Batman: Arkham Asylum - Living Hell

Arkham Asylum: Living Hell

Living Hell was written by Dan Slott, penciled by Ryan Sook with inks by Sook, Wade Von Grawbadger and Jim Royal. The series was edited by Valerie D'Orazio. Eric Powell created the painted cover art which appeared on both the original series and graphic novel compilation.

This six-issue miniseries and the subsequent trade paperback provided an intricate and multi-layered look at Arkham Asylum from several points of view: the director (Dr. Jeremiah Arkham), a psychiatrist (Dr. Anne Carver), the guards (particularly one Aaron Cash), and the inmates (with particular focus on previously-unknown residents "Jane Doe" [a cypher who assumes the identities of those she kills], "Junkyard Dog" [a man obsessed with trash], "Doodlebug" [an artist who used blood in his paintings], "Lunkhead" [a hulking bruiser], "Death Rattle" [a cult leader who speaks to the dead], and, perhaps most memorably, "Humpty Dumpty"). The driving force is the recent incarceration of a ruthless investor, Warren "The Great White Shark" White, as well as the demonic element suggested by the title. White, facing charges of massive fraud, decided to cheat the system by pleading insanity, not realizing the horrors of Arkham. The most familiar characters, such as the Joker, Commissioner Gordon, Batgirl, and Batman himself, appear for comparatively few pages in this work.

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