Written by Jody Houser
Illustrated by Ibrahim Moustafa
Published by DC Comics
This is fantastically inventive book that will be ending soon. That’s very sad because it’s a cool alternative story that Jody Houser has written. This issue in particular is one of the strangest and darkest comic books I have read in quite some time.
Mother Panic makes her way through Arkham Institute. We have been through the Arkham Asylum before.
But this place is nothing like that.
In Houser’s and Moustafa’s capable hands it feels like the most horrifying place you can imagine. She gets led into the asylum almost like Alice descending into Wonderland.
A Wonderland rife with hell that is. The visuals by Moustafa are so perfect and intense for this.
The sequences leading into the asylum are just incredible.
And then we actually get into the institute and it’s bedlam.
A very exciting bedlam.
Violet Paige has to try to break her mother out of this crazy place. The battle to try to do this takes up the bulk of the issue.
Houser keeps it smart, but also very exciting on the writing front. It’s psychological and brutal in the best sense.
The art tells the story beautifully. Moustafa is the artist this title always needed. The visuals are the best it’s ever been.
This is an excellent book that will be going away. I hope it gets revived on some form or another.
RATING: B+
