Batman: Arkham City/Fridge

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Fridge Brilliance

• How did Sharpe get the public to accept the idea of Arkham City? Well, Blackgate was gutted by an electrical fire shortly before the events of Arkham Asylum. And during the events of the game, Batman blows up several walls and just about every force field generator in the complex, plus Ivy wrecked a lot of buildings with her out-of-control plants. In addition, most of the guards and staff were killed by Joker's thugs. Between the wrecked infrastructure and the understaffed security force, Sharpe can honestly state that Arkham isn't secure enough to hold dangerous criminals at the moment. Something has to be done to create a new holding facility for Gotham's criminal population while both of its primary jails are out of action.
  • It should also be noted in one of the comics Sharpe tells the public that Arkham City will have its own social services and health care.
    • Technically it's true. They are just in incredibly poor shape.
• The two Russian henchmen wield a sickle and hammer when you fight them.
  • Though amusingly, the guy with the sickle is in fact a capitalist, and he and his brother who used to be cojoined got themselves separated due to their political differences.
• Why are all of Gotham's most notable locations as noted in the comics such as the Iceberg Lounge and Crime Alley all conveniently located in close proximity to each other? Because they are in the slums, where almost all of the street crime takes place. Batman mainly beats down on street crime, so the places he'd frequent most are in the slum, now made into Arkham City. The fact that most crime takes place in the slums explains how Batman manages to patrol all of Gotham every night, and why the criminals keep saying Batman can be 'everywhere at once'.
• It's said a few times that Harley seems more hostile and crazier than usual. At first, you'd think this is because of the Joker's illness, and, while that is almost certainly a large factor, the hormones from her pregnancy are probably making it all the worse.
  • Though she was pretty hostile and crazy already in Arkham Asylum. Another case of Fridge Brilliance for this is the fact that this is one of the few times we see her entirely from Batman's point of view, while in most comic and animated appearances she is at least a partial viewpoint character. Naturally Batman wouldn't see her in nearly as sympathetic light.
    • Oh, I know that. My origial point was that the henchmen themselves, who are used to working with her, are saying she's becoming worse.
• How does a weak, clearly unstable and untrustworthy guy like the Mad Hatter manage to catch so many criminals from various powerful gangs under his hypnotism? Check the sign outside the room you fight him in: It says "Live Nudes". That's right, criminals came into the Mad Hatter's room looking for nude girls, and when you're that stupid and desperate for girls, your mind tends to be extremely weak...
• Mad Hatter usually targets blonde girls and women as part of his Alice in Wonderland mania; you first see him when Batman rescues Vicki Vale, a blonde. It's a hint that he's going to abduct her, so it's even more surprising when he manages to kidnap you, on top of the pretty damn impressive way he accomplished it.
• Why would Talia, a member of the League of Assassins, not kill Harley and instead tie her up? She probably was going to, until Harley told her she was pregnant.
• Arkham City reveals that Gotham has a naturally occurring Lazarus Pit right underneath it, and has had for at least a century, probably longer. Gotham also has a long history of darkness and insanity. What is one of the known side effects of Lazarus Pit exposure? Insanity. So, why does Gotham have the problems it does? Because the whole populace, for centuries, has been suffering low level uncontrolled Lazarus exposure. Not enough to induce clinically detectable effects, but enough that Gotham has a freakish number of madmen.
  • This also shows just how misguided Ra's is; for all his talk, he fails to realize that the real cause of Gotham's problems could very well be the Lazarus pit itself.
  • Holy crud. So, all of those people Batman is hitting in the throat with metal car doors have had low-level Lazarus exposure for years? No wonder they somehow manage to survive.
• Penguin's rather lame Cockney accent is actually rather brilliant when you think about it. He's an American native, but his wealthy family shipped him overseas for schooling. Due to a fair amount of teasing due to his "homely appearance", Oswald would often skip class to run around on the streets of London with other delinquents and thieves. Now, would East End thugs really be seen dead with some kid with a snooty American accent? Not likely. It's rather easy to see why he might try (and fail) to affect some sort of English accent.
• You know the cutscenes before and after Batman fights Joker in the steel mill? The ones where he's sick in the mirror, but turns around and he's well again? There's no mirror there. The window visible above the "sick" Joker, on the far side of the "mirror", has several broken panes. The one visible during the cutscene after the fight, at the other end of the room, is both unbroken, and should have several objects, including the roller coasters, in front of it if Joker had really been looking into a "mirror".
• In the fight scene where you fight the Joker and his crew, no matter how often you whale into him the Joker just keeps getting back up. It's often established that the Joker, while formidable in a fight, is usually by himself no match for Batman at all, so how come he keeps taking so much punishment? It's more foreshadowing that the 'Joker' you're fighting is actually Clayface, who can withstand Batman's attacks much better than the Joker.
  • If the player turns on the Detective Mode during that fight Joker will have no visible skeleton, indicating that it's a Clayface. A player can do the same in Arkham Asylum near Clayface's cell.
• In the final approach to the Monarch Theatre, the Joker keeps taunting you with references to watching films. On one hand, this is because the Joker is holed in up in a movie theatre. On the other, it's because the 'Joker' is actually Clayface, who was formerly a movie actor; either Clayface is subtly cluing you in on who he really is or he's letting his act slip a bit by focusing too much on the movie references where the real Joker might vary it up a bit.
  • Not just that, but when you approach the Monarch Theatre, you see on the sign outside (and the screen inside) that the movie playing is "The Terror", which was the film that Basil Karlo a.k.a. Clayface starred in!
• Just before the final battle, Clayface explains his motive for working with the Joker was "the role of a lifetime." Basil Karlo, Clayface's alter-ego, had a serial killer as his most famous and prized role. Now he gets to play arguably Gotham's worst. Alternately, the Joker is the only comic-book character to ever earn his actor an Oscar.
• Maxie Zeus's Olympus club is partially submerged, its owner missing, and yet it is still completely lit up. How? Maxie Zeus is obsessed with electricity - the place probably has automatic backup generators capable of lighting it up for years at a time.
• In the intro of the game, Hugo Strange gloats about how no one is untouchable. At the end of the game, he claims that he is untouchable. Batman proves him wrong.
• There is a brilliant (albeit possibly unintentional) piece of foreshadowing to Ra's al Ghul's appearance in this game in Arkham Asylum: The riddle that involves Ra's' corpse reads "It'll be a cold day in hell when this Ghul rises again". Arkham City takes place on a cold winter's night in Arkham City (the metaphorical "hell"). During this night, an ill and weakened Ra's al Ghul replenishes himself by bathing in a Lazarus Pit, returning to full strength and "rising again", as it were. Therefore, the Ghul really did rise again on a cold day in hell. Alternatively, it could be referring to how Ra's' body disappeared after his fall from Wonder Tower, presumably claimed by the League of Assassins to again resurrect him, which would be a far more literal "rising", and a hint at Ra's returning for a third game. The "Arkham City as hell" metaphor is helped along by Azrael's claim that Batman would be "the warrior who will close the gates of hell". By defeating the Strange's plot, Batman started the process of Arkham City being closed down (the loading screens after beating the game and side-missions state that Arkham City is ready for shutdown), essentially "closing the gates of hell". Which, if true, adds creedence to Azrael's claims of prophecy, and suddenly makes his claim of a fire rising from the ashes of Arkham that will burn Gotham, and Batman as well seem a lot more plausible.
  • Highly likely to be intentional, what with the basic layout and sketchy details of Arkham city being avaliable in the Warden's Secret Room back in Asylum.
• Deadshot is contracted by Strange to kill both Bruce Wayne and Batman, in that order, at the end of a list of targets. Strange knows that Bruce is Batman, so if Deadshot took out Bruce, he'd never find Batman, certainly not on his timetable. On the other hand, if Bruce is running around as Batman, Deadshot won't find Bruce in time to kill him. That's why those two are last, Strange thinks of Deadshot as one more criminal to dispose of. He wanted Deadshot to finish off the political prisoners, then be unable to finish his task, and then get killed in Protocol Ten as he fruitlessly hunts either the Batman or Wayne. The whole contract was a setup to get the "world's deadliest assassin" to enter his deathtrap prison voluntarily.
  • And to get out of paying him.
• How does the Riddler get his trophies on Wonder City, Wonder Tower, and many other places that are supposed to be secret? Strange is letting him do what he pleases, since it will be more trouble for Bats.
  • On top of that, he has many of his men undercover among other gangs. Tasking them with placing trophies and setting up mechanisms explains how he managed to place some of them even in the middle of enemy gangs' territories.
  • Also, how comes nobody took the trophies before Batman did, considering several lines of dialogues between mooks show that they do see them and it's not a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation? If you try to pick up a trophy meant for Catwoman while playing as Batman, Batman gets an electric shock and a taunt from Nigma, which shows that the trophies are apparently rigged to be picked up by specific people.
    • On the other hand, Catwoman can collect Batman trophies at will. How? Well, she is the world's greatest thief...
• Joker's last words are a mirror opposite of his last words in Batman Beyond movie, a death scene also voiced by Mark Hamill
• In his trailer, the Riddler challenges Batman, telling him that he will fail: for that, he uses the words "lie blabbering like an ignorant child on the floor". Now, looking at his background, don't those words get some deeper meaning?
• The Joker's "So, how do you keep a secret from the world's greatest detective? Well, do you know? It's easy! You stick it right in front of him, right under his long, pointy nose... and wait!" - Yes, it's Foreshadowing the Clayface reveal at the end of the game, but think about it - What did Joker do in Arkham Asylum? He went & stuck a TV on his head, before pretending to be a mannequin in the Visiting Room for the majority of the game. He's outright mocking Batman for falling for it once, and then not seeing through it again!

Fridge Horror

• It's previously been shown that Harley Quinn has a much better chance of reforming after the Joker dies. He's dead by the end of the game...but she's carrying his baby, and it definitely sounds like she's on the verge of a breakdown while singing to it. It's a common tactic for abusers to get their victims pregnant so that they stay in the relationship. Did the Joker do this on purpose so that she'd be trapped by Mad Love, even after he died?
  • It's also shown that when one of the people she is devoted to isn't taking her in she just goes to the other, she is probably just going to become obsessively devoted to the next person who is nice to her, or Ivy.
• Here's a worse one. Remember during the start of the game, Harley attacked Batman in the game and if you counter it, he tossed her on the floor? Pretty good shoutout to the last game huh? Now do it again knowing that she's carrying a baby.
  • This also applies to Batman tossing her aside during the "fake Joker gag" scene, and whatever it was that Talia did that led to her being Bound and Gagged.
• The kid Harley is carrying is the child of two homicidal lunatics, one of whom is probably one of the worst serial killers / mass-murderers in history by this point, and the other who is completely and obsessively fixated on said mass-murderer and who, now he's dead, is probably going to be inclined to raise the child in his image. And even if he's taken away, he's got the vagaries of the foster-system and a lot of people who hate his parents for numerous reasons to deal with. When that kid is born and grown up, one way or another, s/he does not have an easy or fun life ahead of him/her...
  • Not to mention that we don't know how much Titan is in the kid's veins. Sum it all up...... and we have a mass-murderer kid raised by lunatic mum with possibly SUPER-STRENGTH!!!
    • That or it may be deformed, akin to Joker's deformation from Titan.
  • Thankfully, this and the previous Fridge Horror entries have been debunked in Harley Quinn's Revenge.
• Something that hasn't been brought up a whole lot (if at all) but certainly deserves a mention is that there is absolutely no fanfare over the fact that the game ends with CLAYFACE taking an extended dip in the Lazarus Pit! Sure, he was half dead at the time but... that's exactly what the pits are for. And given how quickly Rhas was able to get a pick-me-up out of his short bath, it doesn't even bare thinking about what an immortal muck monster like Karlo would be capable of, even discounting the limited power boost that comes with it.
  • On the other hand, he isn't even remotely human anymore. We have no idea if they'd even work at all on him, let alone do what they're supposed to do.
    • It also could have turned him into a normal person again so there could be an upside.
  • In Hush, it was revealed by Ra's exactly what happens when Clayface bathes in a Lazarus pit - that pit gets corrupted beyond use, and Clayface gets out with no noticable changes, either physically or mentally. Basically, all that happened was that that pit is now useless.
    • Fridge Brilliance in this case then as Batman told Ra's to shut down the Pit and if he didn't he would come back and shut it down himself.
• As has been mentioned other places, there are no women in the city except named characters and some medical personnel. Maybe there are some and considering the comments some of the men make about what they would do with a woman...
• In one of the easily miss-able Enemy Chatter conversations, a few Joker gang thugs talk about taking over the entire crew themselves and offing Harley because she's so annoying on the off chance the Joker actually does die. What happens at the end of the game again? Harley might be worse off then we thought.
  • Of course, said thug may be dead since Protocol 10 was acted
  • I kind of doubt it. Harley may be a joke to Batman, but she's still a lot more dangerous than any ordinary thug. I suspect that while she couldn't keep around the kind of force the Joker could, she'd have no problem keeping those who did stick around obedient after she horribly murders a couple.
  • While Harley was initially a normal person she's been one of Batman's few actual meta-human rogues for quite some time. In many ways Harley is more dangerous than the Joker. She's certainly better in a fight. And if Penguin can keep a gang fearing him....
  • Many of these same (or similar) thugs can also be heard from time to time discussing how if they ever see Batman, they're gonna kick his ass and kill him all kinds of dead. Considering what happens to most of them after making these kinds of boasts (assuming, of course, you are halfway competent at playing the game and decide to put their money where their mouths are), it's perhaps safe to say that a lot of them are pretty over-confident about their ability to deal with Harley as well.
• Hugo Strange and the Joker are dead. Arkham City will certainly be shut down, but there's still extensive damage to both Arkham Asylum and Blackgate. The TYGER mercenaries are now jobless in a Gotham where a huge power vacuum will exist because of the Joker's death. Those same TYGER mercenaries indirectly led to the weakening and marginalization of the GCPD. If things were bad in Arkham, it will be nothing compared to the hell that's going to break out in Gotham City with thousands of angry former inmates looking to release their pent-up fury on the rest of the cty, fighting to fill Joker's hole in the traditional power set-up, and an entire of well-trained mercenaries stuck in Gotham who will have no other way to fill their coffers than likely offering their services to the highest bidder or going into the business themselves (a la the notorious Zetas cartel in Mexico). Not to mention that Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Killer Croc, Hush, Calendar Man, Mad Hatter, Two-Face, and eventually even Bane remain at large, and Harley Quinn, pregnant and all, is almost certainly going to be even more dangerous and unpredictable than ever before while battling to keep herself and the Joker's gang in the mix.
  • Two Face is still around so at least their is someone to take over the criminal world and bring a sembalance of order.
• Here's a nice thought that I figured out from the Headscratchers page. As Batman goes to fight Ra's Al Ghul, he's given minutes to live. He gets a few more hours due to the chalice of Demon's Blood he drank. The civilians that have also had Titan, from Joker's blood, have not drank Demon's Blood. Think about it.
  • Actually disproven by Oracle, who clearly states that they have a maximum of 24 hours to live without a cure. It's also worth noting that it's probable Joker only poisoned the blood a little (as opposed to forcing Batman to inhale a large amount) as he needed Batman infected faster and severely tainted blood might inflict the symptoms Batman develops at the same rate, drawing unnecessary attention to patients that will need searching for otherwise. Also the physical stress of running around Arkham City fighting thugs and supervillians probably exacerbated his condition.
  • On a realated note what about all the patients that were infected? The only cure(s) were destroyed and given the amount of time stated to have passed in game it's unlikey a cure could be reproduced in time.
    • Thankfully, a radio broadcast in Harley Quinn's Revenge revealed that everyone Joker infected was treated in time and made a full recovery. Batman just got a larger dose since he was hooked up to an IV containing the tainted blood when he awoke.
• In Batman: Arkham City, Batman does not kill. All well and good, until you realize that in fight scenes, he's snapping arms, legs, ankles, and possibly backs and just leaving the thugs he mutilates in a Darwinist anarchistic society with multiple serial killers running around (one of them Zsasz, who is an independent player and allied to no one). He may not kill, but a snapped neck might be a mercy compared to being vulnerable in Arkham City...
  • Not to mention it is currently winter in arkham city, and temperatures are around the freezing point. A person moderately clothed will have little problems with even extended exposure to the elements, but when they are wearing nothing but sleeveless prison uniforms and are laying unconscious on the cold, wet pavement, it would not take long for hypothermia or exposure to set in... Although Penguin's thugs are probably fine, since they are the only ones actually wearing any form of insulated clothing.
  • In Batman Begins, when Batman is fighting Ra's Al Ghul on the train, Batman tells Ra's Al Ghul "I won't kill you... but I don't have to save you". I don't know if that's canon, but it suggests his moral code is flexible in that regard.
    • It's not canon. That actually got some flak for betraying Batman's moral code on a technicality. Since both Nolan and Tim Burton aren't "comic book" people like Paul Dini, they didn't have any problem with, say, having Batman strap a bomb to someone's chest and shove him down a well. Even after Strange was run through with a sword, Batman still begged Ra's to help him get medical attention. As for the thugs, most of them are left either in their own territories or surrounded by their allies. The criminals may be vicious, but a lot of them are actually quite loyal to each other, as befitting the tribal nature of Arkham City.
• Following the end of the Identity Thief subplot, it's revealed that Hush has managed to give himself Bruce Wayne's face by stealing facial tissue from at least six Arkham inmates, and he's a good enough impersonator to be voiced by Kevin Conroy. Now, after this revelation Hush does a runner and Batman promises to hunt him down and bring him to justice before he can start framing Bruce Wayne; trouble is, he's already started: Hush was seen by dozens of people while collecting the faces, and they bought the half-finished disguise hook line and sinker. True, these people are Arkham inmates and not likely to be believed, but at least one of them was a political prisoner- ie, somebody who might have quite a bit to say to the media once it's revealed just how many innocent people went to Arkham.
  • • It's more likely that Hush got out and posed for the press ASAP as Bruce Wayne having suffered a terrible assault inside that left him scarred. By the time Batman gets out, the pieces have fallen into place; the real Bruce Wayne was Batman the entire time, and any method to confirm the "real" Wayne brings up a lot of untidy questions about him (how could he have survived, why does his DNA match the same found at scenes where Batman was, etc). This would open the way for the new Wayne to continue business as usual and support TYGER in light of his "terrible ordeal", and set the staging ground for an escalation into a Gotham-wide police state funded by Wayne Enterprises for Batman to deal with, in addition to the supervillain problems from Blackgate and Arkham's collapse. Maybe not totally plausible, but it seems like it would be a perfect arc to end the trilogy with Batman facing off against Bruce Wayne with both using their unique advantages (being a one-man-army versus an ability to fund a virtually endless war of attrition) as the final climax, and creating a situation where Batman can truly "kill off" the Bruce Wayne persona once and for all.
    • Doubtful. I am not sure if this version of Hush knows Batman is Bruce Wayne. So while Bruce's reputation may be a bit tarnished (or improved, depending on who he is talking to), it is doubtful Hush would hold a press conference. Because he wouldn't go in saying "I am Bruce, that is Bats". He would basically be saying "I am Bruce, here is hoping the real Bruce is already dead"
  • At the end of the game, Clayface ends up being dropped into the Lazarus Pit. Now, surviving and becoming an immortal doesn't sound too horrible- after all, Clayface is already damn near indestructable; but he's ended up immersed in something that eventually drove Ra's Al Ghoul crazy- and pinned into it by a ton of rubble. Now, considering that this version of Clayface (Basil Karlo) is already nutty enough to be committed to Arkham Asylum and deranged enough to consider acting as a Body Double to the Joker the "Performance of a Lifetime," do we really want to imagine him escaping and becoming even crazier?
    • Here's another possibility: Clayface wasn't regenerated at all, but instead was dissolved when he was knocked into the pit. That was the collateral of Batman stopping Joker from using the pit; it's possible that Batman killed Clayface.
• Here's one: Recall what Titan did to Joker, the fact that we don't see any of the thugs that took Titan in the last game, and that one of the Arkham Stories states that Ivy nearly died from Titan as well. While it's a good bet what happened to the thugs, remember that this was meant to be used on the supervillians as part of their treatments in Arkham Asylum. If Titan was somehow used on them as intended, they would've died. In fact, given what Sharp was like then, he may have dosed them all anyway and locked them into a room just to fight each other to death.
• One note about Zsasz's sidequest: he begins by saying that he has three people that he's holding hostage. When he tells his story, Batman tells him that he should've avoided becoming a nihilistic serial killer. He responds with a noticeable amount of anger in his voice, and abruptly stops. When you finally get to his lair and save the hostages, there are only two. This implies that Batman was indirectly responsible for one of the hostages' deaths.
  • It's made even worse if you look around the area. You can find said victim floating around in the water.

Fridge Logic

• During the end of the first act, we see the apparently dead Joker, and Batman's Detective Vision marks him quite clearly as 'deceased'. The last act reveals that this Joker was the REAL one all along, and the healthy Joker that showed up now and again was in fact Clayface. This raises the question: how did the Joker make himself look so dead that Batman's super-advanced technology couldn't tell he was faking it?
  • I think he couldn't... But he's crazy enough to kill himself with some poison or an electric shock, being dead for a few minutes and to have himself reanimated by Harley when Batman is K.O.
    • Simple, he obviously killed someone, dressed them up like him, and propped him up in the chair. Clearly the technology already exists to mask lifesigns as well.
      • Nope, it was definitely the real Joker. In the cutscene when Batman figures it out, he moves to get up.
• If he uses a special rifle that can pierce sheet metal, how could Deadshot kill by ricocheting a bullet off a garage door? And on the same topic, why did Strange request that he kill Bruce Wayne AND Batman when Strange is one of the few to know his dual identity?
  • 1. He's just that good. 2. Redundancy. He wants him dead. If he tells Deadshot to kill just one, and Deadshot happens to see the other, then he misses a perfectly good chance to kill him. Strange doesn't want anyone to know Wayne is Batman. (Alternately, see the above Fridge Brilliance.)
  • I can't recall that shot perfectly, but is that the one that goes through the water tank and then off the garage? Well, it's possible that the bullet velocity was reduced by just the right amount by the water, or that he's using a 'sabot' kind of round where the water piercing outside is stripped away in the process, leaving a bullet capable of bouncing off thins heet metal. Fan Wank, for sure, but this wouldn't be the first instance of a comic book character using outrageous ammunition. If the shots were two seperate instances, then it's simple. Changing the type of cartridge, or more likely, using a different model of rifle, since you find his backup during the hunt for him.
  • Simple about the second one: Deadshot is a known criminal and the kind of man that Strange definitely would want dead. If he killed Bruce/Batman in Bruce form, he'd have to search for Batman ( until dying in Protocol 10). If he killed Batman, he'd have to stay in Arkham, searching for Bruce.
• If Ra's wanted to convince Batman that his way was best, why not distract Batman, let his ninja army loose on the inmates when he's not looking, than use Protocol 10 to cover it up without having to arm the inmates themselves?
  • Because it wasn't Ra's who set up Arkham City or devised Protocol 10, it was Strange. Ra's just gave him the resources to carry out his plan. How Strange went about it was entirely up to him. As far as arming the inmates, Strange intended to slaughter them en masse, so he introduced the guns to reduce the inmate population to a manageable size, as well as give the main bosses (Two-Face, Penguin, Joker) the clout to forcibly recruit members for their gangs. By ensuring that nearly every inmate was either a) in a gang, or b) dead, Strange could be sure that the surviving inmates would be in large groups, making them that much easier to kill with a few well-aimed missiles. Besides, Strange clearly enjoys having power over the inmates, and would take a great deal of pleasure in arming them and watching them kill each other, to "poke the beehive with a stick", as it were. It's not like they would have been a match for the more heavily armed and military trained Tyger Guards, so there was no threat to Strange's operation.
    • Whoops, not quite. This actually touches on another question...
  • It's not just about convincing Batman, it's about convincing the Gotham City council as well. Strange needed those guns inside the prison as 'evidence' that Arkham City must be purged via Protocol 10. Otherwise, the council would be asking questions as to why all the prisoners are suddenly dead. They had to make the choice for themselves, even if they were being manipulated by Strange.
• If you make the wrong choice in Catwoman's final segment, you get treated to a clip of Oracle calling out that Gotham is overrun... by The Joker. How the hell did that happen? He would have to abandon his usual M.O. in favor of all-out war, and defeat Tyger, as well as Ra's Al-Ghul, who would certainly get involved once either Talia died or Joker tried to reach the Lazarus Pit. He has tricks up his sleeve, sure, including a certain tricky Final Boss, but those odds still seem pretty insurmountable.
  • Considering that he has Clayface, who is the perfect spy/saboteur, those odds look a lot better. It's also implied some time has passed. Ra's only has centuries on his side, an army of ninjas, and immortality. The Joker would have his thugs, Harley, Clayface, immortality, and Talia as a hostage.
  • I think the implication there is Talia really does take Joker to the Lazarus pit making him immortal and super strong.
  • I think given the limited time frame between Talia walking away with Joker and Batman's victory that the most likel answer is that there's an important peice of information about because only Harley and Joker know the truth.