Dr. Amadeus Arkham

Dr. Amadeus Arkham was a Gotham City psychiatrist who founded Arkham Asylum, the institution for the criminally insane that would ultimately bear his name and become the city's most infamous landmark for housing its most dangerous villains.

Few figures in the DC Universe cast as long a shadow as Dr. Amadeus Arkham, the haunted founder whose name has become synonymous with Gotham's darkest institution. Introduced in the Bronze Age pages of Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #1 in 1985 — brought to life by the legendary duo of Marv Wolfman and Len Wein — he's the man behind the asylum that has housed the likes of the Joker, Harvey Dent, and Two-Face, sharing his grim legacy with Batman and Bruce Wayne across decades of essential storytelling. His most prominent appearances in Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham Asylum cement him as one of Gotham's most consequential figures, a character whose presence looms far larger than his appearance count might suggest. If you want to understand the soul of Gotham's underworld — not its streets, but its depths — Amadeus Arkham is where that story begins.