Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is evident about its intentions from the get-go. Your mission, which you don’t have any alternative however to simply accept as a member of Job Pressure X, is to kill the Justice League. Kill The Flash. Kill Inexperienced Lantern. Kill Superman. And, sure, kill the Batman.
However regardless of the readability of the brand new Suicide Squad sport’s title, it nonetheless appears a bit exhausting to imagine. Kill Batman? Kill him? Kill the star of Rocksteady’s trilogy of beloved, bestselling Batman: Arkham video games? Certainly this have to be some alternate-universe Batman, proper? Some type of hoax?!
Sorry, however no.
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Batman: Arkham Knight.]
The narrative basis of Kill the Justice League is that alien dangerous boy Brainiac has come to Earth with designs to overcome it. Brainiac not solely mutates the populace of Metropolis into his troopers, he will get a giant help from (most of) the Justice League after mind-controlling and manipulating them. With Brainiac’s plan working, authorities company ARGUS enlists criminals from Arkham Asylum and Belle Reve jail to quell the alien rebellion. Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Killer Shark are given superpowered devices and plenty of weapons to assist them take down the league.
Second to final on their record is Batman, the identical Batman that faked his loss of life 5 years earlier within the conclusion of Batman: Arkham Knight. There’s a complete in-game museum referred to as The Batman Expertise in Kill the Justice League that explains why Batman gave up the ruse of his loss of life and joined Superman in Metropolis. That museum additionally encompasses a fast recap of the occasions of Arkham Asylum and Arkham Metropolis, with displays devoted to every of Batman’s main villains.
Batman has a giant presence in Kill the Justice League. You’re tapped into his radio communications with Brainiac, so that you hear late, longtime voice actor Kevin Conroy voicing an evil, Brainiac-possessed Batman by means of the sport. And at one level, you watch a prolonged holographic recording of Batman/Bruce Wayne, ostensibly left for Robin, to clarify to whomever views it methods to take down the Justice League, together with Batman himself.
Rocksteady makes it explicitly clear that this sport’s Batman has turned to evil underneath Brainiac’s spell, and the one answer is loss of life. That one thing that the one different uncompromised member of the Justice League — Surprise Lady — is making an attempt exhausting to keep away from. However the Suicide Squad? They don’t have any qualms about killing Batman.
So, a bit after midway by means of the sport, after Job Pressure X defeats Batman by gassing a Batcave-style hideout with Concern Toxin, that’s what they do. They take Batman’s broken-but-still-breathing physique to Lex Luthor, who research the Caped Crusader’s modified genetics, after which they shoot previous Bats within the head. Harley Quinn does the deed. In fact, you don’t see Batman’s brains getting blown out in graphic style, but it surely’s clear to everybody concerned that Batman is useless.
That mentioned, Kill the Justice League can be a sport about multiverses, or as DC likes to name them, Elseworlds. Simply as there’s a brand new, youthful Joker coming to city, there might be one other Batman on the market within the sport’s multiverse, although the sport doesn’t explicitly trace at one thing like that. In fact, we must always keep in mind that is all rooted in comedian guide storytelling, the place nobody stays useless endlessly.
Rocksteady having Harley shoot Batman within the head looks like a metaphorical milestone for the studio, although. It accomplished its Batman: Arkham trilogy in 2015, and seems to have put that franchise absolutely behind it. For all intents and functions, we must always take into account the Batman of Rocksteady’s Arkhamverse useless for now.
To drive that time dwelling additional, Kill the Justice League even ends with a tribute to Batman’s late voice actor. Every day Planet reporter Lois Lane delivers a post-game eulogy for Batman (however, considerably unusually, not one of the different fallen heroes from the league), that ends with the message “Thanks, Kevin.” It’s a melancholy ending, but it surely underscores the finality of Batman’s destiny on this universe.
Whether or not there’s one other Batman ready within the wings, as hinted at by the key ending of Arkham Knight, stays to be seen. We’ll see the place Kill the Justice League’s Elseworlds go from right here.