10 Secrets Of Gotham City You Didn’t Know About
8. It’s Crazy To Be A Doctor In Gotham
While it is safe to say that being in charge of a financial institution or a member of the Gotham City Police Department are two of the most dangerous jobs in Gotham City, being a doctor is statistically the profession that sees its practitioners often end up on the wrong side of the law - and, on several occasions, on the wrong side of sanity!
One of the first is Amadeus Arkham. His mother Elizabeth suffered from mental illness, which pushed Amadeus to become a psychiatrist and turn the family home into the first Arkham Asylum. Unfortunately, he went mad and ended up becoming an inmate in his own asylum after killing a patient. Then, Amadeus' grand-nephew Jeremiah, himself a psychiatrist, also went mad after blackouts made him impersonate Black Mask.
Of course, the most famous Arkham psychiatrist to fall prey to her own psychosis is Dr. Harleen Quinzel. She was assigned Joker as a patient, who she fell in love with and who drove her insane after throwing her in a vat of chemicals at ACE Chemicals. Eventually, Harley broke free of her obsession with her Puddin' and is sometimes partner to Poison Ivy, herself a botanist, and occasionally an ally to the Bat-family.
The list goes on of those doctors to fall afoul in Gotham, including Bradford Thorne, Hugo Strange, Jonathan Crane, and Man-Bat, aka Dr, Kirk Langstrom.