Arkham Asylum: Living Hell (Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #3)

CHAPTER 3 - CRACKED UP

Warren and Humpty Dumpty trade their stories of how they each got into Arkham. Warren tells Humpty about his attempted scam, and then Humpty begins his story. Meanwhile Doodlebug bribes a security guard, "Wrigley," to let him out of his cell using a self-portrait that would be worth a lot of money on eBay. The guard escorts him to the joint cell of "Pamela Isley" and "Margaret Pye" (Poison Ivy and Magpie respectively), where it is revealed that he had in fact been the one in possession of the mirror shank (see previous issue). He declines to do anything violent with it however, instead opting to trade the "shiny object" to Magpie in return for sex, which seems to be a standard deal with her.

Humpty Dumpty tells of how he had been orphaned at a young age, and forced to live with his abusive grandmother. He had always been an even-tempered man, but he just could never tolerate when things simply did not work. Frustrated two many times by faulty machinery, he began taking do it yourself books out of the library, and "fixing" things late at night in secret, such as trains that had left before they were scheduled, or ATMs that didn't work. These repairs always ended in disaster, and the object in question would usually be completely destroyed the next day. His final repair, on the Gotham Clock Tower had caused a chain reaction that knocked down all of the gigantic props on Gotham City's rooftops they were so famous for into the streets. He was tracked down by Batgirl, who as a librarian had been able to find him by his overdue books. He immediately turned himself in, having not meant any harm, but Batgirl was also curious as to why he had taken out a copy of Gray's Anatomy. Apparently, believing her to require repair, Humpty had taken apart his own grandmother and tried to put her back together again.

Meanwhile, Jane Doe assumes Wrigley's identity, and escorts an oblivious Doodlebug back to his cell, leaving the door slightly ajar on purpose.

In the Gotham City Morgue, despite his considerable jadedness, Harvey Bullock is confronted with a corpse whose condition makes even him throw up. There's a mysterious new serial killer in Gotham, whose victims Jason Blood tells him have "all committed the same sin."