Review – Arkham City: The Order of the World #1
Review – Arkham City: The Order of the World #1
Writer: Dan Watters
Artist: Dani
Colourist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: October 5, 2021
Variant Artists: Francesco Mattina, Steve Beach
Chapter 1
The Joker’s attack on Arkham Asylum left the long-standing Gotham establishment in ruin, most of the patients killed or missing, and only a handful of surviving staff-a few nurses, a gravely injured security guard, and one doctor. In the chaos of the assault, it is believed that several of the asylum’s patients escaped and scurried off into the dark nooks and crannies of Gotham City. Now, these Arkhamites walk among us, and it’s up to the Asylum’s one remaining doctor, Jocasta Joy, to round up her former patients.
Meet these Arkhamites: a woman with no face, a pyggy in search of perfection, a man who feels nothing and burns everything, a woman who must devour life to save herself, a man unfit for the waking world who looks instead for Wonderland, a body with more than one soul, a being unbound from time who lives in the present and the past, a boy who seeks the comfort of vermin, and the twisted man who sees them all for who they are.
And witness the avenging angel who stalks them.
This fall, join writer Dan Watters and artist Dani on an odyssey through the deepest depths and darkest shadows of Gotham City and find all-new reasons to fear the night.
Writer: Dan Watters
What is insanity? In a world where Donald Trump and Boris Johnson can attain office Watters is using this issue to allow a wider discussion about how the medium of comics uses those individuals that suffer from psycological or neurological conditions and paints them as villains.
The issue uses two main characters Jocasta Joy (first appearance in this issue) and the Ten-Eyed Man as protagonists talking over the remnants of the Asylum. Joy makes a good point early in the comic we’ve called insitutes that look after the insane many thinks over the ccenturies and no matter we call them they have all failed the majority of heir patients. The become a method for hiding away societies dirty little sectrets.
We follow both characters trying to help their fellow Arkhamites, even as Ratchatcher is caught about to eat a child and Mad Hatter burns the faces off his victims. The saddest part of the comics are the characters of Dr Phosphorus and Noctura, who have escaped Artham to live a normal life hiding in an apartment but casuing no harm.
The main question is when does the psycosis of the individual become criminal behavior as those that escaped Arkham are now sent to the infamouse Blackgate Prison? Insanity is always what we as society deem it to be today.
Artist: Dani
Dani delicately balances the need to villify these characters with showing a childlike behaviour within them, panels and shading choreograph your eye through eye page. Think bold colours and heavy shading are reminiscant of The Dark Knight or Long Halloween books and set a deeply dark and depressing tone throughout
Overall Thoughts
Anyone who says they have never struggled with their mental health is either a liar or dead. Any book which examine how media have painted those with issues shows genuine progress. These is no right answer, but asking the question is sometimes enough.
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