Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

By Grant Morrison

1920, Amadeus Arkham starts renovating his family decade-owned home into a mental facility, his ma having gone crazy, and died. Amadeus doesn't have a clue what the place would become, housing demented patients found by the Batman. Apr 1st is the day the patients decide to run the asylum, the Joker leading. So now, the Batman must confront him, and the others.

From one of Amadeus' journals, it reveals the house had become everything to him after his pop dies. In 1901, Amadeus sees the dark world. 1 time he comes to feed his ma, and she'd eaten beetles, not recognizing til later, this is her way of protecting herself against something from a different, darker world she was birthed into. Next, BM meets Gordon before leaving town, and is updated of the inmates taking over Arkham Asylum, the inmates asking for a bunch of shit, and now waiting to chat with the BM, so he gets his 1st contact by phone from the Joker.

Joker invites BM to join them as they hear scratching, he introing Pearl, a 19 yr old recent hire, an artist, Joker planning to use the same pencil she'd drawn a house for him, to stab her in the eye. BM agrees to meet him in half hr, confiding to Gordon of fearing he'd feel at home at Arkham Asylum. Back with Amadeus in 1920, he returns to the fam home not long after burying his ma, she having slit her throat. So, he vows to make the place different, attempting to sleep in his old room, and failing due to a dog barking through the night and dreams of beating wings.

Amadeus goes to his Metropolis home the next day, and sees a patient from the local prison. After seeing this patient, his resolve is firm regarding his new inheritance. During the night, he has a dream of being a boy again, and being scared by the mirror people in the funhouse, after which he's led out by his pop, then waking as an adult, and feeling like he is back in his boyhood home. Back with BM, he's arrived at Arkham Asylum, and calls to Joker.

When Joker sees him, the hostages are released, including the girl he'd threatened over the phone with BM. They go to a room where a psychotherapist and a man is sitting, also looking like a clown, an admin. Harvey Dent pipes up looking a bit unwell, but Ruth the therapist claims he is on his way to mental health. Ruth explains how they'd graduated Harvey from his coin to a die, giving him more choices, and then giving him a deck of tarot cards, after which he'd graduate to the I-Ching. During all this, BM remains skeptical, then asks why the Joker hasn't been cured, yet. Ruth admits Joker is unique, his illness closer to being neurological, and similar to Tourette's.

Ruth further explains how Joker seems to have no filter for the world, and molds himself with the flow of the world. Due to this, he creates a new personality for each new day, seeing the world as a ridiculous playhouse. Joker pops up and asks what Ruth sees from a Rorschach card, asking BM as well, he claiming to see nothing, but it looking like a bat. Joker next suggests a word association game, but Ruth doesn't wish to play, BM reassures her, though to Joker's delight.

Back with Amadeus, he works on the house, his ma at the time having had dreams, he afterward seeing a Joker card on the floor, thinking a workman dropped it. BM plays until he quits, Joker laughing since it'd led him to his pop's death. In 1920, Amadeus meets Carl Jung, and in England, Crowley, impressed by his charm and smarts. Amadeus arrives home in time for Xmas, and his daughter adores the cuckoo clock he brings her.

Meanwhile, with Joker, he's wanting to start the fun, and proposes a game of hide and seek. BM has an hr before the group of crazies chase him. In order to have BM comply, he threatens to shoot the sitting man. BM then has a flashback of just before his parents deaths, being scolded by his ma for crying over the movie, and to grow up. Unfortunately for real time BM, the insane kids get bored before time is up, so Joker allows them to pursue after 10 mins.

1921, Amadeus talks of the chill on Apr 1st, he asking before seeing his wife of the door being open, then seeing her in bits, his daughter's head placed in her dollhouse. BM is confronted by 1 of the insane bunch, as another gets taken out mysteriously, possibly Scarecrow. BM runs into his next hold up by Mad Hatter. Back with Amadeus, he learns, and treats the patient who killed his fam, and later electroshocks him to death, and it being ruled an accident, Amadeus having no feelings.

He does start keeping a schedule, but also begins hearing crazed laughter from an empty cell. It stops when he tapes over his mirror, and when he patrols through his home, it feels like a living dream he can't navigate. BM meanwhile, meets a new electric man creature offering him power. Amadeus feels strange, and weak, then takes mushrooms, and feels like the house is speaking with him, next having a nightmarish vision, and wakes wondering where his reward was.

BM locates Cavendish, who is threatening a young man with a knife, coaxing BM to read an excerpt he'd marked in Amadeus' journal, which is the reason he'd let the patients free. The passage is in 1920, when Amadeus' ma yells of "it" being there, and he seeing the bat which had been haunting her for yrs. It's then revealed how his ma truly dies. Cavendish blames BM, due to it seeming like Amadeus is referring to him as the bat.

Arkham dies scratching a binding spell on the floor of his cell with his fingernails upon completion of the swirl text on his floor. When Cavendish comes after BM, Ruth slits his throat as he's choking him. He next has her show him the way out, planning on returning and dealing with the last of the crazies. BM announces to Joker and his group of they being free, Joker giving BM the choice of how they'd end him, so deciding to leave it up to Harvey and his coin.

Harvey calls it, and BM walks free, not showing til later he no longer used his tarot deck, and had lied about which side of the coin had landed. 1 of the strongest and pretty BM stories. It'd definitely be great to see it adapted, but this is perfect as a standalone, as well!