Before we move on to Tim Burton’s second Batman film Batman Returns (1992), we have a bit of Batman comic history we need to attend to. Not surprisingly, the phenomenal success of Burton’s Batman led DC Comics to undertake a tremendous number of new Batman-related projects. A new comic title devoted to Batman’s early, pre–Robin exploits entitled Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight debuted in November 1989. The title was so well-received that it ran for almost two decades before being discontinued in early 2007. Also, more and more stand-alone Batman graphic novels were being released in the wake of Batman.
A number of these graphic novels (known as Elseworlds titles) placed Batman in times and places far removed from late twentieth century Gotham City. This allowed artists and writers to imagine the character in contexts that were very different from his usual self. Sometimes these contexts were rooted in reality—for example, he hunted down Jack the Ripper in the nineteenth century in Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (1989) and worked as an agent of the U.S. government during the Civil War years in Batman: The Blue, the Grey and the Bat (1992). However, these contexts might also be completely rooted in fantasy, such as his battle with Dracula in the 1991 Elseworlds tale Batman: Red Rain.
However, the most successful and influential Batman graphic novel that was published during this time was not an Elseworlds title. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth made its debut in October 1989, and was written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean. The graphic novel explored the origin of Arkham Asylum, the Gotham City psychiatric hospital where many of Batman’s deadliest and most insane adversaries had been held over the years. Arkham had first appeared in Batman comics back in the mid–1970s, but the graphic novel brought the hospital to a prominence in Batman mythos that it had never held before.
In Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Arkham’s inmates have taken over the hospital, and Batman comes to the hospital to bring it under control and restore order. As he makes his way through the asylum, he battles many of his foes who have been incarcerated there. The most prominent of these foes is the Joker, who has been leading the inmates’ revolt.
Batman eventually discovers that it is actually Arkham’s administrator, Dr. Charles Cavendish, who has orchestrated the inmate uprising. Cavendish has gone insane himself, having become obsessed with the actions of Arkham’s long-dead founder, Amadeus Arkham. Cavendish reveals to Batman that Arkham had descended into madness, believing that a bat-like evil spirit was haunting his family. Cavendish believes that Batman is the evil spirit that Arkham encountered, so Cavendish has set all of Arkham’s inmates free to kill the crimefighter. Cavendish’s insane plan fails—he is killed by one of the asylum’s doctors, and Batman quells the inmate uprising. But Batman’s victory comes at an enormous cost—his journey through the madness of the asylum and its inhabitants exacts an almost unbearable physical and mental toll on him.
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth remains one of the most complex and challenging Batman works ever created. In the graphic novel, Morrison presented Batman and his world through a prism of deep psychological themes and shocking violence that was hard to comprehend and even harder to forget. And McKean’s artwork was every bit and revolutionary as Morrison’s writing—it was created with a wild juxtaposition of mediums, and was often so abstract that it was hard to figure out just what was happening in certain scenes. The graphic novel’s depiction of the Joker was particularly compelling—his surreal appearance and horrifying actions made the character arguably more frightening than he had ever been in any previous Batman work.
Another major event in Batman comic history took place shortly after Batman’s premiere, when DC Comics gave Batman yet another Robin to work with in his comic adventures. This new Robin was introduced in a five-part series entitled A Lonely Place of Dying, which appeared in Batman #440–42, and The New Titans #60–61 in late 1989.
In A Lonely Place of Dying, a young man named Tim Drake deduced that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson were actually Batman and Robin because he had attended the circus the night that Dick’s parents were killed while performing their trapeze act. When Tim saw Robin in action on a television news broadcast years later, he noticed Robin’s trapeze-style maneuvers were the exact same moves he had seen Dick Grayson perform that fateful evening. Since Dick was now Bruce’s ward, Tim assumed that if Dick was Robin, then Bruce had to be Batman. Tim was then able to deduce that Jason Todd took Dick’s place as Robin, and was killed while acting as Batman’s partner.
Fearing that Batman is losing his mind because he is unable to cope with Jason’s loss, Tim decides to seek out Dick and tell him that Batman needs help. Tim eventually comes face-to-face with these heroes that he has admired from afar. Of course, Bruce and Dick are at first stunned that this boy has penetrated the secret of their crimefighting identities, but after they get to know Tim and see what an exceptional young man he is, Bruce decides to take him on as his third junior partner.
In a story entitled “Master of Fear” which appeared in Batman #457, December 1990, Bruce Wayne formally bestowed the mantle of Robin on Tim Drake. Bruce also gave Tim a newly created Robin costume to wear. Robin would now be outfitted in a full bodysuit that was red and green in color. The costume also featured a stylized yellow “R” on its chest, green mask, green gloves, black boots and a black cape with yellow lining. This Robin costume was designed by the legendary Batman comic artist Neal Adams, and was so well-received that it would be the basis of the character’s standard appearance throughout the 1990s and right up to the present day. Over the years the costume’s color patterns would vary, but one thing about it remained a constant—the current version of Robin always got to wear long pants instead of the short pants the character had been wearing for the past half-century!
The Tim Drake Robin turned out to be considerably more popular with Batman fans than the Jason Todd Robin. In the first half of 1991 he was featured in his own five-issue series, simply titled Robin, which was so successful that it was followed by two more Robin series in the early 1990s. The re-introduction of Robin into Batman’s comic book world would intertwine with the development of Batman Returns in an unusual way—we’ll look into that story when we examine the film in the next chapter.