Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Arkham Epic

2016; IGI Global; Linguagem: Inglês

10.4018/978-1-5225-0477-1.ch001

2327-9303

Luke Arnott,

Comics and Graphic Narratives

This chapter presents a model that explains how the epic is a narrative genre that has become popular across a variety of new media. It demonstrates how the Arkham series of Batman video games – Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios, 2009), Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios, 2011), Batman: Arkham Origins (Warner Bros. Games Montreal, 2013), and Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios, 2015) – is constructed as an epic narrative within the larger Batman media franchise. The Arkham series aspires to epic status by eclipsing competing Batman texts or by assimilating those texts into its continuity. The series is an example of how video games now influence the evolution and cross-adaptation of derivative and parallel works such as comics, movies, and other paratexts. The chapter concludes by observing how games like the Arkham series relate to representation and theories of postmodernism.