By Bruno Savill De Jong — From the beginning, Gotham Central has been a series about place. It is a series about showing what’s its like to live ‘in’ Gotham, expanding the environment from a simple backdrop to a functioning ecosystem. But it’s also about how life is tied to locations, “In the Line of Duty” showing how ‘bad luck’ is lurking behind random closed doors, just as the Wayne’s were killed for going down the wrong alleyway. Just like how Detective Fields was killed by Mr Freeze be at the wrong place at the wrong time, “Keystone Kops” opens with Officer Kelly stumbling upon a chemical experiment-trap left by the Flash supervillain Dr Alchemy, becoming mutated by the strange fire. Yet again Gotham citizens have become victims of their own home, living in a world that is not their own.

In a desperate attempt to reverse mutation of Officer Kelly, the GCPD try to negotiate with Dr Alchemy (aka Albert Desmond), who is locked up in Keystone City. “Keystone Kops” is a double-reference, both to the Flash’s fictional hometown, and to the bumbling satire of police. Gotham Central may be more sympathetic to its police-officers, but in the wake of such supervillain attacks, they are ultimately just as helpless. Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen travelling to Keystone becomes the first time Gotham Central has escaped its borders, the juxtaposition between it and Keystone only further highlighting the importance of place. Admittedly the contrast is downplayed, even when Montoya and Allen meet some of the Flash’s police-departure supporting-characters; Detectives Fred Chyre and Jared Morillo. Although they do comment that Crispus shares a last name with the “whiter than Michael Bolton” Barry Allen. In Iron Heights Prison, the “staff profilers” of the Flash’s Rogues – much like the psychiatrist analysing the Mad Hatter in “Unresolved” – explains the tendencies of Alchemy before the Gotham Detectives go in to meet him, entering into his domain.

Dr. Alchemy is portrayed here as smug, arrogant and narcissistic. He delights in lording over Montoya and Allen, bartering their need for this knowledge for a sadistic “quid pro quo” where he asks insulting questions. Although clearly reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs (including how Alchemy creepily smiles through his prison-cell), Hannibal Lector seemed to genuinely wish and understand Clarice Sterling in his “quid pro quo”. Here, Alchemy asks Montoya if she beats her partner and how Allen feels being an Uncle Tom. He is only interested in pushing their buttons to see their reactions. It’s the same reason he created the chemical-trap in the first place, to see what would happen, “knowledge at any cost”. Although he says he can cure Kelly, Chyre notes “far as he’s concerned, this Kelly guy is an experiment, not a person”. Alchemy interrogates Montoya and Allen for the same reason, to see what they are made up of.

An important factor of what creates somebody is their environment. Their home, and where they were raised, shapes who they are. Kelly is a tragic figure as from his brief introduction he seems like a genuine ‘good cop’ who uses his ‘patrol’ in the ideal way of safeguarding his neighborhood. He falls into Alchemy’s trap in the process of trying to rescue a local kid from the basement. It’s part of why the GCPD are so determined to save him, although even they question if they’d be trying so hard if Kelly wasn’t a cop (profession being another aspect of identity). Indeed Kelly functions as an intersection between the corrupt “patrol slobs” (who still respect Kelly) and the Major Crimes Unit, Renee having been Kelly’s “rabbi” who was with him through No Man’s Land (an event where Gotham’s geography was literally ruptured). Therefore Renee asks to be assigned to Kelly’s case; both for him and the neighborhood he represents, which is her old family one. Renee hasn’t talked to her parents since they disowned her for being gay in “Half a Life”. Requesting Kelly’s case is perhaps Renee’s attempts to navigate her way back home, having to use a professional route since the personal one has been severed. Of course using this pathway goes both ways, as when she does return and meets her father in his bodega, he addresses her only as a “detective” and not his daughter. She understands he doesn’t want contact with her “unless it’s to tell him I’m suddenly straight”. “Nothing’s changed”, Renee tells Daria in bed later – their romantic sprawling another example of how “living together” effects identity – “Nothing’s changed. Except me”.

Appropriately for a story involving Dr Alchemy, transformation is a prominent theme in “Keystone Kops”. Kelly is the most obvious for how, after being doused in a vibrant magenta-crimson flame (Lee Loughride deserves special attention for the colouring in these issues), he undergoes a painful and tragic mutation. His chemical burns have hardened into a hulking mass which has rendered him mostly incoherent, save for a touching scene where he weakly asks his girlfriend, Sharon, if the kid he rescued is safe. Following Michael Lark’s departure, Gotham Central now has Stefano Guadino as a replacement, bringing a similar photojournalist approach and harsh (but humane) characterisation. Unfortunately for Kelly, his recovery does not last long. As Alchemy is brought in to ‘observe’ him, he uses his “philosophers stone” to free Kelly and himself, turning his steel-handcuffs into water and Renee’s silver double-Venus pendant into HCL acid, scarring the lesbian insignia onto her neck. Renee has essentially been branded by her internal identity, her orientation placed upon the territory of her body.

In a sense this has already happened. During their initial meeting, Dr Alchemy noticed Renee’s pendant and “fresh scar tissue on [her] knuckles and around [her] eye”. Through these external marks, Alchemy smugly psychoanalysed Renee as having “developed a taste – if not delight – for violence recently”. Alchemy is also right. Renee has steadily become dependant on violence, from beating up Lapari in “Half a Life” for threatening Daria, to fighting Corrigan in “Corrigan” to acquit Allen’s shooting. Renee had justified these instances as necessary to defend those she cared about, but “Keystone Kops” starts the show the consequences of indulging such violence. Although Kelly escapes the hospital in a frenzied rage (pursued by Batman off-panel), Renee re-captures Alchemy and severely beats him. Given Alchemy’s homophobia and sadistic actions he is hardly ‘innocent’, but as “Keystone Kops” shows Renee kicking him on the floor, such violence does not read as heroic. Renee doesn’t seem to think so either. Later on, both Detective Chyre and Officer Dognavich congratulate her “makeover” of Alchemy, but Renee is not happy. It only highlights how the police-system she’s in rewards unlicensed brutality. It does not resolve the anger boiling inside of her.

“Keystone Kops” is another tragic tale of Gotham Central. Early on Batman briefly appear to tell Renee not to barter with Alchemy, leaving Kelly yet another pawn of ‘freaks’ that the GCPD cannot even turn back into a person. And of course when they try Batman is proven right. After Alchemy frees Kelly (and induces him into a toxin-fueled rage), Kelly accidentally kills his girlfriend Sharon, and when Kelly tries to kill Alchemy in revenge, Batman starts attacking Kelly himself. He tells Renee, “I’ll deal with this”. Kelly is no longer a person, but a ‘thing’, a monster to be dealt with. A doctor says there is chance Kelly can be cured if he is reached in time, but Gotham Central does not allow such happy endings. The best it can do is hint that Montoya’s father has changed, under the surface at least, having gone to Renee and Daria’s apartment while she was in Keystone. It’s significant that he is the one who must exist his comfort zone to try and rebuilt the burnt bridges. Kelly has no such redemption, forcing his partner to gun him down as he returns to Montoya’s old neighborhood. Even when being a toy-soldier in Gotham’s battle-zones, with the status-quo of Batman and ‘freaks’ eternally around them, he cannot go home again.

Gotham Central: Keystone Kops (#28 - #31)

Gotham Central: Keystone Kops
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Stefano Gaudiano
Inkers: Gaudiano (part one and two), Kano (part three), and Gary Amaro (part four)
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Letterer: Clem Robins
Editors: Matt Idelson and Nachie Castro
Beginning the new story arc "Keystone Kops." When a group of children stumble onto the abandoned hideout of one of the DCU's most dangerous villains, Detectives Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya take on the case with a cop's life hanging in the balance!
Buy It Digitally: Gotham Central #28; Gotham Central #29; Gotham Central #30; Gotham Central #31 — or Gotham Central Book Three

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.