Fans are having fun right now cheering on, tearing into, and generally debating the writing of Grant Morrison for DC Comics. Final Crisis and Batman
are doing some crazy things, at times appearing off-the-wall or even a
little bit disturbing. However, one of the first two projects Morrison
ever pitched to DC Comics set the “disturbing” bar quite high. The book
known to most as simply Arkham Asylum (as opposed to the full title Batman: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
cause well, that’s just long winded) turns twenty years old next year,
and now we’ll flashback to it for a frightening look at the past.
Many new readers’ first exposure to Grant Morrison’s Batman is the
current titular book he writes monthly. His first foray with the
character was a journey through the minds of Bruce Wayne, Amadeus
Arkham, and many of Batman’s greatest foes. The focus is on the story
of how Arkham Asylum came to be, and the story of its founder.
Basically, this story is NOT for the faint of heart. It features some
frightening imagery, and even more frightening words. A lot of
characters are brought to new heights of insanity and are taken in
different directions. The Joker, for example, is played a
bit…differently than in most other stories. He’s depicted as somewhat
flirting with Batman- the way he does it seems a natural extension of
the character, just joking around, but the way it affects Batman makes
it disturbing. Likewise, and even moreso, The Mad Hatter’s depiction is
brought to a new level. He’s only featured in the book for a couple
pages, but the character very overtly reveals that his love for the
Alice in Wonderland mythos lies mostly in his love for Alice, and his
desire to find other little girls that look like her. Morrison takes
these campy villains and transforms them into true psychotics- people
with devastating mental illness and truly frightening overtones.
The parallels of Amadeus Arkham’s descent into darkness alongside
Batman’s and his Rogues’ own fall is interesting. It shows how just the
tiniest divergence could have made Bruce Wayne a psychopathic criminal
instead of the only slightly crazy crime fighter he is. His being at
least a little crazy is never the question posed here. Instead, it’s if
he’s crazy enough that he belongs alongside his villains, not on the
outside looking in.
Batman does what Batman does while trapped in the harrowed walls of
Gotham- he takes down his villains one by one, mehodically. His true
captor is eventually revealed, and once again, Batman allows someone to
die without actually killing them himself, letting him keep his moral
high ground, while simultaneously saying “he got what he deserved.”
Morrison’s Batman is disturbing in away similar and different from his
villains; he knows hes a bit crazy, he knows what needs to be done, but
he tricks himself into thinking he’s better. This self-actualization is
the only thing that truly separates him from the inmates of Arkham;
Batman believes himself better, and so he is.
The art of this story is striking, beautiful, and yes, today’s secret
word: disturbing. First, if you haven’t read the story already, I can’t
recommend enough the newer printing in the 15th Anniversary Edition.
Dave McKean’s mixed-media artwork featuring painting, photography,
penciled art, and more looks beautiful on the glossy page. An
interesting technique used barely ever shows Batman himself. We see him
in the shadows, we see the outline of his cape and cowl, but only a
couple times in nearly 130 pages do we catch even the slightest glimpse
of his face. The highlight of the artwork is its trip through insanity.
There’s almost a sanity-gauge built into it, where you can visibly see
just how crazy each of the villains is. As Arkham himself falls deeper
into crazy-land, the artwork surrounding his half of the tale gets more
and more jarring and disarrayed. McKean at the time was simply a young,
mostly unknown artist, not the visual genius he’s known as today, so
it’s especially interesting to see how far ahead of the curve he was,
even in the late 80s.
The biggest point I can make about this story is how well every single
element of it holds up today. There is not a single line or panel in
this entire book that doesn’t fit as part of the overall mythos of
Batman and his world. So flip a coin, roll a die, pick a card, or
however you make a decision, and check into Arkham Asylum. I know I’m crazy over it. Heh.
Related: Batman: Arkham Asylum Videogame ComingBlog@: A Peek at the Arham Asylum Game
