Francine Lanstrom is the wife of Kirk Langstrom and aided in his attempts to synthesize a cure for his chronic deafness. She was seemingly killed by him when he spliced his DNA with that of a Vampire Bat and became Man-Bat. However, if Batman returns to Kirk's lab her body is missing and the words "Forever my love" are written on a broken television screen implying that Francine may have been revived and turned into a similar creature as her husband.
Incident Reports[]
Before Arkham Knight Incident[]
Francine and her husband Kirk met in medical school and, together, would publish a revolutionary research paper on curing certain human illnesses with the help of gene splicing from animals. They married after graduating and began to work on a special project using DNA from a vampire bat in hopes of curing Kirk's worsening deafness.
Arkham Knight Incident[]
After difficulties with funding, the pair succeeded, sort of, in creating their serum, and Kirk volunteered as the product's first test dummy. Injecting himself, Kirk became a hideous Man-Bat hybrid and went completely feral, seemingly killing Francine in his animal state.
However, despite Batman's detective vision suggesting she was dead, Batman can later discover Francine's final resting place empty and a note in blood on a shattered mirror that reads “Forever, my love”. With Kirk having been detained and sent to GCPD by Batman earlier in the night, Francine possibly survived her encounter with her husband and transformed into a She-Bat herself.
Trivia[]
- In some iterations of the comics Francine Langstrom ingested her husband's serum, becoming the She-Bat. It is possible something similar may have happened in Arkham Knight as returning to the lab will have her body missing, and a message reading "Forever, my love" written in blood, something Kirk couldn't have done himself while in his animalistic state.
- If she has turned into a She-Bat, Francine likely retains more of her mind than Kirk; since her infection was with a strain of serum adapted to human DNA.
- Upon finding Francine's body in Kirk Langstrom's lab, a noticeable bloodstain can be seen on the left side of her neck. While Batman had concluded that blunt trauma to the head had been the cause of Francine's death, the bloodstain on her neck suggests Man-Bat had bitten her before or after her death, possibly giving credence to Francine becoming a creature like Man-Bat and escaping the lab.