Gotham Knights Diaries Part Eight

This is my exploration of Gotham Knights where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. I’ll point out all of the Easter Eggs that I can spot in the footnotes at the end of each part. Now let’s continue Gotham Knights…

With the discovery that a secret society that ran the city from the shadows really did exist, I was taking the time to upgrade the team and check their emails…

Playing as Tim Drake, I went to the Batcycle where Jason Todd was doing maintenance. Since he seemed aimless, and possibly due to what Barbara Gordon did earlier, Jason asked Tim to help him out. To repay this kindness, Tim asked if it hurt when Jason was resurrected, though he realised why Tim was asking: but Bruce Wayne wouldn’t want to be brought back by a Lazarus Pit.

In Tim’s emails were one from Alfred Pennyworth about clearing up the workbench, from someone called Chupa20 wanting to go looking for Bigfoot, and another from a content creator called Skeleton Cease Fire. Also, another email from the obviously-Harley Quinn “Dr. Q&A Podcast”.

After straight-up forgetting to equip Robin with anything new, I swapped to Dick Grayson. Over in the kitchen, he was clearly hiding how badly he’d been injured recently, and Alfred noticed. After calling him out for trying to be like Batman, Dick finally accepted that he should know when to ask for help. In his emails was one from Shawn Tsang asking how he was, Elisa Scoboda complaining about how happy Superman was, and Lucius Fox offering advice about board meetings.

I then equipped Nightwing with his Owlbuster Suit, Vigilante Basic Escrima Sticks, and Vigilante Basic Darts. For upgrades, I chose Bigger Nest, Perfect Evade, Trampoline, Aerial Bounce, Aerial Damage+, and Extra Momentum Bar. Then, I swapped back to Barbara and went to speak to Alfred.

Despite saying that he had no idea that Batman was investigating the Court of Owls, Alfred said that Bruce thought that he was being too cautious, trying to find things that just didn’t exist. Since I had seen multiple emails from definitely Harley Quinn, I spoke again to Alfred, who suggested we look into them a bit more. Also, there was a cat in Belfry.

As luck would have it, I received an email from ReQ Totally Real Legitimate Pharmaceutical Company, which Barbara had just said was linked in some way to Dr. Q — which led me to discover Harley’s next move. Nightwing caught her announcement on his tablet, and Jason took it from him to see what else was there. Apparently, Harley was shilling anything and everything pseudoscience, and had set up an event for an “explosive” announcement at the Monarch Theatre for that night, so I set out to attend.

Clearly, I couldn’t use the front door, so I went around the back and knocked out the four Freaks guarding the area before going inside. It seemed that Alfred had acted in the Monarch himself as Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, since there was an autographed photo of him addressed to a Sally (though the reverse said Cecilia). There was also sheet music and a poster for Batman: The Musical, which apparently wasn’t that bad!

Moving through the fire damage, I grappled up to a ledge above some Freaks and beat them up before activating a switch to open the stage set, then beating up some more Freaks. They seemed to be guarding a crate of pharmaceuticals stolen from Daggett Labs, as were their friends who opened the door for me while I was checking the crate. I decided to follow the arrows and spray painted bat symbols through a door before noticing a ventilation shaft. That led me into an office with a resource crate and a script for The Heart is a Kennel of Thieves, written by a playwright going by the pseudonym Snagglepuss.

At the top of some stairs, I found some Freaks guarding while Harley Quinn’s show began playing over a speaker. I accidentally threw a Batarang instead of sneak attacking, so I had to beat them all up. On the plus side, I got to see a poster for Zatara the Master Illusionist, and another for the punk band Mucous Membrane.

There were a couple of resource chests before I came across a load of mannequins pointing towards a window which overlooked a backstage area, with some more Freaks to knock out. While I took them all down, Harley continued her motivational speech, and I exited onto the stage, but behind a screen so nobody could see me. Until the spotlights came on at Harley’s signal. She then began to show off “an implant” that she alleged could give people the power to become their best selves, and take on the world. What better way to illustrate that, than to have some Freaks attack me, and claim that they already had the implants.

While we fought, Alfred reported that scans didn’t show any implant, and they all fell like any normal crook. Unfortunately, I also fell when Harley triggered a trap door, dropping me below the stage — into a nest of bombs. They triggered as goons started coming at me, and Alfred’s voice came out over the theatre speakers calling for an evacuation. Harley took it in stride, telling the audience that they were allowed to take a free implant due to this unfortunate early end to the event. Once the goons were down and the bombs deactivated, a prerecorded message came up on some nearby monitors, grading my performance as an F.

Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had defeated 41 enemies, five of which were silent takedowns.

Since I had collected all of Batman’s supply caches, I decided to listen to the collected audio logs. They were titled; Year One, Guidance, Resolutions, Outsourcing, New Bat On The Block, Curtains For Clayface, Spiral, and Father And Grayson. They were about Batman’s first year, how he’d told Jim Gordon his real identity, how Bruce Wayne should help people like Batman does, asking Harley Quinn for help with the Court of Owls, Batgirl as a newbie, Clayface’s apparent death, Barbara getting paralysed and Jason’s death, and his relationship with Dick. No mention of Tim in any of them…

Speaking to Alfred, he suggested that we take down Dr. Q, which would set back Harley’s plans, no matter what they ultimately were. That would involve taking out Harley Quinn’s Criminals in Hiding at the Lab, according to my quest tracker.

However, I put that on hold, because I still had to get a lead on Mister Freeze. Luckily, we knew that something was going down at Quartz Labs, so I headed there and took out the three snipers, though that went a bit wrong, and so I had to punch and kick the rest of the Regulators present. Climbing into a ventilation shaft, I entered a large lab area filled with more Regulators.

Much to my delight, I took down all six of them without a fuss. Activating a door panel in an office up some stairs, two more Regulators came out and needed beating up. Inside the room were some servers, and a frozen scientist along with an audio log from the man himself, talking about a “disruptor” that could hopefully mess with Freeze’s machine. Whatever that was.

I quickly managed to find a secret floor panel in the frozen scientist’s office, and picked up the disruptor. Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had defeated 16 enemies, six of which were silent takedowns…

FOOTNOTES

Shawn Tsang and Dick Grayson briefly dated in issues of Nightwing.
Daggett Labs is a reference to Daggett's Industries from Batman The Animated Series, which accidentally gave Clayface his powers.
Snagglepuss yes, is a reference to the Warner Bros. cartoon character, but in this case this is a direct reference to the 2018 DC comic mini-series Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles.
Zatara was the father of superhero magician Zatanna, though he did have his own hefty run in Action Comics.
Mucous Membrane was the punk rock band that John Constantine belonged to before his magical career was a thing.
Year One was a storyline written by Frank Miller in 1987 which gave Batman his definitive origin, which is still referenced almost 40 years later.
Clayface AKA Basil Karlo is a supervillain who had a brief spate as a hero as part of the super team the Gotham Knights.