Countdown to ‘The Dark Knight Rises’: Part 8 of 11 – ‘Batman: Arkham City’

If you missed it here is Part 1 of 11: Introduction to Batman “The Gift”

And here is Part 2 of 11: A look Back at Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’

And Part 3: ‘Batman Returns’

And Part 4: ‘Batman Forever’

And Part 5 ‘Batman and Robin’

Part 6: ‘Batman: The Animated Series’

Last week’s part 7: ‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’

I was recently discussing with some friends that although I love Batman as a character, I think it’s actually the villains that populate his world that truly define Gotham City, enabling the landscape to become a character unto itself. I’ve already established that I’m not 100% familiar with the comic-book lore surrounding Batman and his band of disrupting enemies and it’s the 1960s TV show that really allowed me to witness this array of colorful archetypes for the first time. Though I couldn’t possibly say with certainty, I wouldn’t imagine the TV show ever presented us with origin stories for these characters. They were just borne on screen fully-formed, waiting for you to accept them. Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze and the Penguin – all of them doing their damnedest to spoil the delectable life being lived blissfully by Gothamites.

It was through the TV show that I became familiar with these characters. Recognized them by their bright costumes and was given hints at the individual traits that made them “bad guys.” Joker was a clown with make-up. The Riddler thought he was smarter than everybody else, leaving clues to his whereabouts figuring no one could possibly possess his equivalent intellect. Catwoman was a thief. Mr. Freeze needed everything around him to be physically cold. And Penguin? Penguin had a monocle, a top hat and tuxedo tails. It wasn’t until I experienced the films and “Batman: The Animated Series” that these characters were fleshed-out for me and I began to truly understand the makings behind each of them. To play “Batman: Arkham City,” the game almost assumes some familiarity with the Dark Knight’s plethora of enemies and it allows you to experience crashing their parties, cracking their bones and crushing their spirits. Any step further and you’d be brandishing Edward-Norton-in-American History X-style street justice. Don’t watch that clip. You know what it contains.

Outside of Scarecrow, every villain from “Arkham Asylum” returns (remember, Batman doesn’t kill people. He stuns them). However, a deep roster of almost everyone you could even hope to be here – Catwoman, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, Penguin and a surprise appearance – join in the fun. Nevertheless, this is still the Joker’s show.

After wrecking the entire asylum and its surrounding grounds, Joker and the rest of Gotham’s abhorrent creatures are placed into a walled-off section of the city, left to their own devices to police themselves like grown-up, deranged Lords of the Flies. This experiment goes about as well as a trio of two-year-olds locked in a room with only one toy to play with. War breaks out. Or rather, it breaks in, and Gotham being a member of the socialized world sends in some of its finest men and women to help break up the mayhem. Naturally, they’re no match for the criminals within and Bruce Wayne takes it upon himself to gain entry into the city and transform himself from billionaire playboy to Playboy Bunny. No, that’s not it. Punishing Badass. There, that’s better.

With the tremendous execution of “Batman: Arkham Asylum” preceding it, the gamemakers decided not to change much gameplay-wise. There’s still a ton of rapid button pressing that reminds you of the cheating controllers back in the day that would automatically trigger a button-push with each millisecond of holding its “cheat-button” down. Alas, it’s vastly more enjoyable to feel that soreness in your forearm after a multi-minute repeated beat down of your controller as you traverse from enemy to enemy, slowly dusting them off one violent strike at a time. The moment the madness ends and you flex you’re your fingers in an effort to release some of that tension is always well deserved.

Batman throws down with Mr. Freeze (sans Arnold) in the "Arkham City" video game.

Again, like it’s chronologically first entry, there are a couple of sequences in the game that brought a higher level of joy to the experience than the rest. You can rest assured that the name “Penguin” is not going to appear in the subsequent paragraphs describing those sequences as I still don’t quite understand his purpose. I used to think I liked him. He was flamboyant with his monocle and cigarette stem and although I never expected it to happen, I was open to the thought of Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing the character in the sequel to The Dark Knight Rises, as the rumor mill insisted. However, the definitive edition of this character was probably captured in Batman Returns and should have remained there, as much I liked the extra villain to pursue. It seems his big skill is gathering up foot soldiers to hide behind. He’s like a fat Army recruiter brainwashing youths with promises of riches, prestige and family, but rather condemning them to a life of getting their ass whupped. Oh, so he’s exactly like an Army recruiter with just a different physical appearance.

Moving on to the great things of the game making it a very worthy follow-up to “Arkham Asylum.” They both happen to involve the added villains. First up is Mr. Freeze. His name was never bandied about in rumors for the The Dark Knight Rises at any point, but I always believed him to be a more captivating thought than The Riddler. Unfortunately, I think his name was forever sullied by Batman & Robin, blacklisting him from the list of possible inclusions into Christopher Nolan’s franchise. Though perhaps possessing the slightly cartoonish trait of having to surround himself in freezing temperatures, he has a backstory I find interesting. His wife Nora is terminally ill and he has her cryogenically frozen (was Walt Disney the original Mr. Freeze?) until he can find a cure. That’s ultimately his motivation for doing anything and thus makes him an ally and foe to Batman at different moments.

There are some fantastic moments around the Mr. Freeze story, starting with invading his icy lair. You get to ride blocks of ice, towing yourself along via grappling hook and large brass rings embedded in the environment. The frozen landscape creates an added obstacle to maneuver and makes for a satisfying maze of “strategery,” made all the more so once encountering the boss himself. Instead of savagely beating a bigger or more plentiful opponent, you have to outsmart Victor Fries using different techniques at your disposal, as he learns counters to your moves each time you strike. Exposure to extreme temperatures may cripple the human mind, but Batman is almost certainly an evolutionary step above.

Not all of the greatest elements of the game are relegated to unique arenas and the best accompany the inclusion of Catwoman into the game. Much like Mr. Freeze blurring the line between bad and misunderstood, Selina Kyle and her alter ego are placed firmly in Gotham’s gray area. At times an ally to Batman and at others at odds due to her chosen trade of thievery, the character continues her two-faced streak in the game by becoming a playable character.

Though playing-as-Catwoman mode isn’t native to the game, it’s a downloadable add-on included with the game’s purchase. It’s possible to complete the game and Batman’s storyline without every donning cat ears, but you’d be missing a large chunk of the experience.

Whereas the Batsuit is built with brute force and endurance in mind, the cat costume is purely sleek, sexy and designed for movement. There’s a grace in which you move beneath the cat cowl that makes you feel like a ton of weight has been literally lifted off of your shoulders. Sprinting is quicker. Dashing from thug to thug is made at BreaknecK speed. You maintain the ability to grapple up buildings with use of a leather whip and similar to Batman’s ability to see enemies through walls with “Detective Mode,” Catwoman can do the same with “Thief Vision.” But she gains one attribute, which is the flexibility to crawl along wire ceilings. This makes is vastly easier to pickpocket unsuspecting marks.

Arkham City's version of Catwoman, flaunting the requisite cleavage. Motorboat, anyone?

None of these attributes would be worth mentioning without a compelling reason for them to exist. After all, you had the ability to throw on some make-up and play some mini-games as Joker in “Arkham Asylum.” Catwoman has a heartstring tug-of-war at certain times. With Batman in danger, she needs to make a choice for either the good of her wealth or her moral health (now’s the time of the half-sentence when we rhyme). It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure chapter stop in a fairly narratively straightforward game. It’s nice to be in charge sometimes.

This visual depiction of Catwoman attire is the first I’ve seen with goggles outside of the set pics of Anne Hathaway in the upcoming film (reminder: I’ve never really read Batman comics), therefore intrinsically linking the two portrayals in my mind. It’ll be nice to finally abandon the laughable image of Halle Berry in Pitof’s 2006 abomination (I’ve never seen it and won’t be covering it, but feel more than confident in speaking poorly about it).

Speaking of reimagined character portrayals, Nolan and Christian Bale have gone on record about how there will never be even a hint at Robin in their trilogy. I can’t argue against that decision, but with so much confidence in the filmmakers, I’m positive they’d be able to make the character work in that world. Since these steadfast denials of a few years ago, I wondered what the character would look like and due to the similarities of the Catwoman costume between the game and The Dark Knight Rises, you only need to look to the game again, as there is a brief appearance of “The Boy Wonder.” Perhaps it was in an effort to jumpstart the yoked-Robin t-shirts available in stores.

Though I favor some sequences over others, I mentioned there is a twist toward the end of the game. I’ll obviously leave it spoiler-free, but know there’s still much to look forward to after finishing the Mr. Freeze and Catwoman elements of the game. It may not necessarily work to serve up any more hype to the forthcoming film, but everything else in the game certainly will. Buy it, beat it and put it on your shelf. It deserves a spot amongst the DVDs or Blu-rays of Nolan’s films that helped get it made in the first place and in turn informed the film franchise.

Next week: The homestretch is here. Nolan starts it off with “Batman Begins.”

Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Countdown: Part 1 of 11 – “Batman: The Gift”

Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of an on-going 11 part series, looking at several phases of Batmania. From Batman to the Dark Knight movies, TV series, video games and more!

I’ve been a Batman fan since I was a kid. I’d imagine this is around the time most people fall in love with superheroes. The exact age and year I’m unsure of, but I think I can pinpoint the moment I chose Batman to be my number one best favorite superhero over any other in existence (I flirted with the idea of Wolverine during the 90s “X-Men” cartoon on Saturday mornings, but the subsequent films never nurtured the possible budding infatuation).

It was Christmas Eve. My family would normally open gifts on Christmas morning, but since we were spending time with a part of the family we normally didn’t see around the holidays, tradition was being broken. I have two male cousins from that side of the family who were both born within about of month of me. It seems as if my Dad made a pact with his two brothers to see who could impregnate their spouses and induce a child the quickest (Sorry, Dad, you lost – I’m the youngest of them). Due to this age similarity, our grandparents decided to get us gifts normally found amongst spawn of the same zygote (similar, but slightly varied to help tell the individuals apart). They bought us all DC superhero figures. My oldest cousin received The Flash. My cousin between us was given a figure of Superman. I was bestowed with a classic comic book blue-and-grey-costumed Batman. When you squeezed his legs together, his tri-blade-gloved arms would jostle back and forth. This was supposed to represent a punching motion, but I believe you’d find this motion more often in “Chariots of Fire” than anything delivered by Manny Pacquiao. Regardless, a love affair between a boy and his toy (thank goodness I’m not female, as that sentence could truly be misconstrued) began.

The gift that started a love affair, a Kenner Batman figurine.

It never dawned on me until now, but I have to presume my grandparents doled those gifts out to us randomly. I can’t imagine they had any knowledge of the traits of these characters and selected them specifically to fit our burgeoning personalities. I could certainly have created some b.s. to draw parallels between the alias of Bruce Wayne and myself, but it’d be a little like attributing a racial commentary to “Night of the Living Dead” just because a black man gets gunned down by police at the end of the film, whereas in truth George Romero only kept him throughout the length of the shoot because Duane Jones was his best actor. It was a complete coincidence. However, my life was forever changed because of it. To this day, I still think Superman is a crappy character and doubt any great movie can truly be made around him, because there’s never any true peril he could possibly be placed in. The Flash is as of little consequence to me as he is to Hollywood in general. In fact, my only true memory of the character (outside of my oldest cousin receiving the scarlet-costumed character for a gift) is of the short-lived ABC series being the only show remotely distinguishable through the rabbit-ear-antenna-aided snowy visuals of an old TV in the cabin those same grandparents had owned. For that, Granny and Grampy, I thank you for writing “Kevin James” in the “To:” section tag on the gift wrap hiding that Batman figure (the cousin who received the Superman figure is named Kevin, too, so they distinguished between the two us by always adding our middle name. Kind of like Paul Thomas Anderson and Paul W.S. Anderson. One of them makes movies many admire, the other one is Paul W.S. Anderson (I know the joke is supposed to be my naming the one you wouldn’t expect, but there’s just no joking about how awesome Paul Thomas Anderson is).

At the time of receiving my beloved Batman figure, properties featuring the Caped Crusader weren’t prevalent. It was either ’87 or ’88 and Tim Burton had yet to bring the character to the big screen. Outside of comic books, which I was never truly into despite a couple of attempts to launch myself into that brand of fandom, the only medium I had in reach, outside of six inches of plastic and some imagination (again, thank goodness for being male, having that line interpreted the way it was intended), was reruns of the campy ‘60s TV show.

The intention of this series of posts is to highlight the Batman-related media I’ve immersed myself in during the lead-up to the release of The Dark Knight Rises and how they built to this moment in the character’s existence. There are eleven weeks left prior to the film’s release date and we’ll post a new piece every Friday, tackling a different film, TV show or video game in order to excite both myself (okay, being non-female doesn’t stop that one from being misinterpreted) and readers, while our anticipation of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy-capper reaches its crescendo.

I’ll be taking a look at the PS3 versions of “Batman: Arkham Asylum” and “Batman: Arkham City.” I’ve DVR’d both of Burton’s films from HD Net Movies a couple of months ago. My girlfriend might talk me into reliving the nightmare of Joel Schumacher’s abominations, as she has some strange affinity for at least Batman Forever and just responded, “I like ‘em both,” when I asked her opinion on Batman & Robin (a reminder will be good for her, as her memory is obviously sub par). I also certainly intend on recapping Nolan’s first two forays into Gotham as close to the release of “The Dark Knight Rises” as possible, as a cutesy attempt at creating a triple-feature-viewing. However, the aspect I’m most looking forward to revisiting, perhaps largely due to length of time in between viewings, is re-watching all 85 episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” which I haven’t seen since they originally aired.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention the 1960s TV show, “Batman,” in that last paragraph. I’m almost certain it’s feasible for me to get my hand on all of those episodes, but in the interest of time and my sanity, I can’t say that I want to.

Last year, prior to the release of The Green Hornet film, SyFy ran a marathon of 1960s “Green Hornet” episodes. I was excited to see the film (just look here) and it ended up as undoubtedly one of the worst movies I saw last year. But prior to suffering that disappointment, I had DVR’d a couple of episodes of the show during the marathon and I watched parts of one. That’s all I could make it through. It was clear to me that having Bruce Lee and a very cool opening theme wasn’t enough to sustain my interest. Though I know “Green Hornet” and “Batman” aren’t the same show, they are VERY similar. They’ve had crossover episodes and wanting to relive the nostalgia of seeing those Batman episodes just isn’t a strong enough temptation to get me to watch all of them and live to write about it.

If I happen to catch a couple episodes of Adam West and Burt Ward donning their caped-costumes in the next couple of months, I’ll probably sit through more of them than I did “The Green Hornet” episodes I recorded, but I’d much rather rely on my twenty-plus year-old remembrance of them, rather than have a thirty-year-old’s world-weary take. But the show used to be everything to me.

Ready to kick ass and take names, an Adam West-era Batman with Robin.

That singular gift I received all those years ago set my sense of what I enjoyed in life aflame. I was an unabashed Batman fan at six years old. The previous year, I’d been known to scream “Transformers!” when running out of the Kindergarten classroom for recess, holding a cassette-tape robot, Ravage, or more-likely, his Autobot equivalent, Laserbeak. The next year, I was ready to fight crime. I would run home from school every day, fired up to take off my pants and jacket (Dammit! My maleness finally comes back to haunt me) and sit myself down in front of the TV to watch Adam West take on Cesar Romero or Julie Newmar or whoever happened to be playing his villain that particular week. I have to admit that I loved it. But I loved it for two reasons. The first reason is because I was an idiot kid who didn’t know how to really analyze whether or not anything was actually “good.” The second reason is that it was the only way I got to hang out with my idol (again, outside of comic books – which I didn’t read – and my imagination – which I’d been using all day to escape the realities of sitting in class. Someone do my thinking for me, please).

Most everybody who lived through either the 60s original airing of the TV show or the re-airing broadcasts of the 80s is fully aware of the “Biff,” “Pow,” “Zok,” sound/visual effects that accompanied every punch thrown. In reminiscence, it feels like there was a lot of punching (which perhaps is why that motion occurred when I squeezed my figure’s legs together), but I recall Batman truly being in touch with his detective roots, which Bob Kane had developed as part of his original comic book incarnation. Of course, the show wasn’t one of much action, but rather one that involved Batman and Robin solving a series of plots and clues. Perhaps this is why I view The Riddler as one of the most befitting villains of the series. I loved attempting to solve the riddle-addled clues left by Edward Nigma, alongside my chosen crime-fighter. I almost certainly never got one right, at least not before Misters West or Ward blurted out the scripted answer.

I can’t say that the character of The Riddler made all that much an impact on me back then as I could recite Julie Newmar and Cesar Romero by name and have to look up who played the green question mark (hold on a second)… Frank Gorshin. Despite my current feelings on how the show would undoubtedly seem to me and its complete opposition to what I’d like to see from any story that involves the Dynamic Duo (which I’m perfectly fine losing fifty percent of), it at the very least nurtured my hopes and desires for what the character could be. If not for that show, I might have lost all interest in Batman as a superhero and I probably wouldn’t be writing this series of essays. And though like a chicken-and-the-egg scenario, the Batman action figure may not have existed without the show twenty years prior, I definitely wouldn’t have watched without unwrapping that one Christmas gift.

Next week: Burton turns Batman black. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.