Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

This week, while focusing on superhero comics, I read numerous works such as Watchmen and the Fables series. While I thoroughly enjoyed them and plan to read more of them, the piece, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth impressed me the most. Arkham Asylum is a Batman piece from 1989, written by Grant Morrison (with this being his first Batman story before becoming a regular writer for the series) and illustrated by Dave McKean.

The story follows Batman, who is called in to help deal with a riot where all of the inmates have recently taken over Gotham's psychiatric hospital, Arkham Asylum, which houses all of Gotham's most dangerous criminals and Batman's Rogue Gallery. Once inside, Batman confronts all of his foes and sees the effects that living in the asylum has caused. Here we see characters such as The Joker, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, and worst of all, Harvey Dent aka Two-Face, who has become so broken that he can't make a decision on anything, even on going to the bathroom, due to having his trademark coin taken away and being replaced by a six-sided die, and later a deck of tarot cards. Batman is forced to go on the run and is constantly forced to fend off the other inmates who are trying to kill him. While Batman is fighting his way through Arkham Asylum, we get a look at the creation of the asylum and the history of its founder, Amadeus Arkham. Here, Amadeus tells the story of his late mother and both of their struggles with her insanity and the story of his wife and daughter who are eventually tortured and murdered by an escaped inmate that Amadeus psychologically evaluated earlier while he is in the process of converting his childhood home into Gotham's future asylum. Amadeus's own decent into madness is depicted in the story as well.

I was already intrigued by this story before I initially read it since this book served as the initial inspiration for the Batman: Arkham video game series, which has become one of my favorite video games to play in the last few years. While the two do differ quite a bit from each other, the basic premise remains the same, specifically the story of Amadeus Arkham. However, I did enjoy the comic book version much more as I felt it dove into his mind much more vividly, allowing the readers to visually see and feel Amadeus tragic story of loss and insanity. In fact, compared to the video game, I felt that the comic focuses much more on Amadeus himself instead of Batman. Another thing I really enjoyed is the art direction. The art itself is very gritty and surreal and while I'm not a fan this design choice on some of the characters such as The Joker, it leaves a very great effect on Batman. Here, the artist basically leaves Batman entirely in silhouette, never showing any of his details excepts for some small ones once in a while, such as the bottom of his mouth in close ups. Because of this, I feel that it heavily pushes the ideals and goals that Batman himself strives to have, as well as it giving the readers a look into the mind of Gotham's insane and it's citizens, allowing us to see Batman more through their eyes.

In closing, I found Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth to be quite enjoyable. I personally felt that it is not so much as a Batman story, but more of a story of Gotham City's past, specifically the life of a very important figure, who, for the most part, is never seen alive in the Batman serials. It also gives us a good look into the mind of the mentally ill similar to the graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke. However this story focus more on the thought of preexisting insanity, those trying to cure them, and the damages that result from these so-called cures and procedures. Overall, I think this is a very good piece which differentiates itself enough for those who really don't care for superhero comics or would prefer a different type of subject. I believe that they would be able to find enjoyment in reading this piece.