“Batman: Arkham Origins” Brings On The Assassins!
A few details have been released about the much-anticipated sequel. But who are the bad guys going to be?
A few details have been released about the much-anticipated sequel. But who are the bad guys going to be?
This new video from the fine folks over at Game Informer finally reveals some details about the next Arkham game, Batman: Arkham Origins. It’s fair to say we kinda liked the first two games (read: Played them until we found ourselves unable to walk into a room without immediately leaping on top of a cupboard to scan for heavily armed clowns), so we’re excited for this next installment.
The plot – what little of it has been revealed so far – revolves around Batman’s first meeting with eight of his deadliest foes, each of whom is an assassin. So far, only Slade “Deathstroke” Wilson has been announced, so just who are the other seven? We’ve suggested some candidates below, with our best guess at how likely each one is to be featured. Quick — to the guessing-about-stuff-on-the-internet-mobile!
Ra’s al Ghul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUr8Ab0BT0Y
He played a pretty big part in Arkham City, and since he’s the founder of The League Of Assassins, it’s probably a safe bet that he’ll somehow be involved with all of these trigger-happy goons showing up to whack the Bat. But since this is an origin story, will he still be rocking his amazing soul patch? Or will this earlier version just have a goatee, and maybe a Papa Roach T-shirt?
The former leader of the League Of Assassins, he’s obsessed with offing dudes to the point where he considers assassination an art form. If he appears, expect to hear a lot of grandiose can-I-skip-this-cutscene monologues before slapping him upside the head with a batarang. Still, who could resist including an aging martial arts master who looks like Kill Bill II’s Pai Mei?
Lady Shiva
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXPn4iAKlCE
Pretty much Batman’s only true equal in the martial arts (and his occasional trainer), Shiva is one of those characters virtually unknown outside of comic geek circles, but loved by fans, so an appearance here is likely. Fun fact: Lady Shiva was once suspected to be the mother of the second Robin, who himself was killed by The Joker, but later brought back to life when a Superboy from another dimension punched the walls of reality so hard it reversed his death and made him a trigger-happy vigilante who now hangs around with an archery-obsessed former heroin addict and an alien stripper. And they say comics aren’t accessible!
For all intents and purposes, Merlyn is the evil Green Arrow, a fact easily gleaned from the fact he dresses exactly like Green Arrow, but in black, and with an even pointier beard. He’s not terribly well known, but he seems like a pretty satisfying bad guy to slap senseless and throw off a rooftop, so his inclusion isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
Deadshot
Another character with a hefty side mission in Arkham City, Floyd “Deadshot” Lawton is DC’s second most recognizable assassin (after Deathstroke), so he’s almost a dead cert for inclusion. Maybe this time he’ll choose a slightly better tactic than “standing in the open, on top of a convenient Bat-sized sewer grate, waiting to be pummeled.”
Whisper A’Huh? Whisper’s only shown up a few times in comics over the years, admittedly, but the former agent for Ra’s al Ghul has the power to transform into a giant snake woman, which, let’s face it, has exactly the right combination of weirdness, violence, and uncomfortable sexuality that we’ve come to expect from this series. Also, her partner turns into a wolf, and if you don’t want to beat up a werewolf as Batman, then really, we have nothing left to say to each other.
Prometheus
Teased with a brief appearance on a wanted poster in Arkham City, Prometheus – who is essentially Batman as a bad guy – took apart the entire Justice League in his first appearance, so his villain credentials are pretty solid. The downside is, Batman was only able to defeat him by giving him motor neurone disease (honestly), so that might not translate too well to a video game.
A martial arts master and, ordinarily, a superhero, Bronze Tiger was brainwashed by the League of Assassins and spent many kill-happy years murdering the shit out of many, many people. The dramatic potential inherent in Bats trying to save the good-guy-gone-lunatic is a plus, but we’re mostly betting on his inclusion because grown men in orange spandex with life-size tiger heads are awesome.
KGBeast
He has the best name of any comics villain ever (seriously, can you imagine the high fives in the ideas meeting when that one came up?), but this Russian assassin might not resonate with the kids, since he’s named after a Soviet intelligence agency that’s been inoperative since 1991. On the other hand, he wears a luchadore mask and has a gun for a hand, so that actually seems pretty promising.
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