Victor Zsasz (Arkhamverse)

**Victor Zsasz**is a minor antagonist in the *Batman '**Arkham*****video games. He is a true sociopath and a serial killer who only cared about his body count, carving a mark for each of his victims into his own body.**

## History

### Batman: Arkham Asylum

During the Joker's takeover of Arkham, Zsasz was let loose from his cell in the Intensive Treatment Center. Running free, he encountered two Arkham security guards in the Patient Pacification Chamber. After killing one guard who tried to stop him, he took hold of another guard named Mike and strapped him to the electric chair. A third guard, Zach Franklin, came across Zsasz, and sounded the alarm, requesting backup on the radio. At least three more guards responded to the alarm and arrived with Dr. Gretchen Whistler, Zsasz's personal therapist. He warned that he would kill Mike if he saw "anything that looked down even a little bit like a bat" getting too close while the guards attempted to talk him down. Franklin and another guard stood barred at the entryway to the Pacification area, but were able to see Zsasz pacing behind his hostage in the electroshock chair. Franklin tried to call for more backup in the Processing Corridor in dealing with the hostage situation, but found no answer on the radio, as most of the other guards in the vicinity had been murdered by the Joker after his escape through the area.

A surviving guard, Eddie Burlow, picked up the call near the door to the Decontamination Chamber but was unable to respond. He directed Batman to the Patient Pacification Chamber, the Dark Knight then arrived on the scene and met Franklin, who informed him of the situation. Batman used the chamber balcony and grappled behind Zsasz on the gargoyles that lined the top of the room. He snuck up on Zsasz, took him out and left him in the care of Whistler and the Arkham staff. He warned Whistler that it would take much more time before Zsasz could be cured, if he could be cured at all. Soon after, Harley Quinn trapped the staff in the Pacification Chamber. One of the security personnel covered Zsasz with his shotgun to prevent any escape.

Zsasz somehow escaped once again, likely after the employees managed to escape to a more secure wing during the chaos. He killed three guards above the Penitentiary in the Arkham West and then proceeded to prop them up like rag dolls around a table as if they were enjoying a game of cards. After the Joker's men had taken control of the Penitentiary, Zsasz proceeded to the heavily guarded Arkham East.

While the Joker's men wrestled the area from the guards, Zsasz invaded the Botanical Gardens. He entered the Glasshouse Entrance, where he encountered three more guards at the doorway to the Botanical Glasshouse. Zsasz murdered two of them, and arranged the dead guards in a lifelike pose around a park bench. After killing more Arkham staff, Zsasz scratched out the tallies of his kills onto the bench. Shortly after, the Joker came across Zsasz in the Glasshouse Entrance with his latest victims. The Clown Prince of Crime took Zsasz to the Arkham Mansion after his men had captured Dr. Penelope Young in the Library and planned to torture the Titan formula out of her.

Zsasz asked to be left alone with Young and successfully forced the secret out of her. Batman searched the mansion until he came across Zsasz, who was holding Young hostage in the Warden's Office with a knife to her throat. The Joker, contacting Zsasz via a monitor, tried to convince Zsasz to hurry up and kill her. Zsasz began to panic as he knew Batman would take him down if did just that, but he was also torn by his desire to kill her, slowly savoring her fright and saying that she is "just begging to be slaughtered". Before he could make a decision, Batman knocked him out with a Batarang to his head.

Dr. Young was driven to tears while Zsasz had held her hostage and nearly killed her. She beat her fists against his unconscious body angrily, calling him an "evil monster". After Young was killed by a safe bomb and Harley Quinn set her goons on Batman, Zsasz disappeared, which suggested that he had escaped during the chaos, as no guards had arrived to detain him. His final appearance was in Batman's hallucination of a replay of the game's opening sequence caused by Scarecrow's Fear Toxin. Batman was placed in the captured position with Joker capturing him and Zsasz among the Arkham inmates escorting Batman in a patient handcart. After this, Zsasz had no further appearance in the game and his status remained unknown.

### Batman: Arkham City

Zsasz managed to hack into the phonelines in Arkham City, proceeding to call payphones all over. When someone answered, Zsasz challenged them to answer his other calls. Once they failed, Zsasz would hunt down and kill them leaving their bodies in poses. These attacks quickly grew into a rumor about the Payphone Killer and inmates with any common sense learned to avoid the payphones, to keep Zsasz from hunting them. Others were not so smart, an one ended up posed outside of the Steel Mill, next to a phone.

When word of Batman being in Arkham City spread, Zsasz managed to kidnap three political prisoners. When Batman decided to find out why the phones were ringing, Zsasz answered and challenged the Dark Knight to answer the next ringing phone, or he would kill a victim. When Batman reached a phone, Zsasz would recount part of his origin. He felt compelled due to either a sense of guilt or a need to confess. All the while, Batman was breaking the encryption code Zsasz was using to hide where he was calling from. As the process was taking too long, Batman even offered himself in place of the prisoners, but Zsasz told him to wait for his turn to come instead of being impatient.