Review: Arkham Manor

Quick Summary

Pros: The book presents an entertaining mystery that is fun to follow along with. Seeing Batman as an undercover detective is a unique experience.

Cons: The last chapter of the book is pretty lackluster. A number of teases for future storylines interrupt the book and lower the appeal of the current storyline.

Overall: Though unique in some regards, this is an overwhelmingly average Batman book. It achieves some early success by providing an interesting mystery and a different take on Batman. However, the large number of negatives hamper this success and secure the book’s place in mediocrity. This is a book for those seeking a Batman story where Bruce Wayne is forced to go undercover and solve a mystery, not for those seeking a high quality Batman story.

Story

Arkham Manor is an interesting concept and a different type of Batman story. It is more detective based than many other Batman stories and sees the Dark Knight rely on his intellect far more than his fists. However, besides being unique, the book is pretty average overall and does not do much to make itself too desirable. If you are looking for a Batman story focused on disguise and detective work, this may be for you, but if you don’t care about this then there are other, better, stories out there.

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The entire premise of this volume revolves around Batman protecting the inmates of the newly created Arkham Manor from a mysterious serial killer. In this way, the majority of the story is a mystery where Batman plays the part of the World’s Greatest Detective. Being a mystery, the story obviously has elements to it which are intrinsic to the genre; unanswered questions and a number of twists keep the story interesting and keep readers ready to discover the next chapter. This is probably the book’s biggest positive and is something that drew me in to the comic while I read it.

The other big positive for this book is the role Batman plays in it. In order to properly infiltrate Arkham, Batman masquerades as a patient and investigates from inside the Asylum’s walls. I was always a big fan of when Batman would disguise himself as “Matches Malone” to infiltrate the criminal underworld so I was instantly intrigued by this new concept. Seeing Batman passively engage with a few of his most notorious enemies was particularly satisfying and solidified this as an entertaining take on the Dark Knight. It also helps add to the book’s unique qualities, as seeing Batman in this position is not something readers will often experience.

Despite these aspects of the story being the clear draw for the volume as a whole, nearly all of them are dropped in the final quarter of the series. Batman is no longer undercover, the mystery is solved and dealt with, and there is little interest left in the series. The final chapter and a half feel almost completely unnecessary and did nothing to increase my enjoyment level.

In addition, the entire book has a weird habit of sacrificing quality here to establish stories for future volumes. Within this short volume, there are three separate setups for Batman: Endgame, one for Gotham Academy, and one involving the prisoner Meek, which never ends up panning out. Longer series with established levels of quality can take an intrusive hit to set up future storylines, but short series with average levels of quality simply cannot withstand the same thing. For me, these intrusions brought the book from a slightly above average quality level right back down to mediocrity.

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Art

Much like the book’s story, the artwork ends up feeling rather average overall. There are some moments where Shawn Crystal is able to achieve moderate success, usually when depicting the weird or dark portions of the Asylum. However, this success is interrupted by the art’s flaws, which typically enter when characters’ faces or intense action are the focus. The end result is something that lies in between these two extremes, not quite bad but not quite good either.

Continuity

Arkham Manor continues one of the many plotlines started at the end of Batman Eternal Vol. 2 (Review).

The Arkham Manor series ends with this volume. However, numerous characters continue their stories in other comic books.

• Eric Bolder’s story directly continues in Batman Vol. 7: Endgame (Review).
• Sybil Silverlock’s story recieves additional exploration in Gotham Academy Vol. 1: Welcome to Gotham Academy.
• Many other Asylum inmates continue their story in Arkham Manor: Endgame, which is collected in The Joker: Endgame.

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• The entirety of this story makes heavy references to Batman Eternal Vol. 2 (Review).
  • The cave in at the old Asylum happened in this volume.
  • Hush’s residence in the Batcave is explained by this volume.
• Batman’s friendship with Eric Bolder started in Batman Annual #3, which is collected in Batman Vol. 6: Graveyard Shift (Review).
• Meek is a villain who first appeared in Batman #34, which is collected in Batman Vol. 6: Graveyard Shift (Review).