‘Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League’ Leaks Reveal Return Of Dead Villain, Disrespectful End To Kevin Conroy’s Final Outing As Batman
Spencer Baculi
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Its position as the follow-up to the developer’s widely lauded Arkham trilogy. A tired gear system. Uninspired open-world gameplay. A cast that reeks of multimedia synergy.
There are no shortage of reasons why players have found themselves disinterested in the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and thanks to a recent leak, they can now add the reversal of a villain’s attempted redemption and an absolutely disrespectful conclusion to voice actor Kevin Conroy’s last performance as the Dark Knight to the ever-growing list of reasons to avoid Rocksteady’s next release.
[SPOILER WARNING: Significant spoilers for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League follow below. If you’d like to avoid them, please refrain from reading any further.]
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These latest details were first leaked to Twitter courtesy of two users, @BossBigBoss73 and the aptly named @LeakerofCringe, with one new bit of information being shared by each.
In their now-deleted post, @BossBig73 revealed that, despite having crumbled to dust after sacrificing herself to neutralize the titular villain’s gassing of Gotham with Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin in the previous Arkham Knight, the red-headed Poison Ivy would be one of the many DC characters set to make an appearance in Kill the Justice League.
However, rather than appearing as a full-grown adult, Ivy will instead appear as a young child, ostensibly the result of her regrowing her own body à la the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Baby Groot.
Meanwhile, @LeakerofCringe, whose seemingly created their account solely to share this leak, provided players with a since-removed audio spoiler regarding the titular team’s eventual showdown with Batman.
Ostensibly occurring immediately following the team’s defeat of the Braniac-possessed Caped Crusader, the audio leak opens with the hero, as voiced by Conroy, taunting his captors, “You’re gonna die screaming at Superman’s feet.”
In turn, Harley sarcastically questions, “Why? What’s up with his feet?” before Deadshot interjects, “I dunno man, we’re two-for-two on killing your boys so far.”
“Hah! Love mixing work with pleasure,” exclaims Captain Boomerang to punctuate Deadshot’s declaration, drawing a hearty laugh from King Shark.
Taking in their cockiness, Batman proceeds to further mock the Suicide Squad, shouting, “You think you’re a team now? You’re herd animals. Dependent on someone else to survive. Like you, Harkness, a desperate alcoholic who’s desperate for the spotlight-” before being interrupted by Harley snarking back, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, and Floyd’s a deadbeat dad, Sharkie’s a freak who will never be a real boy, and I’m…what was it? Oh yeah. I never was too bright.”
“Get some new material, jerk off!” she then counter-taunts to her arch-enemy. “You know, Joker, he used to be real good at hurting people with words. But you? Well, even when you’re evil, you’re still too good.”
Following this appraisal of his shortcomings as a villain, Harley shifts to speaking to Batman’s career in the past tense, telling him “You had a good run, Brucie. Flying around Gotham, punching bad guys, cleaning up the streets, causing long-term mental and emotional damage to everyone you knew” before declaring straight to his face, “It’s our turn now.”
“After all we’ve been through, bet you didn’t think it’d be me at the end, huh Bats?” she finally asks of her opponent.
Unamused with her antics to the very end, the Dark Knight shoots back, “Are we done with your bad stand-up routine?”, to which Harley confirms, “Almost. But y’always gotta end on your best joke.”
It is then, with a singular gunshot to the head that the legendary voice actor’s final performance as his most iconic role comes to an end.
And in making sure to eliminate any speculation towards the idea that Batman’s death is a fake-out moment, @LeakerofCringe also included a small snippet from later on in the game wherein Superman, as voiced by Nolan North, confirms that “One of the world’s finest heroes,” was “Snuffed out, by this.”
“Mmhmm,” Harley can then be heard agreeing, “and you’re next, a–hole!”
Unsurprisingly, after these leaks were made public, they would soon spread like wildfire across social media.
But rather than ignore them, Rocksteady instead chose to address them directly, taking to their personal Twitter account on December 18th to warn their fans regarding the leaks’ existence.
“We’re looking forward to players experiencing the story we’ve crafted in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justrice League once the game launches in the new year,” wrote the developer. “We hope everyone can play the game and feel each moment of the narrative for themselves.”
“It is very disappointing to see details being shared ahead of the game’s release, so we can only urge you to try to avoid spoilers where you can. And please try not to impact the enjoyment of other players by posting spoilers,” they continued. “We look forward to seeing you all in Metropolis on 02-02-04.”
In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that given how Conroy kept his intestinal cancer diagnosis a personal secret up until it took his life in 2020, it’s unlikely Rocksteady, nor any other involved parties, intended for his appearance in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to be his last.
However, this unfortunate coincidence does little to dull the fact that the entire creative decision, from killing off the only defined hero in Rocksteady’s DC Universe after four games with him as the lead protagonist to having him die at the hands of not even his archnemesis, but rather his ex-girlfriend, is out and out disrespectful to the cape, the cowl, and the man whose credibility – along with Mark Hamill’s – were key to the success of the studio’s original Arkham efforts.
Further, the killing of Batman is even more baffling given the apparent fact that, according to a now-deleted post from DC Studios head James Gunn, there are “No plans” for [Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League]” to be the “last” game in the Arkham universe.
As noted above by Rocksteady, should one wish to experience the above for themselves, they can do so when Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League hits shelves on February 2nd, 2024.
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