blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round". The annotated script is a bonus material printed on every Arkham Asylum graphic novel ever since the 15th anniversary edition (2004), containing Morrison's full script that breaks down and explains much of the symbolic references in the story. The introduction page details the genesis behind Morrison's work coming to fruition: Morrison and their fellow friend, Jim Clements, were fascinated by Len Wein's short and evocative paragraphs written on the history of Arkham Asylum in the Who's Who series during the development of the story. After the research, Morrison decided to use the tragedy of Amadeus Arkham as part of the story they wanted to tell. The thrill of the Arkham Asylum narrative was influenced by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore's Watchmen, inspiring Morrison, who wanted to make their own take on Batman in comics since they liked the authors' storytelling abilities and freedom to push the boundaries of comics to a greater degree. Themes and style The setting of Arkham Asylum plays a large role in how the inmates perceive their own insanity. As said by the Mad Hatter in the story: "Sometimes I think the asylum is the head. We're inside a huge head that dreams us all into being". He also described the asylum as being a "looking glass" that shows the subject their own twisted psyche. Morrison conceived the graphic novel's storytelling technique to stay away from the original hardboiled pulp influence of Batman and those seen in American cinema adaptations. Style from European cinema, symbolism, and psychological horror themes were used to depict how insanity works within the setting of the asylum, referencing Lewis Carroll, Carl Jung, and Aleister Crowley. Hypostasis was used to push the story forward with psychoanalytic theory and Jungian archetypes were influences. The psychological themes of the Batman villains were deconstructed from their usual style seen in other comics. Examples include Maxie Zeus, an electrified, emaciated figure with messianic delusions, and obsessed with electric shocks and coprophagia; Clayface is rapidly wasted from lack of feeding and is described as a