Dr. Penelope Young

"What do you think made him what he is, Batman? Childhood trauma? Some kind of breakdown? He never speaks about it."

- Young on the Joker.

Dr. Penelope Young is a major character in the Batman: Arkham video game series, appearing as a major antagonist-turned-supporting-protagonist in Batman: Arkham Asylum, a background character in Arkham Origins, a major background antagonist in the Arkham Knight DLC Batgirl: A Matter of Family, and a posthumous character in Arkham City. She is a hardworking and obsessive scientist who temporarily works with the Joker to develop the TITAN Formula.

She was voiced by Cree Summer, who also voiced Elmyra Duff on Tiny Toons, Hyena from Gargoyles, Mercy Graves from Superman: Doomsday, and Penny Gadget from Inspector Gadget and Nostalgia Critic.

Past
Young was born on January 19th, 1975. She would later attend Gotham University where she studied psychology, graduating with honors and achieved a Ph.D. in psychology.

She later became a psychiatrist professionally and first started helping people out of her home in the Lacey Towers apartments.

Batgirl: A Matter of Family
Around the same time she was employed at Arkham Asylum, Young began working for the wealthy oil baron Edward Burke to prescribe medication and help to his five-year-old daughter Katie, who had been diagnosed with cancer. During this time, she and Burke began working long-distance with a therapist named Jack White and a doctor named Harleen Quinzel, who were in fact the Joker and Harley Quinn. They planned to give Burke the idea to construct an amusement park based on Katie's drawings and use it as their new base of operations.

Jack White/Joker suggested Katie be put under experimental medication, to which Young agreed as she saw the little girl as the perfect test subject for the drugs, as well as other ideas she had regarding cures for criminal insanity. When White suggested she up the dosage, Katie's condition worsened and the girl died of drug overdose. Jack White later ended up convincing Burke to take his own life with suicide pills, which turned out to be Joker venom.

Later, after Quincy Sharp reopened Arkham Asylum and rehired Young, she continued work on a new and experimental formula called TITAN, which combined elements of her previous experimental drugs and new compounds to potentially create a cure for criminal insanity. Funded by White, she managed to smuggle Bane into the Asylum and forcibly extract the Venom from his body, leaving him in a weakened and tortured state while she studied the effects of Venom on the human body and decided to include it as a part of the TITAN formula. She also used plant-based chemicals to enhance the formula.

For two years she constantly worked on the formula with her research developments at the Botanical Gardens. After several patient interviews, she decided that the Joker would be the prime candidate for her experimental cure. She first tested the formula on a prisoner from Blackgate Prison, who mutated into a horrific monster. It was around that time that she discovered Jack White was the Joker, and he planned to use the TITAN formula to create an army. Horrified by this, she transferred the funding back to the Joker and refused to work on the project. It was ten that the Joker decided to allow himself to be captured so that he could take over the Asylum and complete the formula himself.

Arkham Asylum
As the Joker was taken into custody and escorted into Arkham, Young watched in the Cell Block Transfer Corridor as the team went by. Joker made threats towards her, but she remained protected by guards.

After Joker's takeover of the Asylum, he had his goons and Harley Quinn hunt down Young and corner her in an office, where they planned to interrogate her. She was saved by Batman, but soon left with Aaron Cash to Arkham Mansion to retrieve her notes before the Joker could get ahold of them.

Batman later discovered and battled Bane, who revealed Young's role in the TITAN project, referring to her as the "bruja", or "witch".

Despite experiencing obstacles and the Joker's men, Young managed to get her notes and flee, hiding them in a book in the library before being captured by the Joker's men and taken to him. Joker, angry that Young did not have her notes, handed her over to Victor Zsasz, whom the Joker had ordered to torture her for her information. She was saved by Batman.

Young proceeded to tell Batman everything she knew about TITAN and the Joker's plans, and her experiments in the Botanical Gardens. She then went to Sharp's safe for the access codes that would open the gates and let the innocents escape, but found out too late that the Joker had booby-trapped it with a bomb. Batman managed to survive the explosion, but Young was killed in the blast.

Later on, during a hallucination caused by Scarecrow's Fear Toxin, Batman sees Arkham Asylum run by the inmates, where Young is among the prisoners at the twisted Asylum.

Arkham City
In Arkham City, Batman aids Bane in destroying the remaining TITAN containers that the Joker smuggled off of the island. She later revives some posthumous justice after Joker dies as a result of overdosing on the TITAN formula.

Personality
Dr. Penelope Young is determined and obsessed with her work, experimenting and researching constantly and even on holidays. She is cold and careless towards her coworkers and associates, but will become agitated if there is interference with her work. This obsessive dedication leads her to committing immoral and even criminal actions to further her research. However, she is shown to be noble in her goals of curing criminal insanity, and takes her job seriously. She is shown to be gullible as well, as she falls for the Joker's manipulation as Jack white and even is convinced by Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow that he is completely sane.