Deep Dive DC: Wes Looks at Arkham Asylum: Living Hell Chapter 2

Welcome back to our ongoing look at one of my favorite Batman stories, though as we discussed last time, “Batman Story” isn’t entirely accurate since despite popping up from time to time, Batman is not actually the focus of this story. In lieu of Batman, the star of our show is a creep by the name of Warren “Great White Shark” White, your typical rich white collar scumbag whose life of cheating and embezzling innocent people out of their life’s savings had finally caught up with him. A shit weasel to the very end, Warren conned the jury into letting him off with the insanity plea but the judge wasn’t buying Warren’s bullshit and sentenced him to an indefinite stay in Arkham out of spite. Naturally, a guy like Warren isn’t having a particularly great time locked in an asylum with the most colorful collection of murderers, terrorists and psychopaths the world has ever seen, but since Warren is such a prick that even The Joker thinks he’s the worst, no one is in an especially big hurry to lend the guy a helping hand. Warren thought he saw a light at the end of the tunnel when Dr. Anne Carver, one of the staff psychiatrists at Arkham agreed to have him declared sane and sent to a white collar resort prison in exchange for twenty million dollars, a sum that a man like Warren can easily afford. Unfortunately, that light at the end of the tunnel was actually an oncoming train when “Dr. Carver” was revealed to be an Arkham Inmate known as Jane Doe, a serial killer with the unique and disturbing MO of studying her victims and learning to mimic them perfectly so that she may take their place once she’s killed them. Fortunately, Batman was able to intervene before Jane could do the same to Warren. Warren is lucky to be alive, but he’s still very much stuck in Arkham.

We open with a memo to all department heads from the head of the asylum, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham. Doc Arkham expresses his sadness for the tragic murder of Dr. Carver but also expresses great irritation with his staff at the fact that a serial killer was impersonating a psychiatrist for months and nobody noticed. He also mentions an incident that took place in the rec room. Said incident was Mad Hatter holding up a mirror to Two Face and pushing Harvey’s buttons just enough to where he flips out and smashes the mirror, slicing up his hands but good in the process.

Later, we see Doc Arkham along with chief security officer and hook handed badass, Aaron Cash, at Anne Carver’s grave. Apparently Cash and Dr. Carver were once an item and Cash greatly laments that he wasn’t able to save her from her grisly fate.

We then get a very brief flashback of Warren in his heyday setting up his accountant, Richard Milton, as a fall guy for his wrongdoings, shredding any paperwork that leads to Warren himself, an act that directly led to Milton taking his own life. Cut immediately to a scene of Warren losing it as the papers written up by the false Dr. Carver declaring him sane are themselves shredded, and since when Warren cooked his books, Doc Arkham’s retirement plans went down the drain, so he’s not in a hurry to reevaluate Warren’s sanity and he’s certainly not about to approve his transfer. Warren is stuck here and he only has himself to blame.

Later, in the cafeteria, Warren’s misfortunes continue as he finds a finger in his bowl of prison slop. Don’t worry, it’s just a wooden finger belonging to The Ventriloquist’s Dummy Mr. Scarface. However, Warren’s scream of terrror has attracted the attention of The Scarecrow who stabs Warren with a fork in the hopes getting him to do it again. This incites a riot that is quickly quelled by Cash. All of the inmates are ushered back to their cells, the sole straggler being a rather rotund gentleman by the name of Humphrey Dumpler, aka Humpty Dumpty. We’ll learn more about Humphrey here later, but right now we can see that he likes to recite nursery rhymes and reassemble broken things, as he demonstrates with a pile of chicken bones. Given that particular penchant, Doc Arkham, who considers Humphrey a model inmate, recruits the big guy to reassemble the mirror that Two-Face shattered earlier. Can’t have any long and nasty shards of glass unaccounted for in a place like this now can we.

We rejoin Warren, who is presently getting patched up in the infirmary. Warren, not to keen on another sleepless night with Death Rattle, his psychotic child murdering cult leader cell mate, Warren asks if he can spend the night in the infirmary. The medic denies his request, but is at least nice enough to offer him some advice. The best way to deal with a terrifying psychopath is to make friends with an even more terrifying psychopath. In the bed next to Warren is Two-Face, his hands bandaged to the point where he can no longer flip his coin. Since Two Face’s psyche is so fractured that he is unable to make any decisions without flipping his coin, that’s a problem. Well, Harvey needs someone to flip his coin for him and Warren needs someone to keep Death Rattle off his back, so the two quickly figure that they can help each other out.

After a brief montage of Warren acting as Two Face’s lackey, Warren returns to his cell, feeling rather pleased with himself knowing that he’s go Two-Face watching his back. Death Rattle, who I will remind you, claims to be able to see ghosts, seems rather unconcerned and is more interested in telling Warren that he’s been in contact with his old Account, Richard Milton. Milton apparently doesn’t like that Warren’s coffers are filled with money and his lungs with air and has suggested Death Rattle strangle the little weasel in his sleep. This whole conversation is overheard by Humpty Dumpty in the adjacent cell.

Speaking of Humphrey, we join him the next day, having finally reassembled the mirror, save for one long and nasty looking shard of glass. Well that’s certainly not good, but we’ll have to worry about that later. Right now, Humphrey requests a cell transfer for a fellow inmate from Doc Arkham.

Later, Warren entreats Two Face to take out Death Rattle, been when the coin comes up good side, Harvey says Warren is on his own. Warren is pissed, but cursing out the acid scarred criminal psychopath was not a smart move on Warren’s part, as now Two Face demands Warren flip the coin to determine his own fate. Fortunately, Humpty arrives and catches the coin in mid air before the result is revealed, saying that the fish is with him now. Turns out that cell transfer Humphrey requested was for Warren. Humphrey genuinely feels bad for the guy since people have been hassling him since he got here. And so our comic ends with someone using the missing glass shard to perform some kind of blood ritual.

The story is progressing nicely. While we get hints of a much larger and darker story brewing in the background, for the time being, the focus is still squarely on Warren and its “What if a normal white collar crook got sent to Arkham” premise. Warren continues to go through the wringer and is even forced to become a lackey to the likes of Two Face in order to survive. He’s still a prick, but we’re reaching the point where we’re starting to feel just bad enough for him that we’re happy when he catches a break. Speaking of, Humpty is a welcome addition to the story. We’ll be getting into his backstory next time, but he seems like a breath of fresh air compared to the usual Arkham crowd. This was another excellent chapter in this story. Catch you all next time.