Batman: Arkham AsylumA Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison

Batman: Arkham AsylumA Serious House on Serious Earth Reviews

• 
  Anne

  Sorry, guys. Didn't like it.
  
  
  
  I have a headache and my eyes hurt.
  Not joking here.
  
  
  
  One of my eyes is actually throbbing.
  Yes, only one.
  I'm going to take some Tylenol...
• 
  Jeff

  The Caped Crusader with footnotes!?!
  
  or Art for Art’s Sake.
  
  or Holy Histrionics, Batman, I’d rather have listened to an opera…
  
  Grant Morrison gets “serious” – it’s even mentioned in the title twice in case you need a reminder – and if Carrot Top wants to star in a remake of Death of a Salesman or Billy Joel wants to write a concerto for flugelhorn and triangle, I don’t want to hear about it.
  
  
  
  Wait, Jeff, did you say footnotes?
  
  Yes, Goodreader, this is why I love you, because nothing ever gets by you. Nothing.
  
  This is the 25th anniversary edition of the publishing of this pretentious pile of crap, so we get Morrison’s script tacked onto the actual comic. The script includes footnotes because Mr. Morrison wants to share each and every pop culture allusion and Easter egg that he’s cleverly included for us.
  
  The script actually came in handy, because I could actually read what The Joker was trying to say, but shuffling back and forth between the comic and an addendum quickly wore thin.
  
  
  
  A plot summary: The inmates at Arkham take control of the asylum because it’s Tuesday and demand that Batman pay them a visit, because they love him so so much and want to cuddle and spoon and eat Toll House cookie dough real fast, which is a good thing because this isn’t take-control-of-the-situation-with-a-few-well-placed-bat-flash-gernades-and-a-couple-of-kidney-punches-and-or-batarang-or-two-to-the-dome Batman, this is Emo-boy-Mr.-Feels-Kyle-Raynor-is-my-psychic-twin Batman, so let’s brood, shall we?
  
  Therapy seems to work wonders for a few of the rogues – yes, Two-Face flip a coin pick a card to see if you can scratch your ass.
  
  
  
  The rest:
  
  Mad Hatter:
  
  
  
  Stop spouting drivel and take a tranquilizer!
  
  Clayface:
  
  
  
  He’s seen better days.
  
  Idea: Bats, shove him into a kiln and present him to Alfred as a big ashtray or something. You can put him between the dinosaur and the big penny.
  
  Did I mention that the asylum is haunted because the Arkham’s were a bunch of loons or the Arkham’s were a bunch of loons because the original house was haunted?
  
  No? Sorry.
  
  
  
  Bottom line: The art is purty, but then so was Where’s Waldo? And with Where’s Waldo you didn’t have to work as hard to find the player(s).
  
  
  
  Another word association? Ready?
  
  This book…………………….Crap.
• 
  Keith

  So after buying this book for the third time in my life today (the first, a hardcover edition that all the pages eventually fell out of; the second, the paperback edition sans script that now sits across the country with the rest of my books) I decided it was worth going on Goodreads to wax poetic about it. Because goddamn I love this book. I got it right after the '89 movie came out, of course, and was absolutely terrified of it -- it sat on my nightstand and gave me nightmares regularly, until I put it away for years before revisiting it again in my late teens.
  
  But I'd never bothered to wonder what anyone else thought of it. It's so weird and relatively incomprehensible that I wouldn't recommend it to people trying to get into comics, and most people who are into comics have already read it, I imagine (despite, as I said, never having talked about it with anyone).
  
  So yeah! Goodreads! Goodreads kinda hates this book! I mean, not everybody, but a lot of people! And Batman comics are not the kind of thing that generally creates polarized opinions, if ya know what I mean. There's The Bat-Books Fans Like and The Bat-Books Fans Hate, and every so often there's some idiot who goes "I just think Alan Moore over-intellectualizes" and we all beat up that one guy. And sure, everyone argues if
  Killing Joke or
  Year One or
  Dark Knight Returns is the best one, but it's generally assumed that ONE of them is your favorite (and then a couple n00bs in the back start saying that either
  Hush or
  Long Halloween is the best, and we throw them out with the Alan Moore whiny guy). But Arkham Asylum? I dunno man. It's a weird friggin' book. It's apparently like the best-selling graphic novel of all time. It rarely comes up in discussion. And Goodreads kinda hates it.
  
  Everyone who complains that Grant Morrison's cleverer-than-thou new age fruitiness is too naked here is right. And that Dave McKean clearly rendered Batman as a black splotch because he couldn't figure out how to draw him, that's also obvious. And that Batman acts completely out-of-character -- he doesn't save anyone, he lets people kill each other, he has no discernible plan, he admits he's just scared and then leaves at the end -- yeah, those folks are right too.
  
  But dammit. People like Batman because we all kind feel like we ARE Batman, I think. Not like we have hero complexes - but like we're alone on the edge of an abyss, either the sanest or the least sane in a strange dark world? You don't have to be thirteen in your bedroom listening to the Cure to grok that, man. And yknow, I'm glad there's a fucked-up scary Bat-book where Batman is just doing all he can to stand upright in the face of muddy horror, you know? With its facile Crowley references and lame-ass anglocentric Tarot-based page layouts or whatever. Cuz good lord, some days your whole world feels like an ominous Tarot reading, no matter how far you get from that little kid who was scared of his own comics twenty years ago. I'm glad there's a book out there where my buddy Batman has a bad day too.
  
  Loves you, booky-book. Loves you. No matter what the little piggies say.
• 
  Eric

  What a fucking mess. The painted artwork was appalling, the story-line was incoherent, the dialogue was barely legible, and, most importantly, the portrayal of Batman was all wrong. This felt like a second-rate haunted-house horror that Batman was wedged into, and poorly at that. Batman's encounters with various villains felt thrown-in, in a cheap name-dropping way, his decision-making was baffling to non-existent, and the story's resolution -- hanging on a coin-flip -- was absurd.
  
  The back-story to Gotham's Arkham Asylum was done much better in the Batman: Arkham Asylum video-game. If I'd read this first, I may never have played that game due to fear it was this bad.
  
  I only did decide to read this after seeing it on
  multiple
  best
  graphic-novel
  lists. How can so many lists be so wrong? And how is the Goodreads rating so high? What am I missing?
• 
  Tim

  Upon occasion I have been asked what my favorite Batman story is. I ask immediately afterwards if they mean favorite story involving Batman or favorite story about Batman. The answers are different. Favorite story involving Batman is The Killing Joke, but that is Joker's story not his. My favorite about Batman is Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.
  
  So much has been written about this comic that honestly at this point reviewing it accomplishes nothing. For the most part people know what it is about and they already know if they love it or hate it (there seems to be no in-between). Rather than reviewing it in a traditional way, let me just break down five things that I love about it.
  
  1. The art. Dear sweet Dave McKean the art!
  
  
  
  It's beautiful. It's chaotic. It's symbolic. It's hard to follow. It's the perfect way to describe the book as a whole and I love it!
  
  2. A completely psychological take on Batman. Here the villains are less people than ideas, horrible ideas and doubts in Batman's head. Those looking for Batman punching a villain in the face should look elsewhere. There are a few fights in it, but they are not the point and indeed often come off anti-climactic. It is the dialogue and the thought process one is supposed to go through which are the real battles here.
  
  3. The backstory of Arkham Asylum. That is a horror tale in and of itself, and it contrasts with Batman's struggle so beautifully.
  
  4. Grant Morrison's writing. From the dialogue to the symbolism of the characters, it's a joy to read. If you have a hard time figuring out how everything in it works (as most do including the writer it seems) check out the script included in most newer editions of the book. It's a fascinating read with Morrison's own notes.
  
  5. A fully mature Batman story. Oh, I know that's been done plenty of times, but this one is essentially an R rated horror story in Batman form. It was one of the first to do that and it is still one of the best.
  
  Will my review win people over? Probably not. As I said, the reputation of this book is so well known that you likely already have a few strong opinions on it. That said, if you've never heard of this book, or are considering it, I highly recommended it for anyone looking for a dark and psychological horror story involving superheroes and self doubt. For my money, it's never been done better... just don't go in expecting Batman to be his usual self. This is a very different sort of tale. 5/5 stars.
• 
  Gianfranco Mancini

  
  
  Absolutely not just a graphic-novel.
  
  This is a dream-like lynchian descent into madness.
  
  Best Dark Knight story ever with "The Dark Knight returns" and "The Killing Joke".
  
  A masterwork.
• 
  Shannon

  
  
  
  This is not your traditional Batman tale. Some people won't like it. In fact, Batman seems like a normal man when confronted by the horrors within and acts in very non Batman ways. There's a two part story here where we switch back and forth to the founder of Arkham and why he turned his mansion into a facility for the mad and Batman trying to navigate his way through the madness of Arkham.
  
  
  
  
  Batman action is minimal. This is much more of an emotional journey.
  
  There is distinctive lettering for different characters and massive amounts of symbolism so several things will be missed by the casual reader. Think of this as a true nightmare tale for Batman. Sometimes the symbolism is a bit much and gets in the way of the tale. This graphic novel influenced a video game of a similar title but that one is more action based. It also influenced Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker.
  
  
  
  
  STORY/PLOTTING: B minus to B; CHARACTER/DIALOGUE: B to B plus; ARTWORK PRESENTATION/PANELS: B plus to A minus; BATMAN MYTHOLOGY/FOCUSES: B; OVERALL GRADE: B to B plus; WHEN READ: December 2011 (revised review end of April 2013)
• 
  Sam Quixote

  Based solely upon his 2006-2013 run, Grant Morrison might be the greatest Batman writer of all time. But he wasn’t always so brilliant as his first Batman book, the mega-selling Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, shows.
  
  The inmates have overrun the asylum and are holding civilians hostage. With Joker running free with a knife, Batman goes into the asylum to stop him and enters a nightmarish netherworld. Meanwhile, the troubled life of the asylum’s founder, Amadeus Arkham, is explored.
  
  The story is one long rambling mess, which is part of Morrison’s intent. It’s designed to be dream-like and to read like a song and therefore, as a comic, it’s difficult to follow or really understand. I get the impression the symbolism of the tarot is important but the book didn’t make me interested enough to want to pursue a deeper understanding of it. Batman’s characterisation is a bit off too – how was he beaten by a deranged doctor!?
  
  Some readers might scoff that Morrison’s comics are always like this with his drug use, but he actually wrote this before he began using drugs and alcohol – he writes in his afterword that he stayed up for hours on end to achieve the altered state of consciousness he wanted before sitting down to write. So it’s official: with or without drugs, Morrison writes weird comics! Hear that, poseur artists, you don’t need vice to produce art!
  
  Dave McKean’s artwork matches Morrison’s bizarre story well but it still looks a bit too avant-garde for a comic. McKean’s best known for being The Sandman’s cover artist and his art is well suited to that format. But for page after page of interior art? It’s just headache-inducing! And when he does draw distinguishable figures, they look like poor Simon Bisley facsimiles.
  
  I liked Morrison’s idea to have the Arkham doctors try weaning Harvey Dent off of the two-sided coin and onto the I Ching. It seemed like an original and viable means of treatment for Two-Face. But other ideas like the Joker calling the outside world the asylum and the world inside Arkham the real world was just corny, and the Amadeus Arkham storyline just read like a poor man’s Psycho. Morrison’s comics usually have more substance to them but Arkham Asylum is all surface texture with few great ideas.
  
  Arkham Asylum is a visually interesting book but it looks and reads like an art student’s project, ie. a pretentious mish-mash of nonsense, than a good comic. I definitely wouldn’t rank it among Batman’s classics! If you want to read Morrison’s best Batman books, start with Batman and Son and go forwards from there.
• 
  Alex ☣ Deranged KittyCat ☣

  
  
  I'm not quite sure how I feel about Batman: Arkham Asylum. The story isn't to my liking (although the Joker grabbing Batman's arse is something one doesn't see often).
  
  Also, I found the art style too weird.
  
  
• 
  Mario the lone bookwolf

  An overkill of antagonists
  
  Led by the joker
  Who is, once again, showing Batman what one man with enough madness can achieve. Besides some fun with Two Face, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Clayface, Scarecrow, Doctor Destiny, etc., the biggest concept of this disturbing work is to let the reader
  
  Live the life of an inmate of a mental asylum
  That´s what makes it unique, because although other Batman graphic novels like The Killing Joke
  
  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... have some implications about how society treats mentally sick people and the criminally insane, this one is different. By letting Batman suffer under the same inhumane circumstances, it let´s one ask
  
  How anyone should get healthy again under such conditions
  Sadly many mental illnesses are so severe that there is no real hope and especially no reason to endanger citizens by again unleashing seemingly healed maniacs. It´s not as if it often just took weeks or months until a resocialized, pardoned criminal went on another killing, raping, or pyromania spree. What this says about the psychiatrists and psychiatry itself is another elephant in the room manifested in
  
  Amadeus Arkhams´diary
  This shows that nobody is as normal and mentally stable as it seems, also and especially people permanently working with dangerous Loki style murderers. So both the big mental asylum pharmacological industrial complex and psychology/psychiatry itself get their roast combined with a
  
  Graphic style that may be a bit too unusual
  And thereby simply not what some readers expect and like. Quite an irony that one of the works´ biggest strengths is also its only real weakness. I guess it would have been much more successful with stereotypical violent, bloody, and disturbing graphic novel drawings because, honestly, the creep factor is possibly simply a bit too big that way too. The shattered minds in combination with these unusual, more paintings than drawings, that often seem to fray and dissolve like the souls of crazy criminals, may be too sicko mode for some readers. Although I´m seriously playing with the idea of rereading it under the influence of some beers or other stuff to enjoy it even more. Another example of how ruined my karma already is.
  
  Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
  
  https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
• 
  Louie the Mustache Matos

  I love comic books, and I’ve grown quite fond of Trade Paperbacks. They give you a full story that might span several comic book issues without you having to pick them up monthly. Batman is one of my favorite heroes. Arkham Asylum is where Batman's Rogues Gallery are incarcerated, and so I had high expectations. High concept. Thoughtful narrative, but a little pretentious. The painted artwork I guess is designed to be nightmarish ala Bill Sienkiewicz' Moon Knight to highlight how the inmates visually observe their surroundings through the subjective prism deemed insanity. However, the sequential art makes the narrative difficult to follow, and I was unimpressed and unconvinced. This story was not great, but it wasn't horrible. You could avoid this one. To my mind, Grant Morrison has never been the type of writer that makes a reader stop to take notice, and this graphic novel does nothing to alter that perception.
• 
  فؤاد

  یکی از کمیک های به یاد موندنی بتمن.
  بذارید اینجوری شروع کنم.
  
  مرد عنکبوتی، خصوصیت اصلیش سرزنده بودنشه. پیوسته طنز میگه و خود شیوه ی حرکتش (تاب خوردن هاش) این سرزنده بودن رو تقویت میکنن.
  سوپرمن، خصوصیت اصلیش درستکاری و عدالت جو بودنشه.
  کاپیتان آمریکا، خصوصیت اصلیش افتخار و وفاداری و سرباز بودنشه، که از اسم و لباسش هم میباره این خصوصیت.
  
  شخصیت بتمن، با هراس آمیخته شده. خصوصیت اصلی بتمن، بی رحم و جدی بودنشه. این خصوصیت اخلاقی کاملاً با لباس سیاه، با خفاش و نهایتاً با شب گرد بودنش خیلی متناسبه.
  
  
  
  طراح های شخصیت بتمن (باب کین و بیل فینگر) برای طراحی لباسش از یه فیلم ترسناک الهام گرفتن که در اون، یه انسان خفاش نمای قاتل، این ور و اون ور میرفته و مردم رو می ترسونده و می کشته. این نشون میده که ایده ی اولیه ی این طراح ها هم این بوده که بتمن قراره موجودی هراس انگیز باشه.
  
  اما وقتی کمیک های بتمن ادامه پیدا می کنن، کم کم این خصوصیت فراموش میشه و داستان های بتمن به داستان های ابرقهرمانی معمولی (که عنصر اصلیشون اکشنه) تبدیل میشن.
  
  این کمیک، به نظرم بازگشت عالی بتمن به دوران هراسشه. کمیک رسماً در ژانر وحشت تقسیم بندی میشه. فضای وحشت انگیز تیمارستان آرکام، طراحی های وحشت انگیز بتمن و جوکر، داستان وحشت انگیز آمادئوس آرکام (مؤسس تیمارستان آرکام) که به صورت فلاش بک نقل میشه، همه دست به دست هم دادن تا یه داستان گوتیک بتمن داشته باشیم.
• 
  Brett C

  "Until the night of 1901, when I first caught a glimpse of that other world. The world of the dark side."
  
  From these lines on the first page, I knew this was going to be a dark ride. The artwork from the inside front-cover to the inside back-cover helped maintain continuity of oppressive psychological heaviness. It was fun to read and look at the unique artwork because of the various references and symbolisms.
  
  I enjoyed this one from start to finish. The inmates of the infamous Arkham Asylum have rioted and taken over. The Joker and the other criminals demand Batman make a personal appearance inside the asylum.
  
  He is forced to enter the asylum where he undergoes his own dark psychological journey while dealing with a few villains. While Batman briefly encounters Two-Face, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, and others, the plot tells the backstory of the asylum's dark beginning.
  
  The parallel story within the plot is about Dr. Amadeus Arkham, the psychiatrist who founded the asylum. This story is told from journal excerpts discovered hidden in the hospital. They are the handwritten entries detailing his painful childhood, the difficulties of his profession in his adult life, and the tragic misfortune of his family. Unfortunately, these traumatic experiences shape him a dark way.
  
  This was a dark and very psychological story. The artwork did a great job at highlighting the storyline and was a major part of the overall concept. I would definitely recommend this to any Batman fan and Joker fan. Thanks!
• 
  Julian

  A batman tale at its best, as it reaches unflinchingly deep into the recesses of the human psyche. While the comic may be accused by some as symptomatic of an attempt at at best, pop psychology, I think the authors have done a marvellous job in portraying the differences by which Batman and The Joker are negotiating what are in essence, very similar psychological conflicts.
  This is done on a backdrop literally seething with a brooding, menacing perceived threat of total disintegration, which was in fact embraced by another main character, that of Arkham himself. An analytically minded reader will appreciate how each of Batman's villains in fact, symbolically represent in avatar form each of his specifc fears.
  These fears make him human; while also confirming that his mask etc in fact serve as a defensive character armour which keeps the underlying guilt, abandonment rage and fantasies of revenge both at bay. At the same time, the mask also allows for sublimation in his role as a 'dark knight'.
  There are nice references to Freudian theories (a connecting theme here is the loss of mother-via murder and imagined/actual matricide- and its associated trauma, annihilation anxiety and subsequent efforts at psychological defence), his structural theory of the mind (illustrated concretely by the architecture of the Asylum itself) Jungian archetypes, an implicit idealizing identification exhibited by Dr Cavendish (enabled by the Asylum again functioning as a container of chaos AND an evocative object), and even the role of 'similarity; in magic as described by James George Frazier in 'The Golden Bough'. This is the way fairy tales should be told (well, especially for adults)! Super-heroes are no longer just an all pervasive, concretely 'good' force dressed in a pretty costume,partaking in a sterile and entirely logical world whereby 'evil' villains are routinely 'defeated'.
  No, this is a more realistic (albeit gruesome at times) confrontation of life and its culturally suppressed opposites (or should I say, inseparable shadow): death, chaos and disintegration.
• 
  Madeline

  i think ADHD being a form of higher evolution is an interesting theory. grant morrison thinking he is more highly evolved because he has ADHD is a less interesting theory.
  
  morrison is no genius, in my opinion. i would attribute most of the greatness of the book to mckean, especially after reading the original "script" in the back of this book. morrison says, "According to Len Wein's original WHO'S WHO entry, Arkham died singing "the Battle Hymn of the Republic," but for some reason I got confused and had him belting out "The Star Spangled Banner" instead. Let's face it, the guy was a nut, he might as well have been singing "Hello Dolly!"
  
  good god, morrison. "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord" makes a helluva lot more sense in a book centered around the themes of death and rebirth than "O say can you see..."
  
  and then he just writes it off because "the guy was a nut" even though the other major theme of the book is that insanity is sanity and vise versa.
  
  ugh.
  
  mckean did a wonderful job with the art, though. a lot of it isn't really my style, but still admirable. i love how the joker's hair and nails have a mind of their own.
• 
  Donovan

  
  
  I did not like this mess of a book. There isn't much of a plot. The artwork and lettering is undecipherable. I understand that Morrison is trying to do a dark ethereal fantasy symbolic of Batman's psychosis, while giving Arkham Asylum a "creepy crawly" history, but that's not really enough for an entire book.
• 
  Daniel

  Honestly, at first, I didn't really know what to make of it.
  However, after quite some time, I realized that it's not your traditional Batman story. Some parts in the story didn't really make much sense but if you will accept it as an homage to the Alice in Wonderland story (by Lewis Carroll) mixed with horror as its main theme. I think you will appreciate it better as much as I did.
  As much as I am mixed with Morrison's work, I think this book is something special.
  
  4/5
• 
  Briar's Reviews

  I love comic books, but this one didn't do it for me.
  
  I didn't like the art style, even if it was quite beautiful. For me, this style of comic didn't do Batman justice. It seemed very messy to me, and it didn't let me focus. I think this art style could work well with other characters, but not one where I want to pay attention to detail. It just felt to fuzzy.
  
  There's footnotes in this edition, which seems really weird to me. Why does a comic book need footnotes? Shouldn't you be able to get the point across within the story?
  
  At least there was a script at the end to understand what was going on. It just seemed really weird to me that I had no honest idea what was happening. It didn't seem like a Batman comic, more like a parody of a Batman comic. Having to go back and forth between the comic and the script also left me incredibly frustrated. I don't understand how this comic book was supposed to hit audiences.
  
  The idea of having the inmates takes over Arkham Asylum seems awesome and this could make for the best story, but this art style didn't do it justice. I could barely tell what characters were who, and I'm obsessed with Batman. I also didn't understand the haunted part of the plot.
  
  I get this book was supposed to be a psychological thriller/horror that was supposed to attract adult and mature audiences, but it just didn't feel that way to me. The allusions and references went over my head, and I felt like there could have been so much more added to make it flow better.
  
  Overall, this book was super frustrating for me. I wanted to love it (especially when I paid way to much to get my hands on this book) but I just couldn't. I had high expectations and it came short.
  
  Two out of five stars.
• 
  Andrew✌️

  Ok. I've heard about this title and I know there is a videogame inspired by this comic, but I never seen nothing, before today. While I was out of home, I stopped to comic book store, searching some good comics and I bought this.
  
  The story start with patients of Arkham Asylum, many of them caught by Batman, that have took possession the building. The Dark Night is forced to enter, giving himself for the hostages, putting himself in the hands of his enemies. I read many favorite comments about this story and the artwork, but I'm not so satisfied.
  
  In this adventure, Batman is involved to a psychological game and forced, by his archenemy Joker, to face his inner demons, his dark side. But this is only a part of the story. Another part, tells about Amadeus Arkham, the founder of the asylum, that intersects with the main story.
  And even this analysis of Batman is weak, I would have expected more.
  There are many reference to symbolism and magic, quotes from Alice in Wonderland and a gloomy atmosphere that remind some horror writers, like H. P. Lovecraft.
  The artwork undoubtedly has a certain charm, but looks often confused, difficult to understand and distressing.
  
  The whole story is original, even though too complicated. Too many ideas mixed togheter, but with a strong influence of horror.
• 
  Ivan

  Worst Batman comic by far.I didn't like it's highly praised painted art style and I hated how Batman is portrayed.Bruce Wayne, man who is mentally and physically trained to perfection, man who's contingency plans have contingency plans just walks in and surrenders to Joker and becomes poor victim in this wannabe horror.
• 
  paper0r0ss0

  L'arte della narrazione disegnata ai massimi livelli. Tavole lisergiche e mozzafiato. Testi avvincenti e sapienti. Il Cavaliere Oscuro e' qui messo di fronte ai propri fantasmi e, come forse mai, il nemico vero non e' esterno. Insomma, un capolavoro.
• 
  Effie (she-her)

  Μου πήρε λίγο να συνηθίσω την αισθητική του, αλλά τελικά το ευχαριστήθηκα.
• 
  Knjigoholičarka

  Ima svega, i predivnog, nadrealnog Mekinovog crteža, i zanimljive priče, i Džokera u štiklama, i ezoterijskog simbolizma, i Alise u zemlji čuda. Volem <3
• 
  leynes

  Batman: Arkham Asylum is a very controversial comic book. Many full-fledged fans of the Caped Crusader hate this tale for its pretentiousness and over-the-top art style. Many comic book newbies find it way too inaccessible and nearly incomprehensible. And artsy people, like myself, just love it to death.

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

  This is definitely not your typical Batman story. Bruce acts quite out of character for the most part. Usually, his main goal is to save innocent lives and make sure that everyone is unhurt in the given situation, whereas in Batman: Arkham Asylum he seems to be quite preoccupied with himself and his psyche, disregarding the fact that the Joker is threatening people left and right. On top of that, McKean's art style is something that you'll never see in comic books. He doesn't care for the conventions of the genre. I was first exposed to McKean when he did some of the cover art for Gaiman's Sandman and I fell in love with him right then. His art style is eery, hauntingly atmospheric and very diverse. He doesn't settle for one style, he is able to perfect many different facets, sometimes working with (what seem to be) almost life-like pictures and more often than not going for more of an obscure route.
  
  Batman: Arkham Asylum tells the story of how Batman is lured into the asylum for the criminally insane on April Fool's Day. The Joker has orchestrated a chain of events that is suppose to make Bruce face his own madness and his inner demons, specifically the death of his parents and how he became the Bat (we all know and love). Once trapped in the asylum, he inhales a drug that makes him hallucinate and nearly turn mad. Whilst running aimlessly through the place, Bruce encounters all of Gotham's criminals – all the psychopaths, sociopaths and poor souls we have come to know and love.

  And I’m afraid that 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.

  Bruce faces Clayface who desperately wants to touch him and infest him with his disease. He is able to flee from the Mad Hatter and his weird paroles. He encounters Harvey Dent, now Two-Face, who is unable to make a decision without consulting his coin (...or a dice, or a pack of cards). He hears the Scarecrow shamble through Arkham's halls. And on top of that, the Joker who forces him to face it all. It is enough to even turn the Caped Crusader mad.
  
  Interwoven into Batman's narrative, is the backstory to Amadeus Arkham, the man who founded the asylum way back in the 1920s. We learn how he lost his mother, his wife and his daughter, and how that was enough to turn him mad. The parallels to Bruce's life are clear.

  Oh, yes! Fill the churches with dirty thoughts! Introduce honesty to the White House! Write letters in dead languages to people you've never met! Paint filthy words on the foreheads of children! Burn your credit cards and wear high heels! Asylum doors stand open! Fill the suburbs with murder and rape! Divine madness! Let there be ecstasy, ecstasy in the streets! Laugh and the world laughs with you!

  Additionally to McKean's impeccable art style, I absolutely loved Morrison's writing. I can definitely understand why some might find it pretentious (see: “Einstein was wrong! I'M the speed of light CRACKING through shivery rainbows and GOD the sky whirls and withers like a melting RAINBOW!”) but in my humble opinion, he struck the right cord. I was creeped out by Bruce's fear. I was entertained by the Joker's madness. I loved the plot twist and the reveal about Harvey at the end. I like how the backstory to the asylum functioned as a parable to what was happening in the asylum today.
  
  Overall, I am absolutely satisfied with Batman: Arkham Asylum and would recommend it to people who are looking for something special and more unusual. The only negative thing I have to point out is the lettering for the Joker, his dialogue was incredibly hard to decipher, and that became a pain in the ass real quick. Apart from that, I absolutely adored this!
• 
  Roxanne

  I've read this twice now and i still can't decide whether i like this or not, whether it just leaves me confused or making me feel like an old lady trying to fucking read what the fuck Joker is saying!?
  
  The art is mayhem it sets the story up perfectly and it is beautifully if not hauntingly done so. I do think the artwork is better than the actual story though, and maybe the plot relies on the artwork too much as it's not the strongest plot and the ending is pretty weak too. Saying that i did really like Joker and Dent as i usually do, they're such an odd pairing but it always works.
  The only way you're gonna know whether you like this or not is to read it, it's definitely a marmite read, you're either gonna love it or hate it, or just be left feeling bewildered. Why does marmite exist in the first place? Did i have to be a part of this drug induced writing team to fully appreciate this book? I don't know, too many questions, read it, don't read it, maybe try peanut butter and leave marmite.
• 
  Werebot

  I know that a lot of the modern Batman mythos has a lot to do with the whole evil outside vs. darkness within motif, but this is ridiculous. What a pretentious bunch of nonsense. And I've never gotten the attraction to Dave McKean's art. But then, I'm not a goth nerd. I can never tell what's going on, everything's too dark and splotchy and covered in symbols. This is a Batman comic book. Let's not overthink it. When did we let the British take over our comic books anyway? Neil Gaiman and co. need to stop trying to turn our national comic book industry into their own personal Kafka-at-Hot Topic wet dream. Somebody had to say it.
• 
  Stephen

  3.5 stars. Superb art by Dave McKean and a mostly good story by Grant Morrison (with flashes of brilliance) highlight this quality Batman graphic novel. The reason it doesn't rate higher overall is because there were a few "huh?" moments where the story was a bit hard to follow and I think the creators at times sacrificed story at the altar of atmosphere.
• 
  Essareh

  از دیشب توی این فکرم که چی دربارهٔ این کمیک بنویسم تا احساسم رو منتقل کنه و هنوز به نتیجهٔ درستی نرسیده‌م. فعلاً فقط می‌تونم بگم که در قلب من جا داره. تک‌تک صفحاتش برام لذت غیرقابل وصفی داشت؛ از همون اول و نقل قولی که از آلیس در سرزمین عجایب کرده بود تا I shall become a bat پایانش.
  از نظر من تصاویرش بی‌نظیر و روند داستان فوق‌العاده بود.
  
  توی این داستان نهایت جنون روایت شده. تفاوت بزرگش با بقیهٔ داستان‌های بتمن (در واقع داستان‌هایی که من خوندم) اینه که این دیوانگی‌ها فقط از جوکر _نماد جنون دنیای بتمن_ سرنزده. اینجا همهٔ شخصیت‌ها [به‌ تعبیر Amadeus] وارد دنیای دیگه (دنیای دور از عقلانیت) شده‌ن. (البته از ماجرایی که همه‌ش توی آرکهام می‌گذره انتظار دیگه‌ای هم نمی‌شه داشت.)
  
  می‌خواستم یکی-دو قسمت که بیشتر دوست داشتم رو به‌اشتراک بذارم ولی واقعاً نمی‌تونم بین اتفاقاتش تبعیض قائل شم. :))
  برای همین فقط این رو می‌نویسم که تصویری از ایدهٔ اصلی داستان می‌ده:
  "Batman: Sometimes it's only madness that makes us what we are."