Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth is regarded as one of the greatest and most important Batman stories of all time. Along with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, these stories showed how dark, gritty and legitimate graphic novels can be.
Twenty-eight years after its release, it was announced at San Diego Comic Con this weekend that Morrison will be penning a sequel called Arkham Asylum 2.
Instead of Bruce Wayne however, this 122-page story will focus on an adult version of Damian Wayne as Batman. Damian Wayne, of course, is the son of Bruce and Talia al Ghul, the daughter of the Demon himself, Ra’s.
Damian made his debut in Batman Issue 655 in September 2006 in Morrison’s Batman and Son. We first saw the adult version of Damian in Issue 666, which saw a possible future of Damian taking over the Batman mantle after his father’s death. He exchanged his soul with the Devil to be granted the immortality he needed to protect Gotham. This version of Damian has appeared in other, subsequent stories.
With the news that Arkham Asylum 2 will be featuring Damian as Batman, it’s unclear if this will be a direct sequel to Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth (which is its own story, separate from continuity) or be in the continuity that Morrison established in Batman #666.
Morrison’s original Arkham Asylum, art by Dave McKean, saw the inmates of the asylum take control and hold the staff hostage to lure Batman in. Batman is then forced into a game of cat and mouse with his deadliest enemies, all while discovering the origins of how the asylum was established, and the history of its creator Amadeus Arkham.
Joining Grant Morrison for Arkham Asylum 2 is Chris Burnham, who worked with Morrison on his Batman Incorporated run. No release date has been announced.