Encyclopedia > Arkham Asylum

  Article Content

Arkham Asylum

Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane is a fictional mental hospital near Gotham City, where many of Batman's foes (most famously the Joker) wind up after they are captured--and recaptured; those who are 'cured' and released tend to re-offend. Arkham Asylum does not have a good record, at least with regard to the high profile cases. (Furthermore, several staff members, including at least one director, have ended up as residents. See also Harley Quinn[?].)

In the world of the Batman stories, the Asylum is named after its founder; but in real life, it is thought to have been named in honour of Arkham, one of the settings of H. P. Lovecraft's horror stories.

H.P. Lovecraft met Bob Kane, Batman's creator, in 1935 on a train. The young Kane told Lovecraft that he loved how he wrote his stories and told him about a vigilante that had literally gone insane with vengeance over something that cannot be destroyed; the essence of evil itself. Kane was so grateful for being able to meet Lovecraft only two years before his death that he created Arkham Asylum as a means of paying tribute to his hero.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Monty Woolley

... 1936. He was typecast as the wasp-tongued, supercillious sophisticate. His most famous role is that of the cranky professor forced to stay immobile because of a broken ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 42.6 ms