I’ve spent the last fortnight going through one of my favourite geek rituals: immersing myself in everything to do with a much anticipated film or game fast approaching release. In this case it’s The Dark Knight Rises, and in addition to reading Batfamily comics and watching movies and cartoons, I’ve been hell bent on 100 percenting Arkham City.

It’s put me in mind of the direction the next Rocksteady made Batman game might go. Arkham City was like an all you can eat buffet of Batman’s rogues gallery, but there’s still plenty of inspiration to draw on. So here’s a top five list of bad guys that would make for good fodder in Arkham 3.

Now the difficulty here is choosing characters that have not had a prominent role in the previous games. Some of this information could possibly count as spoilers for big events in the Batman universe so be warned.

5. Deathstroke / Lady Shiva

These two tie for fifth place because one, they fullfill the same role as a challenge for Batman and two, I really wanted at least one female on the list and all the best ones (Catwoman, Ivy, Talia) can’t be considered.

The assassin called Deathstroke is closer associated with Nightwing and the Teen Titans, but he’s had a long standing rivalry with Batman as well. He was even a boss character in the mobile game Arkham City Lockdown. As an enhanced and highly trained soldier Deathstroke is a physical match for Batman and could introduce some real challenge to the fighting mechanic.

Lady Shiva goes one better, she’s basically the world greatest martial artist and has defeated Batman and all of his protégés on several occasions. A boss battle against Lady Shiva would force you to play on the offensive against someone who could counter your counters and turn your moves back on you. Batman’s only advantage being his gadgets. Where does he get those wonderful toys?

4. Manbat

In Arkham City you ruled the skies as Batman, if enemies started getting a few lucky hits you just needed to grapnel boost away and glide into the night sky. Introducing a giant flying monster, half man half bat, nullifies this safety a great deal. Story lines featuring the Manbat often revolve around a mystery as to the person secretly injecting themselves with the Manbat serum. That type of plot seems well suited to the detective side quests in the Arkham games.

One of the reasons for my teary eyed, school girl at a Bieber concert, adoration for Arkham City is the way it melds the grim and gritty modern elements that make Batman popular with the colourful comic book elements like Mr Freeze and the Riddler. A character like Manbat fits perfectly into that mold.

3. Hush

Okay, it’s highly likely that Hush and his plan to destroy Bruce Wayne will be a big part of the next game. As strongly hinted in the Identity Killer case file, the brilliant surgeon Tommy Eliot, revealed to be the criminal known as Hush, has assumed Bruce Wayne’s face and intends to take some terrible revenge on him. In the first Hush story arc Batman suffered a coordinated attack by Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Ras Al Ghul, Clayface and the Joker, orchestrated by Hush to beat him down physically and mentally so Hush could personally defeat and destroy him.

The whole story line kind of frames a perfect game plot allowing Rocksteady to throw in whatever guest characters they want to. The Hush plot also featured Catwoman and Superman under mental control fighting against Batman. I’d put money down on this being the next major game plot, with Hush being the character pulling all the strings in the background. Probably modified to avoid using characters like Clayface, Ras Al Ghul and Joker who got so much time in Arkham City, but Rocksteady are clearly fans of Croc and Ivy, giving them appearances in both games so far, and they’re definitely fans of Hush with his detailed introduction in Arkham City.

2. Red Hood

Probably one of, if not the most, popular recent addition to Batman’s rogues gallery is The Red Hood. He even got his own animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood (which is brilliant, go watch it) and his own comic book title Red Hood and the Outlaws. But who is he?

Batman has gone through several Robin’s, the first one, Dick Grayson, grew up to be Nightwing, a chip of the old block in every way. The second one, Jason Todd, was the subject of a phone in voting contest in 1988 to decide whether he should live or die. Over 10,000 people phoned in and the vote almost came to a tie. But in the end, Joker flatout murdered Batman’s plucky side kick. For a long time he stayed dead, reminding people that Batman can be a dark and gritty comic and Joker is totally evil.

Then he comes back anyway (because, hey, comics) and becomes the incredibly brutal vigilante Red Hood. He has the same goals as Batman, eradicating crime, but without the old ‘no killing’ code. He’s basically Batman, but with the attitude of ‘kill them all and let god sort them out’. He’s a far more interesting character than Dick Grayson, or the new Robin Tim Drake. The duality of his need to prove himself to his old mentor alongside his desire to defeat and surpass him makes Tim Drake one of the most engaging and multifaceted enemies Batman has ever faced. He’s a perfect fit for the next Batman game. But I’ve still got my finger crossed there’s some Red Hood DLC for Arkham City in the works, and if you Google Red Hood DLC you’ll notice I’m not alone in this desire as you can see by the fan made image at the top of this article.

1. The Court of Owls

I’m obviously not the first person to write one of these lists. There’s been a few, often with Hush or Red Hood topping the list (or another character called Prometheus who I can never get over thinking of as Bizarro Batman, hence his absence from this list). But I’m, I suspect, the first to write one since the reboot of DC comics and the most recent Batman arc.

Otherwise, the Court of Owls would top everyone’s list.

The Court are a secret society of rich assholes who control Gotham behind the scenes, sending their ninja zombie enforcers, the Talons, to kill or capture anyone who gets in their way. Captured victims are drugged and forced to wander an underground maze until they die of starvation or are executed for shits and giggles by the Court. There’s also a surprise member of the Court who would be the perfect antagonist for the next Batman game.

The storyline is peppered with scenes which would translate incredibly well to a game environment. There’s cool new gadgets, epic action scenes, escapes, traps, mysteries to be solved. On top of that at one point there’s a huge city wide battle involving Batman and all his Facebook friends verses the Courts army of zombie ninjas. Even Red Hood gets involved in the battle.

I’d originally written here a page long synopsis of the story arc so far. But I honestly don’t want to spoil it for anyone who wanted to read it themselves, or if, by some miracle; the storyline becomes the basis for the next Batman game.

This has to be one the most entertaining and original Batman comics I’ve read and there’s ample action to create a brilliant Batman game.