Rating: 
Summary: A Serious Attempt at Shocking the System
Review: The aim of this "novel" is clearly to shock the senses while giving a painstaking look into the mind of the criminally insane. If this type of lesson in the underside of the mind was all that I look for in reading Batman material, I would have given this piece five stars. Instead, I look for some semblance of a plot that makes me want to turn the page and see what comes next. Morrison could have easily written a masterful book by wrapping the dark experience of insanity around a story that made you want to stick around in such murk and darkness. Take Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which is obviously an inspiration for the work as Alice and company are quoted throughout), in Carrol's classic you actually WANTED to continue the trip through lunacy with Alice. With Arkham Asylum, there are times you begin to wish you weren't there because filth for filth's sake is just not that enthralling. Top this lack of any decent plot off with some really strained attempts at deep symbolism (just throw in lots of religion and philosophy for no good reason), and you have yourself a shocking bore. As for the artwork, it suffers a similar fate as the writing. If the frames were judged one at a time as art for art's sake, the work would deserve five stars. However, this art has another purpose which is forgotten throughout the book: it's there to move the story along. There were many frames that I just stared at, wondering how what was illustrated there related to the story at all. For those who are looking for a fairly bland study of the mind of the lunatic, Arkham Asylum will be a good purchase for you. However, if you are merely looking for a well written, well drawn Batman novel, pick up The Dark Knight Returns.
Rating:
Summary: Ugly, Post-Modernist murk
Review: The focus of this graphic novel is neither BATMAN, nor his JOKER-arch enemies. It is glorification of an anti-aesthetic. Literally: ARKHAM ASYLUM jolts the sensibilitities into a vile, nether world where "fair is foul and foul is fair" and SOMETHING INAPPROPRIATE THIS WAY COMES...has arrived. H.P. Lovecraft's perverse Cthulhu Mythos is immediately evoked and the monsters from the ID set loose. To what end? To show that heroes are insane? That good and evil are exercises in style and power rather than courage and commitment to what might enoble? The story presented in Arkham Asylum is not especially startling or unique. But the "art work" and what it revels in is. Students of POST-MODERNISM might read a bit of Martin Heidegger, and recall Hitler...his patron...was a failed painter. A REAL JOKER. Again: this is not, in my estimate a BATMAN adventure. It is an ulgy...near pornographic...piece of Post-Modernist murk.
Rating: 
Summary: It leaves the reader begging for more
Review: This book contains the most creative art in comic book history. The writing is fresh and it defines each character nicely. Each inmate's psychosis can be discerned from the others. Adding Doctor Arkham's own mental illness as backdrop works exceptionally well. Unfortunately, not enough time is spent on the various colorful characters that populate the asylum. The Joker and Two-Face, along with Batman, are the central players in this psychological novel; yet, it is difficult to discern who is the star of the story. Also, a more distinctive ending could have been incorporated. All in all, a good read that should be longer.
Rating: 
Summary: One of Batman's Best
Review: This book is excellent. A psychological thriller that gives the reader a view inside not only Batman's mind, but the minds of comic books' most twisted villains.
Rating:
Summary: Psychological Thrill Ride
Review: This book is great! I reccomend this to not only comic book and fiction fans but psychology students and teachers also. It features one of Batman's greatest challenges. Facing off with possibly the most insane and dangerous villains in fiction history. From cover to cover, everything ties in with everything else, you'll never guess the ending until you're there. And by the time you close the back cover you'll question your own sanity.
Rating:
Summary: greatest batman story ever written
Review: This book is so awesome because it makes you fell what the criminals feel in the asylum. Like Two-Face for example he's finally going to sanity when he's expanded his judgement by going from a die to a pack of cards. He can't decide what he needs to do when he needs to go to the bathroom and ends up wetting his pants cause he's trying to have a full judgment span and the joker the phsychiatrist( How do you spell it) thinks that the Joker has no personality just creates himself everyday and will be useful in the 21st century cause of his mingd span and if you think the art is confusing just keep at one panel until you understand it
Rating:
Summary: i against i
Review: this book is very much its own animal.morrison uses a style that only he and his two associates alan moore and neil gaiman seem to be able to pull off. dense,lyrical,violent,intelligent, humorous and containing a sense of something else i cant explain. theres a better sense of surrealism contained here than anything david lynch ever accomplished(and im a fan of his also). imagery that only dave mckean could posssibly produce washes throughout with more than the feeling of something going horribly wrong just offscreen somewhere. mckean can only be compared visually with filmmakers david fincher and chris cuningham. delving into each characters psyche without any direct explanation or any actually trying, morrison tops his other masterwork, the mystery play. that book works by only piling on questions and never giving away any answers, this books is more explanatory. moodwise, its dark, but never suffocating.the abiguous nature of the story acts like the unmentioned tones of blade runner. or if youd like to be more direct, the joker acts like brad pitts jeffery goans in 12 monkeys(another peice on insanity that doesnt try to explain its nature. it simply approaches it on its own terms), someone who the audience knows is insane, but who has it more together than the rest of the world. the perfect tour guide.whenever im searching for surrealism in something i try to write i reach for this.
i would buy it simply for the portrait of maxie zues.
Rating: 
Summary: Creepy, but good.
Review: This book is written in a very loose manner. The art is still painted pictures (beautifully done) with word balloons feeling like an extraneuos addition.
The story itself mixes between Batman in Arkham (with all the inmates loose) and the founder of the asylum, Amadeus Arkham's descent into madness.
All these aspects give you a true sense of creepy insanity while reading it. The kind of feeling you'd have if you were really there. (Which is what makes it so fun.)
Rating:
Summary: Perfect art, Wonderful dialogue, Story could be better
Review: This bookis what we, those acolytes who are more fascinated with the villains of the Batman mythos rather than its titular character, have been waiting for. The "story" has the inmates of Arkham escaping their chains and seizing control of the madhouse that has contained them for so long. I placed the parentheses around story, for I consider it to simply be an excuse for us to wallow in the brilliant art of Dave Mckean and the fantastic writing of Grant Morrison. For the first time, the inmates of Arkham truly ARE insane, as oppossed to cackling stock villains. If you've never been afraid of the Joker (and I consider this tale to contain THE classic Joker portrayal, more so even then "The Killing Joke"), then you will be after seeing him here. Here, he IS madness. My one complaint: Batman's own character seemed a bit under-developed. For the most part, he acts as a device of introduction; through him we see the various inmates unmasked. Unfortunately, the story looses some of its cohesiveness when its main character is reduced to such a role. Still, it comes highly recomended.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good..
Review: This had to be Dave McKean's greatest accomplishment as an illustrator until Mr. Punch. Grant Morrison as well turns in a distinctly disturbed as well as adult vision (along the lines of Alan Moore's 'this-isn't-your-dad's-Batman' Killling Joke) in chronicling the history of The Arkham family. The only downside is the story is chock full of shock value, and Batman's role in it all seems to be nothing more than that of a plot progressor. I did however appreciate Morrison's Kesey-esque tidbit of philosophy--at the end , as Batman is leaving and the Joker says to him 'Have fun out there in the Asylum'. Nice touch!
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