Mayhem Mode in LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight gives The Joker and Harley Quinn their own crew system, and it runs on two separate counters that are easy to confuse. One tracks how many henchmen you currently have on your team, the other tracks how many henchmen types you have unlocked. Filling the first is a matter of studs and locker space. Filling the second means rescuing Arkham inmates while you are out causing trouble in Gotham.
Quick answer: Recruit henchmen from the gym equipment in your hideout once you have a free crew locker, and unlock new types by rescuing detained inmates during Mayhem Runs.
What unlocks the henchman system in Mayhem Mode
Mayhem Mode is its own save file, selected from the main menu rather than loaded from a campaign save. It opens with a short story mission covering Harley’s origin and the Arkham Asylum breakout, and only after that do you reach the Amusement Mile hideout where the crew systems live.
The person who handles recruitment is the Hench Master, a brute you meet back in Arkham. He shows up in the hideout gym after you finish your second Mayhem Run, and a “Talk to Hench Master” objective appears under Mayhem Prep once he does. Until then, the gym equipment is just scenery.
Leaving Arkham, Joker and Harley each start with 2 henchmen recruited and 1 type unlocked. The pause menu shows both figures side by side, with recruited henchmen on the left icon and unlocked types on the right, counting up toward caps of 10 and 12.
Recruited henchmen are not decoration. They can be summoned during runs to fight alongside The Joker and Harley, sitting next to the rest of the villain toolkit like the mallet, the Fun Gun, the Paintball Pelter, and the hyenas Bud and Lou.
Crew lockers and how many henchmen you can carry
Joker and Harley keep entirely separate crews, and each crew has its own set of lockers. A locker is a slot. No free locker means no new recruit, no matter how many studs you are carrying.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Lockers unlocked by default | 2 per character |
| Extra locker cost | 10,000 studs each |
| Crews | Separate for Joker and Harley |
| Recruited cap | 10 henchmen |
Buy extra lockers from the Joker Crew Locker and Harley Crew Locker stations, each listed as an additional slot on that character’s crew. The price does not change between the two.
How to recruit a henchman at the gym
If the crew is already full, the game throws up a Full Crew message telling you to purchase additional crew lockers to add more members. You have three ways past it.
- Buy another locker for 10,000 studs at that character’s crew locker station.
- Switch to the other villain, since Joker and Harley have independent slots.
- Dismiss an existing crew member to free the slot they are sitting in.
How to unlock new henchmen types during Mayhem Runs
New types never appear in the gym on their own. They come from Arkham inmates being held out in the locked-down version of Gotham’s North Island, and you have to go and collect them mid-run.
The rescue prompt can occasionally fail to appear. Walking away from the inmate and coming back usually makes it show up again.
Henchmen types, workstations, and purchase costs
Unlocking a type is only half the job. The rescued henchman takes up residence at a specific piece of gym equipment, and you have to buy them before the Recruit option becomes available.
| Type | Workstation | Purchase cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid Fire Henchperson | Treadmill | 1 purple stud | Most shots per minute |
| Stun Baton Henchperson | Punching bags | 25,000 studs | Shockingly effective |
Once a type has been bought, it respawns at its workstation, so you can keep returning and recruiting the same kind of goon repeatedly to stack several of them into one crew. That is how you turn a pair of generic henchmen into a full squad of Rapid Fire shooters or Stun Baton bruisers, assuming you have bought enough lockers to hold them.
How to confirm the recruit actually went through
Pause the game and check the two crew icons. The left number is your recruited total and the right number is your unlocked types, so a successful rescue moves the right figure and a successful recruit moves the left one. If neither has changed, the purchase or the rescue did not register.
Check both characters. A rescue unlocks the type globally, but the recruit itself only fills a locker on whichever villain you were playing as at the time.
Worth planning for, too, is that lockers and henchmen are drawing from the same stud pool as everything else in the hideout, including permanent upgrades, customizer props, and the 30 new outfits for Joker and Harley. A single extra locker plus a Stun Baton recruit runs to 35,000 studs, so a couple of profitable Mayhem Runs go a long way before you start dressing the pair up.
