In the 1980s, Batman had a litany of mature, gritty stories that would inform his character for decades to come. 1989’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is much in the same vein. This collaboration between writer Grant Morrison and Dave McKean has since cemented itself as an unforgettable work in the Caped Crusader’s library of gothic and crime-ridden tales.
Ever since I re-entered the world of comics in the early 2010s, I quickly caught up on the highly-touted stories of DC’s nocturnal vigilante. The Dark Knight Returns, Year One, and The Killing Joke quickly informed me of what modern Batman truly is, beyond the Tim Burton films and the iconic '90s animated series.
A Serious House on Serious Earth was on my radar, but I simply never got around to picking it up. In 2024, that changed on a chance trip to a nearby comic book store. As I briefly flipped through the pages, I wanted—no, I needed this experience. So, I bought it.
And I read.
A chronicle of madness, told wondrously through McKean’s dreamlike art, coalesces with Morrison’s positioning of Batman, as he embarks on a dangerous mission. More often than not, I had to flip back to certain pages, not because I thought I missed a word or wanted to absorb the incredible writing further, but to observe the detail and power within the images across the panels.
Tasked with freeing hostages from a Joker-led riot in the titular Asylum, Batman is greeted by the Joker and the reluctant hospital staff. Seemingly threatening, the arch-rival instead beckons Batman to further explore the depths of this holding place for villains the hero banished them to.
One of the first members of Batman’s Rogues Gallery featured a memorable scene from Harvey Dent, otherwise known as Two-Face. Unable to choose by himself, he suffers from the psychological suggestion by Dr. Ruth Adams, a therapist also held captive by the inmates. Without his coin, he had been left to decide via dice, followed by tarot cards. Now, he can’t choose for himself, not even the ability to visit the restroom.
From then on, Batman ventures through the Asylum, much like Dante’s descent into Hell’s Inferno. There, the Dark Knight finds a husk of a pleading Clayface, a bitter Doctor Destiny in a wheelchair, a despondent Scarecrow, an unsettling Mad Hatter, a holy Maxie Zeus, and a hungry Killer Croc.
Some of these baddies are left in a pitiable state, affected by their placement into a system hidden from society like Gotham’s dirtiest secret. The art blurs and contorts them, giving the feeling that their time in penitence and treatment did them far worse than good.
McKean’s art paints this beautifully, covering the tragedy of their worlds in symbolic visages. These images portray a near esoteric mystery as to the mindset, yet firmly place readers in the places of the inmates.
Throughout Batman’s travels, fragments of Amadeus Arkham are inter-spliced in, even narrating the action going on, as he recants his past before founding Arkham Asylum. Morrison’s penmanship is captivating. As the Mad Hatter delivers a non-sequitur exposition laden with a dark fantasy view of Alice in Wonderland, Maxie Zeus is juxtaposed with biblical references for a man believing himself a Greek god.
Do you ever have that feeling when you move through your house in the middle of the night and you swear there’s something possibly different in the layout? That’s how viewing his craft. Often I searched for extra details in his work on this story and even his covers for the Sandman series.
Morrison adds to this just as well.
There’s a moment that’s since stuck in my head during the Killer Croc portion of the story. It happens when the reptilian beast tosses Batman through a window and he clutches for any holding to re-position himself in the rain.
“And this world explodes,” Arkham muses in the past as lightning bursts behind a falling Batman. “There is nothing to hold onto. No anchor. Panic-stricken, I flee. I run blindly through the madhouse. And I cannot even pray. For I love no God.” As Batman leverages himself up, lightning strikes once more, sending him crashing to Croc’s current location.
Morrison and McKean’s teamwork works in tandem with each other, like a destined compliment.
The Dark Knight’s escape from Croc leads him to Arkham Asylum’s administrator, Dr. Charles Cavendish. Revealed to be the orchestrator of this lunacy reigning dominion over the place, Cavendish believed Batman to be tied to the same insanity that Amadeus Arkham faced so long ago.
After dealing with him with the help of Dr. Adams, a far more empathetic Caped Crusader frees the inmates. Viewing the inmates as those living with their true natures, Batman seeks to return them to their states and undo the treatment done unto them. He tells Adams, “Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are. Or destiny, perhaps.”
Freeing Two-Face by placing a coin in his hand, he lets him choose with the duality of his chosen object. As Batman and The Joker depart the Asylum, Two-Face admires the coin in his palm, stating “Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards.”
I was used to mature and dark Batman stories at this point. What I wasn’t used to as much was a vulnerable Batman, in which Bruce Wayne’s humanity seeped through the cowl with each moment of emotional openness. This was a Batman who was afraid and traumatized.
And that’s the point of his journey. He plunges deep into darkness, but of a different kind, and sees what he’s wrought on Arkham’s prisoners. In the abyss, he sees them as they are, and how much worse off they are.
While I read, I’d think, this isn’t Batman. I’d known him as stoic and calculating; smarter than the reader, writer, and story. A man who had many gadgets and skills. Here, he was soft, afraid, and affected.
But as I continued and even after I finished the story, it was apparent he had seen himself in those he’d put away from Gotham’s streets. Batman is the madness made from Bruce Wayne’s trauma. That scared child’s chin protrudes from the Bat’s yawning maw and overshadows what was once a broken orphan.
In this, Batman recognizes his part in what begets a cycle of violence and incarceration leading to further damage to the Rogues Gallery he so battles. He’s the force behind this; this figure a dark madness made. And he frees them.
This also puzzled me, as Batman wouldn’t release these sad folks. At least not in a world where innocents may be harmed. But this feels nothing like a typical Batman story. It’s like an allegory, a parable of our impact on others as we see ourselves as heroes. It covers the ways we can change that and break cycles.
Of course, there are parallels in the care industry, not only in mental health institutions, but to the elderly, the children, and prisoners.
One last thing I’d like to mention in my gushing for this story is how speech and lettering exist with the art and the writing. While normal characters like the doctors and Commissioner Gordon read as normal, everyone else has different speech bubbles. Batman’s is black, with white lettering. Maxie Zeus’s speech bubbles are blue and jagged, written in Greek-like typeface. And The Joker’s dialogue doesn’t even have a bubble. It’s red, bleeding into the panels, marked in the dark of the environment. Sometimes it’s hard to read, but once it’s deciphered, it sticks.
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is among the most unique comics I’ve read. The art is like an imaginative painting, reminding me of Alex Ross’s work on DC’s Kingdom Come. As someone who took comic book art for granted as a child, my adult self soaks it in, and thus I have more reasons to enjoy this medium.
Seeing Morrison’s feelings on the story not being what they wanted is unfortunate to me. Understandably, they wanted the story to be more direct, whereas McKean’s input adds an openness to the transpiring events in the plot. But this is among their best work.
I know I’ll never forget this one.
I’ll never forget my visit to a serious house on serious earth.