BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean

books:


	• Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition) Grant Morrison DC Comics, 2005 - 216 pages average customer review:based on 61 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In the mouth of madness

For any beginning comic reader, and even more so for anyone else, "Arkham Asylum" is essential. Claimed by DC to be the best-selling graphic novel of all time, "Arkham Asylum" is deep, psychological, terrifying, and as dark as any comic I've ever read. Grant Morrison writes with an explorative and bleak psychology reminescent of Alan Moore -- but Moore's own darkly contemplative and psychological Batman work, 1988's "Batman: The Killing Joke," was never this ghastly. Thanks to Dave McKean's beautiful and utterly horrific artwork, which is really the embodiment of the word "nightmarish," "Arkham Asylum" is like venturing into the depths of madness itself. The book personifies "Arkham Asylum," comparing it to a living creature. When Arkham is taken over by its inmates, Batman must enter the mouth of the beast. What are the chances it won't swallow him whole?

That's the central point of the comic: how is Batman any different from these freaks he's captured? Just as the Joker dresses himself up like a clown and terrorizes those he thinks should laugh a little more, Batman dresses up like a bat and terrorizes those he sees as evildoers. It seems like he should be locked up in Arkham too. Batman is forced to confront this fact as he crawls deeper and deeper into the black heart of the asylum, in the process revealing a vulnerable humanity that we don't often see in Batman comics.

It feels like we've seen little of this before -- and what little we have seen has never looked like this. McKean's artwork is just stupendous. It is absolutely the reason for the ghastliness of the book. With another artist, Morrison's script could have produced an excellent book that would probably wind up frightening, but McKean's art makes that excellent book truly horrifying. The sudden introduction of the Joker almost made me shout. This is not the wisecracking and sadistic clown of other comics. This man is a monster, a "special case" even by Arkham's standards, and he looks every bit as shocking and chilling as he should. As do the rest of the Rogues Gallery. They're all here, and they're all every bit as freaky as they were meant to be.

But if McKean's artwork steals the book, it's built upon Morrison's script -- a sturdy foundation indeed. Morrison's writing is laden with symbolism which is quite likely to slip past the reader on the first few reads. That makes "Arkham Asylum" one of the most interesting comics to re-visit, because one notices something new with each read. Additionally, Morrison's script poses a number of fascinating questions, chiefly about Batman himself. Does Batman truly save the world from these monsters, or has Bruce Wayne created the worst monster himself? Does Batman's existence create these freaks? They're fascinating questions, and as with most fascinating questions, the answers are not easy, may not even exist, and if one does happen across them, they will shock you to the core.

There's far more to "Arkham Asylum" than pure shock value, though. Ripe with symbolism, full of challenging and deep questions for which there may be no answers, expertly crafted, this is an essential comic for any reader new or old. Add in some of the finest artwork in the history of the medium and you have a masterwork, one that will chill you long after you've set it down and whipped out some of the old Golden Age comics in the vain hope that they'll rid you of the ghastly images in your head. They won't. There's no escaping the Asylum.

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Good, but not Great

This is a pretty good Batman story, but has a few problems. First I'll start with the good. Personally I really liked the art work here. It's not the traditional comic book art work (which might bother some), but I think it fits the story they're trying to tell here. I like the theme and ideas of the book. It's easy to imagine with all the criminal master minds in Arkham that they would be able to take over the place (they seem to escape from there easy enough). Also, drawing comparisons between Batman and the crazies he's always battling against. Finally, I like this type of characterization of the Joker where her is a crazy kind of scary.

Now, for the not so good. Frankly I thought it was kind of short. I like my graphic novels to be lengthy and take some time to read. I blew right through this one. The other thing that I found kind of lacking was not a whole lot actually happened. I mean the themes were good, and I like what they did with them but I think they could have expanded on it a bit more.

One last note I rather enjoyed that in the 15th Anniversary edition after the story itself they have the script from the story along with notes from Grant Morrison which I found pretty interesting. Though I my opinion that kind of thing is just a nice bonus rather than a reason to buy a graphic novel.

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BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean

Batman: Arkham Asylum, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean, was originally published in 1989. The fifteenth anniversary edition also contains Morrison's original script and storyboards. The inmates of Arkham Asylum have taken over the institution, and will only release their hostages if Batman comes inside. Batman deals with his own sanity as he confronts the usual crowd of villains.

Dave McKean's art is dark and atmospheric, and it fits the book perfectly. However, it's often so dark that it's difficult to tell what's going on, and a look at Morrison's script shows that the art doesn't incorporate half the imagery Morrison was going for (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

Morrison goes for image overload here. Christian, pagan and mystic imagery are through the roof. Morrison throws all of it into the pot with the pretentious treatments of Freud, Jung and psychology in general, and what we get just isn't very good. There are other problems. Batman seems poorly characterized here, particularly at the beginning. He's chatty, out of control of his emotions, and publicly vulnerable.

The jacket to Arkham Asylum trumpets that it is "the most successful graphic novel of all time". I can't imagine why. Ultimately, Arkham Asylum just isn't compelling.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

In this groundbreaking, painted graphic novel, the inmates of Arkham Asylum have taken over Gothams detention center for the criminally insane on April Fools Day, demanding Batman in exchange for their hostages.Accepting their demented challenge, Batman is forced to live and endure the personal hells of the Joker, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Two-Face and many other sworn enemies in order to save the innocents and retake the prison.During his run through this absurd gauntlet, the Dark Knights own sanity is placed in jeopardy.This special anniversary edition trade paperback also reproduces the original script with annotations by Morrison and editor Karen Berger.

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