Comic Picks By The Glick

Ultimately, I decided not to wait for the deluxe hardcover and picked up the existing softcover version of this miniseries a couple weeks back.  Not only does it represent writer Dan Slott’s highest profile work with DC before he found a long-term home at Marvel, I believe it also represents the most consecutive issues illustrated by Ryan Sook in any series he’s been associated with.  Even though it has these unique qualities, is it really the kind of series that deserves a deluxe hardcover edition?  No, not quite.  The title has a lot going for it, and is an entertaining read on balance.  Yet there are a couple issues that keep it from achieving real greatness.

Fortunately the premise for “Living Hell” isn’t one of them.  After successfully pleading insanity to one of the largest cases of stock fraud in history, Warren White -- the “Great White Shark” of American finance -- has avoided a jail term in Gotham City.  Unfortunately for him, the town only has one place for the criminally insane:  Arkham Asylum.  Though he’s clueless enough to ask, “What’s ‘Arkham?’” when the sentence is handed down and blithe enough to bill himself as a “billionaire playboy” when he’s being paraded down the asylum’s main hall, these attitudes only last for a page as he finds out that being the new fish in town is a very bad thing to be.

From there, Slott proceeds to go nuts with all that this wild and weird playground has to offer him.  White naturally has encounters with the most famous Bat-villains, and they provide some of the book’s most memorable moments.  Upon coming face-to-face with Joker in the shower, the Clown Prince of Crime proceeds to tell the new guy that he doesn’t think he’s ever met a worse person.  We’re also witness to White’s brief tenure as Two-Face’s designated coin flipper.

Yet the majority of the series is given over to a cast of new characters who feel right at home in the halls of Arkham.  You’ve got Humpty Dumpty, the repairman who can’t quite put things back together again, Death Rattle, a cult killer who can talk to the dead, Doodlebug, a graffiti artist with a hellish secret, and Jane Doe, a serial killer who can impersonate anyone.  They’ve all got a clever gimmick to them that allows them to fit right in at the asylum, as well as make them feel like credible members of Batman’s rogues gallery.  Slott also does a good job at giving them all personalities beyond their gimmicks as some of them even come off as rather sympathetic in spite of their criminal activities.  It’s also worth mentioning that the majority of them are a twisted and violent bunch with very creative means of expressing themselves.  Slott’s early work at Marvel gave him a “funny traditionalist” reputation, yet after reading this the fact that he has since given us “Superior Spider-Man” doesn’t seem that much of a stretch anymore.

Arkham’s staff doesn’t get as much face time, save for hook-handed guard Aaron Cash who is effectively portrayed as being as tough as they come -- except when it comes to Killer Croc.  It’s a very distinctive group of characters and you can see why Paul Dini worked so many of them into the “Arkham Asylum” videogame, and even put Jane Doe into his run on “Streets of Gotham.”

The focus, however, is mainly on White and his slow, painful acceptance of his place here.  On one hand, it’s certainly fun at first to watch a scumbag like him suffer.  Yet one of the title’s main problems is that in giving us all of these new characters, White starts to fade into the background as the story goes on.  This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that the “Living Hell” part of the plot goes way over the top for what began as a purely character-driven story set in the margins of a superhero universe.  Unleashing the minions of hell and a giant demon at the end does a good job of breaking whatever suspension of disbelief you may have mustered going into this.  That’s disappointing, but there are a couple silver linings.  One is that Slott writes a good Jason Blood and a great Etrigan, the latter of which is in full rhyming mode here.  The other is that White stages a comeback in prominence for the story’s last chapter and emerges from things with what can be best described as a “hardcore acceptance” of his fate.

(Too bad that his most notable role since was as the out-of-nowhere mastermind behind the crimes in James Robinson’s “Face the Face.”  This was the Bat-books’ “One Year Later” storyline in the wake of “Infinite Crisis” and it was a good read up until White showed up.  I can understand why Robinson wanted to use this character, but he completely botched the man’s role here.)

The other major problem with “Arkham Asylum” is that it really shines a light on how broken it is as a concept.  Good arguments have been made about how it ties into a fundamental optimism about Batman’s worldview, yet over the years it has done a really spectacular job of failing to live up to that idea.  Seeing the Joker and Two-Face escape to begin new crime sprees has a quaintness to it that just feels wrong while having Batman comment on the asylum’s “revolving door” hangs a lantern on the problem in the wrong way.  In short, this story does an excellent job in showing how Arkham is an awful place where lots of bad things happen, evil people become worse, and even when the worst is averted it’s only so that more bad things can keep happening.  Of course, if you’ve been reading “Batman” stories for as long as I have then you’ve likely found a way to accept the asylum for what it is and focus on the stories being told around it.  Even so, having a story that basically bludgeons you with the reasons why it doesn’t work doesn’t do anything to endear the narrative to me.

Fortunately Sook is on hand to make a lot of these issues more palatable.  The man seems to thrive on the outlandishness of all the villains he’s required to draw and he’s great with all of the cast’s expressions as well.  Storytelling flows smoothly through his art and you can’t help but be drawn in by it even when things start getting too crazy for their own good.  Overall, Sook shows real versatility and depth as an artist here, making his contributions as integral to the book’s success as Slott’s.

That’s a qualified success, of course.  Even with its issues, though, “Arkham Asylum -- Living Hell” is an entertainingly deranged stroll through one of the most colorful parts of Batman’s mythos.  It all depends on how strong your resolve is to not think too hard about the logic underpinning it all.