Penelope Young

Penelope "Penny" Young was one of the chief psychiatrists at Arkham Asylum and the scientist in charge of Project Titan, which unbeknownst to her, was secretly funded by The Joker as part of his plan to destroy Gotham and defeat his nemesis Batman.

Early life
Penelope Young was born on January 19th, 1975. She enrolled at Gotham University where she was a brilliant student who was prepared to do anything to advance professionally and was also ambitious and career-driven. It is assumed that at Gotham University was where she would begin to be interested in psychology. She eventually graduated the university with top honors and achieved a Ph.D in psychology.

Arkham Origins Incident
Dr. Young owned an apartment at Lacey Towers which was cordoned off with police tape, indicating that a crime had taken place within. She had presumably started her career as a psychiatrist and held sessions with patients at her home.

After Arkham Origins Incident
Dr. Young presumably began her contact with the Joker (who was under the alias Jack White).

A Matter of Family Incident
When Batgirl tasked herself with saving James Gordon from the Joker and Harley Quinn, she infiltrated the Seagate Amusement Park where their operations took place.

It was revealed through pre-recorded tapes that were hidden around the park that Young was involved in the death of Edward Burke's daughter Katie Burke. The tapes stated that Young worked alongside Jack White (Joker) and Harleen Quinzel (Harley Quinn) by using her own special treatments to cure Katie, whilst Joker and Harley subliminally convinced Edward to build his daughter the theme park of her dreams. In Edward's final tape he revealed that Jack told Young to triple Katie's dosage in the hopes that she would be cured, a decision with which Young agreed. Sadly, this made things worse and Katie died before she could see the park.

It's unknown if Penelope knew Jack White was Joker, but it seemed unlikely that she did. Her role in this event secured the Joker and Harley Quinn their criminal hideout at the cost of Katie's death and Edward's suicide. It is also unknown if she realized that her flawed medications were the cause of Katie's accelerated health decline. Despite the tragedy that befell Edward and his daughter Katie, Young would still continue her work testing medications years later.

Between A Matter of Family Incident and Road to Arkham Incident
When Warden Quincy Sharp reopened Arkham Asylum she was hired to head up the Asylum's Research Department as a psychiatrist in order to finally restore the sanity of Gotham City's more deranged criminals.

She also started her work on Project Titan, which was based off the same medications given to Katie. During her time at the asylum, she built up a reputation for being a cold and calculating woman who focused only on the projects at hand and was significantly intolerant of people who got in the way of her work or who questioned her decisions. She managed to smuggle Bane into the asylum from Blackgate Prison, where she studied the effects of Venom on the human body for her research. When talking about Titan Project in public, she referred to Bane as Patient X. According to Sharp on the Medical Facility PA, she has worked at Arkham for two years prior to the Arkham riots.

Road to Arkham Incident
Dr. Young held her research developments at the Botanical Gardens where she used the Titan created from a plant-based Venom hybrid to create the formula and tested her first version of it on another prisoner who was temporarily transferred from Blackgate which mutated him into a Venom Henchman. During interviews with her patients, Young concluded that the Joker would be the perfect candidate for Project Titan, before she found out, during another interview, that the Joker was in fact Jack White himself, who pulled the strings to release Bane from Blackgate, led the Gotham City Police Department to believe that he had escaped and concocted a plan to use the formula in order to create an army of Titan monsters. After this discovery, Dr. Young transferred the money back, and refused any more funding. Joker allowed himself to be captured and brought back to Arkham by Batman so he could start a riot and complete the formula himself.

Arkham Asylum Incident
Dr. Young appeared nervous when the Joker was returned to Arkham. She waited in the Intensive Treatment Lobby as a security team of armed and armored guards took the Joker back to the Cell Block Transfer Corridor, accompanied by Batman. As the guards escorted the Joker past Young, two guards stood on either side of her, and aimed assault rifles at the Joker should he attempt to make a lunge for her.

Thomas Armbruster ordered Young to stay behind him. The Joker gave many shrewd and sinister remarks to Young, who appeared pale. As the Joker was being taken back to his cell, Dr. Young left the area and forcefully told Maria Andrade to take her back to her office at the Arkham Mansion. After his breakout, Joker called Dr. Young, demanded that he get his monsters and after being refused, claimed it wouldn't be "funny". Eventually, Joker initiated his takeover of Arkham. Joker had his thugs track down Young with orders to bring her in alive. Young was captured while she carried out her normal duties in the X-Ray Room at the Medical Facility.

Armed inmates led by Harley invaded the Medical Facility to round up all the doctors, Young among them. Thugs dispatched to the X-Ray Room shot the asylum security guards and found Young. They surrounded her in a locked office telling Young they are under strict orders to make sure no comes near Young and to kill her anyone approaches. The thugs who were under orders to kill Young if anyone tries to rescue her being telling her how they have friends inside and outside of the asylum allowing them to take over the island. Young let's the henchmen know that she is aware of these friends Joker has both on the inside and out. Batman saved Young, but she immediately headed to the Mansion with Aaron Cash. She did not tell Batman she was heading there to find her notes that contained the Titan Formula, which Joker sought. Batman soon learned of Young's actions and tracked her down.

The Dark Knight dealt with several inmates that attempted to break into Young's office, and found that the Joker had captured Aaron Cash, but Young had managed to flee to her office, retrieved her notes, escaped, and was pursued mercilessly by the Joker's hordes.

Young found out that most of the Arkham Mansion was now under the Joker's control and that most of the security guards were dead or incapacitated, and fled to the mansion Library, which the Joker's thugs did not enter yet. Brushing by two asylum guards at the door, Young fled to the lower level of the library, and surprised a guard named Bill with an unidentified Arkham orderly. The thugs on Young's heels, meanwhile, wasted no time in killing the two security guards at the door and stormed the lower level of the library. Bill tried to defend Young, but without success. He was eventually overpowered and the three were inevitably taken prisoner, but not before Young managed to hide her notes.

The inmates left Bill and the orderly tied up in the Library and took Dr. Young to the Joker, who was displeased that the notes were still missing. Meanwhile, Batman invaded the Arkham Mansion, and defeated many of the Joker's thugs. He managed to find Young's notes and destroy them. After going through another of Scarecrow's Fear-induced hallucinations, he made his way to the Warden's office where Young was held at knife-point by Victor Zsasz, whom the Joker had ordered to torture the Titan Formula information out of her.

After incapacitating Zsasz with a Batarang and comforting a frightened Young after she began hitting Zsasz's unconscious body and shouting hysterically, Batman confronts Young about the experiments she conducted on Bane. Young tells Batman in a sincere tone that after discovering that Project Titan's main benefactor, Jack White, was in fact the Joker who wanted to have his own army of Bane duplicates to attack Gotham, she froze the project and refused to have any further role in the experiment, even returning to Joker the money given for the project. Based on his own knowledge of the Joker's concoctions and delightment in causing anarchy and chaos no matter the cost, Batman tells Young that Joker does not take "no" for an answer.

She then goes towards the Warden office safe to collect the necessary codes to unlock the Arkham Island entrances and exits, all while informing Batman about a secret lab hidden in the Botanical Gardens where Titan is produced. As Batman asks Young if she knows what else is Joker planning besides a genetically mutated army, Young replies that she doesn't know, doubting that Joker's words make sense and stating the obvious that he is insane. Just as she finishes her statement and opens the safe, unfortunately, a Joker-styled bomb which the Joker hid in the safe in case someone tries to collect the codes, is triggered. A shocked and horrified Dr. Young froze on spot and exclaimed "Oh, my God...", followed by Batman screaming "Get out of the way!", but too late; the detonated bomb triggers a powerful explosion that instantly kills Dr. Young and knocks Batman to the ground, rendering him unconscious.

Soon afterwards, Harley, a captive Sharp and Blackgate convicts arrive with Harley saying how Joker doesn't like a squealer, hitting Sharp with his cane and leaving with him for the Penitentiary. Batman managed to defeat the convicts and after informing Oracle analyzed the broken part of Sharp's cane and started tracking him.

Penelope Young died yet another promising individual with a destroyed reputation and squandered hope at restoring Gotham alongside many others such as Scarecrow and Harley Quinn.

Young later was seen in the final Scarecrow hallucination. When Batman was affected by Scarecrow's Fear Toxin upon his second trip to the Intensive Treatment Center, he hallucinated a horrific take on the night's earlier events: Joker captured Batman and brought him to Arkham where Scarface was the head of security and Scarecrow assumed Young's position. Armed inmates replaced the security guards and Zsasz wheeled Batman through the Intensive Treatment Center on a handcart. Young, Warden Sharp, James Gordon, Cash and the other guards were the prisoners instead.

Arkham City Incident
Ultimately, despite Young's unlawful actions towards Bane and her tarnished reputation, she received justice and achieved posthumous redemption both at the same time when the Joker died from his Titan-afflicted disease, which he contracted as a result of a mixture of the chemicals in his blood combined with the side effects of Titan which was created by Dr. Young in the first place.

Immediately following the Joker's death, Harley Quinn was apprehended by Harvey Bullock. When a psychiatrist introduced herself to Harley, Harley asked about Penelope before making a joke about how Penelope had exploded. The psychiatrist then chastised Harley, revealing that she had been a colleague and a friend to Penelope Young but would ignore the comment due to her recent experience of losing Joker.

Personality
Penelope Young was as intelligent, as she was a Psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. However, she was also known to be rather cold and naïve, believing that she could help "cure" in Arkham inmates by using TITAN. Despite being cold, insensitive, and highly full of herself, Dr. Young took her job quite seriously in terms of the patients' mental stability as seen in the Interview Tapes. It is also quite possible that she was gullible, or at least partially, as Scarecrow was able to make her think that he was completely sane.

Appearance
An attractive, youthful female, Penelope wore the typical uniform that a female doctor or psychiatrist would wear there at the Asylum. She had long, dark brown hair that was worn up in a ponytail throughout Arkham Asylum. She had tanned skin and blue eyes. It could be seen that she wore make-up, especially when Zsasz held her hostage.

Attributes

 * Graduated from Gotham University with top honors
 * Dedicated to the pursuit of a psychiatric cure for various forms of criminal insanity
 * Highly focused on career ambitions
 * Intolerant of people who get in the way of her work

Trivia

 * She appeared as a supporting character in Batman: Arkham Asylum, was referenced in Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Origins and was mentioned in the Batman: Arkham Knight DLC Batgirl: A Matter of Family.
 * For some exclusive games, they had Dr. Young's notes about some of the people that were in Arkham, who were either inmates or staff of either Arkham or Blackgate. There were Riddler question marks from the the Riddler, on Clayface, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, Penguin, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee pages. She didn't get pages of Maxie Zeus, Hugo Strange, Catwoman, Hush, Killer Moth and Prometheus. Hush and Hugo Strange were probably doctors with little problems unlike Harley Quinn and Scarecrow. Catwoman was known for escaping easily. Killer Moth was obviously known for identity theft. Prometheus was wanted on the run for a long time due an old wanted poster. Maxie Zeus was either set free by Ra's al Ghul due to the hidden pictures in his room, by him escaping timely since he believed a God should never be a prisoner, or the blocking of his cell from the existence of the asylum may show that the Riddler may have been working with him.
 * Dr. Young seems to labor under Fundamental Attribution Error, which is a tendency to judge a person's behavior due to innate traits like heredity or disposition. That was implied in her attitude toward insanity, in that she would strengthen a patient's constitution with Titan to allow for stronger treatments. It was also born out in her diagnosis of Batman, and attributed his behavior to complexes and heredity, while underestimating the impact his upbringing had on him.
 * Dr. Young had a tattoo of doves on her right shoulder which had something to do with Greek Mythology.
 * The password to Young's ArkhamCare file was "Dione"; mother of Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love.
 * In the third interview tape with the Riddler, when Riddler comments on what is implied to be a picture on her desk and asks if it is her family or even her mother she angrily tells him to put it down and demands him to leave, even calling the guards to escort him out as the tape ends.
 * By draining blood from Bane without revealing it, Young committed a criminal act as her experiment went against the Doctor's Hippocratic Oath.
 * Through Young's profile on Calendar Man, we learned that she tended to work most major holidays, which further showed how focused and determined she was on her work, and showed her lack of socialization with friends and family (if she had any).
 * Ironically, Young succeeded where countless others failed for years: Killing the Joker, albeit indirectly.
 * It was unknown if Young was aware of the experiments of Hugo Strange, or if they knew each other, but if she was, then she probably didn't care. Strange may even have been aware of the Joker's role in the Titan Project, and let him carry on with it, because he knew it would help in his plans for Arkham City.
 * There appears to be an error with her title of Psychiatrist, her bio reads that she has a PHD when to actually become a psychiatrist she would need a Doctor of Medicine (MD).
 * On Young's computer is a picture of her and a man at her graduation; the identity of this man has never been revealed.

Penelope Young