DC Comics Needs to Stop Sending Children to Arkham Asylum

Arkham Asylum is one of the most dangerous prisons in comics history, yet DC keeps sending innocent kids there.

Warning! Contains Spoilers For Batman Urban Legends #23!

One of the most famous asylums in all of comic book history, Arkham Asylum has housed some of the most notorious villains in the DC Universe, but it's also continually housed innocent children, though sending them there would never work.

In Dennis Culver and Hayden Sherman's Batman Urban Legend #23 story Arkham Academy, a group of teenagers who adore and emulate supervillains or kids of supervillains are rounded up and placed in a panic situation. They're taken to Arkham Asylum to meet actual supervillains who will hopefully stop these kids from following in the footsteps of their idols or their parents. The problem isn't that all kids are so easily persuaded, like Kitty, the boy who claims to be his cat lady buddy. Unfortunately for Lil' Kitten, Catwoman already has a sidekick named Tomcat. In an effort to scare the kids straight up, the Arkham Asylum crew brought in Killer Croc to give them some perspective, while Lil' Kitten kept pushing and mocking Killer Croc, arguing that the crew couldn't actually allow anything to happen to them, unfortunately He Proves Wrong When Killer Croc Breaks Freed from his bondage, Lil' Kitten appears disembodied. One would think that this would be the last time the children were taken near Arkham Asylum, but it actually happened many times.

Arkham Asylum Is Not A Safe Place For Kids

The Arkham Asylum is the main Asylum of Gotham City, and their prison is the Blackgate Penitentiary. If someone was deemed too unstable to stand trial, they would be sent to Arkham, while any common criminal would be sent to the Black Gate. With Arkham Asylum constantly housing dangerous criminals like Scarecrow, Two-Face, Mr. Zazz, and most notably the Joker, one would think it was the last place anyone should be sent to seek actual psychiatric treatment. Arkham Asylum, in particular, has a habit of creating villains rather than fixing them. Still, innocent children are being sent to Arkham Asylum at an alarming rate, though not a single one of them is any better than when they got in. ^Spent some time in Scott Snyder and John Romita Jr's All-Star Batman. Bruce was sent there to help him deal with the trauma of his parents' death, but considering Bruce ended up like this Being Batman, it's clear that a mental institution isn't really helping Bruce Wayne through his trauma. In Matthew Rosenberg and Fernando Blanco's Gotham House storyline, a character known only as "The Boy" is sent to Arkham Asylum after his parents are murdered by the Joker. The boy ends up meeting several supervillains, ends up working for Penguin, and then grows up trying to kill Batman and the Joker in revenge for the death of his parents, and his life is quickly ended by Penguin. The boy's life definitely started to spin out of control when his parents were killed, but the fact that he ended up in Arkham only accelerated things.

Arkham Asylum is woefully underequipped to help people who are really supposed to be there, like the clowns, who send real kids there every time, which is a disastrous mistake, but the person in charge keeps saying it over and over Do it.

MORE: Batman Is Why Arkham Asylum Is So Scary

Batman Urban Legend #23 is out now from DC Comics.