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They called me mad; but it remains to be seen whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence, whether much that is glorious, whether all that is profound, does not spring from a disease of thought, from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
(Edgar Allan Poe)
Shadows, specters, and more shadows will be all you are permitted to see, nothing defined but only doubts and dismay, fear and uncertainty will be your travel companions for this is nothing but a plunge into madness; whose madness, it is for you to decide...
Indeed!, who is the mad one? Is it the Joker who has taken over Arkham, are his inmates mad?, is it the one who built that place? or do you realize in the end that even Batman behind the mask is nothing more than a man fighting madness through madness, a derelict beating criminals in his fits of delusion, torments, and unpleasant memories.
Thanks to Dave McKean's illustrations we immediately enter a misty atmosphere, ethereal almost illusory, made of moonlight and profound darkness, nothing is defined and even the characters are distorted, malevolent grins and arcane shadows dot Arkham's criminal asylum.
Finally a new way to represent Batman, breaking free from the cemented American-made graphics so dear to aficionados.
Grant Morrison's texts then drag the reader into the spiral of madness that overwhelms and confuses anyone trying to find a thread of logic in the matter, precisely because this story has no logical thread or rather doesn't want to have one, the theme is madness, and it's up to the characters to embody it, each in their own way without exception.
The plot is simple and unfolds on three different levels; the first is the actual story: the inmates have taken control of Arkham and Batman must intervene, the second deals with the story of Amadeus Arkham, founder and later inhabitant of his asylum, and finally, the most important, a journey into the mind of each character, Batman included.
Arkham Asylum's is perhaps the darkest Batman, the truest, never predictable or banal, a true first-class madman where it is not reason governing him but instincts, an elusive, melancholic figure dressed in a predatory guise.
Will it be the doctors to unlock the situation? Batman or the Joker himself?
It doesn't matter, and neither does Batman want to know. He only knows that he feels at home in that place, throwing him even more into the abyss that all the events of his life have dug for him, his life companions are the criminals he himself has captured, first among them the Joker, perhaps the one figure closest to what can be considered a friend. And the finale is proof of this...
Says one of the inmates in the grip of mystical delusions: Sometimes I think the asylum is a head.. we're all inside a huge head dreaming we exist... Maybe it's your head Batman...
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