harley Quinn story DLC in Arkham Knight, she manages to defeat Nightwing in straight up hand to hand combat while also being outnumbered by cops who are attacking her at the same time, though it's Poison Ivy that takes him out in the following cutscene.
• Took a Level in Cynic: In Knight, she's a lot less happy than she used to be. The Joker's death does it to her. And there's an Easter Egg in City that hints she might be pregnant.
• Tuneless Song of Madness: Playing Arkham City on New Game Plus all the way to the end eventually results in a stinger in which Harley can be heard singing "Hush little baby, don't say a word/ Mama's gonna kill for you the whole damn world."
• Tragic Villain: Her bio even calls her another one of Joker's victims, albeit a very dangerous one.
• Unholy Matrimony: It's implied that she and Joker got married in Arkham City.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Downplayed in Origins. She isn't very happy that Batman rescued her, but she doesn't attack him. However, in Arkham City she does, although this is more justified in that she was TRYING to die.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Where she keeps Joker's "party list" in the first game, and the key to Batman's cage in the "Harley Quinn's Revenge" DLC for the second game. In fact, this seems to be a signature move for her, as both Batman and Robin seem to know exactly where to look for important items.
• Villain Protagonist: In her DLC story in Knight.
• Villainous Breakdown: Her DLC in City is more or less about her going through this.
• Villainous BSoD: In Knight after Henry kills himself upon realizing Batman is likewise infected. Harley goes completely catatonic after seeing what she believes the last remnants of Joker being lost to her. She'll just sit in her cell not even bothering to talk to Batman.
• Villainous Crush: She has a very flirtatious attitude towards Wonder Woman in Kill the Justice League, openly admiring her looks and strength.
• Villainous Harlequin: As always, as is long time comics nature, and her namesake; evil clown.
• Villain Respect: Awkwardly zig-zagged given the context, but after ranting to Batman about why he sucks and then plugging him in the head, she sees a jury-rigged Bat Signal and gets her teammates to go help whoever's using it, arguing that "the real Batman" would want that.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: She doesn't take kindly to people harming "Mistah J", to say the least.
• With Catlike Tread: Out of every single playable character in the franchise, Harley makes the most noise during Predator Challenges, giggling during tight situations and screaming abuse while whaling on her victims. She doesn't even have Silent Takedowns, instead performing "Loud" ones by default.
  Penguin: Quinn! Keep it quiet. Y' don't want to attract too much attention.
  Harley: No can do, Blubberpot! "Quiet" ain't in my vocabulary!
• Woman Scorned: She's back in "Harley's Revenge," and she's definitely not fooling around this time.
• Yandere: Her entire villainous career revolves around her love for the Joker and her desire to earn his approval.

Killer Croc (Waylon Jones)

^{Killer Croc in Arkham Origins}

^{Killer Croc in Arkham Knight}

Voiced by: Steve Blum (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Knight), Khary Payton (Arkham Origins, Arkham Underworld) ^{Other voice actors}Bruno Dubernat (Fr), Stefano Albertini (It), Alfredo Martins (Br.Pt; Origins), Bruno Rocha (Br.Pt; Knight)

Waylon Jones was born with a rare disorder that caused his skin to be green and scaly and grew his body to grotesque proportions. Raised by an alcoholic and abusive aunt and bullied by his peers for his appearance, Jones developed a deep-seated misanthropic bent. He briefly was a member of a freak show, nicknamed Killer Croc. As his condition worsened, his bestial nature and misanthropy grew and he turned to a life of crime. With immense strength, he served as a mob enforcer and murderer, and as one of the eight assassins hired by Black Mask to kill Batman on Christmas Eve, eventually coming to be incarcerated in Blackgate and then Arkham Asylum; he especially hates Batman for capturing him.

Provides examples of:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: His "cell" in Arkham is one of these, located deep underneath the Asylum. Given how big Croc is, it'd have to be.
• Abusive Parents: The Arkham Unhinged comics show that his aunt was his first murder.
• Accidental Hero: He jumps and mauls Scarecrow before the villain could release his fear toxin into Gotham's water supply. This ended up saving the city, ridding Batman of Scarecrow temporarily, and caused the hero to know Croc was onto him approaching the caves.
• Adaptational Badass: Not that Croc has ever been a wimp in any sense of the word, this version of him is probably the strongest and most monstrous by far. By the events of the first game, he's already so powerful that Batman has no chance against him in a straight fight and in Arkham Knight he is only incapacitated by multiple no-holds-barred beatdowns in a row by Batman and Nightwing working together. In most other media, Croc is usually shown as a physical match for Batman, but nowhere near the skill level.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the comics, he debuted around the same time as Jason Todd (and in Jason's pre-Crisis History Repeats origin (being a carbon copy of Dick Grayson, complete with being an acrobat), he played the same role in the deaths of Jason's parents that Tony Zucco did to the Graysons). Here, he first crosses paths with Batman during Bruce's second year as the Dark Knight.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Most comics tend to depict Croc as an Affably Evil Noble Demon and the most prone of the Rogues to petting the dog. His personality varies Depending on the Writer, but he's generally portrayed as being a firm Anti-Villain. Here, he's sadistic to a fault an while still a Tragic Villain, Croc relishes in killing even innocent people in a way his comics counterpart mostly avoided.
• Adaptive Ability: As shown in Knight, his condition rapidly progresses in response to excessive trauma; when Warden Ranken begins a series of excruciating clinical tests on Croc to test his healing abilities, up to and including slicing off his hand with a buzzsaw, Croc quickly mutates into something much stronger than they can contain.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: He'll let out a deep breath when nearby, drag you into the water if you make too much noise, or just come out and try to grab you, with your only defense being activating his shock collar with a Batarang. At the last part of his lair, he chases you, and you have to run to escape to a trap you set up beforehand to stop him.
• Animal Motifs: A crocodile, obviously.
• Arch-Enemy: To Aaron Cash. The Arkham Asylum guard holds a grudge against Croc for eating his left hand. When he first appeared in the first game, Croc tells that Cash is on his hit list once he gets out.
• Ax-Crazy: He is a cannibal Serial Killer, after all.
• Bald of Evil: Because obviously Croc has a scaly body.
• Beast in the Maze: In Arkham Asylum, Batman was forced to explore Croc's sewer-lair Tailor-Made Prison to find the spores needed to make an antidote to the Titan formula while avoiding been attacked by the brute at the same time.
• Beast Man: Just look at him.
• Best Served Cold: Brutally murders the men who set the fire that killed Becky
• Blessed with Suck: Super strong, durable enough to shrug off assault rifles, massive healing factor, and an adaptive ability that constantly makes him even tougher. On paper it sounds like Croc won big at the Superpower Lottery, but then you remember that the mutations cause him constant agony and the more his body changes the more of his mind he loses.
• Bizarre Human Biology: His backstories place him at suffering from a form of "regressive atavism", meaning he has inherited traits of pre-human species.
• Blind and the Beast: During his backstory in the Arkham Unhinged comic. In his younger years, he befriended a blind girl named Becky and joined up with a circus. Unfortunately, it ended in tragedy.
• Body Horror: There's the obvious, but Origins shows him during his earlier years, and whilst still very beastly and reptilian, looks decidedly smaller and more human than he does at present. Meaning his condition got significantly worse over the years.
  • As Batman's last fear toxin hallucination in Knight shows, Croc will at some point further devolve into a gigantic, almost Godzilla-like beast, with broader shoulders, an elongated torso, several sets of spiny frills up his back, and a six-foot-long tail. The "Season of Infamy" DLC shows that this wasn't just some very accurate Bad Future guesswork; it already happened.
• Breakout Character: An interesting example. While he didn't reach the heights of becoming a major antagonist like Scarecrow did, Croc's appearance in Arkham Asylum was still an extremely memorable part of the game. As such, he's one of the four villains to appear in every mainline game of the series alongside Joker, Harley, and Riddler, and in-fact has the most direct boss fights out of all of them. It is slightly Downplayed, however, in that he was demoted to The Cameo in City, a status he also had in Knight until he was given in own side-quest in Season of Infamy.
• The Brute: To Joker in Arkham Asylum.
• Catchphrase: He had a tendency to say "tick-tock" in "Asylum", playing up the Peter Pan Shout-Out.
• Cynicism Catalyst: The death of Becky, a blind girl he befriended, in the Arkham Unhinged comic.
• Defiant Captive: In Origins, despite Batman holding him down on a metal fence, punching him repeatedly and threatening to let him fall into the sea, Croc refuses to show any fear, taunting Batman that Black Mask's assassins are after him.
• Demoted to Extra: In Arkham City. Unless you do a specific thing in the sewers at a specific point in the game, he won't even show up at all. That is unless you have the Iceberg Lounge challenge map where you can see him enjoying a scotch and cigar at one of the tables.
  • Even moreso in the main game of Knight, where he only appears in the main game as a fear-gas hallucination, albeit with his later DLC model as sort of a Early-Bird Cameo. In the "Season of Infamy" pack, however, he's prominently featured.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While Croc has no problems eating people on a regular basis, City shows that he only attacks people who are active and healthy, and will leave them alone if they're sick or dying.
• Evil Is Bigger: He's already disturbingly tall in Arkham Origins, and he only grows taller from there.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Courtesy of Steve Blum and Khary Payton.
• Eviler than Thou: To Scarecrow, in Arkham Asylum at least; in Arkham Knight, not so much.
• Fairytale Motifs: He makes references to the Crocodile from Peter Pan and the Joker once called Aaron Cash "Captain Hook".
• Fangs Are Evil: His razor-sharp teeth are quite fearsome, to say the least.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: After growing to a massive size in Knight, the left side of his body is noticeably more bestial, with longer head and back frills and a muscular, bulging arm. This does actually make sense in-game, as the change was prompted by slicing off his left hand.
• Fat Bastard: His further-mutated appearance in Knight has something of a paunch, much like the ones actual crocodiles develop.
• Flunky Boss: In Origins, he attacks Batman aided by two to three other goons.
• Handwraps of Awesome: In the concept art, at least. His in-game model wears a torn prison uniform and broken handcuffs. They show up in Arkham Origins.
• Healing Factor: Croc can recover from anything that doesn't outright kill him. Little injuries supposedly heal near instantly and he can even grow back lost limbs. To make matters worse trauma just triggers his adaptive mutations making him stronger in reponse. He's essentially a literal and monstrous take on the old "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" line.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In Arkham Asylum, even getting close to him results in instant death. Though his boss fight is more of a stealth mission rather than a head on fight.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Despite his condition worsening and his mental state becoming more bestial, one of his patient interviews in Arkham Asylum has him asking his doctor if the prison had figured out a way to make him normal. The doctor replies that there are many definitions of normal, which he correctly interprets as 'no'.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Croc is explicitly mentioned as having eaten people in the past, and during the game, tries to eat Scarecrow and Batman when they encounter one another in his lair. During his patient interview, Dr. Gretchen Whistler doesn't believe him about this particular aspect... he later proves her wrong when he bites off and swallows Cash's hand right in front of her. Although numerous characters believe that he doesn't qualify as human.
• The Juggernaut:
  • You never actually beat him, you either set off a shock-collar that throws his whole nervous system out of whack for a few seconds so he doesn't run you over like a bulldozer and bring you home for dinner, or blow out a floor to send him hurtling to the stygian depths. After which he can be heard yelling at you for a few seconds. And depending on the random generator during the ending sequence, you might see his hand burst from the water to grab a surviving case of Titan.
  • Arkham Unhinged shows that he is capable of shrugging off fully automatic gunfire.
  • Arkham Origins shows that at one time, it was possible for Batman to go up against him one-on-one. He's since mutated to the point that such an option is now virtually suicide.
• Jump Scare: When you try opening the door to his lair in the sewer tunnels. His brief appearance in Arkham City also involves one.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite his size, he can move frighteningly quickly.
• Lizard Folk: Sort of.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Few of Batman's villains hate humanity with such a passion as Killer Croc. As shown below, Croc's life has been nothing but a constant conga-line of abuse over something he had absolutely no control over, and while it's implied that he has some semblance of empathy deep down, it doesn't come close to the amount of contempt he has for everyone around him. He literally eats people because he's accepted he'll never be treated as a normal person. His condition doesn't excuse the horrible things he has done, but it's clear that Croc is just striking back against a world that has never offered a single moment of kindness.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Likely due to his condition, Croc has far more teeth than is normal for a human being.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: He's Killer Croc, after all.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Jumping the Scarecrow was actually helpful to Batman. Also taking Warden Ranken captive, once you learn that he was experimenting on Croc.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: On the receiving from Batman in Origins. This was before his mutation caused him to beef up.
  • Gets another one from Batman and Nightwing in Season of Infamy, where their punches do very little and they have to perform wrestling moves on his face to do any real damage to him.
• The Nose Knows:
  • As part of his "condition", he seems to have heightened senses. The most frequently mentioned being his sense of smell.
  • In Arkham City, he can actually tell that Batman's dying from the Joker's disease just from his scent.
• Not So Above It All: Despite being a monstrous, antisocial creature who has no problem eating humans, Croc apparently doesn't mind hanging out in the Iceberg Lounge with a drink and a cigar while watching Batman beat the crap out of the goons there.
• Not Worth Killing: Croc decides to give up on attacking Batman in City once he realizes that Batman is infected with a disease, opting to bide his time and wait till he's dead before feeding on him.
• Optional Boss: If you score over one million points on the Iceberg Lounge battle map in Knight, you can fight Croc.
• Pass the Popcorn: During the VIP Iceberg Lounge Challenge Map, Croc can be seen in the background drinking brandy and smoking a cigar, watching the player fight the various mooks in the arena. In Knight he gets in on the action himself.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In the prequel comic to Arkham City, he gets along rather well with Hammer, given that they were both in a circus at a previous point, even agreeing not to eat any of his gang's men should he encounter them.
  • In Arkham City itself, Killer Croc lets Batman go after encountering him in the sewers, if only because he's already dying of the Joker's blood disease, and would prefer to feed on his corpse instead.
  • Also, when taking Warden Ranken captive to torture him, he brings the rest of the prisoners to watch. A surprisingly friendly moment for a scary cannibalistic monster.
• Psycho for Hire: In Origins, he takes jobs as hired muscle for other criminals.
• Ragin' Cajun: Sports a noticeable Cajun accent in Arkham Origins. He presumably lost it after spending so much time in Gotham.
• Restraining Bolt: How he is kept under control during his treatment at the Asylum; he has an electric collar attached round his neck which can be remotely used to give him shocks in order to get him to cooperate. This actually becomes crucial to Batman surviving his encounter with Croc in his lair, as hitting the collar with Batarangs (giving Croc an automatic shock) is the only thing that will stop him from getting overpowered and eaten when Croc charges out of the water.
• Running on All Fours: In Knight, his increased size and weight mean he has to use his arms to help him charge forwards.
• Sanity Slippage: As his body mutated further and further, he became more animalistic and indiscriminate about his victims.
• Scary Black Man: Well, formerly black (and from a certain point of view, formerly a man), but definitely scary. That said, he's usually voiced by the white Steve Blum, apart from Origins and Underworld where he's voiced by the black Khary Payton.
• Serial Killer: He's responsible for the "disappearance" of hundreds of Gotham vagrants.
• Square-Cube Law: Does not work out in his favor in his boss fight in Knight — now larger than ever, he's shown to have significant mobility problems and a shorter reach, and can only dash forward when crouched on all fours, all of which means Batman and Nightwing can now tag-team him more easily.
• Super-Strength: In Origins, he's strong enough to rip gas tanks out of the ground and toss them at Batman with ease. He eventually gets so strong that he can tear holes in steel walls like paper and even Batman can't take him on in a fair fight without being curb-stomped.
• Tail Slap: After growing a tail in Arkham Knight, he can use it in this manner.
• Tailor-Made Prison: He is kept in the deepest, darkest depths of Arkham, where the guards occasionally drop down some food for him and try to forget he even exists. This is because physically, Croc is the most dangerous inmate, and his feeding habits make him even worse. Obviously this attitude of treating him like an animal isn't going to improve his mental state.
• Took a Level in Badass: The first time they meet, Batman is able to beat Croc in a straight-up brawl. By the time of Asylum, Batman's no match for him in a straight-up fight.
• Tragic Villain: Cannibalistic monster though he may be, his mutation didn't leave him much choice. Between the tragedies of his childhood, the degenerative effects his genetic disorder has on his humanity and mental state, and the experimentation (read: torture) he endured, nothing short of a miracle would have him turn out any other way.
• Trauma Conga Line: His backstory in Arkham Unhinged. He was abused as a child by his alcoholic aunt and bullied relentlessly at school; eventually, he snapped and murdered his aunt. He was left homeless and on the run as a result, until he befriended a blind girl who introduced him to a circus, where he got a job and finally found people who genuinely cared about him. However, they were all killed when delinquents set the circus tent on fire, and Croc was the only survivor. At that point, he finally snapped and turned to villainy.
• Villanous Friendship:
  • In the Arkham City prequel comic, Croc bonds with Hammer over their mutual background as circus performers, and evidently likes the guy enough to avoid eating his men.
  • He's implied to have this with Penguin as well, given that Cobblepot put his signature on Croc's bio in Asylum, and was willing to invite Waylon to the Iceberg Lounge to buy drinks and cigars while watching Batman beat up his minions.
• Villains Out Shopping: He shows up in the VIP section of the Iceberg Lounge challenge map as a Funny Background Event, drinking a glass of brandy and smoking a cigar.
• Vocal Evolution: Steve Blum's Croc voice gets deeper, more gravelly and less intelligible from Asylum to City to Knight. His English also becomes somewhat broken by Knight as well.
• Warmup Boss: In Origins, he's the very first boss encounter and informs Batman of the greater enemies ahead.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Despite being an Ax-Crazy serial killer and cannibal, it's still possible to feel sorry for Croc. His condition left him with no hope of a normal life in the first place. He was likely bullied during his childhood. He was locked in Blackgate Prison, which is for the sane. They moved him to Arkham just to be rid of him; he's locked in the sewers and thrown meat while people try to forget he exists, with Cash, and probably other guards, deriding him as being nothing more than an animal to his face. Nobody's going to be very receptive to therapy when they're treated like that.
  • It gets even worse for him in the "Season of Infamy" DLC, whereupon he's horrifically tortured and experimented on by the prison staff, including having his limbs amputated with a circular saw just to see what would happen. Even Batman and Nightwing are outright disgusted by this.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Like a real crocodile, he has yellow eyes, and he's suspiciously stealthy whenever he has the cover of water.

Poison Ivy (Pamela Lillian Isley)

^{Poison Ivy in Arkham Asylum and City}

Voiced by: Tasia Valenza (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Knight), Amy Carle (Arkham City Lockdown), Jennifer Hale (Assault on Arkham) ^{Other voice actors}Malvina Germain (Fr), Patrizia Scianca (It), Fernanda Bullara (Br.Pt)

Pamela Lillian Isley is a brilliant botanist who had her blood replaced with chlorophyll in a freak lab accident, gaining the ability to control plants and exude pheromones capable of seducing most people. She was driven insane and became dedicated to protecting plant life from humanity as the eco-terrorist Poison Ivy, but was defeated and imprisoned by Batman in Arkham Asylum. In Arkham City, Ivy has taken over a building at the edge of the prison city and is uninterested in the conflict between the other supervillains.

Provides examples of:

• Adaptational Heroism: Like some of the more neutral portrayals, she doesn't try to attack on sight, but rather focuses only on protecting her own plants instead of going on eco-terrorism sprees. This comes to a high point in Knight, when she performs a Heel–Face Turn.
• Adaptational Skimpiness: Played with. Usually, Ivy will fashion a leotard-like garment out of leaves for her outfit or will be wearing a leotard. Here, the only garment she makes with her leaves is a pair of panties. If not for her shirt (which exposes cleavage and midriff), she would be otherwise naked.^note While not out of character since she has spent some time naked in the comics when she was alone, this seems to be her usual attire in this series. She does wear the leaf leotard in the Arkham Unhinged comics, however, seeming to suggest that she does so for convenience. Still, this wouldn't explain why she stuck with the shirt and leaf panties in Knight.
• Affably Evil: Most of the time. By Arkham Knight, she's so affable that she isn't even evil this time.
• And Your Reward Is Infancy: In the Suicide Squad game it turns out Luthor managed to clone her, however the clone isn't fully grown yet and acts as a Bratty Half-Pint.
• Badass Boast: She gives a very thorough monologue on how she plans on killing Catwoman during her boss fight, even boasting that the latter woman is powerless against nature.
  "You can't outrun nature, Selina. My spores will fill your lungs and kill you from within."
  " A billion micro-organisms will enter your bloodstream. Spores will grow, enter the blood in your veins, and when I'm done, your skin will be replaced with bark. I've spent weeks perfecting the toxins that will destroy your pathetic meat sack of a body. Do you really think you can beat mother nature?"
  • Then came this exchange:
    Catwoman: Are we done yet, Ivy? I just want to talk. That's all.
    Ivy: If you're still breathing, it's not over.
• Badass in Distress: In the beginning of Arkham Knight, she's been captured by Scarecrow's men and is sentenced to death. Fortunately, Batman rescues her just in time. Ivy personally beats her would be executioner when he's blinded by fear gas.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Played With. In Arkham Asylum where Poison Ivy is an irredeemable bad guy, she is inhuman looking Femme Fatale with black sclera compared with her usual look, with Amadeus Arkham describing "Her skin now a venomous green, the wanton creature no longer looked like a human being, much less a woman." By Arkham Knight her inhuman eyes are no more, and her skin became less "venomous green" which is not surprising considering the Adaptational Heroism.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: In Arkham Knight, she's noticeably gotten paler and made her hair shorter because of the dying plants around Gotham, but she still maintains her natural beauty.
• Catchphrase: In Arkham Knight, Ivy repeats her mantra ("Nature always wins!") in most of her plot-relevant scenes.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Ivy falls under this trope from a chronological standpoint. Examining the front desk at the entrance of the Gothcorp building in Cold, Cold Heart reveals Pamela visited the company as a guest, probably in hopes of learning more about their research regarding the possibility of growing plants in extremely low temperatures.
• Dark Action Girl: Although her boss fight in Asylum mostly involves fighting her plant, she's shown to be able to handle herself at times. In Arkham Knight, she actually beats her jailer by herself when he's infected by fear gas.
• Deadpan Snarker: In Arkham Knight she's become one of these.
• Death by Adaptation: She overexposes herself to Scarecrow's fear toxin to save Gotham in a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Demoted to Extra: In Arkham City, she only shows up in Catwoman's campaign or in a game over quote if Batman should happen to die on her turf, which is an especially small part of the prison. She is one of the more important characters in Arkham Knight, however.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: She dies in Batman's arms. He tries to comfort her in her final moments.
• Dies Wide Open: As she's fading away, her eyes continue to stare up at the sky until she's completely gone.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • She tries to kill Catwoman for forgetting to water some plants she was looking after. Though this is Ivy we're talking about here. To her, all plants' lives are as precious, if not more than, a person's. From her perspective, Catwoman allowed some of her children to starve to death. It's natural she'd be a wee bit peeved.
  • If you visit her as Catwoman after completing the game, Catwoman blames Strange for the death of the last plant (which Catwoman actually killed to get back at Ivy). Ivy swears vengeance on all of humanity.
• Does Not Like Men: Keeping her in character, Ivy dislikes males the most because she thinks they are all violent and destructive. However, she seems to make an exception for Batman.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Her boss fight with Batman in Asylum, which features Orgasmic Combat while she's holed up inside a large plant flower. Basically, Batman has to penetrate her barrier and deflower her.

  Poison Ivy: Are you ready for me? Do you think you can handle me?

• Earthy Barefoot Character: A rather literal example; she is a part-plant human who wears not much of anything, much less shoes of any type.
• Enemy Mine:
  • She begged Batman to let her out so she can help stop the Joker, mainly because his Titan experiments are harming her plants. He wisely says no.
  • After being targeted for death by Scarecrow for her refusal to join his alliance, she and Batman enter into an uneasy truce in Knight.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She didn't support Joker's rebellion, and also initially requested for Batman to stop Joker and his plans because of the negative effects on her plants. She also rejects Scarecrow's alliance for similar reasons.
  • When her plants aren't involved or put in danger, she seems to genuinely get along with Batman, Catwoman and Harley, who once broke her out of a Bludhaven Prison.
• Evil Genius: She was professionally a botanist before going ecoterrorist.
• Evil Is Petty: A big part of her beef with Catwoman in City that leads Ivy to try and kill her? The fact Catwoman didn't water Ivy's plants like she'd promised.
• Evil Redhead: Her hair's scarlet, and she's got the evil part down. At least until Knight.
• Flunky Boss: The fights with her in Asylum and Catwoman's DLC in City have her summoning brainwashed goons to attack.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Seeing as she has plant powers and all.
• Green Thumb: As one would expect from Poison Ivy.
• Heel–Face Turn: Attempted one by opening up a flower shop. However, as she continued to see humanity destroying the environment, she couldn't take it anymore and killed a customer who came into her shop to buy flowers for his wife, after having cheated on her and forgetting their anniversary. However, in Knight she has fully completed her change of heart and joins Batman in stopping the Scarecrow.
• Killed Off for Real: In Arkham Knight, after she sacrifices herself to neutralize the fear toxins from Scarecrow's cloudburst.
• Love Makes You Evil: Ivy's backstory involves her falling for a scientist who used her as a test subject while taking advantage of her feeling for him, causing her mutation and making her lose all faith in humanity from the resulting emotional pain.
• Love Redeems: On the other hand, her feelings for Batman lead her to change her ways by Arkham Knight, and she aids him and sacrifices her life to save Gotham City.
• Mama Bear: She views all plants as her children, and she doesn't appreciate her plants being harmed.
• Mirror Character: To Mr. Freeze. Both of them were regular scientists who were transformed into villains due to a Freak Lab Accident, and end up providing a significantly difficult boss battle for Batman in his subsequent encounters with them. They also end up committing much of their crimes on behalf of those they love, though in Ivy's case, it's for all types of flora rather than one specific person. They also both reject Scarecrow's recruitment offer in Arkham Knight due to not having any real enmity with Batman himself, although Ivy ends up playing a significant role in defeating Crane, whereas Freeze is primarily focused on rescuing his wife and disappears after his sidequest is complete.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Identifying with plants more than animals, she despises humans.
• Monster Suit: Merges with a giant plant to fight Batman in Asylum, effectively turning into a One-Winged Angel due to the dose of TITAN she took.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's been revamped in this series to look like a (nearly) naked goddess.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: After her death, Cash says that some people have begun to forget what Ivy was like, and that if she was still alive they'd probably be fighting her.
  • Likewise, radio chatter after her death will have one Mook call one of his friends out on complaining about hay fever after Ivy sacrificed herself to save Gotham.
• No Body Left Behind: When she dies, her body dissolves into pollen, leaving behind only her shirt.
• No Flow in CGI: Her hair is notably different from her usual appearance, being fixed backward like the Bride of Frankenstein. Having wavy long bangs and such would have been more complicated. This is probably why she wears it tied up in Arkham Knight, where it looks more like her usual hair.
• Nominal Hero: In Arkham Knight, she helps Batman against Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight's militia. Not because she is a more benevolent person, but because they are as much a danger to her and to her plants as to anyone else.
• Orgasmic Combat: Her boss fight in Asylum involves a lot of it. Every time she's injured she unleashes a scream that sounds like she's experiencing...well, you know.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: In City, she's brainwashed some Mooks of her enemies into serving her.
• Pet the Dog: In Asylum, she gives Batman advice on how to stop Joker's plan. However, she later becomes corrupted by the Titan drug and fights Batman later.
• Redemption Equals Death: She perishes while trying to neutralize the toxins from Scarecrow's Cloudburst.
• Ship Tease: In Asylum they have Foe Romance Subtext, but she and Batman actually have some touching moments in Knight. She ends up sharing some banter with the Dark Knight and dies saving Gotham for him. He even comforts her in her final moments as she passes away in his arms.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Her eyes even seem to glow green for this incarnation.
• Stripperiffic: Her "patient uniform" consists of nothing but a single red shirt, held together at cleavage level by only two buttons, and panties made of leaves. This is downplayed in Knight however, while she is still attractive her breasts are smaller, her shirt now buttons over her cleavage and covers her butt as well.
• Stationary Boss: Having merged with a giant mutated plant while under the influence of the Titan formula.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In Arkham Knight. Even though she only works with Batman to protect her plants, she is more polite this time around and, although resisting a little at first, doesn't attempt to betray him. Her tone of voice also slowly changes from her usual sultry, sarcastic tone to a gentler one.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Nothing comes of her relationships with Harley or Batman since she dies in Knight after pulling a Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Vamp: It's best seen in her interview tapes in Arkham Asylum.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Her main goal is to protect her plants from destruction.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Unfortunately, her intentions in stopping the Joker's plans failed when she realized her plants were growing stronger as a result of the Titan formula, and she swiftly goes on a power trip.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She's one of Batman's least malicious villains. Her only desire is to protect her plants and separate herself from humanity after having been used and mutated by a man she loved, but she's too passionate about protecting them from being misused (whether it's extermination by callous companies or buying the flowers she's selling for selfish reasons) to ever let it stick.

The Riddler (Edward Nigma)

^{Riddler in Arkham City}

^{Riddler in Arkham Origins}

Voiced by: Wally Wingert (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Origins, Arkham Knight, Arkham Underworld, Arkham VR, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League), Matthew Gray Gubler (Assault on Arkham) ^{Other voice actors}Martial Le Minoux (Fr; games), Alexandre Gillet (Fr; Assault on Arkham), Daniele Demma (It), Marco Ribeiro (Br.Pt; Origins), Duda Ribeiro (Br.Pt; Knight)

"Yes, it is I, Edward Nigma, The Riddler and more importantly your intellectual superior."

Edward Nigma is a genius obsessed with proving his mental superiority to the rest of mankind. As The Riddler, he leaves clues to his crimes behind to challenge those who come after him. He is determined to prove his superior intellect to Batman, leaving numerous riddles scattered around Arkham Island when the Joker took over to stump him. When that failed and The Riddler was arrested by Batman, he swore revenge and plotted even more devious plots in Arkham City, putting the full force of his intellect behind riddles and traps designed to defeat and kill Batman. After being defeated and humiliated yet again, he returned during Arkham Knight, taking Catwoman hostage and forcing Batman to run through increasingly more dangerous and unfair trials scattered across Gotham to save her life.

Provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: In his patient interviews for Asylum, he comments on how his dad called him a "moron" over and over again. To prove him wrong, Edward entered a contest at school, where if he solves a nearly impossible logic problem, he gets twenty dollars. He won, but his dad demanded him to confess that he cheated. Edward denied it, only to get hit. And then it turns out that Eddie actually did cheat; he just refused to admit to his father that he was cheating.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: During his first physical appearance in Arkham City, he has sandy light brown hair. His character trophy in Arkham Origins shows him with dark chestnut colored hair, which is carried over to Arkham Knight. Furthermore, his character bio art in Asylum depicts him as a redhead.
• Adaptation Name Change: Minor, but in most continuities his last name is spelled with a y instead of an i
• Adaptational Jerkass: While most incarnations of the Riddler are fairly narcissistic, Riddler is usually humble enough to respect Batman as a Worthy Opponent, and is on good terms with the rest of Gotham's villains. This Riddler is a smug, egotistic, patronizing, arrogant, and thoroughly obnoxious Jerkass who is either ignored or outright belittled by Batman and some of the other villains.
• Always Second Best: To Batman. His attempts to prove himself the intellectual superior through his riddles and deathtraps only serve to disprove this notion when Batman constantly defeats him. In fact during one of his Death Trap scenarios when Edward attempts to cheat, in order to "outwit" the Dark Knight, it fails because Batman is also better at cheating.
• Affably Evil: During his time as Enigma, though he was still pretty snide even then.
• Arc Villain: Of his sidequests (which comprise of the majority of the sidequest content in Arkham City, Arkham Knight and Arkham Origins, and all of the sidequest content of Arkham Asylum).
• Attention Whore: His character bio mentions that he has a compulsive need for attention. He makes his plans the most grandiose and theatrical, frequently hacking into screens where Batman can't help but see him, along with making a big show out of everything he does. It's mentioned that part of Riddler's wounded pride ensures that he won't leave well enough alone, and just has to be the center of attention.
• Ax-Crazy: Despite his insistence to the contrary, he is most unstable. Batman even lampshades it.
• Bad Boss: In the second game, he replaces Joker as the commentator during the Predator and Combat side missions. He's just as abusive to the Mooks as Joker was in the first game. In the fourth game, he replaces his mooks with robot drones. As of Catwoman's DLC episode in Arkham Knight his henchmen have decided to abandon him once they get paid, having gotten fed up with his insults and the robot drones. Of course, with what Catwoman accomplished there, it's safe to say that Riddler's done as a supervillain.
• Barrier Warrior: His mech suit in Knight is outfitted with an electric barrier. Batman and Catwoman must destroy his robots to disable it.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Riddler keeps boasting to everyone how he's Batman's intellectual superior, and the biggest threat the Dark Knight has ever faced. At best, Riddler is an annoyance who is too self-deluded to solve a mystery as basic as finding out Batman's Secret Identity, something Bane, Hugo Strange and Scarecrow found out with Boring, but Practical means. Likewise, none of Riddler's death traps approach the plans of Joker and Scarecrow, who regularly threaten Gotham and beyond with their own gang. Riddler only captures a handful of people to put into deathtraps, and he has to rely on conscripts to do his dirty work. Both Batman and some of Gotham's other villains consider Riddler a nobody.
• Big "NO!": Yells out a rather satisfying one just before Batman crosses the finish line on the last lap of his final race challenge.
• Black Comedy: His version of the Riddle of the Sphinx involves this, as he talks about a mutilated baby.
• Blatant Lies: Boasts how his Riddlermobile is so much faster, and better looking than the Batmobile. It's also conveniently stuck in the shop so he can't show it off right now.
• Boisterous Weakling: Even in defeat, he's not easily cowed. He continues to insist he's smarter and better than everyone even after being defeated.
• Break Them by Talking: Tries this on Hugo Strange so that he can get equal billing on killing (but also humiliate) Batman. He tells him that he knows everything about Strange's true intentions behind Arkham City, and even manages to get Strange spooked by telling him to his face how he knows about Strange's insecurity on being "worthy" enough to his superior. It doesn't last long though as Strange tells him he knows who Batman is and will not tell Riddler who that is, and this trope ends up being slightly reversed.
• Break the Haughty: Gets hit by this in all of his appearances, to the point of it being a Running Gag.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Batman could wipe this guy out effortlessly. This is shown in City, where Batman beats Riddler with a standard takedown after solving all of his riddles, needing no more physical effort to beat Riddler than he uses to beat a common thug. The only reason Batman doesn't wipe the floor with Riddler is because of his one rule and that he considers the Riddler beneath his notice once he has no hostages.
  • Sums up his conversation with Scarecrow in Knight. It takes guts to talk down to someone who specializes in showing you your worst nightmares. Fortunately for Riddler, Scarecrow is unfazed by his arrogant taunts.
  • He also kidnaps Catwoman and holds her hostage for most of Knight, the same woman who permanently scarred Two-Face and essentially has Batman wrapped around her finger. His own mooks note that this is a bad idea. In Catwoman's Revenge, Selina gains her revenge by robbing Riddler of every last cent he has and then destroying his robots, all the while Riddler wastes his "one phone call".
    Catwoman: Eddie, you're not going to need 2.73 million in jail, are you? They feed you for free.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Upon introducing himself in his phone call with Catwoman in Knight, he boasts about being "Gotham's premier supervillain."
• Characterization Marches On: In Asylum, the Riddler is insufferable for others to be around, but seems to be fairly intelligent, is able to pay compliments to others even if he's being snide while doing so, and generally is congenial as long as the topic doesn't swing around to Batman. By the time of City and Knight, he is absolutely incapable of having a conversation without self-aggrandizing himself or belittling whomever he's speaking to and becomes increasingly misanthropic to the point of self-destruction. Origins sticks with his characterization from Asylum but files off some of his rougher edges given he has yet to build up an enmity with the Dark Knight.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting:
  • It's likely unintentional, but in Arkham City, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Stephen Merchant. In Arkham Knight, he resembles Charlie Sheen.
  • He also sounds a lot like Neil Patrick Harris or Jim Parsons.
• Complexity Addiction: The chief reason why he's not such an effective supervillain. Riddler is incredibly smart, but his narcissism causes him to focus more on showmanship than strategy, thus his plans tend to be overly grandiose and theatrical. This provides many different ways for things to go wrong as a result, which Batman takes advantage of. A shining example would definitely be him trying to use a phone's keypad to manually write out lines of code for his "jailbreak protocol".
• Composite Character: As seen in Arkham City, he dressed similarly to the '60s show and early Batman: The Animated Series versions of the Riddler and Wally Wingert said in an interview that he based part of Riddler's laugh on Frank Gorshin's. In regular dialogue, Wally also seems to be doing a fair impression of Jim Carrey's enthusiastic Large Ham style in Batman Forever.
• Conspicuous Gloves: Wears fingerless gloves to go along with his rougher look in this incarnation.
• The Cracker: Playing the Alternate Reality Game for Asylum reveals that he's the one who compromised Arkham's security, paving the way for Joker's takeover, and he hacks into Batman's headset in all the games. He slides into Playful Hacker territory when he calls Hugo Strange just to talk, and even started out exclusively as one in Origins before he became obsessed with Batman.
• Daddy Issues: Admits that his relationship with his father was strained, and his father did beat him at least a few times. During his battle with Batman in Knight, he executes a rather-telling Freudian Slip.
  Riddler: Die, Father! ...I mean, Batman!
• Death Trap: In Arkham Asylum, it's noted in his interview tapes that his crimes in this universe are mainly composed of putting innocent people in deathtraps and challenging them to escape (he calls them "amusing diversions"). In Arkham City, he makes good on this and throws kidnapped people into these for Batman to attempt to rescue, by solving riddles and puzzles.
• Defiant to the End: Even after his final defeat in Knight, Riddler never stops bragging about his intelligence.
• Dual Boss: Inverted. The final battle with Riddler in Knight has him fighting against both Batman and Catwoman.
• Electronic Speech Impediment: From Arkham City onwards, whenever talking to anyone remotely, his transmissions are constantly distorting and stuttering, in a distinctly SHODAN-like manner.
• Energy Weapon: Used in a couple of puzzles in Knight, and his mech suit in the final confrontation is outfitted with these.
• #EngineeredHashtag: In-Universe, according to the Gotham City Stories in Knight, he tried to start a movement against Batman to discredit him called #CrusaderGate after the events of City. However, this didn't work as even trolls were against making the life of the local Vigilante Man waging a near one-man war against Gotham's criminals harder.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • At one point, he calls The Penguin a "vicious, inelegant, tacky bully" indicating he has some disdain for the latter. However, given who Nigma is, he really isn't one to talk.
  • Nygma also looks down on the likes of Azrael and Deacon Blackfire, finding their religious faith to be superstitious and outdated.
  • While it may be a hallucination of Batman's, Nygma is legitimately horrified when Joker elects to Shoot the Hostage he takes in a vain attempt to get the clown to back down.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He's firmly convinced that Batman is a Villain with Good Publicity who steals from the crooks he captures to fund his gadget arsenal and bribes the GCPD to look the other way because, as he puts it, "no one's that selfless." When this notion is proven wrong at the end of Knight after Batman is unmasked to the world as independently wealthy billionaire Bruce Wayne, Ridder refuses to accept it.
• Evil Genius: Riddler isn't quite as smart as he thinks he is, but he's still highly intelligent. He's able to design complex death traps and puzzles quite effectively.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: While he is actually fairly witty when insulting others, he has an embarrassing tendency to giggle at his own most painfully corny, juvenile quips.
• Evil Is Petty: His rivalry with Batman in a nutshell. He is so galled by the fact that there is someone smarter than him that he sets up lethal death traps and endangers innocents just to prove he's smarter than Batman. His entire criminal career is based solely around avenging this insult upon his pride.
• Evil Teacher: Plays the role of one in Arkham Knight, condescendingly decorating the interiors of the abandoned Pinkney Orphanage with blocks and teddy bears at certain points to look like a giant schoolhouse. The four challenge rooms inside also have names like "Intro to Physics" and "Advanced Deathtraps".
• Face–Heel Turn: He used to work for the GCPD, but decided that blackmail was a more efficient way of stopping criminals and left the force.
• Fair-Play Villain: Subverted. He certainly thinks of himself this way, and he does abide by his own rules if Batman manages to beat him. That said, while the Riddler will never take victories away, he does make it as hard as possible by cheating and generally not playing fair. Probably because he has a very loose definition of "fair".
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. Riddler is certainly incredibly smart, but he's so boastful, arrogant, and prideful that he provides numerous ways that he can be beaten.
  • His Complexity Addiction stems from his pride. Riddler doesn't just want to win, he wants to win in the most grandiose, overly-complicated manner possible. As such, his riddles and traps tend to be increasingly elaborate, which provides more ways for something to go wrong.
  • Riddler can't even conceive of himself losing. So when he inevitably does, Riddler doesn't have much in the way of a backup plan or an escape route, letting him get taken out by Batman pretty easily.
• Faux Affably Evil: After he turns into the Riddler. He puts up an act of politeness, but it's heavily sarcastic as well as his poorly concealed resentment and belief that he's better than others shines through to the point that it's hard to miss it.
• First-Name Basis: He calls himself "The Riddler" almost exclusively, but any time someone wants to make fun of him or belittle him, they call him by his real name, either with his first name or his last. Strange, Scarecrow, and Batman all call him "Edward", though Batman and Penguin both occasionally refer to him as "Nigma", and Catwoman and the Joker call him "Eddie".
• Flat "What": When Hugo Strange reveals that he knows who Batman is, something which the Riddler still hasn't figured out.
• Flunky Boss: The final fight with Riddler in Knight has him aided by robots.
• A Fool for a Client: Proclaims he will represent himself in court after Batman brings him to GCPD Lockup in Arkham Knight. His boast obviously fell through by the time of Catwoman's Revenge as he's "talking to his lawyer" (i.e. trying to run his Jailbreak Protocol on his supercomputer) with his one phone call.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears a pair of glasses, and the zero soul part is pretty self-explanatory.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In Arkham VR, he challenges the player directly and even invokes this trope by saying it wouldn't protect them.
• Freudian Slip: During his final fight with Batman and Catwoman in Arkham Knight.
  Riddler: DIE, FATHER! I mean, Batman!
• Friendless Background: Unlike most incarnations of the character, where he's humble enough to respect a few fellow villains and remain on decent terms with the rest of Gotham's rogues, Riddler here is such an emotionally stunted, patronizing narcissist that everyone either outright hates his guts or ignores him completely. He even boasts to Batman that he could become his own adversary, describing how he already plays chess against himself and conducts scintillating private conversations online using different usernames.
  Catwoman: Oh look. It's more of Eddie's homemade friends.
  Riddler: Hahaha, your mockery is pointless, Cat. I don't have any friends at all.
  • In Asylum he seemed to be on decent terms with Joker, being on his party list and apparently talking with him while Joker was roaming the city. Joker never acknowledges him in City so perhaps he was merely using him and afterwards Riddler fell below his radar.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Nigma's smug attitude and belief that he is better than them and everyone else garners him little respect from his fellow rogues, whom barely tolerate him at best and don't want to be in his presence at worst.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In-story, Riddler hired thugs (or built robots in Arkham Knight) to hide his trophies around the environment, and also gives Batman riddles that are solved by scanning them in the environment. In practice, this explanation does not work at all: Riddler trophies are very often hidden within complex contraptions, located deep in the lairs of Gotham's supervillains and megacorps, in areas not accessible to anyone but Batman with his specialized gadgets, and even all three at once. There's just no way that Nigma and his hired help could accomplish this even with weeks to prepare. This is especially pronounced with his riddles, where the answer may be objects or people that aren't even in proper position yet when the night begins, and in Arkham Knight one riddle answer is Barbara Gordon's Batgirl costume hidden in a secret display in her hideout, implying Riddler knows her secret identities and where she works; if it were true it'd be a big deal to both Riddler and the Bat family, but no one discusses it.
• Geek Physiques: Skinny variety. It gets more pronounced as the games progress and his obsession with Batman worsens; at the time of Origins he is at least at a healthy bodyweight, but by Knight he's positively gaunt.
• The Ghost:
  • Plays this role in Asylum, as despite having a presence on Arkham Island, he is never physically seen, relegated to a voice.
  • He's also this in Origins, with his sidequest ending with Batman preventing all his blackmail material from being published and collecting the very first Riddler Trophy from his lair.
• A God Am I: Played for Laughs. One of the lines he can have if you solve a riddle involving controlling his robots has him angrily ramble about how they should only obey him because he's their master and god... before clarifying that he's not kidding and he actually programmed a basic religion centered around him into them.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Most of his rants against Batman, particularly in Knight, show Eddie to be severely jealous of the adulation heaped on what he considers a thoroughly mediocre mind like the Dark Knight's, while he's repeatedly beaten and locked away whenever he tries to "prove" his own genius.
  "You're a cheat and a liar. A dressed-up strongman playing with expensive toys. 'World's greatest detective'?! Ha! And everyone from Gotham to Star City believes it! I cannot abide a fraud, detective — a dilettante masquerading among his intellectual betters, stealing every last scrap of appreciation, dignity and respect!"
  "And then you appear[ed] in Gotham, dressing up your cognitive capabilities — marginally superior, as they are, to that of the average hoodlum — in the guise of crusading hero. And oh, how the people swooned."
  "How dare you brutalize me. Me! Your intellectual superior, your better?! Me, Edward Nigma, the Riddler — and the world's greatest EVERYTHING?!"
• Hated by All: No one in the Arkhamverse likes him, not even the other supervillains or his henchmen. About the only person to show any sort of affection for him is Dirty Cop JT Wicker, and that's mostly out of pity.
• Hate Sink: The overall narrative goes out of its way to make the Riddler as unlikable and uncool as possible. He's so sarcastic, narcissistic and annoying that he manages to attract a level of hatred, both in-universe and out, that no other villain in the Arkhamverse has, and only gets more dickish with each passing game. It's intended to make the player want to complete his challenges, and also to feel satisfaction when he has a Villainous Breakdown.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Once Batman solves all the riddles in City, the Riddler puts bombs with motion detecters on his remaining hostages to serve as an especially cruel security system; they'll blow up if they stop moving at all, will also blow up if someone enters the detecters' field of view, and forces them to walk around the room endlessly. After saving those hostages and subduing the Riddler, Batman puts the bombs on the Riddler and force him to walk around the room instead. Even though Batman and the others know that the bombs are deactivated, they just let the Riddler suffer for a while.
  • Riddler kidnapping Catwoman in Knight to get at Batman is ultimately the catalyst for his final defeat, as she helps Batman fight him. For added irony, a random Mook even lampshades this. The Catwoman's Revenge DLC is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, as Catwoman destroys what's left of Riddler's hideout and steals all of his money, leaving him in jail and with nothing.
    Mook: Riddler's gonna regret going after Catwoman. She's more into the vengeance thing than the Bat.
• Hollywood Atheist: He can be heard in the GCPD lockup in Knight mocking the Christian beliefs of Blackfire and Azrael. It’s clearly part of his superiority complex, as he cannot comprehend the belief that someone or something smarter than himself exists, and pretty much views any worldview beyond his own as stupid and ignorant.
• Humiliation Conga: Not only does every single game lead him down one of these, the series as a whole constitutes a gigantic one for his character in the decade or so since Origins — at first a rather smug, self-assured blackmailer with a natty wardrobe and enough connections to bring down a corrupt city government single-handedly, his growing obsession with Batman turns him into a gaudily dressed, narcissist super-criminal hung up on a one-sided rivalry and only barely tolerated by his fellow villains; by Knight, he's finally become an unkempt, psychopathic loser, hamstrung by his own solipsist ego, belittled or dismissed by everyone he meets, and forced to spend countless hours building a task force of robots because even his disgruntled, traitorous henchmen can't stand him anymore. He gets particularly bad after the Catwoman DLC: While he was in prison, Catwoman snuck into his robot factory, stole all his money, and blew it up to boot as revenge. To top it off, he was listening to it the whole time, since he was attempting to access his computer to stage a breakout. Since he wasn't able to keep up the facade of just talking to his lawyer, Officer Cash got suspicious and tasered him. So by the end not only is he still in jail, but his money is now gone and his robot factory destroyed.
• Hypocrite:
  • As Batman gets close to stopping his scheme in Origins, Enigma tries to make him back off by arguing that compared to the assassins and other villains running around, his extortion scheme is pretty harmless since it doesn't physically hurt people. This is ignoring that 1) Nigma's plan will end with him revealing the extorted information to the public, causing widespread chaos and destruction, and 2) Nigma's own belief that brain is more powerful and dangerous than brawn.
  • He'll accuse Batman of cheating even when he himself cheats. He frames one of his kidnapped hostage puzzles as a straight-forward Shell Game. In actuality, the hostage is moved completely independently of the containers via an underground rail system, making the test actually impossible without Detective Mode.
  • Conveniently ignoring all his underestimation of Batman's brainpower, he plays dirty with rigged challenges that would be impossible for even a high intellect to beat normally, yet he tends to accuse Batman of cheating (e.g., not dying) whenever he wins.
    Riddler: No, no, no! You cheated! Catwoman cheated! She stole my victory from me!
    Batman: A fight I couldn't win? That doesn't even fit your definition of "playing fair".
    Riddler: It WAS fair! If you weren't able to bypass the robots' multilayer encryption, decipher their unique operating system, and reprogram them mid-battle, that doesn't mean you get to call in assistance!
    Batman: (Flatly) You need help, Nigma.
    Riddler: I NEVER NEED "HELP" WITH ANYTHING!!
  • He repeatedly sneers at Batman for his reliance on his physical prowess, makes insults based on his physique, and generally champions a "brains over brawn" perspective. But many of his challenges are tests of physicality — running an obstacle course, reaching an objective in a certain time, making quick and precise Batarang throws, etc. — with only a very minor element of riddles or puzzles to them. He tries to justify this by claiming that Batman's failure to complete his challenges is proof of Riddler's intellectual superiority since he's the one who designed them, which is Insane Troll Logic at its finest.
  • When Hugo Strange smugly points out that he actually solved Batman's secret identity without the latter's Complexity Addiction, Riddler, who detests offering any easy clues or help that might give away the solutions of his puzzles, outright begs Strange to tell him the answer.
  • Also in Knight, solving his puzzle rooms will see him ambushing Batman and Catwoman on their way out of the Orphanage with a fighting robot equipped with a force-field, and even then Riddler rants about how both of them cheated at his puzzles.
  • When imprisoned in the GCPD headquarters, Riddler badgers Deacon Blackfire and Azrael for believing in something as superstitious as religion. This is despite the fact that Edward programmed his own religion into his robots so that they would obey them.
• Hypocritical Humor: He demeans Batman as a self-obsessed narcissist who is desperate for attention, constantly tries to prove how amazing he is, and plasters his personal logo on everything he owns as a mark of his vanity and ego. Self-awareness is clearly not one of Eddie's strong suits.
• I Meant to Do That:
  • In each game, when Batman starts solving his riddles and finding his trophies, his initial reaction is usually some kind of smug gloating about how Batman was obviously meant to solve or find that, it was one of the easy ones, and in fact he expected you to solve it much quicker, like he would. Then, when you start finding more of them, he gets more incredulous, uptight, and eventually furious, thus exposing the obvious lie.
  • In Knight, Riddler will give Batman a code to toggle between his traps after going over a list of self-aggrandizing rules. However, Batman just deciphers the code early. Should you open the door before Riddler is done talking, he'll then claim that figuring out the code was actually the first riddle of the evening.
• I Reject Your Reality: His delusion about Batman being a Villain with Good Publicity actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in Knight; when Scarecrow finally reveals Batman before the world as Bruce Wayne, Riddler has become so monomaniacally obsessed with his perception of Batman as a "cheater" that Riddler convinces himself it's a trick of some kind, and one he's not going to fall for — in other words, the events of the night were just an impossibly large ruse, with Scarecrow, Batman, and every criminal in Gotham all working together to try and fool him. The fact that everyone else sees it as the truth is just further proof to him, since he also "knows" that none of them are as intelligent as he is.
• I Shall Taunt You: Increasingly so as the games progress. In City he'll spend every minute the player is in one of his rooms mocking the Dark Knight's alleged lack of intelligence, and in Knight practically every word out of his mouth that isn't a Motive Rant is a mockery directed at either Batman or Catwoman. He'll even hijack the giant screens in Gotham to throw more taunts at you.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Most people, in his humble opinion. He is, in everyone else's objective opinion.
  Hugo Strange: How is the Riddler like a blank dictionary? You are both at a loss for words.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: His most driving motive in his rivalry with Batman, particularly as he feels the compulsive need to prove himself superior to everybody else. Virtually every time he talks to Batman or his henchmen, he often likes to take a moment to remind them that he is, in fact, intellectually superior.
  • This also stops him from getting the answer to the "Who is the Batman?" question from Strange, as Riddler realizes he can't ask an "inferior" mind for an apparently obvious answer. The realization leaves him at a loss for words.
• Insane Troll Logic: Riddler will find any excuse to dismiss Batman's accomplishments and reassert his superiority to him, no matter how much he has to torture logic to do it.
  • He repeatedly insists that Batman must be cheating as he overcomes the Riddler's trials, because he just can't accept that Batman is actually accomplishing the task. But if Batman is "cheating" by whatever definition of the word the Riddler wants to use, that still means Batman is outsmarting him.
  • He claims that some of his riddles are impossible to solve; if there was no solution for them at all, by the word's definition it wouldn't be a riddle. But even if he did design them to be impossible, it's once again Batman proving his intellect by figuring out a solution that Riddler didn't foresee. Besides, if Eddie really wanted to make Unwinnable by Design scenarios, he could — in the final battle in Knight, he traps Batman in a fight he literally can't win, and only Catwoman coming back saves him.
  • Many of his Riddler trophies are impossible to collect with just the gadgets Batman has at the start of each game, so one way or the other, Riddler must be expecting him to upgrade his arsenal. But then he goes and complains when Batman uses gadgets the Riddler didn't know about, or uses them in ways Riddler didn't anticipate.
    • In Knight, he's furious when Batman first uses the voice synthesizer to give orders to his robots and calls him a cheater, but several of his trophies are contained within puzzles that can only be solved by using the voice synthesizer in this manner. To make it even more absurd, in his boss fight he pits Batman against an army of his robots that are designed so only Catwoman can damage them, and when defeated he claims that the "intended" way he was supposed to beat him was to hack and reprogram the robots mid-battle. In other words, Riddler is trying to argue that Batman was supposed to win by doing the thing he earlier said was cheating.
  • In Arkham Knight, he rants that the only way Batman solved his riddles is because the people he hired to set them up didn't do so properly — yet Riddler himself claims he fired all his goons and has built robots to make his riddles, that he himself programmed. He also decides that Batman isn't fooled by a color-word puzzle trick because he can't read, that the only reason Batman wins is because he's so incompetent he can't fail properly, and explicitly forbids him from using any gadget specifically designed to counter Riddler's devices.
  • He demands that Batman follow the rules of his tracks when attempting them, but the last rule is that Riddler can add more rules whenever he wants.
  • In the post-game of Arkham Knight after Batman's secret identity is revealed to the public, Riddler cannot accept this fact and decides it is all an elaborate conspiracy between Batman, the media, and the other villains, to trick him.
• Insistent Terminology: He keeps calling his death traps and physical challenges "riddles" even though they require the most minimal of brainpower to complete. Lampshaded by Catwoman and the Joker hallucination in Arkham Knight.
• Insufferable Genius: With the emphasis on "insufferable." His constant insults, Smug Snake tendencies with his puzzles, and inability to comprehend his own flaws are intentionally grating. In Batman: Arkham Asylum, even Dr. Young — who expressed a hopelessly naive belief that she could cure the Joker — confesses that she finds him nearly intolerable to be around.
  Dr. Young: I have yet to make up my mind whether he is a genius or just deluded. Whichever one he is, just being in his company is both irritating and exhausting.
• Intercom Villainy: The Riddler hacks into Batman's radio channels in every game to call him stupid and challenge him to collect the trophies he's hid throughout Batman's surroundings. This is the only way Riddler interacts with Batman in Asylum and Origins.
• Irony: Way back in Origins, Edward had actually tried to piece together Batman's identity by himself, and one of his two main guesses was Bruce Wayne. When Batman's identity is finally exposed to the world in Knight though, the Riddler has been obsessing over the Caped Crusader for so long that he flat-out refuses to accept that Bruce Wayne could possibly be Batman.
• It's All About Me: Calling him egotistical would be putting it lightly. The Riddler constantly boasts about his intellectual superiority over everyone (especially Batman), and believes that the events of Arkham Knight are entirely an elaborate ploy to trick him.
• Jerkass: He's a smug, condescending, patronizing and thoroughly unpleasant asshole who boasts about his intelligence non-stop when he isn't insuting others for being "stupid".
• Karma Houdini: In Arkham Origins. He completely escapes Batman's grasp and suffers no retribution for his crimes. He even manages to reveal his biggest secret and plunge the city into chaos in the "Cold Cold Heart" DLC.
• Kick the Dog: He does this to the remaining medical team hostages in Arkham City. (The ones he doesn't put in Riddle rooms.) Strapping explosives to your hostages to make sure they behave is one thing, but forcing them to walk non-stop under the threat of their heads blowing up is just plain cruel.
• Laughably Evil: Interesting in that the comedy is very much directed at him and not by him. He's cartoonishly petty, whiny and short-tempered to the point he becomes hilarious, even if he is genuinely dangerous and sociopathic.
• Last Villain Stand: In Knight. After solving all his riddles, Riddler fights Batman himself in a mech suit.
• Lawman Gone Bad: An optional conversation with Alfred in Origins reveals that he used to work for the GCPD's cyber crime division.
• Lean and Mean: He gets skinnier and douchier with each passing game.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the first and second games, as you get near to collecting all his riddles, he will accuse you of looking the answers up on the internet.
• Madness Makeover: His repeated failures have clearly taken a toll on on◊ his◊ appearance.
• Mini-Mecha: Uses one in Knight to fight Batman and Catwoman.
• Mood-Swinger: Dr. Young claims that his "tantrums" have compromised numerous therapy sessions, and based on what we can hear, she's right.
• Motive Rant: Way too many to count in Knight, usually when Batman is riding the elevator leading to his various trials. He'll go on about how he was always persecuted for his intelligence, how Batman is a fraud who needs to be exposed for what he really is, how unfair it is that Batman gets away with brutalizing him despite the fact that he's his intellectual superior, and much more.
• Moving the Goalposts: Done several times in Knight. First he has Batman run through his various deadly racetracks and booby-trapped riddle rooms to collect the nine keys required to remove Catwoman's Explosive Leash. When Batman survives his final racetrack he reveals a secret tenth trial, and Catwoman is quick to point out his blatant cheating. Then after Batman and Catwoman solve that trial he ambushes them while piloting his Mini-Mecha and it looks like the player will finally be able to take him down... Except not really, as he flees underground and refuses to come out until the player has solved all 243 of his riddles.
• Narcissist: He's got a very high opinion of himself.
  Riddler: I know what you're doing, Crane... talking to me away from Cobblepot and the others! You're trying to appeal to my ego.
  Scarecrow: (Deadpan) Is it working?
  Riddler: HA! I don't have an ego, Crane -- I'm far too brilliant! Especially for the likes of you!
• Never My Fault: As a direct result of his Insane Troll Logic, he holds Batman as the sole, true culprit for all his crimes. He's trying to do Gotham a favor by exposing Batman for the fraud he is, but Batman keeps refusing to admit it (i.e, refusing to die in his elaborate death traps) so he has no choice but to carry on hurting and killing people, and it's all Batman's fault. The first hostage Batman rescues in City mentions that Riddler was blaming Batman the entire time he was with him.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In Batman: Arkham Origins, his desire to bring about the fall of Gotham City during the night of the Blackgate Riots indirectly causes peace when he exposes the corruption under the police department and brings down the city's corrupt mayor.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: After Batman beats him in Arkham Asylum, he kicks off his side mission in Arkham City by kidnapping numerous security and medical personnel and placing them in increasingly deadly Death Traps, all to "prove" that he's better than Batman. Taken even further in Knight, where after three games of being a Non-Action Guy, Riddler finally fights Batman himself, armed with a mech suit.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: When you get down to the last two Riddles in Knight, Eddie will Freak Out and say that it's like he's in some kind of Parallel Universe where Batman is the genius and he's just a self-absorbed madman.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: When not outright insulting others, he'll often engage in this as a form of criticism.
• Photographic Memory: He claims to have this, along with perfect recall. He can perfectly remember every time Batman has humiliated him, as well as every injury he's ever inflicted on him.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: While he pops up in all four games with his Collection Sidequest, his contribution to the actual plots are often negligible and self-contained. He has nothing to do with Joker's plans in Asylum or City, nor with those of Hugo Strange and Ra's al Ghul, and in Origins his plot is in no way connected to Black Mask (though Black Mask apparently hired him to impede Batman's progress by hacking the comm towers, Riddler is not part of Sionis' operations), his assassins, Joker, Bane or Blackgate. The only time you could argue he affects the main story in any meaningful way is in Knight, and even then it's a very loose connection that even he barely acknowledges (Scarecrow wants him to distract Batman, not that Eddie sees it that way). In Origins he's just some hacker, and in the Rocksteady games his role consists solely of trying to best Batman in a one-sided petty rivalry that puts innocents in danger. Amusingly, in Asylum in particular, he is so irrelevant that Batman never even vocally acknowledges him, with the only actual interaction being sending his location to the GCPD to arrest him. The only time the player actually needs to deal with him to continue the main story is to unlock the Golden Ending of Knight.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He's such a Smug Snake thinking he's smarter than everyone else and doesn't miss a beat to insult others on their intellect. He is prone to using slurs against the disabled in challenge maps.
  Riddler: You ignorant buffoons should consider yourself nearly as intelligent as a retarded monkey.
• Precision F-Strike: Riddler never cursed in the first three games (though he does say "crap" in Origins) yet during his final confrontation with Batman and Catwoman, you can hear him shouting "Get up, you damn machines!" to his fallen robots in frustration.
• Pride: His Fatal Flaw. Riddler fails in the end because he can't shut off his "I'm your intellectual superior" routine for even a minute, and he refuses to learn from his mistakes since he believes that the only way he can lose is if Batman cheats. The attitude sees him alone and without any manpower or alliances with other villains, and that he continues to throw himself at Batman even when it costs him everything.
• Psychological Projection: He has the gall to accuse Batman of being an egotistical attention seeking narcissist. Look in any mirrors lately Nigma?
• Psychopathic Manchild: At the end of the day, Riddler is this. For all his supposed intelligence, he's nothing but a petty, egotistic brat with a massive superiority complex who just cannot stand the idea of anyone besting him intellectually. It also seems to get worse as the games go on, being less childish and even fairly friendly, albeit amoral, in Origins. By the time of City and Knight, he's completely devolved into this.
  Catwoman: [after he asks for her services] Sorry Eddie, it's just that I have all these clients who aren't insecure little power-mad man children.
• Riddle Me This: His Catchphrase, no doubt.
• Riddle of the Sphinx: Referenced in a gruesome fashion in Asylum: he claims the answer is "a baby", because it walks around on four limbs, but it walks on only two if you cut off its legs and three if you give it a crutch. When asked how he could make such a sick joke, the Riddler calmly responds "It's not my baby."
• Rhymes on a Dime: His riddles take the form of rhyming couplets in Knight.
• Robot Master: In Knight, he's taken to using robotic drones, claiming them to be superior to human goons. (They're not, and in fact he has them because nobody else wants to deal with him anymore.)
• Room Full of Crazy: One of the most defining traits about his handiwork — from his original cell at the asylum, to his lair and death traps throughout Arkham City, to all the challenge rooms hidden deep beneath Gotham, almost everything he builds or takes over is covered with green scribbles of schematics, formulae, cryptic taunts, and morbid child-like doodling. It even inspires a Batmobile skin in Knight.
• Sanity Slippage: Over the course of the series, his repeated defeats to Batman begin to take a toll on his sanity, causing his games to become bigger and more lethal, often by kidnapping innocent people.
• Self-Deprecation: Subverted. He proclaims to Catwoman taunting him about his friends with "I don't have any friends!", but his narcissism regards it as a good thing and a badge of honor that he hasn't found anyone to consider an equal.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Nigma peppers his speech with five dollar words to show off how smart he is. This ends up backfiring on him in the Catwoman DLC in Knight since his security AI does not recognize most of his bigger words, forcing him to stop and explain them.
• Signature Headgear: He wears his signature green bowler hat in City.
• Skewed Priorities: Spent more time programming his computer to praise him than giving it a basic vocabulary program to the point where it doesn't even know the word "run".
• Small Name, Big Ego: Downplayed. He is a genuine threat, but most of the time, Batman has more important things to do than deal with him. The other rogues find him annoying at best, the GCPD considers him something of a laughingstock, and unless he has a deliberate reason, Batman barely even acknowledges him, almost completely ignoring him in Asylum in particular. These factors, coupled with his Attention Whore attitude, contribute heavily to his Sanity Slippage over the years.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He wears glasses in Origins and City, and is an excellent hacker and puzzle solver.
• Smug Smiler: It's almost his default expression.
• Smug Snake: He's very arrogant, but he's not quite as clever as he thinks and is quick to anger whenever Batman starts winning. This is also shown in his above interaction with the Scarecrow, who he considers beneath him. In reality, Scarecrow is far more dangerous. In Origins, Batman even flat-out spells this out to him:
  Batman: Did you ever consider that maybe you're not as clever as you think?
• The Social Darwinist: So he claims. Although it's more of "Survival of the Smartest," than the usual "Survival of the Fittest."
• The Sociopath: While not as pronounced as the likes of Joker or Scarecrow, Riddler's dialogue makes it clear he thinks nothing of anyone but himself; "normal" people are just braindead peons marginally more intelligent than apes and are only useful as thugs and muscle to fight Batman and set up his puzzles for him. And eventually in Arkham Knight he decides they're not even good for that and he boasts that he uses robots now because they're much more intelligent and competent than humans.
• Sore Loser: When Batman's on a winning streak, Riddler is quick to accuse him of cheating.
• Talkative Loon: The guy just can't shut up. Usually with some disparaging comment about Batman's intelligence, his own intellectual superiority, or most of the time, both.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: After he is being defeated in Arkham City, he is strapped to his own explosive helmet that he placed his victims with and forced to walk around his hideout under the threat of it exploding, not realizing that the explosives inside the helmet had already been removed.
• This Cannot Be!: Anytime Batman solves a puzzle, Nigma has a moment to declare something to this effect and then states that Batman must have cheated.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the first three games, Riddler stayed behind the scenes and never fought Batman directly. That changes in Knight where he fights both Batman and Catwoman in a mech suit.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: As shown in Origins, he was rather Affably Evil if somewhat snide as Enigma, and complimented Batman for his achievements and saying he would actually help him if he just asked at some points. By the time he adopts his Riddler persona, he's gone completely over the deep end and refuses to acknowledge any achievements other than his own.
• Unknown Rival: To Scarecrow in Knight. He resents how Scarecrow has become the primary threat Batman must face and often states that he's Batman's true nemesis. Of course, Scarecrow couldn't care less about him if he tried. In fact, if Scarecrow is defeated before him, he will gloat about it, saying that it proves his claim that he's the greatest villain in Gotham.
• Unseen No More: In Arkham Asylum, he is only heard over Batman's comms and never seen. He appears in the flesh in Arkham City.
• Unwinnable by Design: As his Mech Suit can change the colors of his robots from red to blue or vice versa, his Boss Battle in Knight would have been this if not for Catwoman's intervention.
• Villain Decay: Inverted in gameplay, as his challenges get more numerous and difficult with every new game in the series, but very much an acknowledged thing in dialogue and overall presentation. To summarise:
  • In Origins, "Enigma" is a sinister, shadowy figure working on an ambitious and well-crafted plan that has some claims to being a way of doing good by evil means. The plan is relatively mundane to his later schemes (collect blackmail on corrupt Gotham officials, then release all of it through public channels), but likely to cause Gotham's government and society to collapse in the ensuing scandals. He even escapes capture in the end, and manages to carry out at least a part of his plan. In the tie-in comics predating Origins, he even manages to hack the Batcomputer and observe Batman in a civilian disguise.
  • In Asylum, he's still a dangerously clever and menacing character, but has given up on political manipulation in favour of planting death traps around the city to weed out of the gene pool anyone too stupid to avoid them. He tries to prove himself smarter than Batman, but gets captured (by the normal police, that the Batman sent to his apartment after tracing his signal back there) for his troubles.
  • In City, he is now focused on Batman at the exclusion of all else, and is starting to show signs of strain at his repeated defeats - when Batman manages to save all the hostages from his death traps, he has to ask Batman to stand by while he builds some more death traps. Batman, of course, does no such thing and instead tracks him down to his base and takes him down personally. He also tries to taunt Hugo Strange over the phone about Strange's inability to capture him, even hinting at some of Strange's secrets that even Batman doesn't know at that point, but in the end Strange gets the last word by revealing that he's worked out Batman's secret identity and then gleefully refusing to tell the Riddler what it is, which reduces the Riddler to sputtering helplessly as Strange hangs up on him.
  • In Knight, he seems to have finally snapped and is throwing everything at Batman in the hopes that something will work, cheating blatantly and giving off incoherent rants that hint at all sorts of hangups and delusions. Everyone treats him with weary contempt, even Catwoman, who he's keeping hostage and could kill with the press of a button. It's also revealed that his mole at the GCPD started working for him out of pity, because he was just so pathetic that the mole started seeing Batman as a bully for breaking his spirit. He tries to replace his henchmen with robotic goons that turn out to be far inferior to regular ones in a fight, not to mention being easily hacked by Batman, which has also made his remaining human minions resentful of him. In the end, he's defeated once again, and the last we see of him in the series is him sobbing helplessly and begging Catwoman for mercy - which she shows none of, instead destroying the last of his resources on the outside, ensuring that he no longer has a means of escaping jail.
    JT Wicker: It used to be funny, you know, you'd haul Eddie in and he'd sit in his cell lecturing anyone who'd listen about how stupid you were. And then, one day, it just wasn't funny anymore. It was pathetic. He stopped taking care of himself, got that crazy look in his eyes. I swear, man, he's broken. You broke him.
• Villainous Breakdown: In the first game, he gets more and more unhinged as Batman slowly solves all of his riddles. In the second game, it happens as Batman locates and rescues more hostages. Origins also shows that he suffered one early on as well, which prompts his transformation into The Riddler. Happens again in Knight, especially as you finish the final death race he has planned, as well as collect all of his riddles. In the Catwoman DLC, he's forced to resort to begging as Catwoman robs him of all his money and blows up his robot factory just before Cash tazes him for getting too mouthy.
• Villain Has a Point: His stated goal in Origins is to blackmail the powers-that-be into either resigning or being forced out of office. Given that said powers are probably uniformly corrupt in a city where rule of law is a sick joke, one could almost compare him to Batman's reliance on vigilante justice... except he probably doesn't care if his actions actually make things better, and is definitely doing it primarily out of self-aggrandizement.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: In Asylum and Origins (though in the latter he can be seen in certain Game Over screens and does have an in-game character model); he makes a physical appearance in City and Knight.
• Why Won't You Die?: He screams something like this during the final race.
  "STOP! NOT! DYING!"
• Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: Sometimes does several times in the same sentence.
  "Do you know of anyone else in your twisted little penitentiary who is ingenious enough to arrange this little chat?"
• You Keep Using That Word: He keeps calling his various challenges "riddles", but very few of them qualify, even by a very generous definition of the word. While he does ask actual riddles in each game, the majority of the challenges he sets to Batman are tests of physicality, puzzle-solving, death traps, and scavenger hunts to find Riddler trophies. This is treated as in-universe Motive Decay in Arkham Knight, where his challenges are car races; while a few of them do have a small element of puzzle-solving and quick-thinking, they're certainly not riddles, and it's unclear how Batman's inability to complete them would prove the Riddler is intellectually superior to him. Even his final boss battle is a pure physical task, where Batman fights waves of robots and the Riddler in a mech suit. He claims that the fact he built and programmed these devices to kill Batman would make it an "intellectual victory above all else", but that isn't a riddle either. Catwoman calls him out on it in the last of her challenges, after avoiding sweeping sawblades:
  Catwoman: Damn him! How is that a riddle, Eddie? Seriously!?!
  Batman: You get used to it.
  [a little later]
  Catwoman: It's still not a riddle, Eddie!
  • Batman's Joker hallucination lampshades it as well.
    "You know, Riddler's trials are fun, Bats, but I really want to be there when he finds out what a riddle actually is."

The Scarecrow (Dr. Jonathan Crane)

^{Scarecrow in Arkham Asylum} "And at the end of fear... oblivion."

Voiced by: Dino Andrade (Arkham Asylum, Arkham Underworld), Christian Lanz (Assault on Arkham), John Noble (Arkham Knight) ^{Other voice actors}Vincent Violette (Fr), Alberto Sette (It), Clécio Souto, (Br.Pt)

Dr. Jonathan Crane is a brilliant psychologist and biochemist obsessed with studying people's fears. He turned to experimenting on humans with a specially-developed fear gas, becoming the terrifying villain known as The Scarecrow. Scarecrow is one of the Dark Knight's two deadliest and most personal foes, second only to the Joker himself. When the Jester of Genocide took over the Asylum, Scarecrow roamed the island, testing his newest fear gas on the staff and attempting to break Batman, but is defeated and mauled by Killer Croc.

Crane went into hiding during the events of Protocol 10 ^note Though Easter Eggs exist referring to his activities, as well as definitely confirming his survival, but he returns in Batman: Arkham Knight as the main threat to the people of Gotham. Having further refined his fear toxins to be even more powerful, surgically remodelling his face to resemble his trademark burlap mask — as a result of being mutilated by Killer Croc during the events of Asylum — and making the titular Arkham Knight and his militia to serve as his muscle, Scarecrow unites the greatest enemies of Gotham together and sets in motion one final plan to destroy the Dark Knight forever.

Provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: His grandmother was implied to be abusive to Crane.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: According to his bio in Knight, Scarecrow has been exposed to his toxin for so long that it has granted him partial immunity to it. The key word, however, is partial. If injected with enough of his fear toxin, it can overpower his immunity as Batman happily demonstrates.
• Adaptational Badass: Especially in Arkham Knight, where Joker's death left a power vacuum allowing Scarecrow the chance to step in as the new Big Bad of Batman's rogues gallery. While most incarnations are legitimate threats in their own right, they have always been minor villains or part of a Big Bad Duumvirate, and they rely on their fear toxin. This Scarecrow on the other hand is a cunning and manipulative mastermind who serves as one of the greatest foes Batman has ever faced, on par with Joker and Bane, and is feared by the other members of the Rogues Gallery. In Knight, he also accomplishes something that none of the Rogues has ever done: he exposes Batman's secret identity to the world, and at that moment destroys the mythos Bruce spent years building up. This makes the Arkham Scarecrow more than likely the most terrifying and dangerous incarnation of the character yet.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the comics, Scarecrow has sympathetic qualities. But in the Arkhamverse, he can best be described as straight-up monstrous. In Asylum, his psychiatrist's tapes reveal he doesn't even think Crane's crazy so much as he is just pure evil.
• Adaptational Wimp: He gets a case of this as well. In the comics, Scarecrow was a skilled martial artist who used a style called "violent dancing", a combination of drunken boxing and Crane-style kung fu, along with being adept with a scythe or sickle. Here, he's a Non-Action Big Bad who gets thrown around like a rag doll every time Batman gets close enough to attack or interrogate him. In this case, it's justified, since Killer Croc's attack on him in Asylum left him crippled and in a leg brace.
• All for Nothing: Crane may had exposed Batman's identity to the world as a part of his plan to prove that Gotham's savior was nothing more than a mortal man, but all Scarecrow did to the Caped Crusader was in vain as the people continued to admire him and because of that, his legend was stronger than ever before.
• Arch-Enemy: Following Joker's death, Crane becomes this to Batman deeply, especially after all the destruction he caused to Gotham, capturing his surrogate daughter and forcing Batman to reveal his identity by threatening to shoot his adopted son.
• Ascended Extra: In Asylum, he was just a very dangerous enemy of Batman as he appeared only three times; albeit in the most terrifying sequences of the game. In Knight, he has become the Big Bad among the Rogues and the Final Boss of the entire series.
• Asshole Victim: In Asylum, Scarecrow gets mauled by Killer Croc, who had mistaken him for a guard. But then again, he was just about to poison Gotham's water supply with his fear toxin, so he doesn't exactly elicit sympathy from the player. In Knight, sympathy for him is nonexistent when his mind is completely shattered by his fear toxin after exposing Batman's identity to the world.
• A Taste Of His Own Medicine: His ultimate defeat has him injected by an overdose of his very own fear toxin, breaking his mind and reducing him to a whimpering, perpetually-terrified mess.
• Badass Boast: Arkham Knight. The majority of his lines are a mix of this, Breaking Speech, and "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  Scarecrow: Remnants of Gotham: I have messages for you all. To the vandals who stayed behind to pick the still-warm flesh from Gotham's bones: have your fun. You are under my protection. To the cowards quaking behind the police department's walls: you will not be spared. And to Batman: I have already won. Emptied your city with a vial of toxin and a few threatening words. That's how little the safety you provided was worth. And when the dawn comes, when Gotham lies in ruins and I turn my gaze to the world beyond, the legend of the Batman will be worth nothing at all.
• Badass Bookworm: He's a psychologist, after all.
• Bad Boss: Not as bad as the Arkham Knight, but it's there. The other villains such as Penguin and Harley are clearly afraid of him. Even some of the Militia admit they're afraid of him. He never tells his men that their protective equipment isn't up to protect them from his latest version of fear gas. He also doesn't give them nearly enough warning to get clear before he tries to disperse it. He tries to kill Poison Ivy for not joining him and gasses one of his men in the process. He nearly gasses Simon Stagg with a fatal dose for double-crossing him. And during the predator mission when he is in command after the Arkham Knight's final defeat, he exacerbates their situation at being alone with Batman by waxing poetic about how afraid they are.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Sort of. In Knight, Scarecrow's plan to permanently cover Gotham in fear gas is foiled, but he manages to out Batman's secret identity to the world, something no Batman rouge has ever done, forcing he and Alfred to blow up Wayne Manor and ultimately go into hiding so their family could be safe, until five years later as Batman would come back to the light.
• Batman Gambit: In Knight, his city-wide evacuation of Gotham was just a cover so he could take over Ace Chemicals and build a bomb big enough to cover the Eastern Seaboard in fear gas.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In his biography, Crane is stated to be immune to fear which he craves and the only thing he's afraid of is Batman. At the end, he gets a dose of his toxin and becomes permanently scared.
• Beetle Maniac: A comparatively mild instance. After Asylum, he concentrates and amplifies his toxin with the psychotropic innards of a certain variety of beetle, and relishes describing their properties to his captive in the harbor; crushing one in his hand and mixing it into the concoction.
• Big Bad: Of Arkham Knight and the entire series' latter half. The plot to destroy the Dark Knight and his legend is his idea, with the titular character being his right hand man in the war against Batman.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Joker's hallucination for Arkham Knight. Scarecrow may be the larger threat to Gotham, Joker plays a more personal foe to the Dark Knight as the long night continued. Though both share the same role as the most personal threat to The Dark Knight.
• Body Horror: When he returns in Arkham Knight, he looks almost leprous, with a rotting, lipless jaw, a caved-in nose, and milky-white eyes. The official website confirms he was mauled by Killer Croc and performed crude reconstructive surgery on his own face to resemble his traditional mask, with horrifying results; it's almost impossible to tell what's burlap and what's flesh.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Throughout Knight, he repeatedly passes up chances to simply kill Batman because he wants to break him down mentally and emotionally first. The Arkham Knight even tells him how stupid this is.
• Book Ends: Scarecrow and Batman's final confrontation ends in the same place where the series began... Arkham Asylum.
• Breaking Lecture: His patient interviews constitute an extended one on fear, and how it drives the human condition. His final tape ends with him getting one from Batman. Then in Knight virtually every line out of his mouth, apart from orders to his men, is some form of this.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: As seen in his third challenge in Asylum. He tricks the player into thinking that he broke the game. He also does something very similar in his reveal trailer for Knight.
• Breakout Villain: He was a minor antagonist in Batman: Arkham Asylum, but was so popular with the fandom that he returned in Batman: Arkham Knight this time as the Big Bad.
• The Bus Came Back: Returns after a long absence in Batman: Arkham Knight, now the main villain behind the plot.
• Came Back Strong: Disappearing after the events of Asylum after being maimed by Croc, Scarecrow apparently stitched himself back together, refined his fear toxin to truly nightmare-inducing levels, hired an army of Private Military Contractors to serve as his main muscle, and a formerly second-tier member of Batman's Rogues Gallery almost single-handedly manages to start a war in Gotham and be the absolute greatest threat Batman has ever faced.
• Characterization Marches On: In Arkham Asylum, the Scarecrow was a nutty Giggling Villain with a Creepy High-Pitched Voice, who didn't have much of a game plan outside of constantly injecting fear gas into Batman and was very much a Plot-Irrelevant Villain. By the time Arkham Knight rolls around, the Scarecrow had become a stoic, calculating Chessmaster who rises up to be the Big Bad of the entire game, who is so intelligent and cunning that Batman is forced to sacrifice his secret identity to stop him for good and protect his family from him.
• The Chessmaster: In Arkham Knight, he perfectly orchestrates everything that happens in the game.
• Circling Monologue: He does this after gassing Batman on Stagg's airship. If you let him, he'll do it again after Batman takes down the present Militia troops.
  Scarecrow: You're not dying, it just feels like you are. My toxin is filling your lungs, drowning you in your greatest fears. What can you see? A city engulfed in fear? Betrayed by those you trust the most? Your darkest secrets revealed? As I tear your mind apart, Gotham will watch. I will cut that mask from your face, and the whole world will watch. Then they too will understand: There is no savior. No more hope. No. More. Batman.
• Cold Ham: In Asylum he's a typical Large Ham, but in Knight, while the actual language he uses drips with theatricality (see his Badass Boast above for details), he speaks in a measured Creepy Monotone. Unlike many examples of this trope, it is legitimately scary.
• Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Although this line's never said, its typical follow-up line is used by Scarecrow if he spots the Dark Knight. Batman must avoid him by hiding in the shadows, but if he's seen, the follow-up line is spoken:
  Scarecrow: Oh, there you are... (SLASH) (Or, if not that, "I see you, Batman!")
• Composite Character: His costume from the torso to legs is based upon the general Scarecrow look, but the noose is from his New Batman Adventures incarnation, and he also wears a gas mask akin to the one from The Dark Knight Trilogy.
  • His "resurrected" version in Knight also parallels the character's resurgence and revamp in TNBA - he now has a more unsettling, corpse-like face, and creepier, moldering clothing. In both instances, his voice has also deepened and he appears to have grown in height.
  • Coincidentally, he bears a resemblance to the Scarecrow that was supposed to appear in the canceled Batman Unchained movie; as he is the main antagonist, forms an alliance with Harley Quinn, and his toxin results in vivid Joker hallucinations.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: In Knight, he's this to Hugo Strange from City. Both characters are Psycho Psychologists with a twisted obsession with Batman, both characters are cunning strategists who managed to take over Gotham, and both characters have a private military corporation working under them. However, Strange managed to deduce Batman's identity while Scarecrow simply unmasked him on live TV, something Strange couldn't accomplish. Also, Strange truly believed he was doing the right thing despite his insane methods. Scarecrow, on the other hand, makes no pretensions about being driven by some higher calling and just wants to revel in the fear and suffering of others.
• Creepy High-Pitched Voice: In Asylum, his voice had a creepy shrill to it. By direct contrast, however...
• Creepy Monotone: In Knight, he always talks in a quiet, creepy whisper that always carries an undertone of menace and practically drips with barely concealed hate.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Simon Stagg laments that Scarecrow has the potential to create what could be an effective cure for most psychological problems, which would easily net him many Nobel Prizes and a considerable fortune, but he's focused on using his knowledge and research only for cruelty and revenge. This realization is why Stagg tried to betray Scarecrow in an attempt to cut his losses. This is justified in Scarecrow's case, as he has an obsession with fear and usually finds no other meaning in his life than experiencing and causing fear; he wouldn't really want to give people something that helps them feel better and is perfectly fine with being a supervillain/terrorist, rather than wanting to change the world positively. While Stagg mentions the pharmaceutical applications of a retrofitted fear toxin, he also intended to sell his own refined version of the fear toxin as a weapon of war to whichever opposing army paid more — in other words, his methodology is actually worse than Scarecrow's.
• Darker and Edgier: He had already shown signs of departing from the usual Scarecrow image in Asylum, with his Freddy Krueger-esque syringe gloves and torn, ragged costume, but in Arkham Knight, he looks like a grave-rotted zombie. It might be one of the factors in getting Arkham Knight an "M"-rating. Also, his personality has become far more sinister and vindictive, his motivations extending far beyond just causing fear. Even beyond the looks, he is likely the single most dangerous iteration of the character yet.
• Deadly Doctor: On top of creating his own fear toxins, he's an incredibly skilled biochemist and psychologist who relishes in mentally breaking his human test subjects.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has his moments. Particularly in the audio logs in Knight.
  Riddler: I know what you're doing, Crane... talking to me away from Cobblepot and the others! You're trying to appeal to my ego.
  Scarecrow: (deadpan) Is it working?
  • And when Riddler, in his own condescending way, agrees to help Scarecrow?
    Scarecrow: How kind, Edward. I shall keep my fingers crossed.
  • Also, during the Nightmare Missions, some of Scarecrow's taunts, when not outright threats, are surprisingly snarky.
    Scarecrow: You can die now.
    Scarecrow: My dear Batman... rumor is... you created the Joker. Nice work. Really, I applaud you. Too bad you couldn't keep him alive.
    Scarecrow: Having trouble seeing, Batman? Here's an old remedy I used to prescribe to my patients in Arkham. Just throw a little salt in your eyes and rub. Try it. You'll feel a lot better.
    Scarecrow: Welcome to your own personal hell. Please stay a while.
• Death by Secret Identity: Subverted. He permanently loses his mind from an overdose of fear toxin after discovering Batman's Secret Identity as Bruce Wayne. But he also had Batman's unmasking be broadcasted live for everyone to see, forcing Batman to permanently retire his identity as Bruce Wayne and destroy his mansion to keep his loved ones safe.
• Death Glare: His permanent facial expression is one of these after being mauled by Killer Croc.
• Diabolical Mastermind: His character bio in Knight lists him as being a "Criminal Mastermind".
• Don't Create a Martyr: In Knight, this is the main reason he doesn't want to kill Batman right away. Killing him as he currently is would only solidify Batman's status as a symbol of hope to people, whereas utterly breaking him in every regard and making the whole world watch before then killing him would turn him into just another man, and destroy that legendary status. This leads to friction between himself and the Arkham Knight, who couldn't care less about Batman's legacy after he's gone and just wants him dead.
  Scarecrow: Kill him, and you martyr him. You make him a legend. But break him, humiliate him, terrify him, and hold him up for the world to see? Then he's nothing but a man.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Alongside the other villains of Gotham, it seems even he just hates Riddler. When he's recruiting Riddler for the plan to overwhelm Batman, it sounds like he doesn't want to put up with Eddie, but has to. During his conversation with Riddler, you can practically hear and feel Scarecrow rolling his eyes when he talks.
  Riddler: You're appealing to my ego.
  Scarecrow: Is it working?
  Riddler: Ha! I don't have an ego, Crane. I'm far too brilliant.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Scarecrow's obsession with Batman stems from his inability to understand why Batman isn't quaking in fear when induced with the fear toxin. He never realizes that Batman's greatest fear is becoming the Joker, a man who exhibits no fear or restraint at first.
• Evil Cripple: After his mauling by Croc, he returns in Knight with a brace over his left leg, walking much more slowly and cautiously.
• Evil Genius: He's a psychologist and biochemist turned villain.
• Evil Gloating: Subjects Batman to constant mockery during the latter's fear gas hallucinations. Exaggerated in Knight. Over half of his lines are him constantly reminding Batman of how much he plans to torture him and make everything and everyone he loves suffer by association.
  Scarecrow: Do you still see it, Batman? The terror in her eyes as she looked upon your true self? Savor that image. There are many like it still to come.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: In Asylum, he loves to cause fear in others and jokes about their suffering. This trait is mostly downplayed in Knight, though it still comes up occasionally, specifically with his particularly snarky one-liners as you chase him down in the Nightmare Missions.
• Evil Laugh: Makes these most often in Batman's hallucinations, where it echoes through the area. Conversely in Knight, he only snickers once during his intercom messages, and lets out a quiet chuckle near the end of the game. That said, in the DLC Scarecrow Batmobile missions, he can belt out a loud cackle yet again during the boss battle portions.
• Evil Sounds Deep: In Knight, he speaks with a deep, menacing tone. This was due to the mauling Croc gave that damaged his vocal cords.
• Expy: His design in Arkham Asylum takes much inspiration from Freddy Krueger, another psychopath who preys on his victims through their worst fears. Crane even wears a five-syringe glove in that game that resembles Kruger's iconic claws.
• Eye Beams: In Arkham Knight's Nightmare Missions, Scarecrow attacks with red lasers from his eyes.
• The Faceless: Crane’s real face in the Arkhamverse is never revealed, leaving players only his horrific mask. Or at least, his face before he made it look like his mask.
• Facial Horror: Part of the result of his mauling by Killer Croc. He makes use of it.
• Fame Through Infamy: In Arkham Knight, he plans to envelop the whole Eastern Seaboard of the United States with his Fear Toxin through the Cloudburst just for the notoriety after he destroys Batman and Gotham.
• Fate Worse than Death: His mind is destroyed after Batman overpowers him and injects him with his own toxin. Judging from Simon Stagg's analysis of Scarecrow's improved toxin as heard on his airships, the process is irreversible.
• Fatal Flaw: His obsession with fear. For Scarecrow, it's not enough to just win. He has to see his opponent cowering before him terrified out of their mind, so he can fully drink in his victory. This leads to his downfall, as if he had just left Batman alone after he was showing definite traits of the Joker's personality being in charge, he would have beaten him forever. By not accepting that loss without fear, he destroys the Joker's influence on Bruce's psyche with more injections and allows Jason Todd the opportunity to free Bruce.
• Faux Affably Evil: Especially in Arkham Knight. Scarecrow is very soft-spoken, eloquent, and cordial to both ally and enemy alike, but his sadism is so barely-concealed and thinly veiled that it's easy to tell it's fake. His voice actor, John Noble, even describes him as such in an interview.
  John Noble: He's actually quite a reasonable man in the way he talks, but he's obviously very disturbed.
• Final Boss: Of Arkham Knight, and the Arkham series as a whole.
• Fission Mailed: In his third illusion (when Joker shoots you), the game produces a fake Game Over screen that advises you to "wiggle the middle stick/tilt the mouse/press the J button". For reference, those don't exist on any controller available to the player.
• Flaw Exploitation: Of Batman's unwillingness to let others help him in Knight. He captures Robin and used him as bait in Arkham Asylum when the latter gets imprisoned by Batman in Panessa Studios because he's insistent on doing everything by himself. This ultimately leads to Batman's unmasking, making EVERYONE lose any reason to fear him in the process.
• Flunky Boss: Both Asylum and Knight have him summoning enemies to fight.
• For Science!: In his interview tapes, Doctor Kellerman believes that the Scarecrow's only motivation is continuing his fear research, whatever the consequences are for his test subjects.
• For the Evulz: Another reason for his actions. Seems like he truly loves what he does.
  Dr. Stephen Kellerman: I believe he is quite sane. Just evil.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In the third challenge, he actually makes the player feel the same sensations Batman felt during the first two hallucinations.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Both in and out of universe.
  • In-Universe, His Asylum biography describes him as a bullied youth who wanted revenge against those who caused him fear. A few years later, he surpassed them by a lot.
  • Out of Universe, in Asylum he was essentially a side-show to Joker, providing three nightmare platform missions with Unexpected Gameplay Change, in Arkham Knight, he's the Big Bad and inflicts long-term damage on Batman and his allies. In addition, there are very few stories (even in the comics) where Scarecrow has ever been portrayed as being as dangerous as he is here.
• Giggling Villain: He boasts a rather impressive chortle in Asylum. Come Knight, he only laughs once, though it's very clear in his voice that he's enjoying himself.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: When under the effects of the gas in Asylum, Batman sees him with yellow lamplike eyes.
• A God Am I: The Scarecrow has this in Knight; while he does not boast that he is a god of some type, he surely has the behavior; with his unaltering calm bravado and goal to break the Batman's legacy in its entirety; then proceed to cover the Earth with Fear Toxin so that he can rule a planet full of fear as his own.
• He's Back!: After a long absence in City, Scarecrow returns as the main antagonist of Knight, ready to give Batman one final night of unholy terror.
• He's Just Hiding: In-universe, several of the inmates speculate that Scarecrow was killed by Killer Croc during the events of the first game, but there was evidence (such as The Stinger in the first game, as well as his mask being found near hay as part of a riddle by the Riddler in the second game) that he actually survived.
  • Batman can find a boat in the Arkham City harbor full of fear toxin, documents in Crane's name, and a near-catatonic inmate tied to a chair. Scarecrow definitely set up shop at some point. The Numbers Stations you can listen to via the cryptographic sequencer also hint at his return.
  • And then, of course, he does return, to be the main antagonist of the grand finale, Batman: Arkham Knight. It's not every day that dear old Jonathan Crane gets such a serious upgrade in badassery.
• Hidden Depths: For all his calm boasting and monologuing, he’s revealed to be terrified of Batman. His core motivation isn’t just to destroy and humiliate Batman for revenge, but to overcome his own fear as well.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Although ostensibly the main antagonist of Knight, Batman's personal conflicts against the Arkham Knight and the Joker inside his head are given slightly more immediate focus.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In Knight, he is eventually defeated by being injected with his own fear toxin, reducing him to a sobbing wreck who can do nothing but rock back and forth in a Troubled Fetal Position.
  • A more minor one, but attempting to kill Poison Ivy for not joining him is what ultimately foils his plan for the Cloudburst as she uses her power to dispel the toxin, and she's initially motivated by getting revenge on him.
• Hope Crusher: This is his driving motivation in Arkham Knight. He feels that as long as people have a symbol of hope, they'll never be truly afraid. Because of that, he doesn't just want to kill Batman but utterly crush his myth.
  Scarecrow: I will empty this city of hope, and fill it with fear.
  Scarecrow: All hope for Gotham dies with you!
• Iconic Item: His hypodermic syringe-enhanced gloves. He indeed gives Expo Speak about them in the Arkham Knight audio logs where he explains why he uses them, noting that the aerosol version of his toxin is not as pure and terrifying as a direct dosage of the toxin into the victim's bloodstream.
• In the Hood: Wears a hood in both of his appearances.
• Irony: He's afraid of bats. When dosed with his own fear toxin, he screams at the sight of a giant, demonic Batman, surrounded by millions of bats that look like they follow him.
• Jerkass: Only in the Nightmare Challenges of Arkham Knight. This version of Scarecrow is Batman's exaggerated, Flanderized subconscious image of him who knows his identity, similar to the Joker hallucination. In this form, he has no pretenses of politeness and acts as petty and spitefully as possible.
  Scarecrow: Having trouble seeing clearly? Here's an old remedy I used to prescribe to my patients in Arkham; just throw a little salt in your eyes and rub. Try it. You'll feel a lot better.
  Scarecrow: Your parents are in Hell, and you're about to join them.
  Scarecrow: I will chew your soul and spit out the pieces, you pathetic little bug.
• Kick the Dog: Does this quite a lot in Knight.
  • He drives Barbara Gordon to commit suicide by exposing her to fear toxin and making her see Batman as a monster, then gloats about it to Batman, though it is later revealed to be an illusion created by dosing Batman himself.
    Scarecrow: You will bring death to all who follow you.
  • Later, when Jim shoots and seemingly kills Batman, Scarecrow becomes enraged and decides to toss Barbara off the construction site to spite him.
    Scarecrow: Do you know what happens when a man refuses to be controlled by his fears? He must face them.
  • At the finale of the game, he orders Jim to remove Batman's mask on national television, threatening to kill Robin if he doesn't comply. He even shoots him non-fatally in the chest to prove he's not screwing around.
    Scarecrow: Take off that mask, or my next shot will kill him.
• Knight of Cerebus: As bad as things get when the Joker releases the patients from the Arkham Asylum, things start to get more horrifying once he shows up. There's a reason why Batman: Arkham Knight received its M rating once it was revealed he would be the Big Bad of that game.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When Batman gets over a large dose of his Toxin in Asylum, Crane wisely makes a break for it.
• Lack of Empathy: Everyone is just an unwilling test subject for his fear toxin, nothing more.
• Laser-Guided Karma: When he tries to strike Batman for the last time, Jason saves Bruce, who overpowers Crane and gives his own portion of fear gas, which drives him permanently insane and scared. What's more, it's Gordon, who he's given no end of grief that night (instigating the whole city evacuation and letting the villains run roughshod on Gotham, kidnapping his daughter, kidnapping him, trying to kill Barbara despite giving into his demands and forcing Gordon to pull off Bruce's mask) is the one to lay the knockout blow on him.
• Large Ham: In Asylum his speech is very exaggerated with frequent Evil Laughs. In Knight he is a Cold Ham.
• Lean and Mean: He's quite skinny, to the point of his ribs showing. Downplayed in Knight. He appears to be a bit bigger and his clothing mostly covers his body.
• Level in Boss Clothing: In both Asylum and in Knight's Nightmare Missions.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Played with. When Batman defeats the last of Scarecrow's forces at ACE Chemicals, the facility is primed to blow up by Scarecrow himself, injured but undefeated, who locks Batman in the central chamber and abandons him to die. Batman is even forced to try and contain the blast by mixing neutralizing agents into the core so that the city won't be blanketed with fear gas in the explosion. Further subverted in that Scarecrow, in preparing his master plan, fully expected Batman to find a means of escape and survival, otherwise Crane would not be able to expose his identity first.
• Mad Doctor: An evil psychologist who invented a toxin that simulates a person's worst fears.
• Mad Scientist: How else could he have created his fear toxin?
• Malevolent Masked Man: He wears an unsettling burlap sack/gas mask.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • In a rather impressive move, he managed to charm Dr. Young into thinking that he was both sane and innocent and that he might qualify for a job as a researcher in the Titan Program. It's also implied that he was able to persuade Carmine Falcone into helping him with his plot; there's a note implying that Falcone is arranging for Mr. Fine (a.k.a. the Broker), to arrange a more permanent base.
  • In Knight, he also manipulates Commissioner Gordon into betraying Batman, using his daughter Barbara as leverage.
• Mind Rape: Inflicts this on people with his toxin. Inflicts this on the Bat family in Knight. He also tells Arkham Knight in the audio logs why he prefers doing this over outright killing Batman:
  Scarecrow: Kill him, and you martyr him, you make him a legend. But break him, humiliate him, terrify him and hold him up for the world to see. Then he's nothing but a man.
• Misplaced Retribution: Blames Batman for his disfigurement at the hands of Killer Croc.
• Mistaken for Insane: One of his psychiatrists in Asylum suggests that Crane might not actually be mad, just evil and utterly cruel.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Given that Crane's a psychologist and all.
• Near-Villain Victory: Out of all of the villains in the Arkham series, Scarecrow was the closest to achieve victory. He succeded in revealing Batman's secret identity, and for a while he even succeded in mentally breaking Bruce, basically turning him into the Joker. However, as noted in the "Nice Job Fixing It, Villain" section below, Scarecrow just couldn't handle his enemy being fearless, giving him another dose of fear toxin and accidentally creating Joker's worst fear instead: being forgotten. This allowed Batman to regain control of his body and defeat Scarecrow.
• Never My Fault: Scarecrow blames Batman for his near-death experience and mutilation in Arkham Asylum, thus leading him to set up his Evil Plan to break Batman in Arkham Knight for the sake of revenge. He not only ignores the fact that he decided to go into Killer Croc's lair himself, getting mauled by the latter for his troubles, but it was because of Batman's intervention that he survived at all.
• Nerves of Steel: According to his bio in Knight, Scarecrow's repeated use of his Fear Toxin has not only rendered him immune to it but unable to feel any fear apart from his fear of Batman. Batman overdoses him with his toxin, leaving him permanently afraid.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Scarecrow inadvertently created Batman's worst nightmare in real life - being turned into the Joker via psychological breakdown. If Scarecrow let him loose at that point he would have completely and utterly won. Unfortunately, the Joker isn't scared of a shambling corpse with metal cheeks... and Scarecrow couldn't handle his fallen champion being fearless, causing him to inject Batman with another dose in frustration, inadvertently showing Joker his greatest fear and weakening his hold on Batman enough for him to retake his body.
  • Another one, though more indirect. By ousting Batman's identity, Scarecrow made it possible for Red Hood, who, in comparison to Batman, does kill villains, to operate with more freedom.
• Nightmare Face: His new look in Knight, where his mask is directly stitched into his face as part of a crude self-reconstructive attempt, and exposes his glazed eyes, corpse-like teeth and caved-in nose and jaw from when Killer Croc attacked him in Asylum. Many members of his crew don't even realize that's not a mask until told by other members, and are understandably horrified that he did that to himself.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Scarecrow has a very particular goal in mind (unleash his fear gas, humiliate and mentally break Batman through fear, and out his identity), and while Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? applies to him in that he doesn't want to kill Batman outright if he can help it, he never loses sight of that plan and all his actions are geared towards achieving either or both of these goals in the game. This explains why he succeeds partially in releasing the fear gas in Gotham, and definitively in outing Batman's secret identity and (seemingly, at least) putting an end to his career as a superhero.
• Non-Action Big Bad: In Knight, despite being the main antagonist of the game, he never fights Batman directly (unless you count the Nightmare Missions). Justified, however, in that Crane is a doctor, not a fighter. Despite having an army backing him up, he knows full well he wouldn't stand a chance against Bats in a straight-up fight. Also, his encounter with Killer Croc left his left leg injured and in a brace, thus he is in no condition to fight anyway. Indeed, whenever Batman gets close enough to attack or interrogate him, Crane is thrown about like a rag doll.
• Noodle Incident: Just how he managed to survive his encounter with Killer Croc is unknown.
• Noose Necktie: A classic part of his look. Albeit the one in Knight seems to be a part of a series of life support tubes.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Gives this speech to Batman in Asylum as he retreats.
    Scarecrow: Why fight it, Batman? You're as crazy as the rest of us. You need us as much as we need you. And to prove it, I'll flood the catacombs with enough Fear Gas to break the minds of everyone in Gotham for a hundred years.
  • And he gives another one to Batman in Knight after watching him nearly kill his men while under Joker's control.
    Scarecrow: Astonishing. Such brutality. You almost killed these men. You were ready to abandon your beliefs, everything you stand for. You tell yourself you are not like us. You tell yourself you are something more, something better. But fear reveals the truth, erodes your self-control. Soon you will kill and become that which you hate the most. Soon, the Bat will be broken!
  • During the Nightmare Missions in Knight, Scarecrow mocks Batman's Thou Shall Not Kill rule, claiming that by letting Joker die, he has broken his rule and is no better than the rest of Gotham's villains.
    Scarecrow: You let him die on purpose, didn't you? Deep down, beyond your moral code, you knew what had to be done to save Gotham. For every rule, there's an exception. He was the exception, wasn't he? We both know it wasn't an accident. Batman doesn't make mistakes that cost lives. Not even on his worst day.
    Scarecrow: How did it feel to kill him? You can convince yourself it was an accident... but we know the truth, don't we?
    Scarecrow: How many died because you're scared to break a rule? Let go. Relax. Kill someone. You might save a few lives. Who knows? You might even enjoy it.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: In Asylum, his role was simply placing Batman in Nightmare scenarios, but he posed no actual threat. In Knight, he serves as the main villain of the game and quickly cements himself as one of Batman's deadliest adversaries.
• Not So Stoic: Crane's typically composed nature also makes the few times he does get noticeably angry in Knight equally jarring.
  • When broadcasting after the defeat of the Cloudburst tank, he's absolutely seething — furious at both Batman for destroying it, and at the Arkham Knight, for disobeying his orders to fall back and letting his obsession with Batman jeopardize the linchpin of their operation. Enemy chatter afterward confirms that when the Cloudburst was destroyed, Crane, a frail and hobbled man, suddenly turned on one of the militia members and "used his face for a catcher's mitt" while the others watched, stunned.
    Scarecrow: Batman, the Cloudburst was mine... my greatest weapon, my instrument of fear! I will exact terrible vengeance for this, upon you and all your allies. Like Poison Ivy — my toxin attacks the mind of humans, but it leeches her life of her. She's paying the price for opposing me right now.
  • After Gordon seems to panic and shoot Batman during the standoff at the construction site, Scarecrow hisses "Did you think I wanted him dead?" and immediately begins pushing Barbara off the edge of the building himself. It's not clarified if Crane actually thinks his plans are ruined, or if he too knows about the Batsuit's plated symbol and is punishing Jim for letting Batman get away, but his sadistic anger comes through loud and clear.
  • As Batman is taken over completely by the Joker inside him, Crane, obsessed with the idea of Batman knowing fear, can't handle Bruce laughing hysterically instead of looking terrified and giving him yet another dose. Bruce injects him with his own fear toxin shortly after, overpowering his immunity and finally shattering his unflappable demeanor for good.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In Knight, Scarecrow's dialect infrequently wavers between his usual American and John Noble's native Australian.
• Person of Mass Destruction: In Knight, Scarecrow manages to take over Gotham in a manner of hours, unleashing more destruction on a scale, not even the Joker could manage. He also managed to do the one thing no Batman villain has ever done and out Batman's secret identity to the world, forcing Batman and Alfred to go into hiding and causing long-term damage to Batman and his allies.
• Playing with Fire: In Knight's Nightmare Missions, he attacks by throwing fireballs.
• Playing with Syringes: Sports some on his glove to directly apply his fear toxin to victims, but in different ways depending on the game. In Asylum, they're directly on his fingertips (ala Freddy Kreuger's knife glove, and in particular like the heroin needles he uses to kill Taryn White), whereas in Knight, they're mounted on a claw-like frame that attaches to the back of his hand.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He made it seem like he drove Barbara Gordon to commit suicide through careful application of fear gas, keeping her alive and hostage to serve as leverage against Commissioner Gordon, who has no choice but to help apprehend the Batman.
• Psycho Psychologist: Unlike Hugo Strange who was a Knight Templar Well-Intentioned Extremist who was still competent enough to correctly diagnose many of his patients and used those skills to correctly deduce Batman's identity from a distance, Scarecrow merely uses his training to drive his patients insane with fear, there's no pretense about any of this having any larger meaning or purpose. He's just a torturer who uses hallucinogenic drugs to torment his victims.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue Oni To Arkham Knight's Red Oni. He is cold and detached in his movements, unlike the rather unhinged and theatrical Arkham Knight.
• Revenge: His whole motivation in Knight. He blames Batman for his disfigurement at Killer Croc's hands and seeks to make him suffer any way he can.
• Sadist: Especially in Knight. It's not enough for Scarecrow to simply kill Batman. He has to make him suffer.
• Sadistic Choice: Scarecrow forces Commissioner Gordon into betraying Batman to save his daughter. Though Commissioner Gordon takes a third option by shooting at the center with the heavily armored Bat Insignia, knowing that Batman will survive the fall off of the building. Later, Scarecrow once again guilts the commissioner to remove Batman's mask and reveal his identity by threatening to kill Robin. This time there is no way out and Batman permits him to go ahead and do it.
• Sanity Slippage: In Asylum, he was already unstable, but no more than any of the other villains. His defeat and disfigurement at Killer Croc's hands have driven him completely off the deep end, leaving him with a burning desire for revenge against Batman.
  • The very end of Knight implies that the shock and lingering after-effects of his concentrated dose of toxin have driven him into helpless, mumbling, fearful catatonia.
• Scary Scarecrow: His general motif.
• Secret Identity Apathy: Played With. Scarecrow admits that he doesn't care who Batman is underneath the mask, but he knows that the people of Gotham would because Batman is a symbol to them and unmasking him would destroy that symbol. Upon unmasking Bruce, his reaction is just to mutter "Bruce Wayne?" in a tone of voice that says "oh, huh, that's interesting". He then just continues the final step of his plan without really dwelling on it otherwise.
  Scarecrow: I don't care who you are. But they will.
• Secret-Identity Identity: His public identity is Dr. Jonathan Crane, but his obsession with fear and Batman has caused him to identify himself as Scarecrow only, even going as far as stitching his mask onto his face after he was disfigured by Killer Croc.
• Self Stitching: After being dragged into deep water and badly mauled by Killer Croc in Asylum — resulting in him going blind in at least one eye, his nose and jaw being caved in, and losing several teeth at the very least — Scarecrow went into hiding and performed crude reconstructive surgery on himself, the horrifying results of which can be seen fully in Knight. For reference, that's now his actual face and not just a mask.
• Sequel Hook: In Arkham City. "I WILL RETURN, BATMAN. YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME. FEAR WILL TEAR GOTHAM CITY TO SHREDS."
• Shipper on Deck: In Knight, believe it or not, he seems to agree with Batman and Poison Ivy being together based on some small comments. He even asks Batman if he won her over by using his charm. Of course, being a villain, he hopes they're Together in Death.
  • Even more humorously, in the Nightmare Challenges, Scarecrow insultingly refers to Joker as "Batman's better half", as if the two were married.
• Sinister Scythe: Holds one in his profile.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: For Asylum, interestingly enough. Watch every trailer made for Arkham Asylum prior to it's release. Despite he and the toxin hallucinations he gives Batman showing up a couple times in the game, he never shows up once in the trailers.
• Shout-Out: By the time of Knight, Scarecrow heavily resembles Psychopathic Manchild Mason Verger of the Hannibal Lecter series. Both are sociopathic individuals who seclude themselves and don't face their opponents man-to-man unless completely necessary, both have very terrible means of Cold-Blooded Torture (Crane's fear gas and Verger's man-eating pigs), and both suffered heavy physical and mental injuries from a convicted cannibalistic serial killer (Croc for Scarecrow, Lecter for Verger), and both are Hoist by His Own Petard (Scarecrow ends up with a heavy dosage of his fear gas and ends up perpetually frightened, while Verger is either forced to eat his pet eel or is thrown to his own pigs).
• The Sociopath: Cold, sadistic, indifferent to the suffering of others, and incredibly manipulative.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Present in his interview tapes in Asylum, but when he returns in Knight, he's especially calm and collected, even though he's almost hissing each word with contempt. His line to Barbara as he throws her off the construction site displays this perfectly.
  Scarecrow: Shhhh... It's okay to be afraid.
• Stalker without a Crush: Followed Batman's entire heroic lifestyle and perfectly gained a thorough knowledge of the Dark Knight, all so he could find a way to cause him pain and suffering.
  • This is shown quite unnervingly in Arkham Asylum. It's possible to find a hidden room in the Intensive Treatment Center that was evidently Scarecrow's hidden lair on the island. As well as his equipment, it also contains a map of the Arkham facility, as well as photographs of Batman exploring the Asylum. Meaning that Scarecrow had been watching and following Batman the entire time and waiting for the opportunity to strike.
• The Stoic: In Knight. Almost to the point of Dissonant Serenity. Nothing seems to faze Scarecrow and he rarely emotes as he gives his Breaking Speeches in that same even tone. Even as his plans systematically fall apart, his army is destroyed, and his loyal Dragon is defeated, he takes it in stride and calmly comes up with a backup plan when he experiences a setback.
• Stronger Than They Look: In Arkham Asylum, despite being skinny and hunched over, the guard who Batman hallucinates is Commissioner Gordon is dragged off screen and killed by Scarecrow. Given that the guard is clearly clinging to the vent and is not under Scarecrow's fear toxin, this indicates that Scarecrow managed to drag the guard three or four feet by his ankle despite the considerable body armor the guard is wearing. Given that Crane is not carrying any weapon, and the fact that the guard is found dead two seconds later, it is also indicated that Crane killed the guard by breaking his neck, showing that Crane is far stronger than he appears.
• Take Over the World: Although he shows no interest in specific conquest, he aims to do it ideologically in Knight, vowing that when he moves beyond the ruins of Gotham and begins to exact his further plans of shrouding the Eastern Seaboard with fear gas, he will see a world terrified of his growing legacy, and absent of the hope that the Batman's legend has inspired.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With the Arkham Knight. Both of them want to kill Batman, but their methods on how to do it differ greatly. The Knight wants to just pump him full of bullets and be done with it. Scarecrow wants to draw out Batman's suffering and humiliate him, then kill him. This trope comes to a head when the Knight challenges Batman to a tank battle with the Cloudburst as bait. Scarecrow is obviously pissed and demands he stop, but the Knight is done taking orders.
• Terrorists Without a Cause: In Knight, he freely admits that his actions throughout the game, especially with the Cloudburst, amount to terrorism. He has no actual cause aside from shrouding the world in fear.
• That Man Is Dead: His first words in Arkham Asylum are "There is no Crane, only Scarecrow".
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives this constantly throughout Knight detailing how Batman has failed the city, directly blames him for all his friends and allies who were maimed and/or killed along the way, and how he won't stop him and that he'll eventually have his revenge.
• This Cannot Be!: Batman managing to overcome his toxin tends to get this reaction.
  • In Arkham Asylum after the final fear toxin section, Scarecrow is aghast that Batman is still standing, much less still in his own mind, having injected him with enough toxin to drive ten men insane.
  • At the end of Arkham Knight it happens again — this time, however, due to Joker's personality buried deep down within Bruce's mind; all the first dose does is bring that personality to the surface, which is exactly what Joker wants. Out of frustration Scarecrow injects him again, with the effect this time being that Bruce can wrestle control of his own mind back from Joker. Scarecrow injects him one final time after that, seemingly to confirm his victory and prove his point, only for the toxin to have no effect due to Bruce overcoming his innermost fears.
    Bruce: I'm not afraid, Crane!
    Scarecrow: Impossible! Without fear, life is meaningless!
• Took a Level in Badass: In Arkham Knight, Scarecrow really steps up his game, going from a minor but memorable opponent in Asylum to the main villain of the fourth game. He also manages to cause more destruction to Gotham than Joker ever could and manages to out Batman's identity to the world, a feat no Batman villain could ever accomplish. This is even reflected in his boss fights in both games. In Asylum, Scarecrow only attacked if Batman stepped into his line of sight. In Knight's Nightmare Missions, Scarecrow actively attacks Batman with fireballs and Eye Beams. It's mitigated, however, as Batman is in the Batmobile, thus giving him the firepower to fight back.
• Took a Level in Cynic: He goes from an Ax-Crazy Giggling Villain in Asylum to a stoic Soft-Spoken Sadist in Knight. Very likely from his near-death experience from Croc.
• Tranquil Fury: His default mood switches from Dissonant Serenity to this after the Cloudburst plan is foiled. He's still as calm as ever, but his voice now carries a slight edge to it.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: His signature weapon in the Arkhamverse is a metal glove tipped with syringes — mounted on the fingertips in Asylum, and in a claw-like setup on the back of his hand in Knight — allowing him to inject his victims with fear toxin directly.
• Unexplained Recovery: Arkham Knight confirms that Crane is still alive, but doesn't mention how he survived his encounter with Killer Croc. However, he didn't escape without some issues.
• The Unfettered: By the time of Knight, Scarecrow has become this. His mauling at the hands of Killer Croc made him unhinged and ruthless, and he would stop at nothing to destroy every single aspect of Batman. Even the Joker, for all of his heinous crimes and actions, has one line that he would not cross: unmasking the Batman and outing it to the public simply because it would ruin the fun for him. Scarecrow, on the other hand, disregards these compunctions and this allows him to expose Batman as Bruce Wayne for the whole world to see; with full intent to destroy his legend and the hope he brings.
• Villain Has a Point: Arkham Knight has the good doctor call out Batman on his uselessness of being a hero and his failure to make Gotham City a better place, though it's a lot more unearned compared to Hugo Strange who genuinely believed his crazy plan was superior and more effective as opposed to Scarecrow who wants to terrify people into fear-crazed zombies For the Evulz.
• Villainous Breakdown: Subtly at first; despite his normally unflappable demeanor, he begins to speak with slight irritation after his Cloudburst plan is foiled. Then at the end completely loses his shit after Batman makes him inject himself with a concentrated dose of fear toxin.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In Asylum.
• Wolverine Claws: In Asylum, he sports a Freddy Krueger-Esque glove with syringes acting as the claws. In Knight, the syringes are wrist-mounted, making them resemble the actual Wolverine's claws.
• Worthy Opponent: One of his quotes in the Nightmare Missions shows that he views Batman as this.
  Scarecrow: I find it amazing that you're still alive, let alone driving. You're quite the adversary, Batman. I never had to work so hard to rip a person's soul apart. I must say I appreciate the challenge.
• What the Hell Are You?: His near word-for-word reaction in Asylum when Batman can retain his sanity after being injected with enough fear toxin to drive ten men insane.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The Arkham Knight constantly berates him for this, stating that Batman is too dangerous to be left alive and should be killed immediately. Scarecrow reasons that killing Batman would only make him a martyr in the eyes of Gotham, and that it would be more effective to break his spirit and humiliate him.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Knight shows that Scarecrow is a master at this, immediately and instantly coming up with a new scheme should he experience a setback.

Scarface

Voiced by: Mark Hamill ^{Other voice actors}Riccardo Peroni (It)

Scarface is a dummy carved from an old gallows tree at Blackgate Prison which fell into the hands of Arnold Wesker, a meek man from a mafia family. However, when he was imprisoned in Arkham Asylum, he was forced to carve a new puppet, which was taken by the Joker when he took over the asylum. Following the building of Arkham City, Joker had multiple Scarface puppets made to abuse.

Provides examples of:

• The Cameo: In Asylum, City, and Knight, as well as Assault on Arkham.
• Demonic Dummy: As expected from Scarface.
• The Ghost: The Ventriloquist never appears, but he apparently is an active enemy of Gotham nonetheless. Wesker gets mentions or references in all of the first three games, and sometime offscreen between City and Knight Peyton Riley succeeded him - also getting this treatment via an evidence locker in GCPD.
• Legacy Character: An odd version: the original Scarface never shows up, just multiple copies, with the first created by Wesker and then the rest by Mugsy Binks, one of Wesker's former henchmen who joined the Joker. Sometime later on, the dummy is adopted by Peyton Riley.

Victor Zsasz

Voiced by: Danny Jacobs (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City), Christian Lanz (Assault on Arkham) ^{Other voice actors}Serge Thiriet (Fr; games), Philippe Peythieu (Fr; Assault on Arkham) Claudio Beccari (It)

Victor Zsasz was the son of a wealthy family who became a gambling addict after his parents died and lost all his money to the Penguin. Convinced that life was meaningless, Zsasz became a Serial Killer who makes a mark on his body for every person he kills. He leaves his victims in various poses that imitate life, believing he is freeing them from a world of hardship. When the Joker took over Arkham Asylum, Zsasz rampaged around the island, killing guards and prisoners alike and posing them. After Arkham City opened, Zsasz picked out his victims by calling random phones across the prison, and killing whoever picked them up. He was in Gotham during Scarecrow's attack, but did little aside from some random murders.

Provides examples of:

• Adaptational Wimp: Zsasz in the comics is utterly ruthless in pursuing his prey and has proved capable of actually holding his own in a fight against Batman in the past (nearly winning on at least one occasion). This version of Zsasz, whilst a terrifying psychopath and murderously insane, is otherwise physically no more dangerous than any other Gotham thug to Batman, who tends to take him down in a single hit whenever they meet.
• Affably Evil: He's an Ax-Crazy psychopath (though not as much as his comics counterpart), but often speaks politely to Batman and his potential victims, and genuinely believes he is helping them by "liberating them" from their terrible lives.
• Ax-Crazy: Though he's not as evil as his comic counterpart, his need to kill is so great he can't stop himself even when he wants to.
• Bad Liar: Although he hypes himself up as a deliverer of lost souls, there are several times during his phone calls where he expresses regret at not being a better gambler or anger at the Penguin for cheating him out of his money. His breakdown about the mark being "the only thing (he) has left" further proves this.
• Bald of Evil: After shaving his head.
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: As he was destitute and contemplating suicide, a homeless man with a knife attempted to mug him. Zsasz's first response, which even he was apparently startled by, was to quickly grab the blade and slit open the other man's throat, splattering himself in blood. His second response was to press the blade to his own skin, grafting his first tally mark.
• The Butcher: While Zsasz doesn't go by that nickname in the video games (he does in some of his comic appearances), his behavior fits. One inmate recounts how Zsasz killed one of his friends, cutting off said friend's fingers, stuffing them in his mouth, and leaving him to choke to death. The same inmate says that if he catches you, he'll keep you in a cage for days, cutting little pieces out of you.
• The Cameo: In Arkham Knight, he is briefly seen on a security camera, but is never encountered in-game.
• Covered with Scars: That he made himself, one for every kill. He has a special spot picked out for when he kills Batman.
• Demoted to Extra: Only appears in a surveillance camera shot in Knight. Fans have studied the PC version and found he had an updated profile picture, the model itself wasn't used.
• Dirty Coward: His behavior during the story of the first game definitely has shades of this, as he absolutely refuses to confront Batman physically on his own, opting to take a hostage during both of their encounters. Given that he seems capable of killing guards with relative ease, though, it's more likely that he's aware of his limitations.
  • Perhaps the best example comes when he's holding Dr. Young hostage and ordering you to keep away from him.
    Joker: Zsasz, what are you talking about?! Just kill her! She's useless to me now.
    Zsasz: But if I kill her, the bat will get me!
    Joker: Ohhh, you're not scared of a little bat, are ya, Slicey?
• Evil Phone: His Side Quest involves a number of them, through which he delivers his sick Motive Rants.
• The Gambling Addict: Losing all of his parents' money was part of his Start of Darkness.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Just like his comics counterpart, he has a collection of tally scorings, that he carved into his own skin, that cover almost his entire body. His design in the game seems to be intended to show this off as much as possible.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He's quite calm and composed most of the time but it is very easy to anger him. This is especially noticeable when he is recounting his life story to Batman, specifically the events at the Iceberg Lounge.
  • During the second phone call and a later optional call, Batman gets him REALLY angry, which leads to Zsasz possibly murdering one of the three hostages.
• Killed Off for Real: In Suicide Squad: Kill Arkham Asylum #1, courtesy of King Shark
• Kill Tally: Like in the comics, he literally keeps count of those he's killed by carving a tally mark into his body.
• Optional Boss: He shows up in some of the optional challenges, using the same moveset as the high-security knife wielding inmates. Slightly subverted in that he's not really any tougher than them, he just has a unique model.
• Pragmatic Villainy: In Knight, this is his reasoning once he's not invited to the villain meeting. He is well aware that Batman will likely survive the night, so he's willing to wait him out until he's dealt with the other villains to fight him himself when he's weakened.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Dr. Young's notes state that Zsasz has an I.Q. of 78 (though, given her track record of diagnosing other inmates, this is somewhat questionable). At the very most, his psychosis often seems to manifest itself in unwavering devotion to a single murderous goal, and he suffers a near-total mental breakdown when he can't complete it.
• Psychotic Smirk: Has a tendency to do this.
• Serial Killer: Of the "Power/Control" type, according to Dr. Young's notes.
• Shadow Archetype: He claims his life reached a turning point when his wealthy parents died, leaving him rich but lost and alone in the world, and a desire to find some purpose to live for. Just like Bruce Wayne back then, except that Bruce didn't find his purpose in killing people.
• The Sociopath: After becoming a murderer.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He speaks in a soft yet sadistic tone of voice.
• Stalker without a Crush: Has shades of this in his interview tapes in the first game; his therapist, Doctor Cassidy, is outright terrified when he describes her home and daily routine in great detail. When Cassidy takes an (understandable) leave of absence, he tells Doctor Whistler that he's depressed about "the one that got away", and how he needed to kill her. He escapes and heads straight for her home and is just barely stopped from killing her in time by Batman.
• Start of Darkness: Penguin beat him in a game of poker by cheating and dumped him outside. This led to an encounter with a homeless man who tried to rob him at knife point, which resulted in said homeless man's death and Zsasz's first kill.
• Tattooed Crook: Slightly more noticeable in the concept art and Arkham City.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: He's never seen wearing a shirt.