The story follows the vigilante Batman, who is called upon to quell a maddening riot taking place in the infamous Arkham Asylum, a psychiatric hospital housing the most dangerous supervillains in Gotham City.

As Batman ventures deeper, he discovers the origin of how the asylum was established, the history of its founder Amadeus Arkham, and the supernatural and psychological mystery that has been haunting the mansion.

Upon its release, the graphic novel garnered commercial and wide critical acclaim and is considered by many to be one of the greatest Batman stories of all time, and one of the best works in Grant Morrison's career.

Morrison's narrative and Dave McKean's artistic style were described as more mature, unique, psychologically driven and horror-oriented take on the Batman mythos and the distinctiveness from other conventional superhero works.

He blocked out the memory, only to have it return after an inmate, Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins, raped and murdered Arkham's wife and daughter.

And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round".

[6] Morrison and their fellow friend, Jim Clements, were fascinated by Len Wein's short and evocative paragraphs written on the history of Arkham Asylum in the Who's Who series during the development of the story.

It occurred to me that having one's wife and daughter slaughtered by a man named "Mad Dog" might have been sufficient cause for a nervous breakdown, so I decided to explore and expand on the life of this throwaway character.

I wanted to approach Batman from the point of view of the dreamlike, emotional and irrational hemisphere, as a response to the very literal, "realistic" "left brain" treatment of superheroes which was in vogue at the time, in the wake of The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and others.

Morrison conceived the graphic novel's storytelling technique to stay away from the original hardboiled pulp influence of Batman and those seen in American cinema adaptations.

Style from European cinema, symbolism, and psychological horror themes were used to depict how insanity works within the setting of the asylum, referencing Lewis Carroll, Carl Jung, and Aleister Crowley.

[8][4][9] The story's themes were inspired by Lewis Carroll, quantum physics, Jung, and Crowley; its visual style by surrealism, Eastern European creepiness, Cocteau, Artaud, Švankmajer, the Brothers Quay, etc.

[4] Examples include Maxie Zeus, an electrified, emaciated figure with messianic delusions, and obsessed with electric shocks and coprophagia; Clayface is rapidly wasted from lack of feeding and is described as a "AIDS with two legs"; the Mad Hatter, whose obsession with Alice in Wonderland has pedophilic overtones and is a child molester; Killer Croc was originally drawn as suffering deformities similar to those of Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man", although his final incarnation is that of a humanoid crocodile; both Amadeus Arkham and Charles Cavendish are seen cross dressing.

The repressed, armored, uncertain and sexually frozen man in Arkham Asylum was intended as a critique of the '80s interpretation of Batman as violent, driven, and borderline psychopathic.

In illustrating the story, McKean chose to blend paintings, drawings, photography, and mixed-media collage to come up with striking page designs, and dense symbols.

For example, a Greek inscription can be seen scratched on the doorway of Maxie Zeus's electroshock chamber, which translates into "Discover thyself"; much of the symbolism was later explained and expanded in the annotated script.

Editor Karen Berger revealed that it sold "close to a half million copies" by 2004, making it the best-selling original graphic novel in American superhero comics.

[3] Goldstein also ranked Arkham Asylum #4 on a list of the 25 greatest Batman graphic novels, behind The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, and Year One.

Despite the critical acclaim of the first edition, Morrison was surprised to learn that the graphic novel's success was due to the readers enjoying McKean's art more than the story.

Negative criticisms were mainly aimed at the heavy reliance on symbolism, which many found difficult to understand and felt that the story didn't work well together with the art.

Morrison did their best to defend all the misunderstood meanings, claiming the real problem was McKean insisting on not wanting to adhere to the original idea at all.

McKean wanted abstract rendering in his art, which Morrison felt "doesn't have the most terrifying expressions of the real", wishing the panels were all in the same style as most comic book artists regularly illustrate.

[24] One of the suggestions McKean made was removing Robin from the story as he thought mainly focusing the asylum's uncanny interiors would be sufficient, rather than adding unnecessary scenes that did not take place inside the mansion itself.

Robin appeared in a few scenes at the beginning then remained at Police Headquarters for the bulk of the book, where he spent his time studying plans and histories of the house, in order to find a way in to help his mentor.

Dave McKean, however, felt that he had already compromised his artistic integrity sufficiently by drawing Batman and refused point blank over for the Boy Wonder — so after one brave but ridiculous attempt to put him in a trench coat, I wisely removed him from the script.

Morrison opined that everything in the graphic novel would have been more concrete if McKean hadn't interfered and diminished the original idea into a thin sense of plot.

[22] I found out later that the script had been passed around a group of comics professionals who allegedly shit themselves laughing at my high-falutin' pop psych panel descriptions.

[26] In 2020, Morrison stated that the sequel is currently on hold due to their involvement on the Brave New World television series, but said that 26 pages were already written and they expressed interest in resuming the work.

[32] Although it was deemed an "ungamable graphic novel" by creative director Sefton Hill, its tone and psychological edge were a primary influence on the game.

Under this delusion, Sharp "haunts" the mansion and recreates several tableaux which appear in the comic, including the cell in which Amadeus inscribed his name into the floor.