10 Factors That Give Batman The Best Extended Comics Universe

10. Arkham Asylum

Arkham Asylum For The Criminally Insane is an enduring and special building in the history of Batman comics. First introduced by legendary writer Denny O'Neill in Batman #258 (October 1974) as 'Arkham Hospital', it wasn't until 1979 that DC seemed to settle on the more menacing moniker, Arkham Asylum. Wolverine and Swamp Thing creator Len Wein gradually increased the importance of the old Asylum to Batman stories throughout the 1980's, and he was the first to provide a history of the facility, in 'Who's Who' #1 in 1985. Flash forward to the modern day, and it has become strange to read a Batman story that doesn't at least make mention of Arkham, so ubiquitous has it become. Pretty much every one of Batman's Rogue's Gallery that could be defined as 'mentally ill' (or crazy) has been incarcerated there at one point or another. Many stories simply have Arkham function as a prison for the likes of The Joker and Poison Ivy, rather than choosing to focus on the Asylum as somewhere working towards rehabilitation. However, when stories do address this aspect, it adds an extra layer of intrigue. Probably the best example of this psychological exploration is Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth, but Dan Slott and Ryan Sook's Arkham Asylum: Living Hell is superb as well, taking a multi-layered look at Arkham and telling the story from several different points of view, including staff members and inmates. Arkham Asylum is an extremely important element of the Batman universe which can always be relied upon to bring a feeling of horror and Gothic suspense to any story. This fictional institution is so fundamental that an entire video game series has been based within it's walls, and it routinely appears in every incarnation of Batman across every media platform.