Batman: 80 Greatest Ever Moments

64. "I Can't Stop Laughing" - Batman: Arkham Knight

Though he was definitively dead, Rocksteady found a way to bring The Joker back in Arkham Knight as a hallucination that haunts Batman all the way through the game. Rather than being a physical threat, the villain threatens to break Bruce's mind, free to have more fun than ever now that he's not bound to the mortal realm.

Later on in the game, Batman and Robin are challenged with sneaking into a room to defuse a bunch of bombs, while one of Joker's henchmen in the centre holds the detonator.

In Batman's mind, though, all he sees is The Joker, in the middle of the room, singing a little tizzy about how he just can't stop laughing. "Your parents are dead, and I can't stop laughing!", Mark Hamill's Clown Prince of Crime croons down the microphone, as the two mortal enemies turn on a revolving floor, shrouded in the colourful lights above.

[JB]

63. Bat Versus Bane - The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises Bane Batman
Warner Bros.

Okay, so the end of the big face-off between The Dark Knight and Tom Hardy's hulking Bane was somewhat undermined by the Talia twist and him being relegated to a problematic love-sick puppy who gets killed off in ludicrously dumb fashion, but it was good for a while there.

As well as making a hell of a splash with his mid-air plane heist and leaving an even bigger mark with his attack on the Gotham football stadium, Bane did exactly what he was brought in for - he broke the Bat. And in some style.

Making a mockery of Batman's usual approach to heroism (the whole symbolic adoption of darkness) and his tech-influenced "super-powers", Bane basically just beat the snot out of the Dark Knight and it was a wonderful, brutal battle to behold.

[SG]

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WhatCulture's former COO, veteran writer and editor.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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I like my comics like I like my coffee - in huge, unquestionably unhealthy doses.