Editor’s Note: This is the first of a weekly series examining each story arc in the classic DC Comics series, Gotham Central.

By Bruno Savill De Jong — “Could we leave the Bat out of this for now?”

Detective Marcus Driver mutters these words to Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen as the three discuss the death of his partner, Charlie Fields, at the hands of Mr. Freeze. It’s a phrase which hangs over all of Gotham Central, like the Bat-Signal perched atop the police headquarters, or the squadroom’s clearance-board which Fields wrote “the Bat” onto, wishing to incentivize the department into action.

See, members of the Gotham City Police Department alway exists in the shadow of Batman, as pawns or corrupt foils that demonstrate the necessity of a costumed vigilante on Gotham’s streets. But following their own work on Batman, writers Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka became interested in an alternative view of this dynamic, a street-level view that looks upwards at the Dark Knight from the perspective of the GCPD, like a police version of Marvels. Rucka and Brubaker were then and remain now a pair of the most accomplished crime writers in comics, and their work often focused upon the “detective” aspects in their respective Batman runs.

It was not the GCPD’s first spotlight, given writer Chuck Dixon penned the miniseries Batman: GCPD in 1998. But this new series would extend past the GCPD itself to highlight all of Gotham’s architecture, outlining the ecosystem that had formed itself around Batman’s presence. The arching storyline No Man’s Land preceded this book, and its events isolated Gotham from the rest of America via an earthquake, thereby bringing greater focus onto the factions within the city. Then in 2001, Rucka and Brubaker took over the main Batman titles and collaborated on the crossover “Officer Down”, an investigation into the shooting of Commissioner Jim Gordon, which highlighted the tensions between Batman and the GCPD, ultimately ending in Gordon’s retirement. A year later, Gotham Central was launched, with each case adding pieces to the mosaic of Gotham, showcasing the extravagant supervillains who threaten the foundations of society, as well as the regular police who just have to live in it.

 The contrast between these two worlds is evident from the start of “In the Line of Duty”. In an interview with ComicsAlliance, Brubaker said this “opening scene was what we pitched to [then-editor] Bob Schrek”. Tracking down a routine tip on an unrelated kidnapping case, Driver and Fields stumble into Mr. Freeze, his science-fiction Freeze Ray and bright-yellow background a shocking shift from the mundane setting and light-hearted banter that takes place beforehand. Many superhero stories feature sudden life-changing events. Batman’s own origin is a consequence of walking down the wrong alley. As Freeze himself says after killing Fields, “I know about bad luck…that’s one of the lessons that Gotham teaches us all eventually”. Living in Gotham seems to be forever adjacent to tragedy. Rucka called this opening Gotham Central’s “thesis statement”, asking — how you can compete with overqualified supervillains if you are just an ordinary everyday cop?

To accentuate this, Gotham Central frequently emphasizes its ‘realistic’ tone. ‘Realism’ can be a loaded term, especially in a superhero universe where (at least) things like Freeze Rays exist, with Brubaker once commenting “I'll sacrifice realistic detail to make a story better in a heartbeat”. Instead, ‘realism’ is a type of style, a feeling of authenticity operating within a suspension of disbelief. Rucka and Brubaker maintain it with their technical dialogue, which shows both an understanding of police-procedures as well as the slang of those who operate them. But they give enormous credit to artist Michael Lark for his illustrations, having both delayed the advent of this series an entire year until Lark was available to work on the series with them. Again, Lark’s artwork is not precisely ‘photorealistic’ (Alex Ross is one of the few comic-artists who could claim that, and even he is still stylized), but rather it is what Rucka calls “photojournalistic”. His heavy inks and shadows add a noir element to the issues, but mostly Lark brings a detailed and compact visualization of this world, with writer Harry Kassen analyzing how that is aided by Willie Schubert’s lettering on this very site.

Yet there is also room for the artwork to breathe. “In the Line of Duty” features several silent panels as characters take in their surroundings. This includes Captain Sawyer and Lieutenant Probson’s minor confrontation as the shift changes, Renee encountering a monosyllabic Driver at the crime scene, and Nora Fields (“Nora” of course being the Mr Freeze’s frozen wife, ironically having inflicted his own tragedy onto her) looking at her husband’s half-melted corpse, a gruesome after-effect of Freeze having turned his entire cellular structure to ice. It’s these moments that show the comic-book elements are not simply eccentricities, but part of a lived-in reality.

 This fuels the world-building of Gotham Central, which after accepting that these supervillains exist, examines the overlooked infrastructures that extend out of them. “In the Line of Duty” does this while simultaneously introducing readers to the detectives of the Major Crimes Unit (who might have appeared as backgrounds extras in other series’, but with some exceptions like Renee and Maggie Sawyer were mostly underdeveloped), with pairs of them trying to track down leads to Mr. Freeze. This includes questioning Freeze’s incarcerated henchmen, investigating the official and underground Diamond Markets (whose products power Freeze’s suit), and tracking various Cryogenic technologies. Alongside these scenes there is a ticking clock, signaling the time until the sun goes down and Batman, like a vampire, will arise to take over the case.

 “In the Line of Duty” foregrounds the underlying rivalry between Batman and the GCPD, but most characters seem resigned to it. Even Crispus Allen, who was previously skeptical of Batman, has accepted his necessity. Driver asks Commissioner Akins (who recently took over after Gordon’s retirement) to “not use the signal”, that the police need to solve this one themselves. Of course (in a bureaucratic detail I adore) the GCPD cannot ‘officially’ acknowledge the existence of Batman anyway, meaning only their secretarial temp Stacy can actually touch the Bat-Signal. Akins does not want to rely on Batman any more than Driver, but he recognizes that he cannot stop Batman, and that this case and its endangered lives are bigger than themselves.

 Driver accepts this when he concedes to alerting Batman of Freeze’s target, having realized it was Gordon’s commencement address to Gotham State University. “In the Line of Duty” had subtly hinted at some ‘event’ the detectives were discussing between scenes, but Gotham Central holds off on revealing Gordon himself until near the end. Partially this is a trope of ‘spin-offs’ like Gotham Central including ‘cameos’ of Batman and his supporting-cast. Batman himself appears very briefly in “In the Line of Duty”, Lark barely allowing a look at him, his figure downplayed and in shadows. But Gordon’s appearance also signals Gotham Central’s change in focus, sending off Batman’s closest ally in the GCPD and re-framing the series with those who resent him. Driver manages to decode Freeze’s taunt of the GCPD’s “incredibly uneducated lot”, but after handing it off to Batman, Driver waits outside GSU in his car as Batman fights Freeze off-page, being informed that he and Fields’ kidnapping victim “didn’t make it”.

Driver cursing the world, and after Batman appears outside his car-window, cursing him directly, ends “In the Line of Duty '' on an incredibly dour and cynical note. Maybe Mr Freeze was right that “bad luck” infects all of Gotham, being a place filled with meaningless loss. But I want to re-examine the brief speech Gordon gives at GSU, telling the students “you're going to make a difference. A lot of times it won’t be huge, it won’t be visible, even. But it will matter, just the same”. Gotham Central often gets compared to The Wire, even if the two were actually released simultaneously (the creatives more often citing Homicide: Life on the Streets, Hill Street Blues or even Law and Order in interviews). Much of that is down to gritty aesthetics and grounded dialogue, but Gotham Central does share The Wire’s central philosophy that “all the pieces matter”. That societal systems are ultimately made up of people, and that they depend upon these individuals to function, and to change them.

Fields’ death was an unfortunate tragedy, the poor luck of knocking on the wrong door in Gotham. But it is the duty of those serving a city to turn that “bad luck” into something meaningful, to grind through the casework which makes Gotham operate, even if it seems “invisible” next to Batman’s theatrics. Sorting out chaos into coherence is what detectives do, and it’s not just up to Batman, but the rest of us too.

Editor’s Note: While we love Gotham Central, we also appreciate how its representation of police does not directly address the critical real-world injustices prevalent in U.S. police departments. If you would like to help support the correction of these systemic injustices, we recommend doing so via donations to Black Lives Matter.

Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty

GOTHAM CENTRAL #1-2: “In the Line of Duty”
Writers: Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka
Arist: Michael Lark
Colorist: Noelle Giddings
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Editors: Matt Idelson and Nachie Castro
Not all of Gotham's heroes wear costumes. Batman may get all the credit for cleaning up the town, but Renee Montoya & Crispus Allen of the Special Crimes Unit are determined to do the job. Witness the gritty side of the GCPD from their perspective, as they solve crimes their own way.
Buy It Digitally: Gotham Central

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Bruno Savill De Jong is a recent undergraduate of English and freelance writer on films and comics, living in London. His infrequent comics-blog is Panels are Windows and semi-frequent Twitter is BrunoSavillDeJo.