With Halloween coming closer I thought I'd highlight some of the more scary comic book stories. Today we'll be talking about a story called "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth". In this story, Batman must traverse the institute housing his greatest foes to regain control of the building.
"Afraid? Batman's not afraid of anything. It's me. I'm afraid. I'm afraid The Joker may be right about me. Sometimes....I question the rationality of my actions. And I'm afraid when I walk through those asylum gates...when I walk into Arkham and the doors close behind me...it'll be just like coming home"
-Batman, A Serious House on Serious Earth.
The Arkham Asylum Mental Institution is taken over by the patients who inhabit it and the Gotham City Police Department is forced to call in the help of Batman. As it turns out, the inmates want Batman to enter the asylum, otherwise it's current warden Charles Cavendish will be tortured and killed. Batman explores the asylum, finding his costumed foes transformed by the institution walls. Two-Face/Harvey Dent used to make his decisions based on a coin toss, but after the therapists tried giving him more decisions than he could handle he lost the ability to make any decisions at all. Mad Hatter was a criminal obsessed with "Alice in Wonderland", so much so that his love for the title character turned him into a child molester. The Joker is characterized as a transvestite lunatic who believes Batman to be as crazy as Arkham's inmates. As the story goes on, Batman also questions his own sanity and feels regret for creating the monsters Arkham contains. The ending features a disturbing twist that shows how Arkham's influence has affected those within it.
If you're looking for an eerie turn-off-the-lamp story to give you the creeps, I'd recommend checking out this book. It's a realistic look into the twisted psychosis of both Batman and his many foes. Enjoy your dark night readers, and I'll see you in the next installment of this week's topic.
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