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Batman: Arkham Asylum is NOT a Comic Book Game By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman “Behold the greatest comic book game of all time,” read a piece of online advertising for Batman: Arkham Asylum (which I’ll be referring to as just Arkham Asylum, throughout this article). Though this statement is true due to Batman starting out as a comic book character, the game deviates heavily from the Batman mythos DC comics established decades ago. The game seems to follow more of a realistic looking Batman the Animate Series game, than a true comic book based game as the ad had claimed.
Though the critically acclaimed Batman the Animated Series episodes were based on actual storylines from the old Detective Comics and Batman books; the storylines are often streamlined and the drama and general darkness of the plots are a bit subdued.
The biggest reason that this game is not a Batman comic game is the inclusion of Harley Quinn. This may be a bit confusing to you, as she’s featured in the newer Batman comics; however, Harley Quinn was created about 15 years ago for Batman the Animated Series. While she was originally meant to be character that was only featured for one scene, she eventually evolved into Joker’s assistant due to some dream that Batman the Animated Series (and Arkham Asylum) writer, Paul Dini had of Arleen Sorkin (Harley’s voice actor). The focus on Harley is not something that could be overlooked either, especially since it seems as if she gets almost the same amount of screen time as the Joker. It could be argued that Harley’s presence is justified as she used to work in Arkham which would make her the perfect mole. However, if you’re known to be the girlfriend of the Joker, I seriously doubt the asylum is going to be rehiring you nor will they be keeping your security access information on file.
Speaking about the characters in this game, the Joker was not very true to his comic book self in Arkham Asylum. While Joker is normally pretty erratic and unpredictable in his implementation of a crime, his underlying goals and intentions are pretty straight forward. However, in the game you’re never really sure as to what the Joker’s real plans are. Sometimes you think he just wants to toy with you both physically and psychologically in a way that’s painful, but harmless at its core. Other times you’re led to believe that he’s just showing off his newest biological weapon and using you as a tester to ensure it could overtake Gotham. And finally sometimes it just seems as if he wants you dead by any means necessary. It’s a bit unbelievable to think that Batman has no idea what the Joker is planning, despite the fact that he knows him near intimately from the countless times he’s brought the Joker to justice. It’s also hard to believe that the Joker would go about whatever task he was planning as nonchalantly as he was in the game. He even adopts a sort of Bond villain attitude and stops actively watching what Batman is doing half the time, just assuming his plans are moving forward without a hitch. Considering he had just brought Batman to two of the most tragic parts of his life by killing his sidekick (Robin) and crippling another (Oracle) some time before the game takes place, you’d figure Joker would be literally sniffing Batman’s ass to ensure he gets a glimpse of his archenemy’s downfall. Another thing that makes this more of a Batman the Animated Series game is the writer. I’ve loved the works of Paul Dini for decades without even knowing who he really was at all. Upon beating Arkham Asylum and seeing Dini’s name as one of the head writers I sat there for a brief minute asking myself “Where have I seen that name before?” It wasn’t until I started doing research for this article that I found Paul Dini was a pretty big part of my childhood. Not only has he worked on such great Warner Bros animated series such as: Tiny Toons, Freakazoid, Animaniacs and Batman the Animated Series; the man also wrote for the infamous Ewoks cartoon series that aired about 25 years ago. Seeing that Paul Dini was such a key player in the creation and production of Batman the Animated series, it’s very easy to see how Arkham Asylum was heavily inspired by the cartoon. The game has this done-in-one episode feeling as if it were made to feel like some sort of single standalone story as opposed to something that's part of a long running story arc. The way the story is told also adds to this weird "longest night of Batman's life" feeling and is told without a lot of the Batman "kitsch" and camp, making the writing feel like one of those Twilight Zone-esque "What If?" comics at best. I will admit that recently Paul Dini has taken over the Detective Comics branch of DC comics giving him some credibility as a comic book writer. However, from what I’ve read on his Detective Comics work; he’s totally overhauled the comic series to be more like an edgier version of Batman the Animated Series, which further proves my point about him taking the game in that direction as well.
Despite the fact that I didn’t think this Batman followed the comic book mythos, I still thought it was a pretty well made game which was very fun to play. In fact, I didn’t mind that it didn’t follow the comics as well as some claimed, since my favorite Batman game of all time is actually based on a Batman movie (Sunsoft’s Batman on the NES).
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