So i beat the game last week and it really bugged me that the whole Bruce Wayne is batman angle pretty much went swept underneath the rug right next to protocol 10. 
 
So the past few days i just been cleaning up trophies and side missions and i just finished the identity theft side mission with Hush 
 
At the end of that side mission, it's revealed that Hush is imitating Bruce Wayne, down to his face and fingerprints, and is killing people as to frame and get back at Bruce Wayne. 
 
When you finally encounter Hush, he "outsmarts" batman and he leaves (presumably Arkham City) and when batman frees himself, he tells oracle what hush is doing and his response is literally along the lines of "I'll get him tomorrow" 
 
WHAT? The guy is framing and imitating you down to your actual fingerprints and all you decide to do is let him get away and "get him tomorrow" WTF? 
 
Not only does this not seem very "batman like" (im not an avid reader of the comics, so if for some reason it is, correct me if i'm wrong) but we're talking about your actual identity and persona. Why would you just casually shrug that off like it's no big deal? 
 
The fact that Strange knows Batmans identity from the very start of the game and goes nowhere with it and now this, it all just seems very poorly handled. Real sloppy and lazy for a game that otherwise does a lot to flesh out this universe and it's characters and stay true to the source material

Batmans focus is and has always been to protect others first.   Joker and Strange needed to be taken care of before anything else as they were a immediate threat.    Save Gotham or Protect your identity?   I think the choice batman made IS very batman.   He chose others over himself and his needs.

He cares little about being Bruce. In the comics, it is always strongly pointed at, that being the playboy Bruce is the real mask. That makes since for him to risk that part of him self to save others.

yah he has to figure out how to get the cure first to save his own life and that of 1000's of others. i thought it was pretty lame though that strange never really used that info against Batman. He could of been threatening to reveal his identity. doenst make sense he knows Bruce is Batman, wants them out of the picture so throws em in Arkham. Why doesnt he tell the prisoners and people who batman is? he doesnt even really taunt bats with it, just kinda gets sweeped under the carpet.

Hush imitating Bruce Wayne wouldn't affect Batman at all. Strange knowing that Wayne is Batman is much more dangerous for Batman.

But, like, how do you know that you actually didn't kill him?
 
Oracle... What are you-
 
What if you killed him, Bruce?
 
Oracle. I didn't kill anyone.
 
But... How do you know? 
 
I did not kill him, Oracle.
 
But you could have.
 
No, I couldn't have. I was busy flying around the city saving the lives of the innocent!
 
Nuh-uh. You could have killed him.
 
NO ORACLE, I DID NOT KILL HIM.
 
BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT!?

If anyone knows how to write Batman, its Paul Dini. He's been doing it for almost 20 years.

@hbkdx12 said:

Question for the comic book readers, why do some criminals and villians refer to batman as "The Batman?" I was listening to some interview tapes between Hugo Strange and the cast of villains and he would generally say "The Batman" although in game i think he just referred to him at Batman

There really isn't much of an explanation for it. Best I can figure is just saying "Batman" implies a personal relationship with him, like Joker or someone who deals with him on a regular basis. "The Batman" is more like he's a force or a legend, instead of a man. The Batman is basically like The Boogeyman for crooks, you aren't quite sure he even exists until he's punched three of your teeth out of your skull.

It was already explained that nobody really believes Hugo about the whole Wayne being Batman. Hugo just hangs that over his head to make himself feel more powerful. I can see how someone who isn't too much into the comics would think that Hugo knowing Batman's identity is a huge deal. As for the Hush thing, that ending to it does sound dumb.

You need to remember that those side missions were designed in a way to let them be done whenever you ran across them. If you'd finished the Hush quest before finishing the story, it would have made a more believable scenario. "I'll get to it tomorrow, tonight I have to deal with Joker" rather than "I'll get to it tomorrow, for now I have to bum around and find Riddler toys hidden about".

Batman is the biggest kind-of-sadist anyways.

I mean him not getting rid of the Joker or any of those huge, murderers of thousands, when he knows they definitely are going to kill a hell lot of more innocent people... well that may be his codex but it certainly sucks for humanity :<

@Gonmog said:

He cares little about being Bruce. In the comics, it is always strongly pointed at, that being the playboy Bruce is the real mask. That makes since for him to risk that part of him self to save others.

ohhh i like that lol

but yeah...he has more important things to deal with first, that can wait, maybe they shouldve said, have Robin investigate that while i deal with this first for all the nitpickers lol

My only question is how he got Bruce's actual fingerprints at the scene of one of the crimes. It's one thing to have someone say, "I saw Bruce Wayne up to no good," and something entirely different to say "Oh, crap, those are my actual fingerprints." Maybe I just missed something, but, yeah, whatever. COMIC BOOKS!

@hbkdx12: I'm with you brother. I thought they could have done so much better Huge Strange and the premise of him knowing Batman's identity. Waste of opportunity.

@Afroman269 said:

It was already explained that nobody really believes Hugo about the whole Wayne being Batman. Hugo just hangs that over his head to make himself feel more powerful. I can see how someone who isn't too much into the comics would think that Hugo knowing Batman's identity is a huge deal. As for the Hush thing, that ending to it does sound dumb.

This, Strange is also been portrayed as kind of crazy in the comic too , at some point he thought he was batman and started dressing up as Batman. Also the idea of Batman's villains finding out his identity and keeping it to themselves is not new, in Hush Riddler finds out Batman's secret but doesn't tell anyone cause then it would have devalued the prestige of him solving "the greatest riddle". The most recent batman arc with Hush, Hush has actually stolen Bruce's identity and kind of does a lot of fucked up shit for a while before Batman stops him; I just think through all the bedlam happening at Arkham City Batman had to prioritize dealing with protocal 10 and joker before going after hush.

Also at this point so many people in the comic have figured out that he is batman that it has become kind of a joke. Grant Morrison kind of solved this with Batman Inc. where Bruce Wayne straight up has press conference anouncing that he is fully funding batman. And batman starts recruiting all these other "Batmen" across the world, plus at the time in Gotham both Dick Grayson (first robin and nightwing) and Bruce were Batman. Sigh..... its a comic book weird shit happens.

It was the "I'll get him tomorrow line that got me. I was in stitches laughing at how ridiculous that line was. However I chose to look at it as more proof of how a. Fucking awesome Batman is and B. How bad the events of Arkham City actually are.

Now That I think about it though, if Wayne gets framed in the outside world it doesn't matter because Bruce has the perfect alibi "I was in a prison only one dude has escaped from"

@hbkdx12 said:

@Afroman269: Very true but for the sake of the game, what would have been different if Hugo Strange didn't know who Batman was? Nothing at all, which is the part that annoys me. Why put such an important aspect in the game, the very beginning of the game no less, and do nothing with it at all.

To give him a bit more character. Strange is as obsessed with Batman as the Riddler to the point where in private he dresses up as Batman. It's really just meant as something to hold over The Batman's head as a symbol of him being better than Batman. Strange intended to break the Batman first and if he succeeded would take Batman's place as a legend. The whole of Arkham City is pretty much Strange giving the finger to Batman to say that he succeeded where Batman didn't in ridding Gotham of Crime. Which was what Protocol 10 was, the destruction of all the criminals who were conveniently put in one place.

@hbkdx12 said:

@Zippedbinders: Fair Enough. In regards to the writing, unless it's setting itself up for something bigger that we yet don't know about (which i don't think it is) the game would've essentially been perfectly fine without the whole Hugo Strange/Protocol 10/ Bruce Wayne is Batman story arc

@Afroman269: Was this explained in game? Because if you listen to the interview tapes that Strange has with Riddler, he gets under Riddler's skin by telling him that he's easily managed to figure out who batman is in a way that the ingenious Riddler hasn't and Riddler breaks down and begs him to reveal who he is. Riddler's whole M.O. is to try to humiliate Batman and show everyone that he's smarter than he is and there's no villain, (at least in the context of this game) that would find that kind of information anymore valuable

@ZZoMBiE13: Very true. I've thought about that too but it still seems sloppy. Without even giving it much thought it would have been better if after the third victim when oracle question's batman's sanity, she decides that she's going to put out a search on Bruce Wayne throughout Arkham City and at some later point, Oracle chimes in and tells you that, without your knowledge, that she did this behind your back but that she has a sighting of Bruce Wayne heading into an alley and she gives you the coordinates and you have to race over there and confront him in time before he kills again and when you do it's at that point that Hush reveals himself with an almost fully completed Bruce Wayne face and then you take him down. Something to that effect. Basically i just dont see why it couldn't have been handled better

Yeah, that would have been better. No doubt about it. Maybe we'll luck out and get some "Tomorrow" DLC or something.

How exactly should Batman deal with Strange knowing that he's also Wayne? Seems to me that showing Strange to be an out of control megalomaniac responsible for various illegal and evil activities within Arkham City is a pretty good start. Once people know that he falsely commited people that were a danger or getting in the way would anyone believe him?

Also, there totaly could be a Damien Wayne in this version of Batman since you don't need two live parents, just their genetic material and also Talia seems to claim they already did the horizontal mambo a while back.

I want to know how Hush actually got out of Arkham City. Seems like he just casually walked out. Is that ever explained, or did I miss something?