Arkham Shadow Challenges a Villain’s Lore and Strengthens It

Main tale spoilers for
Batman: Arkham Shadow
forward.

Batman: Arkham Shadow follows thru on its premise of highlighting lesser-known super-criminals who’ve lengthy been referenced within the Arkhamverse. This fashion, characters similar to Otis Flannegan’s Ratcatcher or Arnold Wesker’s Ventriloquist are emphasised and nuanced. On the other hand, Batman: Arkham Shadow additionally casts a bat-shaped mild on high-profile villains and does so with characterizations which are extremely unparalleled.

Dr. Harleen Quinzel is proven to be greatly sympathetic towards sufferers in Blackgate’s crew treatment periods, for example, whilst the Rat King seems to be none instead of District Legal professional Harvey Dent—whether or not he himself is aware of it or now not. How Harvey turns into Two-Face within the Arkhamverse has at all times been tip-toed round. However, although there have been mentions of who threw the acid that scarred him, Shadow makes a fantastic case as to why Harvey won’t have recollected that reminiscence as obviously as he would possibly imagine.

Comparable

Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Struggle and Predator Demanding situations are Camouflaj’s Hard work of Love

Batman: Arkham Shadow finds that struggle and predator problem maps can be to be had at release, regardless that that wasn’t at all times at the menu.

Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Two-Face Remedy Mildly Reinterprets His Up to now Established Backstory

As a result of Batman: Arkham Shadow does depict Two-Face’s beginning tale—as temporary and abrupt as it’s—it had the duty of adapting what little lore was once in the past disseminated about Harvey Dent in earlier Arkham video games. As an example, the primary of 3 rungs in Batman: Arkham Knight’s Two-Face Maximum Sought after aspect venture, “Two-Confronted Bandit,” takes position on the Financial institution of Gotham in Chinatown. Right here, as soon as gamers have effectively taken out each and every henchman, the coin-flipping threat’s voice seems on a PA machine to commentary:

“You bear in mind the mob, proper? The blokes who burned part our face off as a result of they COULDN’T GET TO YOU?”

Certainly, all prior proof within the Arkhamverse means that one in all Carmine Falcone’s mates was once the person who threw acid at Harvey, and but Shadow’s illustration of the development finds that the truth of the placement is it seems that a lot more ordinary. The offender, with a pinch of irony, is twofold: it was once technically the fault of each Dr. Jonathan Crane and Bruce Wayne because it was once Crane’s acid that was once deflected by means of Bruce, who took place to be on trial disguised as Irving “Suits” Malone. Due to this fact, it technically was once a minimum of in part the fault of a Falcone affiliate as Malone was once in cahoots with Carmine.

Plus, like how Bane’s long-term reminiscence is critically impacted by means of his TN-1 Venom overdose in Batman: Arkham Origins, Dr. Leslie Thompkins wipes any imaginable retcon by means of pointing out that, as a facet impact of his dissociative identification dysfunction, Harvey’s “reminiscence of what took place appears to be slipping away with each and every new day.”

Harvey isn’t in any respect conscious about his double lifestyles because the Rat King all over Batman: Arkham Shadow, and looking back it could make sense if he was once additionally deeply perplexed about what took place right through the scuffle that led to his whole left part being melted by means of acid. This may be a tidy approach of explaining why neither Harvey Dent nor Two-Face recollects Bruce Wayne taking out his cover in entrance of them.

Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Harvey Dent/Two-Face/Rat King is an Unreliable Narrator

After being apprehended in
Knight
, if gamers have already incarcerated Scarecrow and had Batman’s identification published to the sector, Harvey will touch upon his figuring out of Batman as being an entire different character or figment, one thing he can clearly relate to as somebody affected by dissociative identification dysfunction: “You aren’t Bruce Wayne. Jim Gordon and I, we didn’t strike a care for Bruce Wayne.”