Summary
- The Arkhamverse has developed the treatment of its villains across multiple installments, giving many of them rewarding closure and a cohesive story arc.
- Some characters from the Arkham games, like Harley Quinn and Penguin, will make an appearance in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
- Black Mask has been poorly treated and disposable, and his death in Arkham Knight ensures he won't make it back for the Arkhamverse's next chapter.
Rocksteady and WB Games Montreal’s Arkhamverse is ripe with villains from Batman’s rogues’ gallery, but what makes this continuity special is how its treatment of these antagonists develops across multiple installments. It’s incredibly fulfilling to look back on a character’s earliest appearance in the Arkhamverse, such as Deathstroke as one of eight assassins in Arkham Origins, and see how far along they were kept around. In some cases, these antagonists have received rewarding closure, giving them a great throughline to witness if fans pay attention to the Arkham series as a whole.
The Arkhamverse is now continuing onto new pastures with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and at least a couple of characters seen in Arkham games will be making the leap, including Harley Quinn and Penguin. Some characters probably won’t appear but will be referenced, such as Bane and Black Mask as status affliction buffs. Black Mask in particular couldn’t be reprised regardless since he’s dead in the Arkhamverse canon and, looking back at his sad history of appearances in Arkham games, it’s easy to see how truly abused and disposable Roman Sionis was in the story.
Nobody in the Arkhamverse is Treated Worse Than Roman Sionis’ Black Mask
The Arkhamverse’s Black Mask is Little More Than a Punching Bag
Looking at the Arkhamverse chronologically, the franchise’s first appearance of Black Mask isn’t even the real Black Mask. The opening of Arkham Origins has Batman arrive at Blackgate during a breakout led by Black Mask and Killer Croc, who are also there to kill GCPD Commissioner Loeb.
However, this Black Mask turns out to have been Joker the entire time with the real Black Mask, Roman Sionis, having been kidnapped sometime earlier. Sionis, whose face is now a pulp, is kept alive so Joker can gain access to his steel mill, and players watch as Sionis is beaten brutally at the Gotham Merchants Bank. Even Batman has no problem laying into Sionis, purportedly breaking any ribs the Joker neglected to and threatening to manipulate his pacemaker remotely.
In Rocksteady’s trilogy, though, Black Mask is only referenced as a scannable riddle in Asylum before he appears for the first time in City as a pitiable inmate whom TYGER guards beat to the ground. To be fair, Black Mask also dabbles in City’s challenge campaigns, though most players might not take an interest in those and it’s not outrightly clear that he appears there, either.
Black Mask’s Murder Ensures He Won’t Have a Path to Redemption
Black Mask was always done dirty, but Arkham Knight really had a score to settle with Sionis as Red Hood’s story DLC ends abruptly with Jason Todd killing him. The murder occurs off-screen with Red Hood kicking him through a window, but the definitive nature of the DLC ending there with Todd saying "Say hi to Joker for me" suggests that he’s gone for good. Because Rocksteady and WB Games Montreal only ever kicked him around anyway, it seems like he’s been quietly written out of the Arkhamverse, and in an optional 10-minute DLC story pack at that.
This is unfortunate because having Sionis back for a redemption arc or some sort of villainous comeback would’ve been terrific in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, but instead he’s being plastered into the game’s UI as an ability icon.
Sionis may not have been a terribly exciting character nonetheless, but if his actual personality was more like how Joker portrayed him in Origins, he could’ve made him an intimidating threat in Gotham’s criminal underworld. Moving on from Sionis might be for the best now that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is more concerned with global threats to mankind, too, and Black Mask was always on the narrative back-burner as a tossaway mobster that the Arkhamverse could carelessly discard.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 59 /100 Critics Rec: 20%
- Released
- February 2, 2024
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Rocksteady Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Warner Bros. Games
WHERE TO PLAY
Play as the Suicide Squad to take down the World’s Greatest DC Super Heroes, The Justice League. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, is a genre-defying, action-adventure third-person shooter from Rocksteady Studios, creators of the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham series.
- Franchise
- Suicide Squad
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Action, Adventure, Open-World
