Batman: Arkham Knight will pit the Dark Knight against many of his most famous villains including Harley Quinn and Two-Face. However, each Arkham game usually includes a couple lesser-known foes as well. Which overlooked villains will get their chance to shine in Knight?
Fortunately, decades and decades of Batman comics give Rocksteady Studios plenty of choices. There are dozens of great choices. Here's a handful that I'd especially like to see in the game.
Hush
Many of Batman's enemies are twisted versions of the hero. Hush is one of the best examples of this recurring theme.
Hush is Dr. Thomas Elliot, a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne who also had wealthy parents. Unlike Bruce, though, Elliot killed his parents to inherit the family fortune. He cut the brakes on their car, causing an accident that kills his dad and severely injured his mom. His mom hung on for several years due to a life-saving surgery by Bruce's father. This caused Elliot to have a life-long hatred toward the Wayne family.
Elliot transforms into Hush during Batman: Arkham City. He surgically removed his face and then began murdering people throughout Gotham. He removed the faces of each of his victims. Batman eventually finds Hush and discovers his plan: he was gathering the skin of people who looked like Bruce Wayne so that he could assume the identity of his childhood friend.
Hush manages to escape his encounter with Batman and doesn't return. I hope that Arkham Knight will finally wrap up this storyline with a final encounter between Batman and his former friend.
Calendar Man
Villains with strange idiosyncrasies are another time-honored Batman tradition. Calendar Man, a man who only commits crimes related to the day they fall on, certainly fits that bill.
Calendar Man was referenced in every Arkham game to date. He appeared in the flesh in Arkham City. In that game, he was imprisoned by Two-Face after taking over a courthouse and killing anyone inside. If the player visits Calendar Man's cell on certain holidays, he reminisces about past crimes he committed on those days.
After the Calendar has shared all of his 12 stories, he escapes his cell, never to be seen again. In other words, he's another loose end waiting to be wrapped up in Arkham Knight.
Granted, he doesn't have the arsenal or special powers of other villains. He's not going to be able to go toe-to-toe with Batman. However, he'd be a good addition to Arkham Knight because tracking him down would challenge player's detective abilities.
Prometheus
Prometheus, like Batman, saw his parents killed in front of his eyes. This didn't inspire him to become a vigilante, however. He decided to honor his criminal parents by destroying the forces of justice forever.
Prometheus doesn't have any superpowers, instead relying on his genius-level intellect and peak physical abilities. His skill with technology allowed him to build several gadgets, including a helmet that can download the fighting styles of his opponents. His weapons include an electrified staff and wrist gauntlets loaded with different ammo like darts and rockets.
Rocksteady seeded references to Prometheus throughout the Arkham series. His psychological evaluation and Wanted poster can both be found in Asylum. In Arkham City, players can find a newspaper article that discusses his parents' death.
In the comics, Prometheus took on the whole Justice League so he'd be a formidable opponent for just Batman. The only reason he might not make the cut is that he's maybe too big of a villain for the game. Unless he's the titular Arkham Knight, Rocksteady might have trouble fitting him in. There's a good chance he'd outshine the other criminals.
Professor Pyg
Rocksteady's take on the Batman franchise has always been gritty and dark. Professor Pyg, one of the most disturbing villains ever devised, would be right at home.
Pyg's a more recent addition to Batman's rogues gallery, having only been introduced in the comics in 2007. However, he's made quite an impression in a short amount of time. He's a gifted scientist who creates an army of Dollotrons, lobotomized people with doll masks surgically attached to their faces. These Dollotrons have no free will and follow Pyg's orders without question.
"[Professor Pyg] is one of the weirdest, most insane characters that's ever been in Batman," co-creator Grant Morrison said in an interview a few years back. "We hear a lot about Batman facing crazy villains but we tried to make this guy seem genuinely disturbed and disconnected."
Well, mission accomplished, Grant. It's scary to think of this villain running amuck in Gotham. Fighting him and his army would be a great use of Batman's time in Arkham Knight.
Lock-Up
Lock-Up is a vigilante that adheres to a very different code than Batman. He's not content to hand criminals off to the authorities for a fair trial. Instead, he places prisoners in his own private jail. He's also willing to torture or kill them if necessary to keep order.
In sum, he's an interesting foil for Batman. They both have the same goal of stopping criminals but they take different paths. By fighting Lock-Up and other brutal vigilantes like him, Batman's reaffirming his own code of justice.
As far as villains go, he's far from the most dangerous. In the comic book arc No Man's Land, Batman lets Lock-Up act as the warden of Blackgate Penitentiary while he tries to restore order in Gotham. Lock-Up could be Batman's reluctant ally in Arkham Knight. With the city overrun by criminals, the Dark Knight could ask Lock-Up to keep the defeated criminals behind bars - as long as he doesn't mistreat them.
Killer Moth
Killer Moth is yet another warped mirror image of Batman. He's a masked man with gadgets but he doesn't protect the innocent. Instead, he hires himself as protection for gangsters.
Because he's a hired gun, many players expected him to be one of the assassins in Batman: Arkham Origins. He didn't make the cut, though, presumably because his name and appearance is a little too similar to Firefly.
Like Prometheus, Killer Moth was mentioned in previous Arkham games but he never actually appeared. The player can find a skeleton wrapped in a cocoon in one of the rooms of the Asylum. His cocoon gun is one of his more famous gadgets. By including that clue, the developers showed they have at least some interest in Killer Moth so perhaps he'll appear in the flesh in Arkham Knight.
In one story arc in the comics, Killer Moth sells his soul to a devil named Neron to become the monster Charaxes. Charaxes is a flesh-eating beast that can fly and withstand bullets. If Rocksteady decides to use this incarnation of the character, it could make for a very interesting boss fight.
