3) Batman: Arkham Asylum – Joker
You don’t have to be a fan of Batman’s comic book origins to know who his greatest nemesis is. Joker isn’t just any run-of-the-mill member of the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery. He’s the poster child, the Yin to Batman’s Yang in every way imaginable. Where Gotham’s protector prefers actions over words, Joker takes pleasure in belittling his favorite plaything’s unbending moral code with scathing diatribe.
That’s not to say the Clown Prince of Gotham is physically inept, but he’s certainly no match for the Caped Crusader. Even on an off day, Batman could swiftly turn Joker’s deathly pale face black and blue with little effort. Rather, it’s the mental battle of wills and ideals that make the two character’s tenuous relationship so fascinating. Removing or ignoring that facet entirely reduces the long-running feud to nothing but a one-dimensional battle between hero and villain. Rocksteady fell into that very same trap with its first entry in the Arkham series.
You don’t need me to tell you how good Arkham Asylum, or any of its sequels, for that matter, is. The writing’s so clearly on the wall that you’d be blind to miss it, but it’s not perfect. For a studio that’s almost entirely made up of self-proclaimed Batman fans, it’s no surprise that Rocksteady, on the whole, nailed the gritty universe and the character’s living in it, but its ending left more than a sour taste in the mouths of many.
Whatever the reasons for the result, reducing Joker to nothing but a hulking mass of mindless muscle in his final clash with Batman in Asylum is damn near a total immersion breaker that accentuates nothing of Joker’s most dangerous attribute: intelligence.
Rocksteady deserves forgiveness, though, if only for Arkham City‘s infinitely better ending.
