Rating:  -
I am not a big fan of superhero comic books, but I have read a handful of the genre's graphic novels, including Arkham Asylum.
Arkham Asylum blew me away. I feel like this medium is at its best when the graphical flavor is as adventurous as its textual and thematic flavor, and this book is a perfect example of my preference. Like Mignola's Hellboy, Arkham Asylum is just gorgeous from one cover to the next.
The only gripe I have is with the book binding. I had to almost break the book's spine in half in order to get a full view of some of the panels.
Rating:  -
I've always been a die-hard Marvel fan, and I still am, but I can't argue with the fact that Batman is one of the best comic book characters out there. I've got a small collection of Batman TPBs and graphic novels, ranging from the grotesque yet brilliant The Killing Joke to the (fairly) recent blockbuster No Man's Land. That being said, I was sorely disappointed by Arkham Asylum, for three main reasons, which I will go in to.
The first is the art. I simply did NOT care for the style. To McKean's credit, the drawing style perfectly fit the theme of the book, but unfortunately, it's not a theme that lends itself to eye-pleasing art. It looks sloppy, disjointed, overly shadowed, and disorientingly impressionistic. As I said, it's perfect for the book, but it's not a style I like. Rather than clear pictures, you just get odd impressions of what's happening, since most of the panels are composed of the color black, which makes an exotic and often puzzling story even more difficult to follow.
Second is the way Morrison took over the various villains and transformed them to fit his needs. Yes, the Joker is cool in this, but everyone else got rather poor treatment. Two Face, easily Batman's second best villain, becomes a sniveling puke, Maxie Zeus spouts only gibberish, and Killer Croc seems to have lost the ability to speak, becoming only a rampaging monster. And Clayface symbolizes AIDS, for some reason. Figure that out.
The third, and greatest crime, is the treatment of Batman himself. As Morrison himself explains in the back pages, he didn't care for the violent, gruesome, Miller-esque Batman that had emerged from the 80's. So he decided to "kill off" this Batman to recreate him in a form he liked. To do so, he took Batman from being an overly violent, paranoid crime-fighter and turned him into a schiziphrenic mess, a sexually-repressed psychopath with an Oedipus complex. The moment he steps inside the Asylum, he loses control; after the Joker points a gun at Dr. Ruth, Batman goes insane. He spends the rest of the novel wandering around, writhing in shadowy panels and grunting, getting beaten up by every jerk he runs into, and somehow emerges "fixed." Essentially, Morrison was killing off, and spitting on, the most popular incarnation of the character because he didn't care for the characterization; it was written, I think, more for his pleasure than for ours, and that stands out.
There are a few good things about the novel (the Joker is undeniably, black-heartedly in his element), but they're buried under a mountain of bizarre symbology, unnecessary shadow, and a New Ager's view of what Batman should be. If you're a fan of Grant Morrison, you may like this, but if you're a fan of Batman in general, stay away.
Rating: -
This is the worst Batman comic ever written/drawn. The sketched style by Mr. McKean makes it so some of the words are difficult to read, and frankly, that's the best part. Mr. Morrison's take on Batman is borderline offensive to any fan of the series. Surely he does not truely believe us all to be pseudo-intellectual 16 year old boys who spend their free time at My Chemical Romance shows, trying to get our hair to do that "flippy thing", nor do we all wear tight, black leather pants and too much eye shadow, or any make up at all in fact! This goth-shiek Bat cannot fight, cannot seem to think, cannot apparently do anything clever, has a vast array of over-sexed villains (people, please, just because you're being over the top with sex does not mean you're being insightful or intelligent; it's just gratuitous). The Joker is gay. Twoface cannot control his bodily functions. Zeus is in it! Batman doesn't even care when someone is killed, he considers it "getting what's deserved". Does any of this sound true to the series or interesting to you? (ZEUS?!) Do not buy this comic unless you spend at least 3 hours a day at Starbuck's. Morrison's mental masturbation (found in the form of college-freshman level philosophy littering pages) is the worst excuse for narrative I have ever had the misfortune to read. If you want something psychological and dealing with madness and criminals with superheroes, try Long Halloween and watch Harvey Dent snap. If you want a good mystery (as the surprise ending in this is forced at best, God awful at worst) try Hush. If you want something like this but are a Batman fan, try the Maxx. Do not buy this comic!
Rating:  -
If you don't like comic books or graphic novels, you have no idea how many good stories you're missing out on. Oftentimes it's the skills of an accomplished writer that elevates a trade paperback to timeless glory in the eyes of many comic geeks (in this case I highly recommend Watchmen by Alan Moore if you want to read a good yarn). Sometimes the artwork is so good you buy a book just to gawk at (look no further than any book with Alex Ross' name on it).
'Batman: Arkham Asylum' is one of the most creepy, beautiful and disorienting graphic novels I've ever read. Being fortunate enough to purchase a copy of the fifteenth anniversary edition, I read the whole thing in one sitting in broad daylight, and when I was finished I felt like I just came out of a nightmare, but a very insightful one. If you are familiar with the creative team behind this classic book, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Be warned that the following story will not appeal to people who think they know who Batman is based on what they've seen in the theaters or on the television screen, because this story does not even operate in Batman's world, let alone the confines of reality (I'm speaking figuratively of course). As far as I'm concerned it's not even a full-fledged Batman tale, even though a slew of well-known characters occupy its narrative.
Grant Morrison brought something unique and fresh to the table when he wrote this in 1989, and Dave McKean's artwork backs that up spectacularly. If it wasn't for McKean's presence in this book, the story wouldn't work at all. Speaking of the story, I'll throw you the specifics in case you have no idea what this book is about: all of Arkham Asylum's depraved inmates, including the notoriously psychotic Joker, take over the institution on April Fool's Day and demand that Batman enter its doors so he can face all of the filth he's put away over the years, or else they will systematically execute the unfortunate hostages they've taken inside. That's just the setup, of course. Batman is then confronted by The Joker and made to question his own sanity as things begin to unfold, however surreal, in the prison's walls. The more I read it the more I'm convinced the whole story is a nightmare in and of itself. The narrative flow is disjointed, the settings are vertigo-inducing, the villains are portrayed in extremely stylish ways (the most extreme example of this is Maxie Zeus), and Batman himself is nothing more than a silhouette floating through the proceedings. It's a very short story, but it presents a lot of interesting questions in terms of psychological, philosophical, and even mystical perceptions of sanity: the villains in the story, especially Two-Face, were being "effectively" treated before all hell broke loose, but the conclusion that Batman ultimately comes to when all is said and done is that some things never change, and sometimes you have to be insane to cope with a world as dark as Gotham City.
A graphic novel like this will be hard to swallow for Batman fans, but Batman fanatics such as myself go for material this brutal and left-field every chance we get (it's even darker than 'The Killing Joke'!). There are moments where I felt sick to my stomach merely by what the book was insinuating, such as a scene where The Mad Hatter admits his fondness for little girls, but it is the portrayal of The Joker as a demonic cross-dresser that might put off fans who are used to seeing the clown prince of crime in a certain light, preferably the animated one. Just throw prior knowledge to the wind and approach this with an open mind.
All-in-all, if you think you can stomach it and want to be literally sucked into a nightmare but walk away with something to think about, then 'Arkham Asylum' is just for you, complete with my seal of approval.
Rating: -
It's hard to believe that Grant Morrison's defining look at Batman is over 15 years old, but even so, Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth, is a masterpiece of comic horror. It starts off like one may think a Batman comic would: Bats is called in by Commissioner Gordon because the inmates at Arkham have taken the staff hostage and will release them on one condition: Batman must join them. Featuring the most psychotic of Batman's rogue gallery: the Joker, Two-Face, Black Mask, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Doctor Destiny, Clayface, and Professor Milo are all here, and they all have plans for the Dark Knight. During the story, the tragic tale of Arkham himself is told as the origin of the construction of the asylum is built, and Morrison's examination of the inner demons of Batman in comparison to that of his villains is simply brilliant. His interpretations of the Joker, Two-Face, and Clayface are unlike anything else done by anyone else with the characters, maybe except for Alan Moore's use of the Joker in the Killing Joke. Add to this the haunting and visceral artwork of Sandman cover artist and frequent Neil Gaiman collaborator Dave McKean, and you get one of the greatest, and most chilling, Batman stories ever told. There's a nice assortment of extras thrown in as well, including Morrison's complete original script with new notes, and his hand drawn storyboards to boot.
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