Arguably the worst thing to happen to the Batman: Arkham franchise, long before Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, is that Rocksteady chose to restrict its Arkhamverse story to a trilogy and end it so definitively with Batman: Arkham Knight. Indeed, more than a decade ago, Rocksteady severed a handful of valuable continuity tethers in Batman: Arkham Knight, ensuring that no prequel or sequel could explore the franchise’s lore further without a ton of narrative obstacles.
For instance, Batman: Arkham Knight’s side missions officially confirm that the last time Batman encountered Firefly and Deathstroke was during the events of Batman: Arkham Origins, which took place 10 years earlier, staggeringly, and thus no new Batman: Arkham game that wanted to be set between Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Knight would be able to feature them. Ironically, despite the fact that he’s already outrageously oversaturated in general, the Joker could bear fruit for the series once more.
Batman: Arkham Told Joker’s Ending, Now It Can Tell His Beginning
The first time that the Batman: Arkham franchise’s Joker and Batman encounter one another is depicted in Batman: Arkham Origins with a great plot twist and thrilling detective work. Batman: Arkham Origins had a massive weight on its shoulders in having to explore several iconic Batman: Arkham franchise characters’ origins and backstories, including Riddler (known then as Enigma), Bane (who is made a phenomenally tragic character by the end), and Mister Freeze (debuting in Batman: Arkham Origins’ Cold, Cold Heart DLC, inspired heavily by Batman: The Animated Series’ “Heart of Ice”).
There’s an excellent sequence in Batman: Arkham Origins where fans play as Joker and traverse his troubled, anguished mind, where we finally see when Joker originally wore a red capsule on his head as a patsy in the Red Hood gang and met Batman, falling into a vat of chemicals and becoming obsessed with the Dark Knight thereafter as someone he could relate to. Of course, it’s debated whether this origin is even genuine or not, considering that Joker’s fascination with Batman in the Batman: Arkham franchise seems to have begun when Batman saved him from free-falling to his death.
A whole Batman: Arkham game where Joker is playable would be incredibly novel, but maybe not too unprecedented; Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League basically had Harley Quinn as its protagonist, and the Batman: Arkham series is debatably Joker’s story more than it is Batman’s, anyway.
If we were lucky enough to be graced with a Batman: Arkham prequel that took place in the two years prior to Batman: Arkham Origins, it would be neat to have a sequence where we see the true events of what led to Joker becoming ‘Joker.’ Otherwise, the franchise may be right to rid itself of him and move forward with the story, not backward.
Maybe Batman: Arkham Should Be Finished With Joker
It’s interesting to assess the Batman: Arkham franchise in its totality and see how ubiquitous Joker is within it, considering that the homicidal villain literally dies in the second installment, Batman: Arkham City. Joker was technically even living on borrowed time throughout the whole sequel, with the decision to inject himself with Titan in Batman: Arkham Asylum being what led to his death.
Joker dies at the end of Batman: Arkham City after accidentally making Batman drop and destroy the last phial of the cure that could’ve saved him. However, Batman: Arkham Knight brought him back as a hallucination made manifest by Batman’s exposure to fear toxin, as well as Batman apparently still being infected with Joker’s Titan-tainted blood, even though he drank a phial of the cure himself in Batman: Arkham City.
Thus, Joker becomes an incorporeal being who is always around and makes for a wonderfully funny and poignant NPC companion throughout most of Batman: Arkham Knight, until Batman fights for ownership of his mind and locks Joker away in its recesses. Before Rocksteady ended its Batman: Arkham trilogy, though, WB Games Montréal’s Batman: Arkham prequel was something of a rebirth for the character, and future prequel stories could keep him around as long as they wanted.