Who Was the Main Villain in Each of the Arkham Games? [SPOILERS!]

I was debating with a friend about who the main villain was in Arkham Knight. We realized this applied to City as well. I am interested to hear your thoughts.

I know someone will say “there was no main villain” but I am just saying that if you had to pick one villain as being the most important from each game, who would it be?

I say

Asylum: Joker
City: Joker
Knight: Scarecrow

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Scarecrow for sure in Knight, as that game gave us the opportunity to take our revenge on him after pulling that crap in Asylum that made everyone think that their game was broken, even causing some people to return their game to Game Stop, only to find out years later that it was not. Needless to say, some peeps had quite the bone to pick with him, and Batman should have let croc eat him in the first game, just sayin’

I’m glad I got that off my chest :sweat_smile:

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About that… I have heard of this “fake-out” but, I played the first game and I don’t remember anything like that. Of course, I was on PC and my game kept crashing and was so slow I might not have noticed anyways.

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Honestly, I’m not sure if I would consider Joker the main villain in Arkham City. You could make a solid argument that it’s Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Assassins. I mean, Ra’s was the one who really made Arkham City possible. The whole story begins with Protocol 10, and if it weren’t for the fact that the game ends with Joker’s death (not to mention that darn Catwoman side-mission), I would have been perfectly fine with the game ending with Ra’s stabbing himself through the chest with a sword.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the Joker plot in the game wasn’t interesting, but I do think that it wasn’t as much of a main focus in the game as the Ra’s plot.

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Joker, Joker, Joker, Jason Todd. It was supposed to be Black Mask in Origins but they pulled a twist on us that I liked. Then they pulled a similar twist with Knight where they advertised the main villain as scarecrow but you only deal with him twice - the first like half hour and the last. The rest of the game you’re fighting the “Arkham Knight” aka Jason Todd which they also lied and said it was a completely original character to the game. Obviously not :roll_eyes::roll_eyes:.

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Yeah, there is a guy who made a video on his “no hit” challenge in AK (I can’t remember his name cause I don’t watch him on a regular, my bf showed me this video) but he actually returned his game, and personally hated Scarecrow after finding out that it wasn’t real :rofl:

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Welcome to the great issue when multiple characters have a major contribution to the story :sweat_smile:. Joker plays an important role in the games and many will automatically make the connection to him being the main villain, but other characters played a major role throughout the series. The way I “organize” this in my mind is just believing that all the villains want to take down Batman, without even caring about the others that are trying too, or will even team up to do it. When it comes to the games, in my own opinion/viewpoint, I think each game has at the very least two villains who are working together, like Ak and Scarecrow, and then you have at least two schemes that work together, such as Joker’s blood disease alongside Protocol 10. I haven’t watched the Origins playthrough or have played it myself so I can’t say anything, but I think each game has two main villains/main schemes that play hand in hand in the stories. I think it varies from game to game, but this is how I view it at least.

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While this is true. The story does have more to do with Ras but the character you most interact with and have missions around is Joker.

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I feel like you can make the argument that Joker’s the main villain of each game - it’s certainly true of the series as a whole. He’s the undisputed big bad of Asylum, I’d say he shares equal billing w/ Hugo Strange (and Ra’s al Ghul, by extension) in City, Bane is a close 2nd to him in Origins and while he’s only a hallucination in Knight compared to the very real Scarecrow and Jason Todd, Bruce’s fight against his influence taking over is still very much at the heart of the story. The fact that the Arkhamverse is, in many ways, just as much his as it is Batman’s is 1 of many reasons why Arkham Joker is the definitive Joker for me

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Hence the controversy around who is the main villain :joy::joy:

I think @arkhamassassin said it best that Joker and Ra’s share that top spot in Arkham City.

At the same time, I’m inclined to disagree with you that most of the missions are surrounding Joker. After Batman’s injected with Joker’s blood, it’s basically a race against time to save his own skin, while the rest of the Bat family goes into action off screen, stopping people from using Joker’s blood at hospitals and wherever else. So I guess if you count the quest for the cure as “Joker-centered”, then yes, you definitely spend more time in-game defeating Joker than stopping Ra’s and Protocol 10.

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It’s Joker in all three. The fact that he’s dead in the last one makes no difference — to Batman himself, he’s terrifyingly present. That’s the crux of the game.

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Arkham Origins: Joker, Deathstroke, Bane, Mad Hatter, Deadshot, Copperhead, Bronze Tiger, Firefly, Enigma (the Riddler), Electrocutioner, Shiva, Harley Quinzel (later Harley Quinn), Mr. Freeze, Roman Sionis (Black Mask) and Killer Croc
Arkham Asylum: Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Bane, the Riddler, and Zsasz
Arkham City: Joker, Harley Quinn, Clayface Joker, Professor Hugo Strange, Ra’s al Ghul, Bane, the Penguin, Two-Face, Zsasz, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, the Riddler, Solomon Grundy, Deadshot, Clayface, Mad Hatter, and Hush
Harley Quinn’s Revenge: Harley Quinn
Arkham Knight: Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, the Penguin, Two-Face, Man Bat, Arkham Knight (Jason Todd/Robin), Mr. Freeze, Firefly, Professor Pyg, and Killer Croc
Gotham Knights: Court of Owls
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League: Brainiac, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, any Green Lantern, Aquaman, Cyborg, the Flash, and the rest of the Justice League.

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You seem to have forgotten Hush, who does show up at Wayne Tower at some point in the game. Not to mention Riddler with those darn trophies!

Also if you’re gonna count Mr. Freeze and Croc, then you might as well count Ra’s al Ghul, Deathstroke, and Azrael. I know Azrael is more of a good guy, but if you play your cards right in the game, you end up locking him up too.

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I forgot about that, thanks.

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The series as a whole Joker
Origins-Joker
Asylum-Joker
City-Ra’s
Knight-Scarecrow

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Arkham Asylum


Causes the break out

Arkham City


Major player and ends the game

Arkham Origins


Hires assassins and game is about how there relationship started

Arkham Knight


The break up of the relationship

I would say Joker is the lead villain in all of the games. However, he is more evenly

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That’s kinda how I view it when I break it down. I feel like Joker and Scarecrow both share the main villain role in the AK game, only because Joker shows up because of Scarecrow and both of their schemes are very important to the story, so I feel like they both share the role together.

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True but is is a bit of a double for AK
But I feel Joker as more of an ally in a way throughout the game.
Enjoyed his random pop ups.

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Same! Best one was probably when Joker pulls a Man-Bat :joy:

I will say that the ones about Catwoman and Talia got old after a while, but that’s mostly because that Riddler side mission takes forever (like always)

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Both a joy and a curse​:joy:

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