Joker is the main villain ofBatman: Arkham AsylumandBatman: Arkham Origins, and it’s debatable that he’s the main villain of bothBatman: Arkham CityandBatman: Arkham Knight. This has easily been one of the most divisive narrative choices in the Arkhamverse due to Joker’s exhaustive ubiquitousness, regardless of how marvelous Mark Hamill and Troy Baker’s performances are. Moreover, whileKnight’s Joker implementation is brilliant and innovative, Joker himself doesn’t necessarily make for a Batman villain who is exciting to defeat in toe-to-toe combat, at least compared to the likes ofOrigins’ Deathstroke or Bane.
This is proven inCityandOriginswhen Joker becomes a punching bag with little resistance, though inCityit’s actually Clayface who players are striking at the steel mill and inOriginshe’s wailed on in a non-immersive series of beatdowns before credits roll. However, Joker does offer one phenomenal boss fight in the Arkhamverse as the final boss fight ofBatman: Arkham Asylum, where Joker shoots himself with a Titan dart and mutates into a massive, hulking monster who retains sentience and gains a punk aesthetic. Still, it’s the three-game-long throughline this boss fight catalyzes in the Arkhamverse that truly makes Titan Joker special.
Arkham Asylum’s Titan Joker Boss Fight is a Great Culmination of the Titan Plot
Batman: Arkham Asylum’s Titan Joker boss fightmay be ridiculous and whimsical, but Joker injecting himself with Titan is smack dab in his wheelhouse of psychotic ideas. Titan Joker is far bigger than ordinary Titan brutes, nudging him out of the bracket for a normal brute-type encounter—which would’ve clashed with Bane’s boss fight earlier inBatman: Arkham Asylum—and making him more so a villain who players evade and subdue in crafty ways.
Most of the ‘boss fight’ is actually just players defeating mobs of shirtless thugs who were transferred from Blackgate to Arkham for Joker’s scheme while also being mindful of explosive devices that Joker tosses into the enclosed arena. Then, as Joker is repeatedly preoccupied with a news helicopter’s attention and literal spotlight, Batman grabs and yanks him down withAsylum’s Ultra Batclaw gadget and lands strikes on Joker while his elongated fingers are embedded into the stage.
It’s certainly better than simply tackling yet another mob of inmates and a couple of brutes like in the encounter that occurs prior, and whose brute duo simply take an egregiously long time to fell between slow-motion dodges and mounted brute brawling. Joker becoming a Titan monstrosity is a necessity, though, as it’s this seemingly cartoonish and silly boss fight that allows thecrucial events ofBatman: Arkham CityandBatman: Arkham Knightto unfold.
Arkham Asylum’s Titan Joker Boss Fight is a Cannonball Ripple in a Bird Bath
Joker injecting himself with Titan could’ve easily been a flash-in-the-pan story beat that was glossed over in a sequel, especially since players see that Joker is missing teeth and bruised but apparently recovering inBatman: Arkham Asylum’s closing cutscene. Instead,Batman: Arkham Citydoubles down on the Titan storylineand reveals that Joker is dying as a result.
This leads to the primary source ofCity’s progression being Batman’s pursuit of a cure once he and an unknowable number of individuals in Gotham City have been infected by Joker’s tainted blood via transfusion. This puts the threat ofProfessor Hugo Strange and Ra’s al Ghul’s Protocol 10on the back burner and, when both antagonists are abruptly slain, the player’s attention is instantly drawn to a reveal that the healthy-looking Joker was actually Clayface, as evidenced by Batman’s Detective Mode not perceiving a skeleton within his body.
Joker truly does die at the end ofCity, and inBatman: Arkham Knighthe returns to haunt Batman as Joker-infected individuals are beginning to show symptoms of the Clown Prince of Crime subsuming them.
Then, amid Arkham Knight and Scarecrow’s occupation of Gotham City, Bruce Wayne struggles with Joker’s incorporeal manifestations and eventually locks him away in the recesses of his subconscious in a battle for his mind and body. None of this would’ve been possible if Joker had not taken Titan in an effort to push Batman to do the same. Therefore, the Titan Joker boss fight’s significance cannot be overstated.
