Batman Arkham Asylum 1989

[Allen Yerke]

ArkhamAsylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is a Batman graphic novel written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean. It was originally published in the United States in both hardcover and softcover editions by DC Comics in 1989. The subtitle is taken from line 55 of the poem "Church Going", by Philip Larkin.

The inmates of Arkham Asylum have taken over and seized control of the staff. They're willing to release the hostages, but only if their one demand is met: Batman must be turned over to them, and become one of their own.

Commissioner Gordon informs Batman that the patients of Arkham Asylum have taken over the building, and will murder the staff unless Batman agrees to meet with them. Among the hostages is a young woman named Pearl, who works in the kitchens; the current Administrator, Dr. Charles Cavendish; and Dr. Ruth Adams, a therapist. The patients are led by the Joker, who kills a guard to spur Batman to obey his wishes. Two-Face, meanwhile, has degenerated even further into madness as a result of Adams' therapy;(sort of like shermans vandalism) she replaced his trademark coin with a six-sided die, and then with a tarot deck of cards, rendering him incapable of making simple decisions such as going to the bathroom.

The story is interspersed with flashbacks to Arkham founder Amadeus Arkham's life and childhood. These flashbacks reveal that he was inspired to become a psychiatrist because of his mother's mental illness.

On his journey through Arkham, Batman encounters Clayface, who is wasting away from an unspecified skin disease and who tries to infect Batman by touching him. Batman tears past, breaking Clayface's leg in the process, and flees, encountering a wheelchair-bound Doctor Destiny. Batman incapacitates Destiny by pushing him down a flight of stairs. As he ventures through Arkham, he also meets Scarecrow, Mad Hatter and Maxie Zeus, all of whom he flees from. Finally Batman comes face to face with Killer Croc, who grapples with the Dark Knight before throwing him out of a window. Batman lands on a roof, where he grabs onto the statue of an angel clasping a bronze spear, which he tears loose. Clutching the spear, Batman climbs back through the window and impales Croc before casting him out of the window.

Inside, Dr. Cavendish is dressed in a bridal gown and holding a straight razor to Dr. Adams' throat. He is revealed to have been the one to orchestrate the riots. When questioned by Batman, he prompts him to read a passage marked out in Amadeus Arkham's secret diary.

The hidden room turns out to have been Elizabeth Arkham's bedchamber. For many years she suffered delusions that she was being tormented by a supernatural creature, and would call to her son to protect her. One day, however, he finally sees what his mother saw - a great bat, a spectre of death. Taking a pearl-handled straight razor from his pocket, he cuts his mother's throat to end her suffering. He then blocks out the memory, and attributes her death to suicide. Years later, his wife and daughter are murdered by one of his former patients, a serial killer named Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins. The tragedy brings back the memory of killing his mother.

Traumatized, Amadeus puts on his mother's wedding dress and takes out the pearl-handled razor. Kneeling in the blood of his family, he vows to bind the evil spirit of "The Bat", which he believes inhabits the house, through ritual and sorcery. He continues his mission even after he is incarcerated in the Asylum himself; he scratches the words of the binding spell into the walls and floor of his cell with his fingernails until the day he dies.

Discovering Amadeus Arkham's journals, the razor and the dress, Cavendish begins to believe himself to be destined to continue Arkham's work. On April 1, the date Arkham's family was murdered, he lures Batman to the asylum. Believing Batman to be "The Bat" itself, Cavendish accuses him of feeding the evil of the house by bringing it more insane souls. Grappling with Batman, Cavendish drops the razor, and Adams picks it up. Reacting instinctively, she slashes it across Cavendish's throat, killing him.

Seizing an axe, Batman runs to the foyer, where the inmates are congregated, and hacks down the front door. He then returns Two-Face's coin back from Dr. Adams, stating that it should be up to Two-Face to decide Batman's fate. Two-Face then declares that they will kill Batman if the coin lands scratched side up, but let him go if the unscarred side appears. Two-Face flips the coin and declares Batman free. The Joker bids Batman good-bye, taunting him by saying that should life ever become too much for him in "the asylum" (the outside world) then he always has a place in Arkham. As Batman disappears into the night, Two-Face looks at the moon and it is revealed that the coin landed scratched side up - he chose to let Batman go. He then turns to the stack of tarot cards and recites a passage from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: "Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards."

Hilary Goldstein of IGN Comics said, "Arkham Asylum is unlike any other Batman book you've ever read [and] one of the finest superhero books to ever grace a bookshelf." Goldstein ranked Arkham Asylum fourth on a list of the 25 greatest Batman trade paperbacks, behind The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, and Year One.

The novel is briefly homaged in the film Batman Begins; in the film, Jonathan Crane's entrance to the asylum's cellar with Rachel Dawes mirrors the Joker's own entrance with Batman in the novel

The video game Batman: Arkham Asylum has elements originating from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, such as the inmates escaping and taking over the asylum, the current warden believing himself to be destined to continue Amadeus Arkham's work, and referencing much of the history described in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.

Any self-respecting Batman fan should be aware of the be-all end-all classics such as Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, and The Killing Joke. That being the case, we figured it'd be best to point you in the direction of the quintessential tales that feature the Dark Knight and Arkham Asylum. If you want to get a taste of what it's like when Batman is thrown right smack in the middle of Gotham's nuthouse, look no farther than these classic tales:

The Arkham inmates, led by the Joker, have taken over the Asylum, and unless Batman turns himself over to their deranged "treatment," they'll kill the facility's staff. Sounds familiar, right? The mark of Grant Morrison's seminal 1989 graphic novel is all over Batman: Arkham Asylum's core story, which is definitely a good thing. This is one of the most cerebral, thought-provoking and haunting Batman stories of all time, and it forever changed the way comic fans looked at the Dark Knight's Rogue's Gallery.

A criminally underrated story by one of the most criminally underrated creative teams to ever work on Batman, The Last Arkham shares a lot in common with A Serious House on Serious Earth without being derivative. On the trail of incarcerated serial killer Mr. Zsasz, Batman goes deep undercover in the newly renovated Arkham to solidify his case. However, as Batman quickly discovers, time in Arkham is no cake walk, and the asylum's disturbed chief resident, Jeremiah Arkham, quickly forces Batman to face his inner demons. The Last Arkham is not only one of the most disturbing psychological Batman thrillers of all time; it also introduced the world to one of the most chilling Batman villains in the form of Mr. Zsasz. Hunt it down in back-issue bins and you won't be disappointed.

I had the same reaction, when I heard about Arkham Asylum, as I did when I heard about the Watchmen game. A defensive reflex, based on the mistaken assumption that this new game was going to be a baffling gamification of Grant Morrison's excellent 1989 graphic novel. Developer Rocksteady is understandably keen to distance itself from that assumption. Arkham Asylum draws from more than one Batman, but it's definitely a DC Batman. Despite a fashionably darker look, Arkham Asylum has its strongest links with the excellent early 90s cartoon, Batman: The Animated Series.

It's a relief that I don't have to feel the same instinctive and dull outrage that Watchmen caused. Watchmen was a one-off, unique. It's so precious and complicated that Terry Gilliam claimed it'd be impossible to turn into a film, let alone a game. And Batman? Well, bless him, he's been ridden around more than a geriatric Blackpool donkey. The other, more fundamental distinction between the two games is that Arkham Asylum actually looks like it might be very good.

Rocksteady is aiming for the feel of titles like BioShock and Chronicles of Riddick, with the iconic asylum providing an atmosphere equally claustrophobic and imprisoning. The introduction we're shown starts off as a movie, as Batman drives Joker through the streets of Gotham. Batman's delivering him directly to Arkham, and he's gibbering about bombs under the city. His voice is familiar - it's veteran video-game bad guy Mark Hamill, who also voiced The Joker in The Animated Series. It's a longer, narrower Joker than TAS, though - Rocksteady has been working with DC's in-house Wildstorm studio to give the game characters a fresh feel.

We arrive at the Asylum, where the game - obviously - takes place. Everyone's keen to know if the whole of the game will be set in Arkham, especially considering the Joker's threats about bombs in Gotham. It appears not - some of the action will take place outside, on the island surrounding the prison. As if on cue, Batman says, "There are no bombs. He's lying. I know him."

His voice is familiar, for the same reason. Kevin Conway was the Batman opposite Mark Hamill's Joker. On top of that, Paul Dini - a TAS writer, story editor on Lost, and most impressively, Freakazoid - is back on board. So, it's a team that's worked together before, and Dini has been admirably humble about the job. As experienced a screenwriter as he is, he's happy to admit that this is his first videogame script, and has worked closely with Rocksteady to avoid the storytelling pitfalls that occur in games like Mirror's Edge, when storyline is treated as an entirely separate entity from gameplay.

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