Surprises in the dark comic book world beneath Gotham

As I roamed around downtown Manhattan while on vacation in the United States last month, I was awestruck by the city's subway system.

This was not the kind of awe one feels when watching a fireworks display, walking on the Great Wall or standing on the rim the Grand Canyon - things that are awesome in a good way, and something you might want to experience more than once.

The New York City subway system is the opposite. Unlike Beijing's clean and bright subways, it evokes the dark, eerily awesome horror of a Batman movie, a sort of dystopian nightmare in which you try to run away from evil but find yourself unable to move. Edvard Munch's painting The Scream captures the feeling.