Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum (One-Shot)
All right. This one shot centers around the nephew of Amadeus Arkham (the person who built the asylum). His name is Dr. Jerry Arkham. He's going through the wreckage of Arkham after the events BftC #1.
He stops at the wrecked cell of a guy called Humphry Dumpler. Yeah, the name sounds like Humpty Dumpty for a reason. Total fat cone/egg head guy. He speaks in rhymes even. He's obsessed with fixing what's broken. He makes fun of Jerry (though he does apologize). Then we start to see a trend as he passes Zsasz's cell. Zsasz taunts him as well, maliciously and tells him he's saving a place on his body for him.
For those who don't remember who Zsasz is, he cuts a tally mark into his body for every person he kills. He tells Jerry as he pulls down the bottom lid of his left eye, saying that's the place he saved for Jerry. He also says it will be like sandpaper against his eye every time he blinks, reminding him of what an irritating man Jerry was. >>;; Oh, Zsasz, such a creeper you are.
We move down the Asylum to see of the more infamous inmates as Jerry sadly wonder why they all hate him. He only wants to help them. (Aww, woobie. He needs hugs!) We see Scarecrow ask what he's afraid of, Ivy say he just needs some love and ask if he ever kissed a girl, while Killer Croc asks if anyone ever gave him a love bit, and Clayface just goes 'Mwwaaaurrrh!' >>;; I didn't see the point of the last one 'cept to fill a panel. -.-;;
More Jerry thoughts, saying he fears that he'll never be able to cure them, and saying he's been dancing at the edges of madness all his life. D'awww. Woobie needs more hugs. >>;; Then he continues through, going to solitary confinement. Okay, one would think this is where Joker is kept, but so not the truth. The inmates kept here? Not quite as awful as the rest. I see solitary confinement as way to keep these inmates safe from the others. These inmates are quite likable. ^-^;;
Jerry likes them too, I think. His colleagues call it 'The Hole,' but Jerry calls it 'The Place Where Beauty Lies.' I'm gonna agree with Jerry. So Jerry's the only one with access to talk to these inmates directly. When he's had a bad day or something, he goes there for solace. Awww. <3
First, we come upon an artist (<3!) name Alessio Morandi, that his working on painting a self-portrait. Then we get his story. Alessio was born into a rich Venetian family, his father a financier and his mother a patron of the arts a beautiful woman. She loved her masks which she thought were beautiful. All that mattered to her was physical beauty, so Alessio as a child wanted to be worthy of her attention, so he glued one of the masks to his face.
But when he goes to show his mother and father, his mother laughs while his father was pissed off. The father wanted the mask off and usually got what he wanted, so he ripped the mask off, taking most of Alessio's face with it. ;-; *hugs Alessio* They were completely rich enough to fix his face, but no ammount of plastic surgery could fix the missing muscles in his face. He could no longer make any expression and his face was flat. :(
When brought to Arkham, Alessio hadn't spoken for ten years. The inmates mocked him, calling him 'No-Face.' (Okay, can I giggle now? We got Two-Face, Three-Face on Earth-3, and now a No-Face! <<;; I'm more amused than I should be.) Jerry put Alessio in solitary confinement to protect him from the other inmates. He then gave him a paint brush and paints, telling him to use his face as his canvas to express what he was feeling. He painted a sad face with a single tear after Jerry said this. :'(!
We go back to now, to see Alessio's art had gotten better, that he'd become a wonderful artist, though his art is short-lived. He's even talking to Jerry when he greets him! ^-^! Next stop on Jerry's trip to visit his inmates is with a man called 'Mirror-Man.' Jerry prefers to call him Narcissus. No one knows his real origins other than they found him walking naked out of forest 5 years ago in Haiti. He looks at himself all day in many, many mirrors in his room, muttering in a language no one can identify. He's also totally in love with himself, obviously. Jerry says he looks at himself in the mirror with the passion of a lover.
The only words that Narcissus words that are understandable are echoes of what others say. Jerry says that he looks splendid, and he echoes the word splendid. Jerry says he has unique qualities, like an alien fallen from the sky. Jerry tells him his outfit looks enchanting. (Outfit totally makes me think Dorian Gray.) He repeats enchanting.
At first, Jerry tried to cure Mirror Man of his self-love, but then figure he was truly happy that way. Next and final inmate we get is a woman called the Hamburger Lady (hey I thought an evil lunch lady, but no dice). Her real name his Myrna Freud. She had been Arkham long before Jerry had taken over. Rumors say that anyone who has seen her face has gone irreversibly insane because of how repulsive she is. :( Poor thing.
At first, he tried to teach her that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. He made her watch the story of a movie actress named Camilla Pierce who gave up her career to help lepers only to get the awful disease herself. She said she was still beautiful because her soul was pure. Then Jerry showed Myrna what leprosy looks like under a microscope, just a beautiful abstract. He tells her everything is beautiful from a true perspective. She then asks him why he doesn't look at her with the light on. Oooh, burned.
He goes to turn on the light and sees her for the first time outside of the darkness. He tells her to close her eyes to get used to light, and when he looks at her, he doesn't go insane but it changes his life forever. He goes back to his office to find that someone had broken in. Oh noes. They wrote 'perverted, twisted, crippled' on a mirror. Then there was a box full of burned parts of Jerry's uncle's journal. Jerry had burned the journal himself, so he wonders who saved this snatches and why.
The papers said: 'The house is an organism, hungry for madness,' 'Madness is born in the blood. It is my birthright,' and 'See the truth that lies behind the reflection.'
Jerry says his Uncle had a vision for the Asylum. He's right, and Jerry moves the mirror to find a safe behind it, with plans to rebuild Arkham. He swears to his dead uncle that he'll rebuild Arkham, but once he does, oh noes, Batman RIP sneaks up on him! ...I mean, the Black Glove. *cough* >>;; They beat him up with baseball bats and toss him outside in the rain.
He has no memory of the next few weeks as he wandered Gotham aimlessly, then finding out everyone's worst fears are true: Batman is dead. >>;; He hears what happened to the Asylum and hurries back to the ruins. He finds the blueprints for a new Arkham safe where he left them. He was interrupted by a wail, one he recognized. Mirror Man's which meant that those in solitary confinement had been left behind! ;-; D'awww.
Jerry rushed downstairs, hoping to find them. He called them his children (more d'awww), and he finds them, all together. Myrna says all Mirror Man's mirrors were broken (hence the wailing) as he repeats the word broken, looking into the broken mirror. Jerry calls out for Alessio, telling him not to be afraid. He comes out, his face an array of colors, messy but sad.
Alessio: "It... It was dark. ...we had thought you had abandoned us."
*hugs them* :(! He didn't! He loves you! <3 He says he'd never abandon them as he wipes away the mess on Alessio's face (hey, I thought it looked good). He also tells Myrna there's no reason to cover her face, that she is among friends. The others didn't flinch or go mad at seeing her face. <3 Jerry vows to make a true asylum as he tells Mirror Man he knows where there is an unbroken mirror.
Before they leave, he tells Alessio to put on a happy face (and I laugh, because heee, douvle meaning!). There's another snatch from Amadeus's journals which says: "All things are possible here and I am what madness made me." Another bit says: "Whole. And complete. And free at last... --Amadeus Arkham." Then we see what kind of happy face Alessio put on. Big smile, but so fucking Joker-esque that it makes me worry. :/
Everything was lovely until they did that. Now I'm worried for Alessio AND the Joker, AGAIN. If they try to make Alessio the new Joker (because my feeling Jason killed the Joker could be right for all I know), I will be very cross. These characters are beautiful. I don't want DC fucking them up. >:|
He stops at the wrecked cell of a guy called Humphry Dumpler. Yeah, the name sounds like Humpty Dumpty for a reason. Total fat cone/egg head guy. He speaks in rhymes even. He's obsessed with fixing what's broken. He makes fun of Jerry (though he does apologize). Then we start to see a trend as he passes Zsasz's cell. Zsasz taunts him as well, maliciously and tells him he's saving a place on his body for him.
For those who don't remember who Zsasz is, he cuts a tally mark into his body for every person he kills. He tells Jerry as he pulls down the bottom lid of his left eye, saying that's the place he saved for Jerry. He also says it will be like sandpaper against his eye every time he blinks, reminding him of what an irritating man Jerry was. >>;; Oh, Zsasz, such a creeper you are.
We move down the Asylum to see of the more infamous inmates as Jerry sadly wonder why they all hate him. He only wants to help them. (Aww, woobie. He needs hugs!) We see Scarecrow ask what he's afraid of, Ivy say he just needs some love and ask if he ever kissed a girl, while Killer Croc asks if anyone ever gave him a love bit, and Clayface just goes 'Mwwaaaurrrh!' >>;; I didn't see the point of the last one 'cept to fill a panel. -.-;;
More Jerry thoughts, saying he fears that he'll never be able to cure them, and saying he's been dancing at the edges of madness all his life. D'awww. Woobie needs more hugs. >>;; Then he continues through, going to solitary confinement. Okay, one would think this is where Joker is kept, but so not the truth. The inmates kept here? Not quite as awful as the rest. I see solitary confinement as way to keep these inmates safe from the others. These inmates are quite likable. ^-^;;
Jerry likes them too, I think. His colleagues call it 'The Hole,' but Jerry calls it 'The Place Where Beauty Lies.' I'm gonna agree with Jerry. So Jerry's the only one with access to talk to these inmates directly. When he's had a bad day or something, he goes there for solace. Awww. <3
First, we come upon an artist (<3!) name Alessio Morandi, that his working on painting a self-portrait. Then we get his story. Alessio was born into a rich Venetian family, his father a financier and his mother a patron of the arts a beautiful woman. She loved her masks which she thought were beautiful. All that mattered to her was physical beauty, so Alessio as a child wanted to be worthy of her attention, so he glued one of the masks to his face.
But when he goes to show his mother and father, his mother laughs while his father was pissed off. The father wanted the mask off and usually got what he wanted, so he ripped the mask off, taking most of Alessio's face with it. ;-; *hugs Alessio* They were completely rich enough to fix his face, but no ammount of plastic surgery could fix the missing muscles in his face. He could no longer make any expression and his face was flat. :(
When brought to Arkham, Alessio hadn't spoken for ten years. The inmates mocked him, calling him 'No-Face.' (Okay, can I giggle now? We got Two-Face, Three-Face on Earth-3, and now a No-Face! <<;; I'm more amused than I should be.) Jerry put Alessio in solitary confinement to protect him from the other inmates. He then gave him a paint brush and paints, telling him to use his face as his canvas to express what he was feeling. He painted a sad face with a single tear after Jerry said this. :'(!
We go back to now, to see Alessio's art had gotten better, that he'd become a wonderful artist, though his art is short-lived. He's even talking to Jerry when he greets him! ^-^! Next stop on Jerry's trip to visit his inmates is with a man called 'Mirror-Man.' Jerry prefers to call him Narcissus. No one knows his real origins other than they found him walking naked out of forest 5 years ago in Haiti. He looks at himself all day in many, many mirrors in his room, muttering in a language no one can identify. He's also totally in love with himself, obviously. Jerry says he looks at himself in the mirror with the passion of a lover.
The only words that Narcissus words that are understandable are echoes of what others say. Jerry says that he looks splendid, and he echoes the word splendid. Jerry says he has unique qualities, like an alien fallen from the sky. Jerry tells him his outfit looks enchanting. (Outfit totally makes me think Dorian Gray.) He repeats enchanting.
At first, Jerry tried to cure Mirror Man of his self-love, but then figure he was truly happy that way. Next and final inmate we get is a woman called the Hamburger Lady (hey I thought an evil lunch lady, but no dice). Her real name his Myrna Freud. She had been Arkham long before Jerry had taken over. Rumors say that anyone who has seen her face has gone irreversibly insane because of how repulsive she is. :( Poor thing.
At first, he tried to teach her that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. He made her watch the story of a movie actress named Camilla Pierce who gave up her career to help lepers only to get the awful disease herself. She said she was still beautiful because her soul was pure. Then Jerry showed Myrna what leprosy looks like under a microscope, just a beautiful abstract. He tells her everything is beautiful from a true perspective. She then asks him why he doesn't look at her with the light on. Oooh, burned.
He goes to turn on the light and sees her for the first time outside of the darkness. He tells her to close her eyes to get used to light, and when he looks at her, he doesn't go insane but it changes his life forever. He goes back to his office to find that someone had broken in. Oh noes. They wrote 'perverted, twisted, crippled' on a mirror. Then there was a box full of burned parts of Jerry's uncle's journal. Jerry had burned the journal himself, so he wonders who saved this snatches and why.
The papers said: 'The house is an organism, hungry for madness,' 'Madness is born in the blood. It is my birthright,' and 'See the truth that lies behind the reflection.'
Jerry says his Uncle had a vision for the Asylum. He's right, and Jerry moves the mirror to find a safe behind it, with plans to rebuild Arkham. He swears to his dead uncle that he'll rebuild Arkham, but once he does, oh noes, Batman RIP sneaks up on him! ...I mean, the Black Glove. *cough* >>;; They beat him up with baseball bats and toss him outside in the rain.
He has no memory of the next few weeks as he wandered Gotham aimlessly, then finding out everyone's worst fears are true: Batman is dead. >>;; He hears what happened to the Asylum and hurries back to the ruins. He finds the blueprints for a new Arkham safe where he left them. He was interrupted by a wail, one he recognized. Mirror Man's which meant that those in solitary confinement had been left behind! ;-; D'awww.
Jerry rushed downstairs, hoping to find them. He called them his children (more d'awww), and he finds them, all together. Myrna says all Mirror Man's mirrors were broken (hence the wailing) as he repeats the word broken, looking into the broken mirror. Jerry calls out for Alessio, telling him not to be afraid. He comes out, his face an array of colors, messy but sad.
Alessio: "It... It was dark. ...we had thought you had abandoned us."
*hugs them* :(! He didn't! He loves you! <3 He says he'd never abandon them as he wipes away the mess on Alessio's face (hey, I thought it looked good). He also tells Myrna there's no reason to cover her face, that she is among friends. The others didn't flinch or go mad at seeing her face. <3 Jerry vows to make a true asylum as he tells Mirror Man he knows where there is an unbroken mirror.
Before they leave, he tells Alessio to put on a happy face (and I laugh, because heee, douvle meaning!). There's another snatch from Amadeus's journals which says: "All things are possible here and I am what madness made me." Another bit says: "Whole. And complete. And free at last... --Amadeus Arkham." Then we see what kind of happy face Alessio put on. Big smile, but so fucking Joker-esque that it makes me worry. :/
Everything was lovely until they did that. Now I'm worried for Alessio AND the Joker, AGAIN. If they try to make Alessio the new Joker (because my feeling Jason killed the Joker could be right for all I know), I will be very cross. These characters are beautiful. I don't want DC fucking them up. >:|