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1Headscratchers for ''WesternAnimation/BatmanAssaultOnArkham''. Ask questions here regarding things that confuse you about the movie.
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3* So, how exactly did Harley fool the lie detector? She had ulterior motives and wasn't ''really'' there to get a doll, was she? She was just trying to get arrested. Yeah, she was telling the truth (presumably) that she didn't know where the bomb was, but how did it not pick up that she was intentionally trying to get arrested? And if she's just a really good liar, surely Batman wouldn't have used it...
4** Lie detectors are not perfect interrogation tools, not even one designed and built by Batman. They can be fooled fairly easily, so even if Harley is a bad liar, there is a possibility that she could still fool the lie detector. Also, lie detectors are not omniscient, and often the best lies are ones that have an element of truth in them; Harley didn't know where the bomb was which was good enough for the lie detector, so how could it know that she was trying to get herself arrested? Alternatively, she was telling the truth on both accounts; she didn't know where the bomb was (which especially seems likely) and she was there to get a doll (She is insane and it does seem kind of odd that of all the crimes she could do and the places she could commit them at, she chooses to rob a toy store), yeah she was there to draw out Batman and get arrested, but she never specified that and he didn't ask.
5*** This may also take place in the part of her arc where she's trying to be less indiscriminately violent, which does happen after she leaves Joker. It's possible she chose a toy shop because a bank or some other traditional robbery target might have innocents around that could get hurt.
6** Whose to say she ''didn't'' want to get the doll? There were times Harley did act quite childish (she was watching Loony Toons, the way she sat to attention for Waller, etc) perhaps she did want the doll and figured she might as well try and get it while trying to get Batman's attention.
7** The physiological readings would show elevated agitation in any case, given that Harley was in a scuffle with Batman. Even a Batman-designed lie detector might not be able to tell the difference between "readings from someone who's just been in a fight" and "readings from someone who's just been in a fight and is now lying".
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9* Why did they leave Scarecrow in his cell with full costume and weapons?
10** Better question; why leave Bane with his super human serum AND have a remote activation system that starts when you release all the prison cells.
11*** Even ''better'' question: what is Bane even doing in Arkham? The first game made it clear that he's supposed to be in Blackgate.
12*** Perhaps this is why he was moved to Blackgate.
13*** Bane might have a medical need for ongoing doses of his serum, but that still doesn't explain the "remote-control turbocharge" part.
14*** As far as Scarecrow: Arkham is an asylum for the mentally unsound first, and a supermax prison for super-criminals second. At least on paper, the purpose of the asylum is to rehabilitate the criminally insane. It might be part of Scarecrow's rehabilitation that he keeps his costume. Maybe he has a Rorschach thing going on where he continues his costume his true skin, and his flesh face the costume, so to keep him placid or willing to undergo treatment, they give him the relatively harmless thing of getting to dress as he wants. We do see several of the criminals have a few personal items, such as Dent having a "Vote for Harvey" flier and the Calenderman usually has hundreds of calendars in it. I can't remember if he had his fear toxin when the doors to the cells first opened, but if he did, that can be explained he simply concocted a fresh batch in his cell, using everyday cleaning supplies he stole or smuggled.
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16* So Joker can survive a falling helicopter while restrained by Deadshot's knives and yet he doesn't survive TITAN poisoining? This seems a little out there even for JokerImmunity standards. Up there with him falling into a factory chimney.
17** It might have something to do with not finding his body. More often than not, JokerImmunity seems to come into play at the same time as NeverFoundTheBody, meaning TITAN kills him because it's slow acting, allowing Joker's body to be left behind, not a quick fiery death, which wouldn't leave much of a corpse. In-universe, I don't really have an explanation, but I do have a bit of a WMG: Given that he's Batman's arch-enemy, the Joker may have picked up a few of his tricks, such as the art of escaping death traps, (it would make sense, he's probably put Batman in enough traps to know how to escape them himself) so Joker likely escaped the helicopter before it even hit the ground. He didn't survive TITAN poisoning because it was in his bloodstream, and if he hadn't gotten a cure, Batman wouldn't have survived either.
18*** How do we know if Joker is human? Maybe he's a super natural being taking the form of a clown.
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20* Black Spider appeared to be the only trustworthy guy on the Squad. Why did Waller need to blackmail him to get him to work? She could have offered some disposable targets or offered to turn a blind eye, but instead gives him a bomb in his neck.
21** Spider could have and probably would have blown the whistle on Waller or refused to kill someone who (in Waller's opinion) needed killing, so planting a bomb in his neck would keep him in line. At any rate, Black Spider is still a murderer, so he would probably qualify for Task Force X missions regardless of how trustworthy he is.
22** Spider is at risk of simply killing his teammates and escaping. Also, if he sees enough of Waller's actions (remember, dozens of law enforcement personnel have died between this and Origins Blackgate as a direct result of Waller's schemes), it's possible that he might actively begin to sabotage or target her. The real question is why he was picked for the mission in the first place, given that someone with his motivations could be put to work on other jobs while he really did not contribute to the Arkham raid.
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24* So why not order the team to kill Riddler? No need to con your slaves, at least not to that degree. Order the team to kill him and odds are one of them does it the moment they see him. Reduces the odds that someone will hesitate long enough for him to talk considerably.
25** Waller's theory was that there was too high of a risk of the Squad figuring out WHY she needed him killed. Sending the Squad elsewhere keeps them from realizing the truth and also draws all of the security (and, presumably, Batman) towards a different area of the Asylum.
26** One theory is that the USB stick ''was'' real, but Batman took it from him at the start, so Waller was sending them in for the USB, while having Frost kill Riddler, since Waller assumed she was the most likely to just shrug and do what she was asked to where someone more suspicious like Floyd might ask questions.
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28* Given Waller's combination of paranoia and cunning, isn't the window of her office almost certainly made of bulletproof glass? All Deadshot is going to accomplish is alerting her to his position.
29** Surely Deadshot's custom-made magic rounds that can ricochet off of several objects and/or pierce through multiple targets would be able to penetrate through bulletproof glass.
30*** Of corse, since she had Deadshot under her thumb, Waller could've made sure her windows were made to handle Deadshot's specialized rounds. At that point, it's really just a wager of who has better stuff.
31** It's possible that it is bulletproof. Deadshot might even know that. But he's trying to make a statement that she should stay away from him and his daughter. Maybe. It's kind of ambiguous.
32** Bulletproof glass isn't completely bulletproof. It is resistant to bullets, and some higher grade types can shrug of anti-material rifles, but it still has its limits. Deadshot was also using an assault rifle, and considering his skills, even if one bullet wouldn't be enough, he could have focused in his fire on a tight spot to cause it to crack, ala Golgo 13.
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34* Does it seem out of character for Joker to fire his gun in the air because the other guy said he's out of bullets? Isn't Joker supposed to be intelligent, not Elmer Fudd stupid? I'm pretty sure Joker would have shot the guy in the face to find out the answer.
35** Well, Joker ''is'' known for being unpredictable.
36** He probably just thought it'd be funny.
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38* Did Amanda get shot at the end? What I find odd about the ending is that she doesn't seem scared at all, just slightly annoyed. Is it possible she escaped somehow?
39** It's possible that the glass is sufficiently reinforced to stop the bullet. It's possible that Deadshot never fired (instead just using the laser sight to try and intimidate Waller into leaving him alone). It's also possible that she could evade the bullet by immediately jumping to the side, causing Deadshot to lose his headshot. The ending's intentionally ambiguous, so the only real answer is "maybe."
40** Depends on if a recent quest line in the Arkham Underworld app game is in canon with this film; dialogue from Deadshot and Harley and the fact that Riddler is needed in a few missions specifically because he knows how to deactivate the implants imply that it is, in which case (unless Deadshot made multiple attempts on Waller's life) she survived this because Batman intervened and stopped him before he could shoot.
41** Oh he definitely at least ''shot'', or there would be no reason to put those earmuffs on his daughter.
42*** If you look closely, his daughter has something on her belt that looks like a music player. It's possible that the earmuffs are headphones ''and'' hearing protection; that would avoid awkward "wear these while Daddy shoots somebody" explanations.
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44* Amanda has a strong dislike for villains and super criminals, right? Doesn't she realize that she herself is acting like a villain? She is forcing people to commit illegal acts. You could argue that she is doing this for the greater good, but innocent people are getting killed by these villains. King Shark had an arkham guard for lunch. The poor guy probably has a wife and kids.
45** The whole point of Waller is that she does the dirty work for the U.S government, or 'off the books' as she describes it to the Suicide Squad members. She knows she's acting like a villain in the ethical sense. Batman's main conflict with her is their respective methods. While Batman is a hero in-universe and to the audience, he is still a criminal in the sense that he is a vigilante. Waller, on the other hand, has the legal clearance to do this, no matter how morally wrong she is. It's a question of Ethics vs Legality.
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47* So, about Killer Frost's "entry method"... So I get the whole thing about using her naturally nonexistent body heat to fool the people at the morgue into thinking she's a corpse, but why was she naked? I realize that corpses taken to morgues are naked, but all she did was pull down the top of her swimsuit-leotard to expose her breasts. Obviously the machine couldn't tell that she had clothes on or she wouldn't have worn any at all. If her plan was to leap out at the coroner to give him the kiss of death, how did being topless aid that plan? Why didn't she just leap out at the guy the second he opened the bag? And if we're going to argue "[[DistractedByTheSexy distraction]]" purposes, putting him off guard... how could they have possibly known that the coroner was a total sicko who got off from the sight of naked female corpses? Because that was ''not'' a normal reaction to a dead body there. [[AllMenArePerverts I don't care what the stereotype is]], normal men draw the line well before that and at the very least wouldn't be caught dead with that creepy look on their face in front of others. Was this just a [[RuleOfSexy not-particularly-well-thought-out excuse for fanservice]]?
48** Probably.
49** Most villains in Gotham (or comic books overall) like to accomplish their goals using complex, intricate methods and schemes. For instance, Joker would much rather have Batman killed in a Laughterhouse of Doom instead of just taking the easy way out, and shoot him in the head when he's off guard. Frost is likely the same as most of the other villains and would probably take this route.
50** Boomerang may have gotten her to do it in order to stay more in character as a corpse.
51** The coroner's predilections might have been mentioned in the files the team was given at the Iceberg Lounge just before the infiltration, particularly if he'd gotten himself reprimanded for it before (but still has his job because better candidates aren't exactly lining up around the block to work at Arkham).
52*** Honestly the idea that some of the employees of Arkham are as twisted as the inmates (remember Warden Sharp)
53** Having given it some more thought and watching the movie again, I withdraw my issue. It makes sense she was topless to ensure that nothing would seem out of place until the bag was open far enough for her to climb out. If she had been fully clothed, whoever opened her bag could have noticed something was off after barely opening it enough to expose her neck, at which point she'd have been fucked unless she could tear the bag open with her bare hands (or far more dangerously, her powers) from the inside, which would have been much slower and much more likely to go wrong.
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55* Doesn't Nigma make up his own riddles? Amanda telling him that she found the answer from google.com seems rather odd. I can't see an intelligent man like Nigma stealing riddles from the internet.
56** ProductPlacement?
57** Maybe he doesn't make up ''every'' riddle by himself, and he just figured that one was obscure enough that she wouldn't have heard it before.
58** She could be researching riddles similar and then give their responses. If Riddler was to give, say, the riddle "what has two legs, then three, then four" it can be written by somebody else as "what has two legs during the day, three during the afternoon, and four at night" but the answer for either will always be 'man'. If Riddler gave her the riddle of "what has two legs, then three, then four" she could Google it and find the response to be 'man' only because there's likely to be a similar riddle with the same answer to it.
59*** Actually that exact riddle is used in one of his Asylum interview tapes, though he uses a morbid alternate answer (a baby that gets mutilated). Probably it's his own arrogance shining through. We see, particularly in Knight, that Nigma has such a high opinion of his intelligence that he labels everyone around him imbeciles, he likely merely thought that Waller wouldn't know it because he assumed she was far dumber than she really is.

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