Suicide Squad: KTJL Missed a Killer Batman Opportunity It…

Summary

Season 1 of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League lacks significant narrative content beyond Joker's cutscene debut.
Additionally, there were missed opportunities for fan service via Batman and Penguin interactions in the Arkhamverse's latest entry.
Seeing Batman kill the Penguin could have made him seem even more threatening.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has withheld any big story updates since the base game as it moves into the second episode of its first post-launch season. This is the Elseworld Joker-themed Season 1, which strangely only delivered a cutscene for Joker’s debut in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Otherwise, animated illustration graphics have been employed to fill in the blanks. If anything, this suggests that Rocksteady has little intent to perfume its seasons two through four with substantial narrative content beyond explaining how its DLC characters have been recruited.

This is a missed opportunity as there probably won’t be any considerable story updates until players have defeated the last Brainiac at the end of a lengthy multiversal trek. Missed opportunities were also rampant throughout Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s story campaign, though, and because Batman was on his way out the door it would’ve made sense for Rocksteady to pepper the game with far more Arkhamverse fan service than it did. A huge piece of fan service it neglected, for example, was any kind of interaction between Kevin Conroy’s Batman and Nolan North’s Penguin.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Feels the Neglect of a Batman and Penguin Reunion

Oswald Cobblepot is a persistent pain in Batman’s backside whenever he appears in an Arkham game—that only leaves out Asylum, the one entry where players don’t hear his unreasonably smug and obnoxious tone whether the accent is legitimate or not. Nolan North’s portrayal of the Arkhamverse’s Penguin is phenomenal, to be sure, and the crime lord has even been able to elude Batman before, as well as somewhat laughably ambush Nightwing not once but twice, which demonstrates that he’s perhaps more crafty and resourceful than he’d appear on paper.

There’s a case to be made that if any reprised villain deserved an encounter with Brainiac’s mind-controlled Batman it was Riddler, but Riddler is only baked into Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League as he pertains to optional side content and he never actually appears in-game.

Penguin always wore an unexpected and perhaps naive resolve when confronted by Batman, which is more than 90% of criminals in Gotham City could say. Rather, Penguin is more subdued and out of his depth in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and it would have been interesting to see how he’d respond to being pursued by a Batman who’s actively trying to kill him this time.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Could’ve Had Penguin Meet His End at the Hands of Batman

There’s supposedly still a chance that a Brainiac Batman boss fight could be preceded by a moment where he locates and kills Penguin, but that wouldn’t be as impactful. There are two reasons why that’s nearly impossible:

Rocksteady would need to go out of its way to include more cutscene-oriented story content, which it has already proven to refuse as part of post-launch content.
Penguin has plot armor as the player’s source of anti-Metahuman weaponry on the support squad.

Even so, it would’ve been more satisfying seeing the base game’s Batman get his hands on Penguin anyway, hearing Conroy and North share dialogue again in a brief sequence. Batman is ultimately gunned down by Harley Quinn and it would’ve been gratifying to see him secure a definitive and violent win over at least one of his oldest Arkhamverse nemeses.

Unfortunately, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League doesn’t try much to create a tangible tether between it and the Arkham games regardless. While its touching tributes to Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin are wonderful, there is still a lot Rocksteady could’ve done with the knowledge that it’d be shelving the Arkhamverse’s Batman with supposed finality.

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Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

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Released: February 2, 2024

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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.

Featuring an original narrative set within an expansive open-world city of Metropolis, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League puts the four DC Super-Villains on a collision course with an invading alien force and DC Super Heroes who are now laser-focused on destroying the city they once vowed to protect. All the while, the Suicide Squad must be mindful of the lethal explosives implanted in their heads that could go off at the first sign of defiance.

Each squad member has their own unique moveset with enhanced traversal abilities to freely explore the dynamic open-world of Metropolis, along with a variety of weapons to customize, and skills to master.