Batman: Arkham - Everything You Need To Know About The Court Of Owls

8. Their Assassins Are Known As 'Talons'

Batman Arkham Court of Owls Concept Art
Warner Bros.

Having influence and power is one thing, but it's impossible to maintain without security. The Court, a cabal comprised of Gotham's oldest families, found a twisted solution to this quandary by recruiting their own assassins, which - keeping to theatrics - they dubbed 'Talons'.

Now on the surface there's nothing all that twisted about assassins (they're at least relatively tame as far as Gotham's concerned), but the Court felt the need to put their own spin on the profession. Rather than simply recruit from the most sinister and indeed skilled figures across the world - like, say, the League of Assassins would - they instead looked to child circus performers, and raised them to be their own trained killers.

These Talons would then be deployed to assassinate key persons who threatened to upset the Court's hold over Gotham. They remain in deep sleep until called upon by the society's senior figures, and are resurrected periodically for centuries thereafter. One particular Talon, Uriah Boone, was even resurrected to fight Batman after first being active during the 1600s.

Given leaked concept art for the next Arkham game, and with the Court clearly set to feature either way, players should expect Talons to be a major test.

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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.