DC is Finally Admitting Arkham Asylum is Completely Misunderstood
Arkham Asylum is one of the most notorious places in DC Comics, but Arkham City: The Order of the World shows a greater threat beyond its inmates.
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Warning: spoilers for Arkham City: The Order of the World #1 are ahead.
Gotham City in DC Comics is characterized by an anxiety about the unknown, with Arkham Asylum being its most prominent example. Though it initially began as an effort to treat the mentally ill in Gotham, Arkham Asylum quickly took on a more sinister reputation when it became a repository for those deemed to be “deviant” from the rest of society. Coupled with the fact that it has its own dark history with its founder, Amadeus Arkham, and has been the home for dozens of Batman enemies over the years, Arkham Asylum represents Gotham’s latent fears and its hesitancy to confront the failings of society. With this shadowy institution being the genesis for dozens of Batman stories, a new chapter for Gotham’s Bedlam has begun against the backdrop of the ongoing Fear State event, elucidating details of its existence in Gotham’s collective consciousness.
A new limited series, Arkham City: The Order of the World explores the aftermath of the Joker’s attack on the institution during A-Day through the eyes of Dr. Joy, a psychiatrist (written by Dan Watters, illustrated by Dani, colors by Dave Stewart). As the sole survivor of Arkham’s staff, Dr. Joy provides a much-needed look into how the institution functioned at the time of the explosion, as well as how its inmates are seen by society. Crucially, Dr. Joy’s view of her work and her patients is informed by a perspective of “insanity” as a social construct as opposed to a purely medical one, marking a break from the institution’s characterization in the past. As Gotham descends into chaos with many of Arkham’s inmates on the loose, Dr. Joy shares insight into how the threat that the institution poses isn’t just from the inmates themselves, but from Gothamites’ view of it.
Issue one of Arkham City: The Order of the World proves that Gotham’s fear of Arkham Asylum stems from its inability to understand what makes one “deviant” in society, leading ordinary citizens to project their anxieties on those who they consider to be outsiders. This lack of knowledge around what “insanity” is and how it should be treated is a condition that Gotham is increasingly uncomfortable with, and as the issue shows, drives individual citizens to attack those who they suspect to be Arkham inmates. In this sense, Arkham City makes the case for why the true danger of Arkham Asylum has never been the inmates themselves, but the irrational violence that erupts in “ordinary” citizens when faced with something or someone they don’t understand.
This is a hugely important development in Arkham Asylum’s history in DC Comics, because it places the danger not on people with mental illnesses, but on the people they are considered “deviant” from in the first place. The issue illustrates this to disturbing effect when an Iraq War veteran named Jericho Hering was attacked by strangers who suspected him of being an “Arkhamite” while he was out buying a newspaper. Hering wore bandages across his head due to the burns he got from his second tour, and as Dr. Joy notes, “never had stepped foot into an asylum,” and “spoke to himself quietly on the rare occasions he left the house, to keep at bay the PTSD attacks that were prone to overcome him.” The front page of the newspaper that Hering had bought read, “ARKHAM’S CANNIBAL MONSTERS UNDER YOUR BED!” highlighting how innocent people like Hering become targets for Gotham’s imagined fear of those they cannot understand.
Arkham Asylum is a perfect example of how Gotham City polices itself under the guise of protecting “normalcy.” Hering’s attackers taunt him by saying, “Think you can fool us?! Eat our children?!” showcasing how the city is deeply concerned with defending its innocents and innocence from a fabricated foe and sensationalized. By failing to understand the exact details of “insanity,” Gotham resorts to creating its own truths about those with mental illness, thereby taking on its own pathologically irrational view of the world. In this sense, Arkham City: The Order of the World proves why the dangers of Arkham Asylum have never just been the Batman villains locked inside, but the distrust and hostility that brews the institution’s gates.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/dc-arkham-city-order-world-villains-fear-state/