Following the shocking finale of Arkham City, Rocksteady had repeatedly gone on record to ensure fans that the Joker was truly gone for good, and the opening of Arkham Knight seemed like the exclamation point as we watched the Ace Of Knaves burn to ashes right before our very eyes. However, gamers were in for one hell of a surprise during the Ace Chemicals sequence when they turned around and stared straight into the barrel of a gun held by none other than the Joker himself. It was a genuinely shocking moment, and Mark Hamill's return to the Arkhamverse was met with ecstatic approval. All throughout the game Joker was the little devil on Batman's shoulder, providing a running commentary on the game's events as well as firing off plenty of zingers that elicited more than a few guilty chuckles (his shots at Barbara's paralysis were darkly hilarious in that regard). The crux of the Batman/Joker dynamic has always been the idea that the two are basically different sides of the same coin with little more than a difference in moral grounding preventing the Dark Knight from descending into madness, and the Joker's presence in Arkham Knight provided a thematic backbone for the continued exploration of Bruce's darker impulses.
