Review:
"Stately Wayne Manor" is how the narrator of the 1960s Batman TV series unerringly refers to the home of Bruce Wayne. It is not so stately in this 6-issue limited series, collected into the Arkham Manor TPB.
No, the manor in this story is dark, foreboding, filled with insanity and imprisonment, and haunted by a series of grisly murders. As Bruce Wayne, Batman may know all the secrets of the manor, but now that it is an asylum for his enemies, he will need to go under cover to solve this mystery.
Gerry Duggan's story is brisk and crisp, with a surprisingly long denouement dealing with the consequences in the characters' lives after the murderer is stopped. Some plot points are brisk to the point of too fast: from appropriation of the manor to opening the asylum, scarcely any time passes - record time for this construction crew! And Batman's decision to go undercover as convicted inmate Jack Shaw also seems to take shockingly little reflection - were other options available? None that were given any space in the narrative.
I especially enjoyed Duggan's handling of Mr. Freeze. In order to preserve his cover story, Batman / Jack Shaw allows Freeze to escape, but he has no desire to flee into the larger world. He merely contents himself with making snow angels and igloos on the manor grounds, and pelting the Batmobile with snowballs.
Shawn Crystal's art is dramatic, intense and highly stylized. His images portray the dark corners of a creepy old manor, and his facial expressions go over the top to carry the emotional punch of the situations. His human figures suffer from excessively long limbs in some panels, mimicking the distortion of a very wide-angled lens. A not-inappropriate choice given the setting of this tale.
In all, this is an absorbing page-turner of a story, intense and explosive. I give it 3.5 capes out of 5.
Description:
Arkham Asylum, the legendary home for the criminally insane, now lies in ruins. Gotham City needs a replacement to hold Batman’s most dangerous foes - and only one building fits the bill:
Wayne Manor.
With his family fortune depleted, Bruce Wayne goes underground - literally - as his ancestral home is transformed into a new prison for his archenemies. From his fortified Batcave below its foundations, the Dark Knight watches as evil moves in above him.
But watching alone won’t stop the killings that begin almost immediately in “Arkham Manor.” To find the predator responsible, Batman must become an inmate himself.
Now the World’s Greatest Detective begins the most dangerous undercover mission of his life, working with - and against - the resident doctors, guards, and ghoulish supervillains to crack the case. Can he catch the killer and restore order to the chaos? Or will the insanity of Arkham Manor claim the mind of its latest patient?
Writer Gerry Duggan and artist Shawn Crystal launch an unprecedented new chapter in the History of the Bat with ARKHAM MANOR, exploring the dark heart of the Dark Knight’s world like never before! Collects issues #1-6.
Collects: Arkham Manor #1-6
Authors: Gerry Duggan
Artists: Shawn Crystal
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: July 28 2015
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN-10: 1401254586
ISBN-13: 978-1401254582
Language: English
Pages: 144 pages
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