I actually thought that I had written a review for this volume. But apparently I never did. Oh Well, then it's try to remember what I read game. That's always a funny game.

Let's see, in this volume we get to see how they turn Wayne Mansion into the new Arkham Asylum. I found that quite interesting, Batman's home is now the home for all the insane criminals. Many that himself has cached. The problem is now that someone is killing the inmates. And you know someone killing killers is really, really bad so now Batman must save the inmates lives by posing as an inmate.

The art was good; the story was entertaining to read. A decent Batman volume, not the best I read, but certainly not the worst either. I can't really remember anything really special about this one. It's for the moment good kind of read without leaving any big impression behind.

I received this copy from the DC Comics through Edelweiss in return for an honest review! Thank you! ( )

Mayor Hady has moved the inmates from the now-destroyed Arkham Asylum (see [b:Batman: Eternal, Vol. 2|23395761|Batman Eternal, Vol. 2|Scott Snyder|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1428761176s/23395761.jpg|42952747] to Wayne Manor because the wealthy elite aren’t going to let the mayor lock up lunatics in their neighborhood. Obviously, a place more secure than Gotham stadium is needed, so why not pull eminent domain and take Bruce Wayne’s mansion? This has got to be the most idiotic premise for a story, and that makes it hard to swallow the rest of the book, but it seemingly only gets worse. Bruce Wayne puts on some fake hair and makeup and goes undercover to solve some murders in the old family home.

Ignoring the senseless premise, what follows is fairly engaging. Undercover Batman teams up with Arkham crazies against some other Arkham crazies before he changes to Regular Batman and takes out a regrettably feral bad guy.

So let’s discuss the artwork, which seems intended to make everyone, including Batman, completely unrecognizable. I'm wavering between 1 and 2 stars, but I actually enjoyed the book despite the silliness and the fantastically absurd art. I'm going with 2 stars, barely. ( )

With Arkham Asylum destroyed and Bruce Wayne lacking the fortune to keep Wayne Manor, the latter is converted to the new home for Gotham's criminally insane. But soon after the inmates move in, someone begins brutally murdering them. Finding the killer becomes a personal quest for the Batman, but he soon learns the only way to uncover the murderer is to pose as an inmate himself in order to get an inside look at Arkham Manor.

This book more or less stands on in its own, although it does make some references to past events in the Batman universe and the reader will find it helpful to know about a slew of Batman villains. There are also some hints dropped about possible continuations in a future volume.

The main storyline of a murderer within the walls of Arkham and Batman going undercover to find him is an interesting premise; unfortunately, it's overshadowed by the myriad of other issues that are randomly thrown into this slim volume - the appearance of Clayface, the Joker being up to who knows what, the escape of several inmates (seriously, is Arkham even attempting to be a secure facility?), and the questionable mental stability of Dr. Arkham being among those topics. In fact, the reveal of the murderer ends up being rather anticlimactic and the reader learns very little about who he is and what are his motivations.

The illustrations in this novel are decent - not noteworthy but not bad either - although there were a few instances where I felt the illustrations and/or the text could have made it a little more clear as to what was going on, especially with Bruce Wayne jumping in and out of various costumes and personas.

Still, overall, this was a fairly entertaining and quick read that makes for a fine addition to the Batman story. ( )

This TPB was about what I thought it would be (the goods and the bads). Arkham was destroyed, totally destroyed in a previous issue, and so the Mayor, etc. of Gotham City decide that they’ll take Wayne Manor by eminent domain and turn it into the new Asylum. And then someone starts killing people inside Arkham and so Batman goes in undercover into his own house to try and solve the crime.

That was a little freaky. As was the art, which I really didn’t like at all. But on the other hand I liked what they did with the character of Border (I won’t spoil it). And how they used the character of Mr. Freeze as well. Weirdly I think that Mr. Freeze was my favorite character in this TPB.

It wasn’t a horrible TPB, definitely a three star one, but it also wasn’t one of my favorite Batman ones either.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment ( )