Arkham Asylum a Serious House on Serious Earth Read Online

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Sometimes... sometimes I think the Asylum is a head. We're within a huge head that dreams us all into beingness. Perhaps it's your head, Batman. Arkham is a looking glass... and nosotros are you.

— The Mad Hatter

A 1989 Batman graphic novel written by Grant Morrison and beautifully, creepily illustrated by Dave McKean.

Amadeus Arkham ended up living the remainder of his life in the aviary he founded, after losing a boxing with his own private mental disease which started at childhood and was fueled by the murder of his married woman and daughter. Many years later on, the inmates accept taken over (equally opposed to just getting out like usual) and threaten to kill the staff unless Batman comes. As they program to exact revenge, Batman runs into the depths of the asylum. What follows is a surrealist, heavily atmospheric sequence of symbols based on everything from The Bible and the occult to Jungian and Freudian psychology.

The title is taken from Philip Larkin'due south verse form "Church building Going".

While the events of the story are only considered canon past some writers, the backstory of Arkham Asylum and the Arkhams has been integrated into the mainstream DC Universe.

More recent editions come with a full script, which is a huge help in understanding what the hell is going on. The electric current release is the Palatial 25th Anniversary edition.

The video game Batman: Arkham Asylum also takes many cues from the graphic novel (along with Batman: The Animated Series and Arkham Asylum: Living Hell).

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This comic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Information technology is hinted that Amadeus Arkham'southward parents sexually abused him, specifically in the "Tunnel of Love" imagery from his babyhood dreams, and the way his face up is situated in said prototype.
  • Non only Amadeus's parents, it's implied Amadeus Arkham and Constance, his wife, sexually driveling Harriet, their girl. This is backed upwardly past the cartoon she did of her parents, which if y'all wait closely also appears to exist external female genitalia.
  • The matter doesn't end in that location. Information technology's likewise stated that "Mad Domestic dog" Hawkins was sexually abused by his male parent as well, which contributed to his descent into insanity, leading him to rape and kill as many women he can, including Amadeus's wife and daughter.
• A God Am I: Maxie Zeus, to rather disturbing effect. He considers himself both man and woman and bids Batman to consume of his body and drink his blood... or possibly he means the result of loosing command of his sphincters due to the electroshocks.
• All Psychology Is Freudian: Averted, mostly. Morrison actually wanted to write a Batman story based on Jungian psychology for a change. There's still some Freudian vibes, though - Batman and Arkham are both fucked up because of their parents, and in that location's a lot of vaginas.
• All There in the Script: The merely way to really understand the sheer amount of symbolism and imagery blimp in this story is by buying the 15th Ceremony Edition, which includes the annotated script. It explains the utilize of some images, some of the stuff that was cutting out, and (not to diss Mr. McKean or anything) helps to clarify what's happening in some of the more than abstractly illustrated scenes.
  • Like, for instance, one little inscription that's scratched into the doorway of Maxie Zeus' electroshock chamber in Greek, which is significant to the scene, and information technology translates to "Detect thyself." Once more, the artwork is very loosely defined (and in some cases bypasses the original script).
• April Fools' Plot: The story takes place on April Fools' Day.
• Bedlam House: Arkham at its finest, folks. And by finest, we mean "almost pants-crappingly scary".
• Beetle Bedlamite: Amadeus Arkham inherited his obsession with beetles from his mother, who ate them because of their mythological significance as a symbol of rebirth.
• Body Horror:
  • Clayface, who looks similar he's flaking apart. "Batman... my pare is sick..."
  • Much like in The Sandman, Dr. Destiny had his original rational for his Skull for a Head (the JLA ridding him off the ability to dream shriveling up his face) extended to affecting his whole torso, becoming an emaciated figure in a wheelchair. In their notes in collected editions, Morrison fifty-fifty notes they never bought that Dee would've only had a skull-looking confront considering of what happened.
• Building of Hazard: Arkham Asylum is presented as this, forcing Batman to run through a gauntlet of horrors in order to save the hostages inside.
• Character Development: The whole point of the plot is Batman overcoming his own personal demons and issues to become a true hero. Grant Morrison notes in the annotated script that the ending is meant to symbolize Batman'due south transformation from a hurt piffling boy obsessing over the decease of his parents to the brilliant detective hero of Morrison's Batman epic. Essentially it's the death of one interpretation and the birth of another.
  • Another instance of this led to it being Canon Discontinuity: 2-Face up ignores a flip of his money.
• Climax Boss: Killer Croc.
• Colon Cancer: The full title seen on every edition is actually Batman: Arkham Asylum: A Serious Firm on Serious Earth.
• The Comically Serious: The Batman here is intentionally depicted at his nearly humorless, as a commentary on his borderline psychotic 1980s incarnations.
• Coming-of-Historic period Story: The late bloomer variant; in the comic, Batman is mentally a child equally he'southward sexually repressed and possesses a cocktail of emotional issues. The arc of the story is breaking Batman'due south immaturity by forcing him to confront his childhood trauma so he can mentally reset every bit the caped crusader who will defend Gotham with his life.
• Covers Ever Lie: The cover in a higher place is that of the 15th anniversary Updated Re-release, which suggests The Joker is the main villain. While Joker does show up, he isn't the main antagonist. The original 1989 cover instead has a very detailed drawing of a bat flying by Arkham Asylum.
  • And the Joker is the True Final Boss after the Big Bad is gone.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Amadeus dresses up in his female parent's wedding ceremony dress after discovering the corpses of his wife and girl. Dr. Cavendish wears a bridal gown during the climax. Finally, the Joker a more downplayed case as he is seen wearing high heels. Although, in the original script, Joker was supposed to wearing apparel similar to Madonna in her "Open up your heart" music video.
• Creepy Dollhouse: Amadeus Arkham returns home to find an escaped mental patient has killed his wife and daughter. During the scene, Arkham focuses on his daughter'due south dollhouse, where he sees his daughter'southward head through one of the windows.
• Deconstruction: The comic dives into the psychological issues surrounding the mentalities of the Caped Crusader and his rogues' gallery. Batman'southward rigid and stoic demeanor is simply his mode of covering his astringent emotional issues and sexual repression, Mad Hatter'due south love of blond little girls is taken to outright pedophilia, and Maxie Zeus is a weak skeletal man with a huge messiah complex and who has developed an addiction to electroshock therapy.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Clayface is about certainly supposed to stand for AIDS.
  • The bearded, white-clad, blissful-expression-wearing Amadeus Arkham's concluding words following his years-long effort to scratch a binding spell into his cell with his fingernails: "Finished. It's finished."
  • In the part where Amadeus Arkham describes his carnival nightmares, the "Tunnel of Love" is meant to remind you of a woman's genitals.
• Deranged Animation: Minus the "animation" part since it's a comic, but the art style definitely revels in this and milks it for all the creepiness information technology'south worth.
• Electroconvulsive Therapy Is Torture: Dr Amadeus Arkham really does apply the ECT machine for torture and murder, subjecting Mad Canis familiaris Hawkins to "treatment" that slowly fries him alive. This being a) the 1920s and b) Arkham Aviary, it's dismissed equally an unfortunate accident.
• Middle Scream:
  • Joker creatively uses a nurse, a sharpened pencil, and one of her eyes to lure Batman to the asylum. And so when Batman gets there, it turns out he was kidding.
  • Then there's the Joker himself, since this version doesn't have eyelids.
• Fake Impale Scare: This is how Joker provokes Batman into coming for him: over the phone, he acts every bit though he's blinding a nurse with a pencil through her optics.
• Foe Romance Subtext/Homoerotic Subtext: Part of Morrison's interpretation of Batman. Joker, sensing Batman's frail state of mind and repressed sexuality, deliberately fucks with him, the most memorable function beingness when he slaps Batman's donkey.
• Freud Was Right: If you read Grant's notes, you'll detect that a LOT of the scenes in this story have to exercise with Batman'due south screwed-up sexuality. And it was more often than not based on Jungian psychology, an outgrowth of Freud'due south work. Even Lampshaded in the comic when Arkham goes to study with Jung in Europe.
• Full-Frontal Assail: Some of the characters are nude, Clayface is completely naked every bit he tries to touch Batman and Maxie Zeus appears to be naked but the dark surround covers his genitals. It's assumed he's naked because his electroshock therapy gear made him lose control of his sphincter, forcing him to defecate himself.

• Hollywood Psychology: The idea that The Joker reinvents himself every day considering he finds reality and then overwhelming, so that he might be a harmless prankster one moment and a homicidal bedlamite the side by side. Amid other things, this reconciles the wildly unlike versions of the graphic symbol that have appeared since the 40'south. The problem is the doctors call this "Super Sanity" and imply that perhaps he is perfectly sensible to live this way, maybe more than so than the rest, and that this "Super Sanity" is unprecedented. Apart from non knowing what sanity means, the doctors are really describing a very much precedented condition, namely dissociation or a psychotic break from reality, albeit an extreme case. The doctors are obviously quacks, only the term has become pop in the Joker'due south fandom.
  • It'southward twenty years later on, but in his Batman and Robin series Morrison has Joker admit to the new Robin, Damian Wayne, that he isn't actually crazy ("but unlike sane") and affirms Damian's accusations that he really isn't every bit crazy as he lets everyone think he is, confirming that these doctors are not meant to be taken seriously and The Joker is supposed to be null more than a sophisticated Manipulative Bounder . Again, this is 20 years afterwards, so its non exactly the best authority on the subject field, even if it is the same author.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Arkham eats his expressionless wife and daughter following their deaths. If you wait carefully in the scenes directly after Arkham discovers his dead family, you can see he has some blood around his mouth and beard. An early version of the script had more explicit.
• Impaled Palm: Batman does information technology to himself with a shard of glass.
• Impaled with Farthermost Prejudice: Killer Croc.
• Insult Backlash:

  Batman: Take your filthy hands off me!

  Joker: What's the thing? Accept I touched a nerve? How is the Boy Wonder (Jason Todd)? ^annotation This took place before A Death in the Family unit but the latter was published later this Started shaving yet?

  Batman: Filthy degenerate!

  Joker: Flattery will get you nowhere.

• Literary Innuendo Title: That is line 65 from Phillip Larkin's poem "Church Going", that describes the fascination Larkin, an agnostic, feels for churches, recognizing that even when humanity will lose all religion in gods, information technology will always demand churches as a place to reflect about life, expiry, marriage, etc... then you realize that the comic is about a Bedlam House, and it implies humanity will always need a place similar that...
• Mental Time Travel and Stable Time Loop: According to Morrison'south script, the madness of the asylum'south inmates echoed back through time which drove Mrs. Arkham (and, later, her son Amadeus) insane. Simply Batman's anger and confusion is what collection the ii Arkhams over the edge, which leads Amadeus to write about the Bat, so Cavendish would prepare the events of the comic in move, which caused the Arkhams to become insane. All because Dr. Destiny'due south dream-based reality-warping powers had allowed the Asylum to turn into a nightmare landscape where the veil of time was thin to begin with. And that only happened because the inmates had taken over, and that but happened because Batman had in his anger and confusion put them in at that place to begin with. Finally, Cavendish finishes Arkham's spell, which is intended to exorcise the mad demon that infests the aviary, but because information technology's Apr Fools' Twenty-four hours, everything works backward and he instead is the one to send it back in time and infest the aviary in the starting time identify.
• Mind Screw: If the Stable Time Loop aspects manage to make sense, the utterly surreal art and psychological horror are still more than enough to render the whole comic into a vehicle to spiral with a reader's head.
• Mommy Issues: Both Batman and Arkham have metric truckloads of them.
• Only Sane Human: Professor Milo. Prior to the story, he'd been incarcerated in Arkham after accidentally being exposed to his insanity gas, but past the time of the novel it'due south worn off. This is generally played for (grim) laughs.

  "I don't know how many times I have to say this. I am sane. I am perfectly and completely sane. I shouldn't be in here at all. There's been a terrible mistake."

• Painting the Medium: Every character gets a unlike style of speech chimera. For instance, Batman'due south is black with white lettering; Maxie gets blue with a Greek font... Joker's lines don't have speech bubbles containing them (just did accept a deranged carmine colour) and Clayface's were... just plain weird.
  • While probably unintentional, Maxie Zeus talking about how he's a god in blue spoken language bubbles brought someone else to mind.
  • This can lead to difficulty in reading some dialogue, specially with the Joker'southward jagged-blood-red font.
• Played for Horror: The comic takes many of the recurring villains, strips them of any kind of silliness, and plays their well-nigh notorious traits for horror: For example, Dr. Destiny is no longer a creepy but somewhat cartoonish man in a cloak and a skull face, only an emaciated, withered man trapped in a wheelchair. It'due south unsaid that he still possesses his terrifying dream powers as well, the Mad Hatter is hinted at being a pedophile, etc.
• Psychological Horror: Arkham Asylum is not a pretty place. And the comic spares no expense in showing but how completely, irrevocably screwed up the place is, psychologically deconstructing anybody inside of it throughout the story, including Batman.
• Reality Warper: Dr. Destiny gets portrayed this mode hither, although he'southward actually less scary than in The Sandman.

  Joker: He seems and then delicate in that wheelchair but all he has to do is look at y'all and you stop existence real. He does and then desire to look at you, darling.

• Run the Gauntlet: The inmates force Batman to at least confront, and sometimes actually fight, several archetype Bat villains.

  Joker: Time to begin the evening's entertainment, I remember. If you're feeling upwards to it.
  Batman: Up to what?
  Joker: A overnice lilliputian game of hibernate and seek. You have one 60 minutes, sweetheart, and in that location'south no way out of the building. I hour before all your friends come up looking for yous. [...] They all want to encounter you, so why don't yous just run along now?

• Sanity Has Advantages: Simply non every bit many as you lot'd hope.
• Secret Identity Apathy:

  Black Mask: I say we have off his mask. I desire to run into his real face.
  The Joker: Oh, don't exist then anticipated, for Christ'due south sake! That is his real face! And I want to become much deeper than that.

• Shout-Out:
  • The final words of the comic:
  • Dr. Ruth Adams shares a name with the female scientist co-star of This Isle Globe.
• Slap Yourself Awake: Batman stabs his palm with a shard of drinking glass to wake himself up from the disturbing experience of being psychoanalyzed past The Joker.
• Small Reference Pools: We have Carl Jung, Alice in Wonderland, Psycho, The Bible, Aleister Crowley, Tarot Motifs, quantum mechanics, and much, much more.
• Take That!: In the 15th Anniversary edition, in the beginning of the script, Morrison writes that the script was passed around to many others before the projection was completed, and that they all laughed at their attempts to integrate serious psychological symbols into a comic. Await at them now, "@$$holes!".
• Tarot Motifs: Several, The Tower and The Moon in particular.
• Tranquil Fury: Amadeus Arkham enters this when he is charged with dealing with his family'due south killer, ultimately leading him to assassinate him to death several months later.
• The Cameo: Lots of classic Batman villains brand background cameos, similar Black Mask and Tweedledee & Tweedledum, some in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them kind of fashion. Then there's Scarecrow, whose presence takes up several panels, but does fiddling more than walk from 1 finish of the corridor to the other finish.
• The Unfought: Lots and lots. Batman just fights Killer Croc, and assaults both Clayface and Dr. Destiny. But the residuum of the rogue gallery goes completely unfought - Joker, Two Face, Black Mask, Mad Hatter, Maxie Zeus, Scarecrow...
• There Are No Therapists: Well there are therapists, just not proficient ones. The therapists in the Asylum are all hopelessly corrupt, only as insane every bit the inmates, scared out of their minds, or all 3.
• Also Kinky to Torture: Maxie Zeus has go addicted to electroshock therapy, seen hooked upwards to what can but be described as a non-lethal electrical chair when Batman encounters him.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: You'll get much more out of it if you have some cognition of psychological symbolism. If not...
  • Multiple re-reads are practically mandatory as well.
  • It also has the trouble that, while the art is wonderful, it oft does a poor job of actually portraying the events of the scene and at many points has omitted of import symbolic details for the sake of maintaining its distinctive style. Reading the script, even without annotations, reveals a lot.
• Weird Moon: 2-Face has decided it's a coin, scarred face up, which is why God had to create the world.
• World of Symbolism: Morrison's script was chock full of pop psychology, Tarot, the occult, medieval Christian mythology, and more than. McKean's creepy-donkey surreal artwork just takes Morrison's iii-layers-deep mythology and turns information technology into swirling horror. Morrison didn't heed.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/ArkhamAsylumASeriousHouseOnSeriousEarth

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