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| Amadeus Arkham | |
| Notability: | Minor character |
| Type: | Psychiatrist |
| Gender: | Male |
| Race: | Human |
| Location: | Metropolis Arkham Asylum, Mercey Island, Gotham County |
| Known relatives: | Elizabeth Arkham Constance Arkham Harriet Arkham Jeremiah Arkham |
| Status: | Deceased |
| Died: | 1930s? |
| First: | Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth |
Amadeus Arkham was the founder and chief psychiatrist of Arkham Asylum. Some time after Amadeus passed away, his great-nephew, Jeremiah Arkham took over as lead administrator.
Biography[]
Amadeus Arkham was born in either the late 1800s or early 1900s, presumably in Gotham County, which is where his family's ancestral estate was located. In 1901, Amadeus as a child, went into his ill mother's bedroom. He witnessed (or believed he witnessed) beetles emerging from her mouth. This was the first time that he began to understand what madness was.
As an adult, Amadeus became a psychiatrist and worked out of the State hospital in Metropolis. Other members of the Arkham family resided in Metropolis as well.
In the spring of 1920, Amadeus could no longer endure his mother's suffering. He succumbed to his own encroaching madness and slit her throat with a pearl-handled knife. Amadeus repressed the memory of this incident, believing instead that she had taken her own life.
Shortly after the funeral, he returned to the family mansion, which he now owned as the sole heir. It was the first time in twelve years that he spent the night in his own room. The following day, he returned to his work at the Metropolis State Psychiatric Hospital. He began administering care to a psychopathic killer named Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins.
In the fall of 1920, Amadeus Arkham was invited to Europe where he met Professor Karl Jung in Switzerland. He then went to England where he met famed occultist Aleister Crowley.
He returned home in December of that year, shortly before Christmas. By this point, the family manor was well under construction, being converted into a psychiatric hospital.
On April 1st, 1921, Amadeus Arkham returned home to find that his wife and daughter had been brutally murdered and dismembered. The killer was Mad Dog Hawkins. Arhkam found his daughter's head shoved inside of a doll's house.
In November of that same year, the manor officially opened its doors as the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. His first patient was Martin Hawkins. He treated him soberly for several weeks, earning the respect of his staff for his seeming courage and compassion. Ultimately however, Amadeus could no longer restrain himself. With Hawkins strapped down to a table, Arkham activated the electro-shock equipment and let it run continuously until the man who had butchered his family was dead.
Progressively, Amadeus Arkham's sanity continued to deteriorate. He began to believe that the house was alive and trying to communicate with him. Eventually, the repressed memory of murdering his mother opened before him. He believed that the avatar of their respective madness was a bat. He decided to contain the presences that roamed the rooms and surrounded them with bars and walls and electrified fences. Dressed in his mother's wedding dress, he began carving patterns of binding on the floor of the nursery - his "secret room" using nothing but his fingernails. He continued making the carvings on the floor for many years, but never completed it.
Little is known of Amadeus Arkham's activities in the ensuing years. What is known is that in 1929 he attempted to kill his stockbroker. He was brought back to Arkham Asylum where he presumably lived out the remainder of his days. [1]
Notes & Trivia[]
- The character of Amadeus Arkham was created by writer Grant Morrison and artist Dave McKean.
- The room were Matt Hakins murdered his wife and daughter was the nursery. Amadeus later converted this into a secret room. It was here that he would write in his journal and carve the patterns of binding.
- Amadeus Arkham's journal was discovered years later by an administrator named Charles Cavendish.
Family[]
- Elizabeth Arkham - Mother. Mentally ill. Murdered by her own son with a straight razor.
- Constance Arkham - Wife. Murdered by Mad Dog Hawkins. Dismembered.
- Harriet Arkham - Daughter. Murdered by Mad Dog Hawkins. Dismembered and decapitated.
- Jeremiah Arkham - Great-nephew. Inherited mantle of administrator of Arkham Asylum.