ELIZABETH ARKHAM ASYLUM
FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
History
The crumbling Victorian mansion at the heart of the
original Arkham Asylum was a single-family home, occupied at the beginning of
the twentieth century by the Arkham family. Arkham Asylum: Living Hellelaborates on this
information, disclosing that the actual structure was built long before the
early 1900s as the "Gotham House of Madness and Ill Humors". The
grounds were owned by an occult expert named Jason Blood, who carried out exorcisms on the mentally ill. His
patients hailed predominantly from Gotham's poor and superstitious townships,
where psychiatric disorders were regarded as synonymous with demonic
possession. Blood kept his charges starved and confined to suspended cages,
even murdering some in an attempt to obliterate their evil spirits. Blood later
sealed up the basement to keep the spirits imprisoned. The House of Madness and
Ill Humors was closed down, and the land itself sold to the Arkhams.
After the death of Elizabeth Arkham's unnamed husband,
she was cared for by their son, Amadeus. Elizabeth was plagued by dementia and
perpetually bedridden; at some point Amadeus told others that Elizabeth had
slashed her own throat, but in reality he'd done so when she became too much
for him to handle on his own, then repressed memories of the murder. Following
Elizabeth's apparent suicide in 1920, Amadeus, now an aspiring psychiatrist,
inherited the house—which he dedicated to accommodating those suffering from
serious mental illnesses, as had Elizabeth. Of particular interest to Amadeus
was his onetime patient Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins, a serial killer who raped and sexually mutilated his
victims. Arkham felt compassion for Hawkins, whom he perceived as being trapped
in the penal system with no hope for proper psychiatric treatment. Construction
on the new Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane began the
following year with the stated goal of providing such an alternative for
mentally ill offenders. As the necessary renovations to the Arkham home began
in earnest, Amadeus moved his wife Constance and daughter Harriet to
neighboring Metropolis, where he temporarily treated Hawkins and his other
patients at the state psychiatric hospital. He returned to Gotham on multiple
occasions to oversee work on the new asylum, though on one such occasion
"Mad Dog" Hawkins escaped. Arkham was consulted during the manhunt by
the Metropolis police and prison authorities, but the felon was not
successfully recaptured.
As work on the asylum neared completion, Arkham moved
his family back to Gotham, unaware that he was being stalked by Hawkins. He
arrived home in April 1921 to discover Hawkins had raped and murdered both
Constance and Harriet, even leaving his nickname carved on Harriet's fresh
corpse. Although seemingly detached from their deaths Amadeus was in fact
permanently unhinged by the incident, which further ushered his descent into
madness. Hawkins was tracked down by the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD), and when Arkham Asylum opened its doors
in November 1921 he was committed as its first inmate. Arkham personally
treated "Mad Dog" for several months without incident, but on the
anniversary of his family's murder he suffered a psychotic break and executed
Hawkins during a faux electroshock therapy session. The GCPD ruled it an accident.
Arkham's mental state continued to deteriorate until 1929, when he was
convicted of killing his stockbroker, and became a ward of his own hospital.
Since the 1920s, Arkham Asylum has been destroyed,
usually violently, on multiple occasions and rebuilt or expanded; for those
patients with unique security or health considerations, customized facilities
have been installed at considerable expense, such as a refrigerated cell for Mr.
Freeze. The asylum has continued to
grow larger and more modern in appearance, although as the lion's share of the
budget is devoted to security treatment options have inevitably suffered.
Despite the installation of advanced technological security measures in the era
of metahuman criminals, the inmates have still been able to escape or take
control of the facilities from time to time.
The first named director of Arkham Asylum was Professor
Milo, who successfully applied
for the position after driving his predecessor insane with a narcotic that
induced psychotic episodes. Milo then struck a deal with two patients,
"Madman" Markham and "Kid Gloves" McConnell: he would
secretly release them to commit robberies, then provide them with an alibi in
exchange for half their loot. Milo suffered the fate of the previous director
when he was driven insane by his own drugs and committed to the asylum. (Batman #326, August 1980)
Director Robert Huntoon was the last known
administrative head prior to Jeremiah
Arkham; during his tenure Arkham
was rocked by ruinous scandals, including one daring escape by the
Joker during the events of Batman: The Killing Joke that involved his replacement with a body
double, and another in which Abattoir infiltrated a cleaning company Huntoon had
contracted to launder the linens. Huntoon made a number of changes to his
security policies, including the installation of an anti-riot system that
flooded the cell block corridors with gas in the event of a mass disturbance,
and permitting guards to carry handguns, to little avail. Despite these
shortcomings, his regime developed an excellent working relationship with
Batman; on several occasions the Dark Knight contacted Huntoon directly to arrange
interviews with various patients.
Responsibility
Arkham Asylum has been explicitly described by
Jeremiah Arkham as a private psychiatric hospital. (Batman: Shadow of the Bat #4, September 1992) It
is unclear whether it is a proprietary institution managed as a business entity
with publicly traded stock, or a non-profit facility which does not depend on
profit to remain competitive. The grounds of the original asylum belonged
solely to the estate of Amadeus Arkham. (Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #5, November 2003)
Other incarnations of Arkham have been depicted as federal facilities, which
received direct funding and support from the U.S. government. (Batman Adventures #1,
June 2003) In the film Suicide Squad, the asylum is a municipal hospital owned and managed by the Gotham
public health department.[4]
Despite its status as a private hospital in the
mainstream DC Universe, Arkham is also granted certain legislative privileges
by Gotham City. For example, Gotham law empowers the asylum to unilaterally
detain any person or persons under indefinite psychiatric observation. Said
individuals cannot be institutionalized through formal means without the
consent of their families or the judicial system, but they can be held for any
period at the director's discretion. (Swamp Thing#66, November 1987) This loophole has
allowed Arkham to incarcerate specific characters, such as Jean Loring, while
circumventing the bureaucratic process normally associated with
institutionalization. (Identity Crisis #7,
February 2005)
A number of other states and cities have transferred
dangerously insane supervillains to Arkham Asylum despite its rather
discouraging reputation, either because they lack facilities of their own to
hold them, or find it easier to dump their criminal problem on Gotham City.
Patients transferred from outside Gotham have included the Psycho-Pirate,
Doctor Destiny, Jason
Woodrue, Doc Willard, the Dummy,
Dancer, the Crumbler, and Mister Thornton. Nearly every member of Batman's
Rogues Gallery has been incarcerated at Arkham under various circumstances.
Stockbroker Warren White, better known as the Great
White Shark, was initially
sent to Arkham after evading a white-collar fraud conviction in the Gotham
courts by pleading insanity. His time inside the asylum drives him truly
insane, and White comes to manipulate the system from within as a ruthless
underworld racketeer. (Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #6,
December 2003)
Arkham Asylum has employed both psychiatrists and clinical psychologists;
the latter are responsible for conducting most patient interviews and
prescribing medication. As the most immediate concern for Arkham's
administration is reducing the aggressiveness of high risk patients,
prescriptions are often doled out for dopamine inhibitors such as Thorazine. Other recurrent medications
used by Arkham staff include Haloperidol and Fluoxetine. (Robin, Volume Four #23, December 1995) Due to the
fact that most incarcerated supervillains such as the Joker rarely display the
common side effects of these drugs, it has been theorized unscrupulous
orderlies are failing to make certain they are properly administered, or are
pilfering the real medication and substituting cheaper, alternative
pharmaceuticals which are less sedating, have lower rates of relapse, and
result in subtler side effects.[8]
Interviews are held periodically by Arkham's therapists for evaluation
purposes; in the event of dealing with high-profile cases, sometimes an entire
team of doctors may be present. (Detective Comics Volume Two #17, April
2013) Patients are encouraged to discuss their lives, thoughts, and desires.
The psychiatrists do not adhere to any set therapeutic model, so the results of
the interviews may vary; for example, in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House
on Serious Earth Dr. Ruth Adams favors word association—asking
the interviewee to respond with the first word that comes to mind when offered
an item from a word list. These sessions occur in specialized evaluation rooms
overseen by orderlies prepared to physically restrain the patient as needed. If
additional force is called for, each room is also fitted with a "panic
button" that summons a crash team of armed security officers held on
perpetual standby. A member of the team carries a video camera to document the
incident from the guards' perspective and guarantee no excessive force is
exerted off the record. (All-Star Western Volume Three #22, September 2013)
Jeremiah Arkham's regime is a known proponent of electroconvulsive therapy. It is
probable that the employment of shock treatment as punishment may be used in an unethical manner to
deter antisocial conduct among the inmate population. Jeremiah once forced a
"difficult case" to undergo ECT after he was observed smuggling
contraband to the Joker, without providing a medical pretext or taking the
patient's specific diagnosis into consideration. (Batman Villains Secret Files
and Origins #1, October 1995)
Despite the prevalence of so many other outdated psychiatric techniques,
Arkham neither encourages nor routinely authorizes prefrontal lobotomies. Jeremiah Arkham has stated
that he does not consider lobotomy a "progressive" treatment,
dismissing it as a poor substitute for medication and therapy. (Batman #67, September 2008) The liberal use of
lobotomy procedures to control Arkham's most feral inmates is further
discouraged by bureaucratic restrictions and opposition from patients' rights
groups. Arkham staff must obtain prior approval from the State Board of Medical
Examiners before performing a lobotomy.[9]
Recurring Staff
§ Amadeus Arkham, founder of the asylum, Amadeus named the
institution after his deceased mother Elizabeth.
§ Aaron Cash, Arkham chief of security; sports a prosthetic hook in place of his hand,
which was bitten off by Killer Croc. Unlike many of his colleagues, Cash is
neither insane nor corrupt, and is a trusted ally of Batman.
Inmates
§
Abattoir
§
Amygdala
§
Bane
§
Deadshot
§
Egghead
§
Firefly
§
Fright
§
James
Gordon, Jr.
§
Hush
§
Jane Doe
§
Killer Moth (and Charaxes)
§
Lock-Up
§
Magpie
§
Man-Bat
§
Red Hood
(Jason Todd)
§
Two-Face
§
Vox and
Witch
Others
§ Adam Strange
(in "New Frontier")
§
Ambush Bug
§
Bite
§
Bradberry
§
Cheetah
(Barbara Minerva)
§
The Crumbler
§
Dancer
§
Death Rattle
(Erasmus Rayne)
§
The
Defenestrator
§
Doc Willard
§
Doctor
Destiny
§ Doug Moench & Norm Breyfogle (writer
and artist, respectively, of Batman #492, which
started the Knightfallstoryline; they can be
seen on a list of escaped Arkham patients on the Batcave computer)
§
Dream Girl
§
Everard
Mallitt
§
Fidel
Finnegan III
§
Jean Loring
§
Kryppen
§
Lunkhead
§
Mister
Thornton
§
Professor
Ivo
§
Professor
Powder
§ Psycho-Pirate
(at the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths)
§
Resnick
§
Rob Frazier
§
Rudy Heinkel
§
Sweeney
§
Seamus
Sullivan
§
Tommy Carma
§
Tony LePoni
§
The Veil
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar