From why it’s brown rather than grey to the reasons for its more unusual character choices, here are seven things the designers didn’t tell you about LEGO DC 76300 Arkham Asylum.
Available from today for LEGO Insiders, 76300 Arkham Asylum is the first DC modular building and the biggest minifigure-focused Batman set in years. And while there are plenty of reviews out there already, this set hasn’t received the same coverage from the design team as (for example) 75419 Death Star or
YouTuber Ashnflash has now published snippets from an interview with Super Heroes Team Lead Jesper C. Nielsen, however – offering a few nuggets of insight on the latest take on Arkham. We’ve picked out seven of the most illuminating answers for your perusal below…
7 – Even the LEGO Group was tired of Batmobiles
When the design team first started bouncing around ideas for the next DC direct-to-consumer set, they apparently started from the baseline of ‘not another Batmobile’. We’ve already had plenty of large Batmobiles over the past few years, most recently in 2024’s
6 – It was never going to be anything other than a modular building
Despite the potential that breaking away from the constraints of the modular format would have offered Arkham Asylum – a standalone building in Gotham – the designers were committed to the idea of a modular building from the very beginning. Jesper specifically pointed to the fact ‘we’ve never done’ Arkham in that style, with all previous sets being open-back dollhouses. So just as 75419 Death Star was apparently always going to be a slice, Arkham was always going to be modular.
5 – The format and colour felt ‘fresh’ and ‘right’
76300 Arkham Asylum is the first true inverted corner modular building, an approach selected by designer Justin Ramsden precisely because it had never been tried before in an official LEGO set. Jesper says it opened up the space for a ‘nice courtyard’, and that it ‘feels fresh’ for this superhero subtheme. He also explained that brown as the primary colour is ‘such a LEGO choice and design’, and that it ‘felt right’ rather than going for an all-grey building in the vein of 10937 Arkham Asylum.
This mock-up from Ashnflash suggests that it was the right move, too – a fully grey Arkham doesn’t quite pop in the same way as the brown design, which also calls back to the original Arkham Asylum set as well as the version from The LEGO Batman Movie.
4 – The option to fix the damage was never considered… but will ‘haunt’ Jesper
While 76178 Daily Bugle (to give one example) includes the necessary pieces to fix the hole in the front of the skyscraper created by the Green Goblin, so you can display it in either fashion, 76300 Arkham Asylum takes away the element of choice: there are no additional parts to close up the various damaged areas of the building’s walls.
Jesper says the designers ‘never even went down that path’, pointing out that the destruction is not on the front of the building, and will be covered by other modulars when placed in a city. He did go on to say that the question of including those elements or not will ‘haunt’ him, however…
3 – Stickers are a necessary evil for storytelling purposes
76300 Arkham Asylum includes 65 stickers, which the press release even touted as a selling point – much to the chagrin of fans who prefer printed pieces. Jesper shares those concerns, but pointed to the opportunities stickers create too. “I prefer prints, but with stickers you get so much detail and storytelling,” he said. “To some extent we can do even more with stickers. There’s less limitations.”
Prints are generally reserved for pieces that can be used in future products or in large quantities within a single set, while stickers allow for more set-specific references and even variety between similar graphics, such as the X-rays in Arkham Asylum. One shows a regular minifigure skeleton, while the other features a smuggled spoon that Killer Croc uses to help tunnel out of his cell. Those storytelling opportunities wouldn’t be feasible with prints.
2 – Batwing and Batwoman were chosen for their novelty – and similarity to Batman
The hero minifigure line-up for an Arkham Asylum set pretty much writes itself, with Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Nightwing being the obvious candidates. But the latter two are curiously absent from 76300, with Batwoman and Batwing instead filling their shoes. Jesper says that Batgirl was available to use because she appeared in 2024’s 76272 The Batcave with Batman, Batgirl and The Joker, but ‘it’s been a long time since we touched [Batwoman]’, so she provided ‘more new-ness’.
Indeed, Batwoman last appeared in 2019’s 76122 Batcave Clayface Invasion, and has otherwise only shown up in 2018’s 76111 Batman: Brother Eye Takedown. And Batwing? He apparently made the cut because the team wanted ‘a Batman-like variant who wasn’t Batman’, Ashnflash reports. It probably helps that he’s also the only brand new character in the 16-strong line-up…
1 – The Rogues Gallery was (almost) locked in from the start
There are fewer surprises among Arkham’s villains, who represent a greatest hits selection of Batman’s Rogues Gallery, from Joker and Harley Quinn to Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy and Bane. Perhaps the biggest eyebrow-raiser is the absence of Two-Face, so you won’t be surprised to learn he was the only question mark in the roster. “It’s always been this line-up,” Jesper said. “The one we had pencilled in was Two-Face where we were a bit in doubt if we should have him or swap someone out.”
Jesper didn’t say who took Two-Face’s place, but did note that part of the reason for removing him was that a new version has just hit shelves in
76300 Arkham Asylum is
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