Arkham Shadow's Rat King Lore is kept clean and tidy

When it was announced Batman: Arkham Shadow debuted a brand new Arkhamverse antagonist character named the Rat King, the community was right to be immediately skeptical of his identity. The Arkhamverse rests on its laurels on the bedrock of lore among works that have all spawned and extrapolated out of their humble but formidable beginnings in Batman: Arkham Asylum. For example, the only reason why the revelation of Jason Todd and Batman: Arkham KnightThe titular antagonist didn't immediately fit in, probably because the lore wasn't clear on whether Jason Todd ever existed in the Arkhamverse, at least outside of the mysterious dreamland presented in Batman: Arkham VR where Joe Chill also made his debut.

It's also unmistakably clear that Jason is an Arkham Knight once Batman and Robin start hanging out with Albert King, Christina Bell, and Johnny Charisma, although knowing for sure that he actually existed before that would be too obvious and Rocksteady must have known. could exploit this oversight in established traditions.

Either way, a brand new villain whose name has never been heard of in the Arkhamverse Batman: Arkham Shadow was a huge risk and had to mean one of two things: The Rat King either dies during the game's events, or is revealed to be someone else with an identity that survives the “Rat King” moniker. The latter turns out to be true, yet it's much more exciting to watch the Rat King's personality evolve over the course of the narrative.

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Batman: Arkham Shadow's Rat King is a wild goose chase

There are a lot of moving parts Batman: Arkham Shadow's story, and many of them are actively trying to obfuscate who the Rat King really is. Batman is more interested in finding the Rat King than who he is, and his rage-fueled pursuit leads him to suspect and investigate many of the characters found at Blackgate Prison, such as Carmine Falcone, Otis Flannegan, Lyle Bolton, and Dr. Jonathan Crane. . All attention is turned away from District Attorney Harvey Dent as the Rats target him in the Solomon Wayne trial and nearly burn him alive, a fate he only half-avoids later in the story.

Of course, the “rat king” is revealed to be a symptom of Harvey's dissociative identity disorder, and it's actually a poetic irony that Harvey pursues this adversary as relentlessly as Batman. Harvey technically becomes Two-Face in Batman: Arkham ShadowThe final moments, shedding the Rat King persona to take on a more explicit duality that Harvey is aware of and horrified by, but “The Rat King” doesn't end with Harvey.

Batman: Arkham Shadow retires his rat king without end

Thanks to a very accurate prophecy of the Rat King's birth at Blackgate as a prisoner, the Rat King's character is pinned on Irving “Matches” Malone and retired after he suddenly disappeared, allowing the Arkhamverse to wipe its hands of the name and plausibility. not to be mentioned again in the series. This is teased throughout the narrative, with Malone literally being born into a prison and not being a real person elsewhere, and Bruce's actions as Malone coincidentally dovetailing with what was prophesied about the Rat King defeating the cops, courts, and tinkering.

This literally saves Bruce's life as all the Rats are content to follow Malone as their king and free him from the gas chamber while taking out Bolton to do so. Malone is gone at the end of the game and it will be fascinating to see how the Rats might respond to his absence, but if the Rats are flushed after Batman: Arkham Shadow likely taking with them the personality of the Rat King and its relatively small impact on the Arkhamverse as a whole.