So you’ve gone and done it again. Despite repeated warnings from your spouse, parole officer, and psychiatrist, you’ve glued a domino mask to your face and provoked Batman into breaking both of your legs.

After your limbs heal, you’re sure to be transferred back to Arkham Asylum. While it may seem interesting at first, playing tag with a rage filled Killer Croc during exercise hour will quickly lose its novelty. Unless the mad scientist equivalent of Ralph McMurphy is around, you’re going to need to find your way out of Arkham Asylum.

Step One: Make sure you’re in Gotham.

It is of premium importance to know if you’re incarcerated in the DC universe or Lovecraft mythos. In the latter case, whatever is waiting for you outside of the padded cell is infinitely worse than the madness within.

Then again, Cthulhu might be a nice guy when you get to know him.

Step Two: Try the door.

Considering the rate that criminals escape the facility, there’s a good chance that the guards aren’t even bothering to lock cell doors anymore. You wouldn’t be remiss to try giving the handle a good shake, and might save yourself a great deal of embarrassment further down the line.

Step Three: Brood.

If they actually remembered to lock you in, then it’s time to spend a week or two posing menacingly within your cell. It’s time to pay your dues: narrative coherence requires everyone to spend at least a little time muttering cryptic threats to the public order before releasing them on an unsuspecting world.

Step Four: Bold Strokes.

Once you’ve spent a sufficient amount of time shouting promises to “show them, show them all”, it’s showtime.

Prepare a plan to assault the guards. The aforementioned brooding phase should have provided plenty of plotting time for any madman worth his straightjacket. The more convoluted and closely tied to your personal villain theme it is, the better. Consider getting some of the bulkier and less stable inmates to serve as henchmen.

Of course, the logic here is thin, and there’s a good chance you’ll just be casually beaten and tossed back into your cell. But remember: who dares wins.

Step Five: Seduce personnel.

This one comes straight from the playbook of Poison Ivy.

Some of you may be concerned about your lack of pheremone-based superpowers, six-foot height, or the improbable figure of a supervillainess. But you don’t need to be a thinly-veiled sex object to escape Arkham. The Joker’s relationship with the conveniently named Harley Quinn shows that all you have to do is drag an interested doctor down to your level.

This was once a fully trained medical professional.

Show a little leg. You can always take the resulting shame and self-loathing out on the latest Robin.

Step Six: Wait for something to explode.

If you have the patience of a statue, then all you really need to do to get out of Arkham is wait.

Whenever a major villain’s plotting is stuck in a rut on the whole “offing Batman” issue, blowing up Arkham seems to be a fine standby. One can certainly do worse than explosively release several dozen rabid men in spandex into the general population. Both Bane and the Black Mask have made career-defining plots with little more than a well-aimed rocket launcher.

In short, the walls of Arkham aren’t so much made out of cardboard as they are made out of semtex.

Step Seven: Share a cell with the Joker.

When all else fails, it’s time to beg for a royal pardon from the clown prince of crime.

The good news is that being near the Joker is guaranteed to put you in proximity of a successful escape plot. The difficulty comes in surviving long enough to capitalize on it.

Perhaps the Asylum isn't such a terrible place after all.

At this point, one might expect this piece to provide a set of tips for surviving in the Joker's presence. Unfortunately, there aren't any. The Joker reinvents his insanity every day. There is literally no discernible pattern to his bursts of pathological violence. It can only be recommended that you avoid wearing any bat costumes.

2/1/2010
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