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Arham Asylum: Living Hell 1
This is the first issue in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, a series written by Dan Slott and Ryan Sook, and it's awesome. It has a series of stories about various inmates in the asylum and it all culminates in one big event near the end of the series.
The first issue focusses on Warren White, known as the Great White Shark, who is attempting to get out of a huge stock fraud by claiming that he has a mental disorder. He's pretty smug about this...
While he might use the corruption of the city to his advantage, Warren has another problem. He's in Gotham.
For some reason, Warren doesn't understand that being sent to Arkham is bad. Very, very bad. And he finds himself out of his depth once in there...and rooming with a homicidal cult leader named Death Rattle.
Anne Carver, the head of therapy at Arkham, is also a featuring character in this issue. We get to see Anne's problems, all of which are caused by her working at Arkham. A job she can't escape from. The insanity of the asylum is slowly driving her crazy as well.
Anyway, Warren finds a sort-of friend (or at least, maybe the one person in the whole asylum who doesn't hate his guts and/or wants to kill him) in Anne. Eventually she tells him that in exchange for 20 mil, she can get him transferred to a nicer prison, which he eagerly agrees to.
Anne starts coming on to Warren, but really it's just a distraction so that she can knife him, but Batman bursts into the room before she can kill Warren. Batman kind of flings Warren across the room to get him out of the way, where he finds a trashcan with something fairly disgusting in it...the real Anne Carver's head.
The woman is actually Jane Doe, who kills people and steals their identities. She has been impersonating Anne for several months now, trying to escape the madness of the asylum, hoping that it would be better on the other side of the couch.
The woman is actually Jane Doe, who kills people and steals their identities. She has been impersonating Anne for several months now, trying to escape the madness of the asylum, hoping that it would be better on the other side of the couch.
I really love this because it gives such great insight into Batman's character. Just like Jane Doe impersonating Anne Carver, who has to deal with all the inmates every day, Batman has to fight these maniacs, and it never ends. Now that Jane Doe has experienced what its like, even she is afraid of what Batman has to deal with.
