Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane
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The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane is a fictional psychiatric hospital and prison for insane and criminal fictional characters that appear in the DC Universe, specially in the Batman related comics in which it fist appeared, created by Dennis O'Neil. All of Batman's foes considered to be legally insane are incarcerated in it (other foes are incarcerated at Blackgate Penitentiary). It is named after Elizabeth Arkham, the mentally ill mother of its founder and later inmate, Doctor Amadeus Arkham.
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[edit] Publication history
It was created by Dennis O'Neil and it's name was inspired by the homologous legend-haunted city of Arkham of the H.P. Lovecraft works, which is inspired by the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers. However, in the forward to the book The Dark Ages: Grim, Great, and Gimmicky Post-Modern Comics, Jack C. Harris claims that he conceptualized the idea of Arkham Asylum, and any other claims are false.
In the 1980s, during the dark age of comics, a period in which themes such as insanity, drugs and depression were common themes in comic books, Len Wain elaborated more details about the institution, relocating it deep in the Gotham City suburbs in Batman #326 and making the first references to its current canonic origin in Who's Who #1. Its origins were expanded by Grant Morrison in 1989's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.
[edit] Fictional history
The asylum is named after Elizabeth Arkham, the ill mother of Amadeus Arkham, founder and first director of the institution. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth ilustrates that its dark history began in the early 1900s when Arkham's mother, having suffered from mental illness most of her life, is said commit suicide, when actually she is brutally euthanized by her son, who as an adult creates the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane in her memory.
Arkham becomes a psychiatrist and decides to remodel the Arkham estate, the legacy of his family, to make it a proper facility to treat the mentally ill criminals, so others might not go untreated and suffer as his mother (or himself). Prior to the period of the hospital's remodeling, Arkham treated patients, including the murderous rapist, Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins, at the State Psychiatric Hospital in Metropolis, where he and his wife, Constance, and daughter, Harriet, had been living for quite some time.
The Arkham family moves to the old Arkham estate to oversee the remodeling. There, Arkham is notified him Hawkins, a serial killer, has escaped, and later, on April 1, 1921, he sees the dismembered and raped bodies of his wife and daughter, with Hawkins name carved on the last.
Despite this family tragedy, the institution officially opens that November as scheduled. One of its first patients was Martin Hawkins, whom Arkham insisted on personally treating. On April 1, 1922, after treating Hawkins for six months, Arkham strapped him to the electroshock couch and purposely electrocuted him. The death is treated as an accident, but contributed to Arkham's gradual descent into madness, which he begins to believe, is his birthright. Eventually, taking extreme measures to secure the asylum, walking through it in the wedding dress of his mother several times and killing his broker, Arkham is institutionalized in his own hospital, where after carving a spell with his own nails in the walls and floor of his cell, he dies.
Amadeus keeps a diary in which he details all his actions and thoughts and eventually falls in the hands of Dr. Charles Cavendish, the then current director of the asylum in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. After reading it and learning Elizabeth used to think she is haunted by a bat and that Amadeus considers himself the bride of the dragon and the son of the widow, resolves to imprison Batman in order to put a stop to the constant torment of the inmates. Cavendish frees the inmates and sets a trap to Batman with their aid. Lead by the Joker, they hold several personnel and staff members hostages and force Commissioner Gordon to bring Batman in. There Batman is forced to go through the entire building meeting several of his enemies questioning his own sanity to finally face Killer Croc, or as Cavendish visualizes him, "the dragon". Then, holding Dr. Ruth Adams with the weapon that killed Elizabeth, Cavendish reveals himself as the author of the trap, explains his learning to Batman and finally tries to kill him only to fail and get killed by Adams with the weapon. Realizing the in humane conditions of the asylum Batman decides not to imprisonate the inmates again.
In Shadow of the Bat #1-4, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, nephew of Amadeus, takes over and rebuilds the asylum with more security and light, and burns down every piece of the past, including the diary of his uncle.
Bane destroys the asylum in Knigthfall to set all the inmates free. When Batman and Azrael capture all the escaped inmates, they are sent to Blackgate, the regular prison of Gotham City, but after a while, Jeremiah opens the asylum in the Marcey Manor, which used to belong to Eric Marcey and the eccentric anti-social Mercey family.
At the beginning of the No Man's Land storyline, the asylum is closed down and all its inmates set free (a timer was used to open the doors two minutes before the city was sealed). This was orchestrated by the administrator himself, who had the choice of releasing the inmates or watching them all starve or kill each other.
[edit] Location
Originally, in its early appearances in O'Neil stories it is the Asylum of Arkham, Massachusetts, located in that same city. In Len Wain stories in the 1980s, it is said to be deep in the suburbs of Gotham City. Later in the post-Crisis continuity, it is specifically located in Sommerset, which is located at the mainland of Gotham City.
After the events of Kightfall the asylum is re-located in the Mercey House (formerly property of Eric Mercey) at Mercey Island, which is at the east end of the Sprang River, between the North and Middle Gotham Islands.
[edit] Design
Its design has veried with time, the fictional destructions and reconstructions it has suffered and the different artistic interpretations. The original building shown in Morrison's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, has a Victorian style and a plan that is inscribed in a series of regulator lines that conform David star shapes.
In stories like Batman: The Long Halloween, it is shown that most cells are closed rooms divided by glass so that the therapists can enter without possibility of an attack by the inmates.
When Jeremiah takes over the administration and rebuilds it as shown in Shadow of the Bat, the designer, Zolly Hiram, keeps the main facade and attaches a cylindrical building behind, with labyrinth like circulations. The cells are basically the same only with better illumination and smooth walls. Zsasz managed to get Hiram to include in the design a secret duct that goes from his cell to the outside. It is unknown whether Hiram told the secret to other inmates. This version is destroyed by Bane at the beginning of Knightfall.
The Mercey House, where it is relocated after Knightfall, looks like a Gothic castle on top of the hill. The building has is conformed now by various gothic shapes and structures crowded together in a somewhat chaotic manner. This design looks similar to the one used in the DC animated universe. In Batman: Shadow of the Bat #80, it is revealed that Batman has established a hidden base within the subbasement of the asylum during the Batman: Prodigal Son storyline known as "Northwest Batcave."
| The different designs of the Asylum. | |||
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|---|---|---|---|
| The blueprints of the original building as shown in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. | The original facade of the asylum in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. | The redesign by Zolly Hiram according to Doctor Jeremiah Arkham's instructions in Shadow of the Bat #3. | The Mercey House. |
[edit] Personnel
Although it has had numerous administrators, its current head is Jeremiah Arkham, nephew of Amadeus Arkham, who often makes questionable decitions, like incarcerating and pitting Batman against all his enemies, or setting all of the inmates free after a mysterious earthquake took place in Gotham. Furthermore, despite the occasional attempt to reinforce security and modernizing their strategy as seen in Shadow of the Bat 1, several dangerous criminals like the Joker, the Scarecrow or Mr. Zsasz are released or escape with frequency, and several members of its personnel have become insane criminals like Amadeus Arkham himself, Doctor Harlene Quinzel (a. k. a. Harley Quinn), Security Chief Lyle Bolton (a. k. a. Lock-Up) and security guard Greg Rourke (a. k. a. Jigsaw Man), and in some versions of Doctor Jonathan Crane (a. k. a. The Scarecrow) and Doctor Hugo Strange.
| Image | Name | Charge | Period | Writer | Artist | First appearance | Date | Appearances (aprox.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[edit] Current persomnel | ||||||||
| Jeremiah Arkham | Director | Shadow of the Bat #1 | |||||
| Aaron Cash | Chief of security | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1 | July 2003 | 6 | ||||
| The head of security is in love with Anne Carver, who is killed by Jane Doe before he can tell her. Killer Croc eats his arm, which is replaced by a metallic hook. | ||||||||
[edit] Personnel with unrevealed status | ||||||||
| Ruth Adams | Therapist | ||||||
| She works at the Asylum during the events of Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. She believes the Joker has a form of "super sanity" and makes Two-face use a deck of Tarot cards instead of his coin. | ||||||||
| Wiltman | Therapist | Green Lantern #117 | ||||||
| Takes care of the Crumbler. | ||||||||
[edit] Former personnel | ||||||||
| Amadeus Arkham | Director and founder | 1921 - 1922 | Len Wain | Who's Who | March 1985 | 2 | |
| The founder of the institution, driven insane after Mad Dog raped and killed his wife and daughter. After killing Mad Dog and his broker, he is imprisoned in the asylum and after writing spells with his nails, dies in his cell on his sleep in April 7, 1963. | ||||||||
| Charles Cavendish | Director | ||||||
| Director of the Asylum before the events of Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth until he reads the diary of Amadeus Arkham and goes insane. He frees all the inmates, sets a trap to drive Batman insane and finally, wearing Elizabeth Arkham's wedding dress tries to kill Dr. Ruth Adams. | ||||||||
| Harley Quinzel | Therapist | Until No Man's Land | |||||
| She Handles the case of the Joker until No Man's Land, when after getting emotionally and intimately involved with her patient, snaps into insanity. | ||||||||
| Lyle Bolton | Chief of security | During Jeremiah's administration | ||||||
| The chief of security until Jeremiah Arkham fires him due to his brutalality towards the inmates. He goes insane and becomes Lock-Up. | ||||||||
| Greg Roark | Security guard | Until No Man's Land | Alan Grant | Dave Taylor | Detective Comics # Batman: Arkham Asylum - Tales of Madness | May 1998 | 2 |
| A guard terrorized by the Joker, the Scarecrow, Killer Croc, the Riddler, the Witch and Vox. They contest for the scariest story with Greg's life as the price. Since he picked all, they decided to mark parts of his body with their names to claim them later. | ||||||||
| Anne Carver | Therapist | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1 | July 2003 | 1 | ||||
| Killed by Jane Doe before he can tell her. Aaron Cash is in love with her. | ||||||||
[edit] Personel in other continuities | ||||||||
| Bartholomew Wolper | |||||||
| A popular TV personality handling the cases of the Joker and Two-face. He is responsible of setting both free. The Joker kills him among many other victims. | ||||||||
[edit] Inmates
All of the inmates are at least believed to be insane criminals, among them almost all of the enemies of Batman has spent some time in there, even the likes of the Penguin, Warren White (before he becomes insane), Deadshot and Rupert Thorne. Some other notorious inmates are enemies of other heroes that are sent to the institution due to their unbalanced behavior and the capability of the institution. The list of inmates includes at some points heroes like Zatanna, the Ambush Bug, Dream Girl and even Batman himself; or former members of the personnel like Amadeus Arkham, Harlene Quinzel, Lyle Bolton and Greg Roark. However, it features a large list of inmates, many of which has never faced Batman.
[edit] Other known inmates | |||||||
| Image | Alias | Real name | Writer | Artist | First appearance | Date | Appearances (aprox.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mad Dog | Martin Hawkings | |||||
| A murderous rapist who destroys the face and genitalia of the women he victimises. | |||||||
| None | Amadeus Arkham | Len Wain | Who's Who | March 1985 | 2 | ||
| The founder of the institution, driven insane after Mad Dog raped and killed his wife and daughter. After killing Mad Dog and his broker, he is imprisoned in the asylum and after writing spells with his nails, dies in his cell on his sleep in April 7, 1963. | |||||||
| Marcus | Batman #326 | ||||||
| McConnell | "Kid Gloves" McConnell | Batman #326 | |||||
| "Mad Dog" Markham | Markham | Batman #326 | |||||
| Napoleon | Batman #327 | ||||||
| Joan of Arc | Batman #327 | ||||||
| Albert Blume | Batman #405 | ||||||
| "Kid Gloves" McConnell | McConnell | Batman #326 | |||||
| Elmore | Batman #425 | ||||||
| Billings | Secret Origins #1 | ||||||
| Bob Overdog | Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #3 | ||||||
| None | Everard Mallitt | Shadow of the Bat #1 | 3 | |||
| A schizophrenic intern. He knows Mr. Zsasz secret way out and can't avoid giving away clues in his delirious speeches, so Zsasz kills him with a pillow. Dr. Arkham never realizes Mallitt is murdered. | |||||||
| Bite | |||||||
| Doc Faustus | Showcase '94 #3 | ||||||
| Jim Paul Starter | Showcase '94 #3 | ||||||
| Sarter | Showcase '94 #3 | ||||||
| Wyndham Vane | Showcase '95 #11 | ||||||
| Charles | Azrael #27 | ||||||
| Grey Abbott | Azrael #27 | ||||||
| Bradbury | Batman: Underworld Unleashed - Devil's Asylum | 1 | |||||
| Resnick | |||||||
| Wild | Alan Grant | Batman: Shadow of the Bat #38 | 1 | ||||
| Rob Frazier | Batman Villains: Secret Files and Origins | ||||||
| Rudy Heinkel | Batman Villains: Secret Files and Origins | ||||||
| Sweeney | Batman Villains: Secret Files and Origins | ||||||
| Tony LePoni | Batman Villains: Secret Files and Origins | ||||||
| D. Jones | Robert Amherst | Batman #605 | |||||
| Commited in Batman #605 | |||||||
| Tommy Carma | Batman #402 | ||||||
| Tony Finch | H-E-R-O #9 | ||||||
| Tsui Walker | Chronos #11 | ||||||
| Franklin Selly | Batman: Dreamland | ||||||
| Kook | Batman: The Abduction | ||||||
| Tenzin Wyatt | The Demon (volume three) #9 | ||||||
| The Witch | Samantha Voz | Alan Grant | Dave Taylor | Detective Comics # Batman: Arkham Asylum - Tales of Madness | May 1998 | 2 |
| According to herself, in her previous life she was tortured to admit she is a witch, so in this life she is claiming the lives of the people she believes are the reincarnation of the ones that killed her. | |||||||
| Vox | Lisa | Alan Grant | Dave Taylor | Detective Comics # Batman: Arkham Asylum - Tales of Madness | May 1998 | 2 |
| A woman who hears voices that tell her what to do. She killed her own little brother. | |||||||
| Jigsaw man | Greg Roark | Alan Grant | Dave Taylor | Detective Comics # Batman: Arkham Asylum - Tales of Madness | May 1998 | 2 |
| A guard terrorized by the Joker, the Scarecrow, Killer Croc, the Riddler, the Witch and Vox. They contest for the scariest story with Greg's life as the price. Since he picked all, they decided to mark parts of his body with their names to claim them later. | |||||||
| Waxman | Alan Grant | Mark Buckingham | Batman: Shadow of the Bat #80 | December 1998 | 2 | |
| A man with what would seem like a melted face, he has too much extra skin in his head (like a Shar Pei dog, only uneven). He is close friends with Pinhead and has a feud with the Joker, who end up killing him with a fire hose. | |||||||
| Pinhead | Alan Grant | Mark Buckingham | Batman: Shadow of the Bat #80 | December 1998 | 2 | |
| A large man wi a very thin head. He is a close friend to Waxman and dies fighting Killer Croc. | |||||||
| None | Solly Bean | Alan Grant | Mark Buckingham | Batman: Shadow of the Bat #80 | December 1998 | 2 | |
| A cannibal. | |||||||
| None | Vernon Jamson | Alan Grant | Mark Buckingham | Batman: Shadow of the Bat #80 | December 1998 | 2 | |
| Matatoa | Batman: Gotham Knights #17 | 1 | |||||
| Sherman Stroud | Detective Comics #726 | 1 | |||||
| Jane Doe | Dan Slott | Ryan Sook | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1 | July 2003 | 5 | ||
| A cypher who obsessively learns her victims' personality and mannerisms, then kills them and assumes their identity by wearing their skin, eventually becoming that individual even in her own mind. | |||||||
| Erasmus Rayne | Death Rattle | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1 | July 2003 | 4 | |||
| A cult leader from Gotham City who claims to communicate with the dead and committs an atrocity when one of the voices he heard told him to murder 56 of his own followers. He was then committed to Arkham Asylum, where he soon became feared by staff and inmates alike. He eventually perished in hellfire. Dies in the sixth issue. | |||||||
| Doodlebug | Daedalus Boch | Dan Slott | Ryan Sook | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1 | July 2003 | 5 | |
| An artist who believes he receives visions of inspiration and then compulsively recreates them on whatever canvas they indicate, including people. He dies in the sixt issue. | |||||||
| Junkyard Dog | Tucker Long | Dan Slott | Ryan Sook | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #2 | July 2003 | 4 | |
| A man completely obsessed with scavenging prizes and treasures from garbage. Dies in the fifth issue. | |||||||
| Lunkhead | Dan Slott | Ryan Sook | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #2 | July 2003 | 3 | ||
| A large, imposing somewhat deformed bruiser of a man. Dies in the sixth issue. | |||||||
| Seamus Sullivan | Detective Comics #786 | 1 | |||||
| Kira Kelly | #789 | ||||||
[edit] Demons living in the asylum
Both locations of the asylum have a history with spells, sorcery and magic. The original building in Sommerset is cursed by the Doctor Amadeus Arkham, while the Mercey House has history with demons.
| Image | Name | Writer | Artist | First appearance | Date | Appearances (aprox.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skarva | Dan Slott | Ryan Sook | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #4 | October 2003 | 3 | |
| A group of demons that Etrigan imprisones under the ground at Arkham many years ago. | ||||||
| Cthugha | Dan Slott | Ryan Sook | Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #6 | December 2003 | 1 | |
| A demon, head of the torture lords. | ||||||
