15 Years Ago, Batman: Arkham City Gave Joker The Perfect 5 Final Words

Published Aug 21, 2026, 8:38 AM EDT

Ewan is Deputy Editor for ScreenRant's gaming section. He still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase, and knows more about The Legend of Zelda and Doctor Who than is probably healthy.

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Former Editor of GAMINGbible, Ewan also has words at Kotaku, Den of Geek, NME, and UNILAD. He's appeared on various podcasts, including VGC's and BBC's Let's Talk About Tech. 

Of the many, many, many versions of Batman we've seen throughout the media over the decades, Batman: Arkham stands right up there very near the top alongside the likes of Batman: The Animated Series and The Dark Knight. Rocksteady crafted an incredible trilogy (not including an excellent bonus prequel from WB Games Montreal) that gave us Batman at his very best.

Which of the three games is the best of the bunch is, of course, a matter of opinion. Some prefer the claustrophobic nature of Arkham Asylum, while others enjoy the polished AAA action of Arkham Knight. Personally, I think 2011's Arkham City represents the best of both, giving us a larger playground in which to be Batman, while also maintaining a suffocating and gritty atmosphere via the city-turned-prison. It's also notable for giving us one of the great final encounters between Batman and Joker.

Batman: Arkham City Gave Us The Perfect Joker

Laugh, and the world laughs with you

Of course, Arkham City had a built-in advantage when it came to getting us on board with these versions of Batman and Joker. The caped crusader and his arch-nemesis were played by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, the legendary actors who played the characters in Batman: The Animated Series, and are widely considered to be the definitive voices for the pop culture icons. Mind you, simply casting Conroy and Hamill is not an immediate hack to getting a great Batman story. Just look at that awful adaptation of The Killing Joke.

Where Arkham City shines is in its relationship between Batman and Joker. The perverse codependent nature of their relationship is something that has long been explored in Batman media. Can Joker exist without Batman? What would Batman be without the Clown Prince of Crime? In Arkham City, this string of fates tying them together is laid bare when Joker poisons Batman with the very same toxin that's killing him, forcing the Dark Knight to retrieve the cure that can save both their lives.

This all comes to a head during a final confrontation between the two, during which Joker murders Talia al Ghul, Batman's greatest (if not healthiest) love. As Batman stands with the cure that can save Joker's life in his hand, he's taunted by the clown. "I killed your girlfriend, poisoned Gotham, and it's not even breakfast," he mocks. "But so what? We all know you'll save me."

Except, Batman hesitates. He knows if he cures Joker and sends him off to Arkham, he'll just break out and do it all again. In this moment of doubt, Joker stabs Bats from behind, causing him to drop the vial containing the cure, which shatters on the ground.

As Joker succumbs to the poison that's been slowly killing him, Batman confides in his old enemy that, while he might have hesitated in giving him the cure, he still would have saved in spite of everything he's done. In response to this, Joker utters his four final words:

"That actually is... pretty funny."

Joker's final words in Arkham City manage to subvert the entire relationship between the two characters. Joker, who has spent decades trying to make Batman laugh, goes out chuckling at a bleakly ironic observation of Batman's strict moral code. His final laugh isn't at the expense of a victim or a twisted prank, but a result of his genuine amusement that Batman really would never, ever compromise, in spite of Joker's insistence that the two are more alike than the hero would ever want to admit. We also have to give credit to the incredible delivery from Mark Hamill, but after proving himself the ultimate Joker for so many decades, does it even need saying anymore?

Joker's Death Wasn't The End, Of Course

You can't keep a good clown down

Joker would, of course, eventually return in Arkham Knight as a figment of Batman's crumbling psyche. And it's in this game that we get to explore the relationship between the two characters at a much deeper level, as Batman fights to suppress the monstrous clown inside him trying to take control. But the actual Joker definitively died in Arkham City, and he went out with the perfect final five words.

There have been plenty of interpretations of the final showdown between Batman and Joker over the years. In some, Batman has literally beaten Joker to death with his own two hands. In others, Superman simply punches a hole straight through his chest. But for my money, the Arkham trilogy is the version that really nailed the death and subsequent fallout of one of the greatest villains in history.

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