Haunted by Beating Wings
"'What about you, Batman? What do you see?" (37).
Grant Morrison's & Dave McKean's Arkham Asylum (1989)
Points of Reflection
G. Morrison's & Dave McKean's Arkham Asylum (1989), pp.1-62 [p.62 opens w/ "Later, I find myself sobbing . . ."]
1. Morrison & McKean kick off this story by employing religious iconography and themes in a number of ways. The work’s subtitle derives from Philip Larkin’s “Church Going” (1955) and the opening two, image-heavy pages suggest this story somehow functions as a “passion play”—a tale about Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. Note, too, the nails strewn across these pages (Christ was nailed to a cross) and the white sketch of a church-like structure. As you read, consider whether these religious references are intended to be serious, ironic, parodic, or something else.
2. a quick search online reveals that Icaronycteris (4) is the earliest type of echo-locating bat known to exist, a genus now quite extinct. Why might Morrison identify this particular animal as an icon?
3. what types of background materials (textures) does McKean deploy across the first ten pages of the book--those pages preceding the story itself--and why?
4. the quote pulled from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) presents the possibility that only the mentally ill would choose to hang out with the mentally ill, and seems to imply that madness might be a kind of easily transmitted contagion (9). Does this graphic novel seem to implicitly support these ableist ideas, or question them?
5. as Amadeus drops the tea he had brought his mother and describes his mother’s rebirth into a “world of fathomless signs and portents. Of magic and terror. And mysterious symbols,” McKean’s narrow panels move gradually downwards (13), then back up. Does this movement have anything to do with the images contained within these panels?
6. beginning on page 15 and ending on page 20, Morrison and McKean interweave narrative threads from two different moments in the story, the light-colored ones depicting the phone conversation with the Joker, and the dark ones capturing Batman’s later approach to Arkham Asylum. Is this kind of temporal interweaving something that film and/or fiction can also achieve in so dexterous a fashion?
7. how do Morrison and McKean go about constructing a complex parallel between Amadeus and Bruce Wayne?
8. as he recalls his first confrontation with “the other world [. . .] on the dark side,” McKean draws a face with narrow, red eyes and pointed nose which hovers before the boy just prior to his entering his mother’s room. Why draw this kind of face, and insert this encounter immediately before the revelation that Mrs. Arkham has been eating beetles (11-12)?
9. what stages of grief does Amadeus pass through following personal tragedy?
10. why might Amadeus have decided to become a psychiatrist?
11. is Amadeus’s idealistic belief that violent criminals’ “only real crime is mental illness” (24) inherently supported by this story?
12. why does Amadeus choose to relocate from Metropolis to Gotham?
13. what fiction does Amadeus’s daughter, Harriet, read over and over again, feeding her nightmares?
14. what gift does Amadeus bring his daughter, Harriet, from Switzerland, and why?
15. what does Batman see in the Rorschach card held up to him by the Joker (38-40)?
16. for those of you familiar with Batman’s (Bruce Wayne’s) backstory . . . identify the pivotal event in Bruce Wayne’s life that his imagination repeatedly returns to during the word association test given him by Ruth Adams (42-43).
17. why does recollection of his parents’ murder drive Bruce to stab his own hand with a glass shard (52-54)? What psychological mechanism is in play here?
18. what is the date on the day Batman receives the Joker's invitation (16)?
19. why does Batman fear entering Arkham Asylum (20)?
20. at the time Grant Morrison was writing this story in 1988, Batman fans were helping (via telephone poll) to determine whether the first Robin, Jason Todd, would be killed in the comics by the Joker. How does this knowledge complicate our understanding of Joker’s words concerning Robin (30)?
21. how many of the quotations strewn across pages 31-32 can you identify?
22. why do Arkham Asylum staff members Dr. Cavendish and psychotherapist Ruth Adams choose to remain at the overrun Arkham Asylum when given the opportunity to leave?
23. does Ruth Adam’s attempt at explaining the Joker’s mental condition past muster with you, the reader, or does it feel like a failed attempt to rationalize the irrational (36-38)? Consider the Joker’s actions throughout the story in your response, along with McKean’s stylized drawing and inking of the Joker, and his lettering of the Joker’s dialogue (e.g. 40).
24. why does Two-Face poop on the floor (34), and with what means of treatment does Ruth Adams claim to be treating him?
25. why might McKean zero in on the Tarot card of the Tower (XVI) as Harvey Dent constructs a house made of Tarot cards (36)?
Arkham Asylum (1989), pg.38
Dave McKean
Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu