By Bruno Savill De Jong — I’ve often stated in this series that a core theme of Gotham Central is about living in a world that is not your own, focusing on the GCPD as their value gets undermined by the city they serve. Although the characters within Gotham Central often recognize this tragic fact, they still nobly do what they can to contribute to a system that repeatedly disavows them. “Nature” turns away from these attempts, focusing on another viewpoint of Gotham’s ecosystem.

This single issue turns away from the ‘good police’ of the Major Crimes Unit and follows the GCPD’s corrupt police, who have been shown on Gotham Central’s sidelines until now. Rather than valiantly striving to resolve the broken city around them, “Nature” shows the Gotham cops happy to perpetuate the “law of the concrete jungle” and keep it “just the way it is” – so long as they remain in charge.

Corrupt cop Munroe narrates “Nature”, arrogantly offering the readers the regular GCPD’s view of their role. For him, police-work comes without responsibilities or morality, it being “just a job, and not a good one at that”. He disregards his ex-wife’s comments of his “fighting the good fight”, saying “when you live in a world with the Joker, can you ever say what evil is anymore?”. In a sense, Munroe has surrendered to the existential doubts Commissioner Akins faced at the end of “Soft Targets”, the absurdity of Batman and Joker’s war rendering the notion of clear ‘sides’ obsolete. But while Akins and the M.C.U. ultimately attempt to do the best they can, Munroe has decided if the world does not cater to him he will not cater to it. The world operates on its own detached logic; “it’s all just people”, Munroe narrates, “just people trying to survive”.

Again, this isn’t the first time such doubts have arisen. Detective Driver in “Motive” especially had to contend with a seemingly arbitrary universe. But instead of trying to organize and benefit the world like Driver does, Munroe positions himself within the pre-existing order. For him policing is “not a calling, not a destiny, none of that crap” but a way of securing authority; gaining traction in the “survival of the fittest”. The plot of “Nature” comes after Munroe and his partner Decarlo rough-up a street-dealer for their cut, and Munroe kills a young homeless girl who had seen them. Munroe does say he hadn’t meant to kill her, but also that he doesn’t really care. In his “law of the concrete jungle” its kill or be killed, turning his job into a battle between the police and everyone else.

This is a very potent ‘Blues Lives Matter’ attitude that prioritizes ‘police loyalty’ above everything else, turning anybody ‘against’ the police (no matter how legitimate) into an enemy and enabling the corruption inside institutions to fester. It exacerbates the division between the regular GCPD and the M.C.U., who Munroe views as “hiding up at central behind the Bat”, acting ‘superior’ to the “real police” out on the streets. Of course the M.C.U.’s diversity doesn’t help, Munroe stating how “all the women are lesbians and all the men are affirmative-action hires”. Munroe’s distaste towards the M.C.U.’s differences and their nobility feed each other. Instead, Munroe admired Harvey Bullock, both for his old-school techniques and ‘police loyalty’. Gotham Central pretty thoroughly (if still sympathetically) denounced Bullock in “Unresolved”, so any of its characters left admiring him show the ignorance of how such old-school techniques destroyed him. Of course Munroe never expresses these attitudes out loud to Allen and Montoya when they come to interview him about the homeless girl. While Dr Alchemy in “Keystone Kops” flagrantly pushed the two on their identities, Munroe keeps things civil on the service. Even then, you can still feel the underlying tension between the small M.C.U. and the larger GCPD. The latter cannot stand the former setting a higher standard that threatens their current way of life.

This ‘way of life’ is also perpetuated by an internal ecosystem that profits off the GCPD corruption. Montoya entering Finnegan’s Bar in “Corrigan” felt like somebody walking into enemy territory, but Munroe in “Nature” describes it as “an ocean of blue, our place”. It’s somewhere he can encourage all the other cops to stick by his story, and where he can find Corrigan to ‘insure’ himself against contradictory evidence. These GCPD cops work to make sure nothing gets done. Munroe’s colleague Kenzie also offers him a job delivering some secured evidence for Black Mask. The cops even play into Gotham’s supervillains, Munroe justifying it as Black Mask is where “the new action is”, viewing himself as simply ‘surviving’ by being a cog in the wheel – whatever that system may be. Munroe again asks for Corrigan’s help, who swindles the evidence control officer by switching the evidence-bag for a garbage-bag; “I think of it as my way of giving back to the city”, Corrigan jokes. Really all these police do is redirect Gotham’s waste back inside, so that all its institutions become rotten.

“Nature” concludes with poetic justice. Munroe may have proclaimed himself as both ‘king of the jungle’ and a piece in the ecosystem, but by the end the latter becomes literal. Taking the evidence-bag to Gotham’s Robinson Park, it is revealed it was not for Black Mask but Poison Ivy, who post-No Man’s Land was characterised as an anti-heroine who cared for the city’s orphans. The homeless girl, “Dee Dee”, was under her care. Poison Ivy kills Munroe and Decarlo for this, absorbing them into the Park’s grass. In a sense it reaffirms Munroe’s philosophy of the ‘food chain’, only while he saw himself and the GCPD at the top, in reality he becomes the fertiliser at the bottom. It’s a dark ending even for such an unpleasant character, but it demonstrates that if the world you live in is not your own, you best beware whose it truly is. Munroe thought he had gamed the system, but was eventually eaten up by one of its ‘freaks’. That’s just the law of Nature in Gotham City.

Gotham Central: Nature (#32)

Gotham Central: Nature
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Steve Lieber
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Lettering: Clem Robins
Editors: Matt Idelson and Nachie Castro
In a special standalone issue, two corrupt cops murder a witness to their schemes and blame the death on another. But no bad deed goes unpunished, as an unexpected agent of justice seeks revenge.
Buy It Digitally: Gotham Central #32, or Gotham Central Book Four

Read more installments of Gotham Central, Case by Case!

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.