Your guided tour of the Arkham Asylum™

Are you here for the tour? Excellent.

We’ll begin shortly. We’ve actually only recently begun these tours of the Asylum but they’ve proven a great success, with participants reporting an almost 50% survival rate.

A few things to note. Please don’t wander off at any time, ESPECIALLY if you are beckoned away by a green woman who appears to be controlling plants with her mind. Flash photography is not allowed – trust us, you don’t want to surprise Killer Croc™.

Phones on silent. Questions at the end. No toilet breaks. Is that gum?

Okay, let’s begin.

The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum™ for the Criminally Insane was built… erm… in the past. The architecture has undergone a fair few changes, due primarily to its persistent habit of being architecturally altered by its inmates. Notice how the most recent rebuilding of the Asylum involved 2,953 LEGO® pieces, helping us expand across three floors.

Having housed all of the most infamous villains of Gotham City™, this building you are inside is now synonymous with the city. Indeed, no image of Gotham is complete without a shot of the Arkham Asylum and a steady flow of inmates escaping out of it.

Some previous tour participants have told me that, as they walked through the Asylum, they felt they could almost hear those iconic super-villains’ cries echoing through the hallways. As I reminded them, it’s probably because most of them are still currently incarcerated in the facility...

Here on the ground floor, the first thing you’ll notice is a graphically altered winged statue. Trust us, we’ve tried to clean it, but that only seems to encourage the vandal. More on him later. Now, if you’ll just follow me through the X-ray scanner...

We have three cells on the ground floor. On the left you’ll see Bane™. For those wondering, the green stuff on his back is his personal supply of Venom which greatly multiplies his strength, speed, agility and durability. We let him keep it because he asked us REALLY nicely.

And if you look to your right, you should see Scarecrow™… wait, he was there last time I checked… Huh. Probably nothing to worry about. On with the tour!!

Also on the ground floor is our multi-functional function room. Here we take mugshots of our guests, keep an eye on the CCTV footage and also, you know, just hang out. Just don’t get the ‘Panic’ and the ‘Open all cell doors’ buttons mixed up. Goodness knows we’ve made that mistake a few times!

Can you hear the danger in the air? The cackling on the breeze? Ahead of you, you’ll see our most fearsome inmate, The Joker™. We’ve got him exactly where we want him. And yes, we’re aware that his favorite activity is organizing mass breakouts and YES, we know he once built his actual super-villain base directly underneath the Arkham Asylum… You know, when you say all this out loud, maybe we should start to think about placing this guy elsewhere.

As we climb up to the first floor, we enter the main cell block for Gotham’s naughtiest mischief makers. The glass doors of the cells open simultaneously using a lever mechanism hidden behind the yellow electric box, in case the guards want to let out the inmates all at once for a spontaneous dance party or something. Now, who’d like to try it out first?!

Admittedly, glass is a lot less secure than the kind of windowless, 12-inch thick doors most penal institutions use. But those didn’t really match with our aesthetic moodboard. And we couldn’t use bars because Poison Ivy™ kept spreading vines through them to tickle everyone. So we stuck with glass.

Unfortunately, as you can see, Poison Ivy™ found a way of spreading her vines through them anyway...

Now, with history’s most unpredictably malevolent baddies under one roof, constantly plotting their escape, we need to have the best possible security measures in place. That’s why we have not one, but TWO guards keeping an eye on proceedings from their high-tech watch tower. Now, we are aware how, in the past, The Joker™ successfully disguised himself as a staff member here. Which is why we made these two fully pinky promise that they definitely weren’t bad guys.

We allowed The Penguin™ two emotional support animals on the one condition that he doesn’t use them to help him escape. Again.

In this room, you’ll see our psychologist’s office, complete with a recording machine and a very comfy chaise lounge. Fun fact: the role of the Arkham Asylum psychologist was recently voted Gotham City’s least desirable job! On a related point, if any of you have any interest in becoming our psychologist, please inform me at any point during the tour. No, seriously. Please. I don’t think Harley Quinn™ is taking the position seriously enough.

Up here on the rooftop... oops... watch your step... you’ll see our searchlight, water tower and even an air conditioner unit, which we keep just for Mr. Freeze™, who claims he needs the temperature below zero to keep his puns icy cool. We like prisoners to feel chilled here at the Asylum.

One of our favorite pastimes is to remind the villains of the Super Heroes who caught them. I think we read somewhere that it boosts morale? Either that or boosts vengefulness, I can never remember which.

Either way, we remind the inmates of their captors at every available opportunity. You’ll even find Batman™ comics in our bins! I saw one the other day that said Issue #9. Wonder if it’s worth anything...

We also provide free-of-charge guest passes to Batman, Robin™ and Batwoman™. You’ll usually find them around here somewhere, teasing the inmates… Aha, there they are now!

Catwoman™ was also after one of those guest passes, but we couldn’t agree internally on whether she was a goodie or not. We decided not to, to be on the safe side, but she’s here all the time anyway. Wait, is she an inmate? Maybe we should head back to the office to check the paperwork...

Out here in the grounds, alongside the trademark gothic Gotham City architecture, note the modular building elements that allow the Asylum to be attached to any other building in the LEGO Modular Buildings series. Many have questioned the decision to place a notoriously breakout-able institution for the world’s most genius criminal masterminds next to, for example, a Boutique Hotel. But what are the chances the thing that’s happened like a million times happens AGAIN?!

Ah, here’s a tricky customer. Oh, who am I kidding, they’re all tricky. But The Riddler™ is tricky in a mysterious, confusing and to be honest downright annoying way for those of us trying to lock him up. The number of times he’s conned me into giving him my keys... And he’s always leaving his crossword riddles lying about the place!

The courtyard has both the space and the winged guardians to welcome new inmates, who are driven into the Asylum inside this custom-made delivery van! It’s complete with a villain-carrying trolley and two highly useful tranquilizer guns. Inmates usually leave through a hole they’ve made in the fence. Ooh, look, like that one on your right!

I hope the tour today has helped show you why the Arkham Asylum has earned its reputation as THE place to sometimes hold Gotham City’s villains, for a bit.

The alarm you’re hearing isn’t the sound to signal the end of the tour, but funnily enough it does mean that the tour does have to end. Quite… erm… quite quickly. I would start running if I were you.

Exit through the gift shop and yes, I do accept tips.

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