Books : Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)

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Rating:

- Good Art; Poor Story
I liked McKean's artwork a lot when I first read this book but, returning to it today, the style seems overly familiar. In some places the level of darkness and number of symbolic artifacts seems to edge into self-parody.

The basic story is very weak -- Batman walks about the asylum beating up his old enemies. The real emphasis is on how these villians illustrate parts of Batman's character. Personally, I found this less than convincing.

Part of the problem for me is that I have a very low tolerance for paedophilia and torture, and much prefer detection-based Batman stories (such as The Long Halloween).

Rating:

- Disappointing
After watching The Dark Knight I was very excited and eager to read more about Batman. I have been a comic book addict ever since I can remember, but mostly I bought Marvel comics and had only occasionally read Batman. Anyway, I researched in the internet for the best / most important Batman TPBs available and Arkham Asylum was listed everywhere as one of them (in some places even among the top 5). For this reason and also because of the reviews here, I decided to buy this one. But it turned out to be a huge disappointment. The art is really bad, you often can't make out what is on the page... may be it's just a different style, but it doesn't match my taste (I'm more of Jim Lee fan kind of guy). The story itself - the writing I mean - was ok, but I wouldn't qualify it as being one of the best Batman comics - certainly not after reading Year One, The Long Halloween and The Dark Knight Returns.

Rating:

- A Strange Bat Tale
This is not your typical batman. Heck, this is not even the Miller Dark Knight. It makes Miller's Dark Knight seem like a puppy dog. This Batman kills and he kills with no reservations. Batman does not really behave as Batman but I can totally accept that because even a superhero has his moods or split personalities on certain days, no? The story is somewhat contrived as Batman is called to Asylum for help only to be put in a test where he has to face all his nemesis' and in the end everyone learns a lesson. It is deep and dreamy and the illustrations are fittingly dream-like and resemble abstract fine art. You won't even recognize Batman in this book. It is one of those books where you love or hate and guaranteed you will love after a few more readings if you're up to the task.

Rating:

- 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.

Rating:

- Insert Batman to sell comic books
Wow what can I say about this graphic novel... I honestly didn't like this book, but just because I didn't like this book doesn't mean I can give it a 1 star. It was a book, it had color and technically it was completed. After reading this book I felt like the author's just wanted to shock me. It didn't feel like a true batman story, and the ending was a joke. I don't want to give anything away, but the way they made Harvey look in this book was horrible. Took his coin away and moved him Tarot cards, give me a break.

On the extra content, it's nice to have, but it's completely unneccesary. Infact after reading through it I was certian that the author was just trying for the shock and aww effect.

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