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Most of Absolute Batman Ark M Special #1 takes place during the late 1800s. Amadeus Arkham is the founder of Arkham Asylum. He dedicated his life to helping the mentally ill after his mother killed his siblings and then herself in a murder-suicide, Amadeus created Arkham Asylum in the hopes of treating the criminally insane. However, Amadeus would eventually learn that everything he had worked for would be taken away and tainted by the Joker.
The Joker was Always a Monster
Part of what makes Absolute Batman Ark M Special #1 such a good read is how it masterfully subverts the readers’ expectations as to the origin of the Joker. In his journals, Amadeus recounts that his most dangerous patient in Arkham Asylum was a notorious and ever-grinning serial killer known only as Jack Doe, who gleefully murdered men, women, and children. After Amadeus adopted a young boy whom he found covered in blood on his doorstep, Jack began targeting the doctor’s son. After failing to slit the boy’s throat, Jack led a full-stage breakout with the other inmates, killing everyone in their path. When Amadeus arrived home, he found his son missing from his room with nothing but a splatter of blood remaining.
Decades later, an elderly Amadeus suspects that Jack went on to become the infamous Jack the Ripper, and the reader is led to believe that the escaped mental patient is the Joker. However, while working on a deal to sell the asylum to a wealthy businessman, Amadeus unearths a horrifying secret hidden beneath his mental institution. Tearing down a wall in the furnace room, Amadeus finds Jack Doe’s corpse. Amadeus’ adopted son and the wealthy businessman are one and the same, and he is the real Joker. It’s here that the longest and most intricate plot involving the origin of any incarnation of the Joker s finally revealed.
From the night he arrived on Amadeus’ doorstep, the little boy who would grow up to be the Joker had been playing the man who became his adoptive father. Jack Doe was just another pawn whom he had played like a fiddle. Jack holding him hostage, the breakout, and faking his death were all part of the boy’s scheme to break Amadeus. When the grown-up Joker reveals his identity to Amadeus and buys Arkham Asylum, the villains’ plan comes to fruition. In a fit of madness, Amadeus burns the asylum, himself, and all the other inmates alive. However, the Joker rebuilds the asylum and renames it Ark M. It’s here where he commits countless crimes against humanity. His last big joke at Amadeus’s expense.
