Gotham Knights Diaries Part Eighteen

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…

Even though the Voice of the Court of Owls was dead, I wouldn’t have much time to rest with the League of Shadows out in full force…

At Belfry, the heroes gathered their thoughts and cursed their idiocy in helping Talia al Ghul, only for her to turn on them. Detective Montoya and Lucius Fox were hunkered down, figuring that known associates would be targeted to distract the heroes. Suddenly, wouldn’t you know it? The League attacked our known associates!

But first, I had emails to check, and found one from Wonder Woman. She was urging us to delve further down into the Heroic Assault mines, as we had apparently mentioned parasites? Barbara also sent an email to the others suggesting that she was taking steps to ensure that nobody else could get access to the systems and networks that Jacob Kane had access to.

Since everyone had a story in the city, I grabbed new equipment before swapping to Nightwing and went out to save our friends. However, since I had no premeditated crimes on the map, I decided to first check out a marker in The Cauldron, as well as beat up a bunch of crooks to interrogate and find out about more crimes going down. Of course, I also grabbed some Batarangs along the way.

Before going to save the people we loved from certain death, I visited the cemetery in North Gotham. Nightwing laid a stone on Bruce Wayne’s grave, and said “I’ve got this, Bruce.” Clearly, his chat with Barbara had done the job, though I had no idea what the stone was for.

Setting out for the Major Crime Unit where Montoya was holed up, I easily dispatched the handful of assassins that were trying to kill her and her co-workers. She was angry that Kane’s death wasn’t the end of it like they had hoped, and told me to sort it out. So, I headed to Foxteca to find Lucius inside a forcefield, surrounded by his dead bodyguards and a small handful of assassins.

Alfred Pennyworth told me to get back to Belfry, but first I wanted to speak to Lucuis. He was grateful for the help, but was upset that his people had been attacked. Rather than go to Belfry, however, I went to speak to Toshio from The Watch, who wanted me to stop five crimes and use four Momentum abilities to do it in New Gotham. I also noticed that Doctor Jada Thompkins was under attack, and yet I had been told to get back to base?

Arriving at the ambulance, I took out the two waves of assassins and spoke to Thompkins. She refused to go into hiding, as people in the city needed her services, but agreed to call for help if needed.

Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had stopped eight crimes, completed four bonus objectives, and rescued five cops and two citizens. That involved defeating 82 enemies, two of which were silent takedowns.

In the upstairs area of Belfry, the team complained that they didn’t know where the League were hiding, until Tim Drake mentioned that he had tracked suspiciously high energy readings going to Arkham Asylum, which had been out of use for years. So, clearly we needed to get in there and find out what we could find out!

But first, the emails again, with a nice one from Dick Grayson telling Tim that he was proud of how he had become a different kind of Robin, more of a partner to Batman than a sidekick. Additionally, Tim had done more Lazarus Pit research, and he had surmised that Ra’s al Ghul had been needlessly exposing himself to the pits multiple times per year. This had caused a noticeable change in his behaviour since Batman had first met him. Perhaps something in the pit was affecting Talia too?

Both Jason Todd and Tim had their story beats in Belfry, so I checked out Jason’s first to see him being included in making sauce, just like he hadn’t been before because he was dead. Then, Tim showed confidence in being his own hero, while setting up the chess set with Alfred.

Barbara, however, had to go out into the city, so I went on patrol. I would have to get to Arkham sooner rather than later, so I went about solving/preventing some crimes, checked in with Oscar from The Watch, spoke to Montoya (who agreed to keep using codenames), then went to the Commissioner Gordon monument. Batgirl looked at a photo of her father, then stood looking out towards the city, before finally addressing the statue to confirm her commitment to continue the fight against crime, and protect the city.

Heading over to Arkham, I found light coming through a window. Entering the asylum, it turned out to be due to a similar laboratory set-up to what I found in Doctor Langstrom’s secret room at Gotham University, including a large, fluid-filled tank. Investigating the work area, it became apparent that Langstrom had been working for the League of Shadows as well as the Court of Owls, which was why the latter had killed him. Various serums held differing concentrations of dionesium and other components, and were named Chiroptera DNA Sequence.

Through some detective work, I reasoned that the League was creating people in the same way as the Court: reanimating dying volunteers. The only successful test grew both physical strength and cognitive performance by 200%! However, it used the lowest dose of dionesium, but included 60% of “Component L”.

While downloading the data and apparently activating a sonic tower, the system overloaded and the power went out. Belfry directed me to the breaker in the basement, and I was left wondering why this entire facility would only have a single breaker box… Heading downstairs, I found an old visitors log with several names; Aaron Cash, Dr. Hugo Strange, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, Dr. Wilkins, Detective Jim Gordon, and Dr. Victoria October.

After dropping down an elevator shaft and forcing some doors open, I walked past some sealed cells, then pulled a lever in a control room which turned the power back on. A couple of the cells opened, but the only thing of interest was in Professor Pyg’s cell, where he had written some horrific poetry. Returning up the shaft, I exited the asylum into a courtyard where I was attacked by some League assassins!

Re-entering the asylum when the coast was clear, I made my way upstairs and entered the former office of Harleen Quinzel which was decorated with a large clown painting, a small cat-themed calendar from Selina Kyle, and some ivy that had come through the ceiling. There was also a copy of the book Abnormal Psychiatric Methods by Hugo Strange on her desk. The next office may well have belonged to Strange himself, as there were several of his books on a shelf, including The Dying Mind, Mindreaders, and Witnesser.

Due to the holes in the ceiling, I was able to grapple up to the tower where some oscilloscopes were making a racket. By altering their frequencies, the screen showed Group M and a tick, presumably activating that test subject or subjects. Batgirl heard something over the din, saying that it had come from the lab, so I headed back down the way that I’d come. Belfry called to confirm that the successful serum had been mixed with water from a Lazarus Pit, though where was the pit?

The fluid-filled tank in the lab had been broken, presumably by whatever had been inside of it, and as I investigated a creature attacked! It was shaped like a man, but looked like a bat — a Man-Bat, if you will! We wound up out in the courtyard again where we tussled, and I chucked Batarangs at it until the cutscene took over. Batgirl shot it with her grapple gun and wound up slamming into the ground, knocking her unconscious. Belfry scrambled Lucius’ drone to pick me up…

My patrol summary said that I had stopped 13 crimes, completed 11 bonus objectives, and rescued four cops and two citizens. That involved defeating 154 enemies, eight of which were silent takedowns.

FOOTNOTES

Chiroptera is the order of animal that a bat is, and since revealed in a 2021 issue of The Next Batman: Second Son, Batman’s friends are grouped under the term “Clade of Chiroptera”.
Aaron Cash was first introduced in the comics in 2003, and later featured in the Arkham games. He only has one hand, as the other was bitten off by Killer Croc.
Hugo Strange has made a bunch of appearances since his first one in 1940, and he appeared in Arkham City. He’s a psychologist with no morals.
Wilkins is a bit too vague to be a direct reference, as it could refer to artist Dave Wilkins, Two-Face’s butler from 1948, or Wayne Wilkins AKA Red Tool (part of Harley Quinn’s extended cast in one of her ongoings).
Victoria October is a metahuman scientist who works for A.R.G.U.S. and first appeared in 2017.
Professor Pyg was first introduced in 2009, as a pig mask-wearing “scientist” who kidnapped people, brainwashed them, and sewed featureless “doll” heads over their own, turning them into Dollotrons. He and they are my least favourite thing in all of Batman.
Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman who has existed for almost as long as Batman has, appearing in his first ongoing comic as an antagonist.
Man-Bat first appeared in 1970, and I avoided mentioning it at the time in case it turned out that he wasn’t actually dead, but in the comics Kirk Langstrom is the Man-Bat! He usually uses a Man-Bat Serum to turn into the beast, and when he does it usually requires an antiserum to reverse, as most times Man-Bat is pretty mindless.