Arkham Can Be DC’s Greatest Series Ever, Here’s How

While there are plenty of great comics that an Arkham series could take inspiration from, we sincerely hope it draws heavily from Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth. That story provides plenty of amazing lore for the asylum, including the fact that it was named after Elizabeth Arkham, mother of asylum founder Amadeus Arkham. The origin is sad: not only does Amadeus euthanize his mother when she gets severely ill, but his wife and daughter get murdered by one of his former patients whom he later electroshocks to death.

In Morrison’s seminal comic, the plot involves Batman trying to survive a night in Arkham Asylum after it gets taken over by the Joker and other villains. Rather than giving us the usual tale of frenzied fisticuffs, Morrison penned a psychological horror story that broached crunchy questions about everything from the true nature of Joker’s insanity to whether Batman is actually feeding a supernaturally evil asylum rather than rehabilitating the mentally ill. Along the way, we also get character development for villains like Two-Face who are often (ironically enough, in his case) treated as one-note criminals. 

Long story not very short, Grant Morrison singlehandedly gave Arkham Asylum its deepest lore while adding complexity and pathos to Batman’s entire rogue’s gallery. An Arkham show has the potential to do the same thing, and if it adopts Morrison’s psychological horror focus, we could get the rare DC show that is both spooky and thought-provoking. Somewhat selfishly, we think fans deserve a great series (or maybe just their own turn in the asylum) after enduring all that awful CGI in Supergirl.