The Court of Owls: the villains of the new Batman game, explained

After more than a year of farming, WB Montreal seems ready to finally announce what looks like a new Batman game that the Caped Crusader will pit against some of his most powerful and recently invented enemies: The Court of Owls. We will not get any details on Saturday until the publisher’s panel at DC FanDome, but for now we can at least tell you what – or who – the Court of Owls is.

The Court was created by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo for their legendary approach Batman, which began in the fall of 2011, making them about two years younger than The Batman: Arkham series itself. But the Court of Owls is not just a group of villains. It is also an important addition to the world-building tool that makes up Gotham City.

With the Court in play, Batman makers always have something easy to blame for how bad it is in Gotham – Why, it’s the harmful plutocracy with Eyes wide Shut vibes that have shaped the city since its inception!

What is the Court of Owls?

Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo / DC Comics

At its simplest, the members of the Court of Owls are a cultic gathering of the richest families in Gotham City. They gather in darkness, wear creepy white owl masks, and shape the future of the city for their own selfish advantage. They have essentially unlimited resources within Gotham, and are known to have secret safe rooms, ladders and passages in many of the city’s buildings, hidden there by architects and construction workers who were later silenced or executed.

If there’s something wrong with Gotham, it’s probably because the Court has placed it there. If there’s a systemic problem, dig deep enough, and it’s likely to stay because it’s in the court’s favor. (The Court failed Thomas and Martha Wayne, of course, because they were not involved with the very secret evil of the social thing. But although Bruce long claimed that the Court murdered his parents, he never found any real evidence.)

The Court first appeared in the first two arches of Snyder and Capullo’s Batman, stories that culminated in the Night of the Owls crossover. When the court realized that Batman was finally a real threat to their perpetual rule over Gotham, they recaptured an army of Talons to execute the 40 most powerful and influential good people in Gotham.

The Talons are the enforcers of the Court of Owls

The Court trains Talons to be expert killers in their lives, and resuscitates them after her death with some sort of mad-science serum. Revived Talons are unable to feel pain, and can continue fighting even after, say, a knife to the brain. Most of them are, if not faithful, brainwashed or just brain dead.

The only reliable way to defeat her is to, no joke, make her cold. When exposed to extreme cold, a Talon will enter a seemingly indefinite hibernation, which the Court uses to save them for future “use.” Many Talons are decades or centuries old, some were born until the 1600s.

Any notable Talons?

Most of the Talons are not known for much other than being a Talon, with two notable exceptions – both would be an excellent grit for a Court of Owls-focused game.

First up is Dick Grayson, the first Robin. Snyder and Capullo revealed that the Court had plans to kidnap him as a child and train him as Talon, plans that were interrupted by Bruce who adopted him. The Owls prophesied that “the Gray Son” would become the greatest and deadliest Talon in the court’s history, and the organization made every effort to force him to work for them after the Bat family discovered their existence. .

Until Grayson, the title of greatest Talon probably belongs to a man known as Lincoln March. The real hook on March is that he believes he is the younger brother of Bruce, the secret second child of Thomas and Martha Wayne. In 2012’s Batman # 11, Snyder and Capullo showed how this could potentially be true, revealing that Martha Wayne was expecting another child when Bruce was still very young, but that she had lost the baby after a car accident – one probably orchestrated by the Court.

Although all the facts run into each other, it has never been proven that March and that lost baby are one and the same – his connection to the Waynes could just be a lie, the Owls told him to get him motivated for revenge – and that may just make it the kind of story WB Montreal wants to explore.