By Bruno Savill De Jong — Sometimes the past can trap us. Traumatic events can be a vortex, one that warps our perception of the world, and makes us unable to escape that moment. This theme underlies “Unresolved”, the latest case in Gotham Central, featuring various instances of past events destabilizing people, and creating a delusional world-view. Detective Driver sees it first-hand when his brother’s childhood best friend, Kenny Booker, takes a fast-food joint hostage to demand and talk with Driver. Eight years ago, Kenny was one of the few survivors of the Gotham Hawks Baseball team locker-room bombing, that case that still remains unresolved. Ever since, Kenny was seemingly wracked by survivor’s guilt, angrily trying to tell Driver something he can’t quite say. Eventually he simply admits he just wants to “turn off” the “little man” in his head, before turning his shotgun on himself, and blowing his brains out.

Kenny reacted to trauma through frustrated outbursts. Driver himself sometimes explodes (like in the locker-room in “Soft Targets”), but in “Unresolved” he admits to her partner Josie Mac, “I think I’ve seen so many people I care about blown apart in the past year that I’m numb to a lot of it”. Nevertheless, Driver still gets permission from the new Lieutenant Cornwell to re-open the Hawks investigation. Perhaps he hopes to create ‘closure’ for Kenny like he did for Fields, his murdered ex-partner, in “Motive”. He and Josie face initial difficult with the GCPD’s mismanagement of the case-files, the desk-officer defensively stating “this isn’t my mess. This is all from Jacoby’s reign of error… my predecessor was half in the bag most days”. It’s another example of the past’s long shadow. Still, Josie (via a method that will be discussed later) manages to find Kenny’s old baseball cap. Not only that, but like in “Soft Targets”, the detectives find unequivocal evidence of a Batman villain without actually invoking their name. Tucked into the baseball cap is a label reading “In this Style 10/6”. The “little man” ordering Kenny around was no psychotic delusion, but rather Jervis Tetch, aka the Mad Hatter.

Unlike previous Gotham Central supervillains, the Mad Hatter is already detained in Arkham Asylum, meaning we get our first interpretation of it through Gotham Central’s realistic-lens as Driver and Josie go to visit him. Brubaker (who has solo writing credit for “Unresolved”) approaches this institution with the same grounded vision as the GCPD, complete with a Dr. Blaycock giving an ‘official’ diagnosis of Tetch as having Paranoid Schizophrenia, OCD, delusions, and an “immature self-image” that identifies primarily with children and uses rhyming as a self-defense mechanic. Applying real-life psychology to fictional super-villains is never exact, but it builds up this Mad Hatter as a legitimate mental-patient (albeit one with mind-control hats). The detectives’ interview makes Tetch seem genuinely insane, instead of simply ‘colorful’, assisted by Michael Lark’s art depicting him as diminutive and exaggerated, but not a complete caricature. Plus, Mad Hatter adds to “Unresolved”’s themes, having based himself around an old-fashioned Victorian novel and identifying primarily with children, stuck in his own delusional state of the past. However, as in most Gotham Central stories, the super-villain is not the true focus but a way of examining the police. The central focus of “Unresolved” is not exactly who caused the bombing, but rather who was originally tasked with solving the case eight years ago; Harvey Bullock.

Next to Commissioner Gordon, Harvey Bullock is one of the most recognizable ‘cop’ characters in Batman lore. Originally created as an example of Gotham’s corrupt police, Bullock’s long-standing supporting role saw him re-worked into an ally of Batman, albeit often with questionable methods. This controversial characterization culminated in “Officer Down”, where Bullock tipped off the mafia to the witness-protected shooter of Gordon, effectively executing him. He has been ‘retired’ ever since. Such past actions hang over this arc. The unspoken mixed feelings around Bullock in the GCPD were felt before, particularly during “Motive”, but they are brought to the foreground in “Unresolved” as Driver consults with Bullock about his old case. Josie is mostly unaware of him, being the first recruit assigned by Commissioner Akins instead of Gordon, so Driver informs her how “most of the squad are pretty divided on whether he did the right thing”. Sarge, an ex-partner of Bullock, appears the closest to him. On the other hand Montoya, also an ex-partner of Bullock, despises his “calculated” revenge and has cut him off completely. Driver himself is conflicted, understanding that Bullock did the wrong thing, but unable to help thinking it was deserved.

Bullock himself, though, is a complete wreck after his “retirement”. It seems this has less to do with ‘guilt’, and more his loss of purpose. Driver finds Bullock day-drinking at 2:30pm, telling old stories to the bartender and trying to recapture his glory days. Bullock has not moved on from the GCPD, but instead has festered in his worst habits. Bullock tells Driver it “takes more than a badge to make someone police”, still clinging to his old role as a cop despite official separation. And with his old case, Bullock uses it as an anchor-point back into police-work, telling Driver it “doesn’t just become your case ‘cause you want it, kid. This case owns me”. Maybe this would happened to anyone unable to resolve a case of dead high-schoolers. But for Bullock it’s only partially true, as any case would be a reminder and opportunity for him to claw back his prior ‘respectable’ status. A series of flashbacks might show Bullock haunted by the case, but they also show him during “Officer Down” and his current alcoholic squalor. Bullock sees this bombing as something to finally resolve, but also something to which to cling.

Most of the other detectives tolerate Bullock, even if they dismiss him, but Josie Mac is actively concerned about his behavior. Again, she is the first recruit not by Gordon, making her lack the same sentiment towards Bullock as the rest of the squad. While Driver toys with Bullock’s theories that the bombing was linked to the Penguin’s underground-gambling (reasoning he and the Mad Hatter are “both short little freaks who wear top hats”), Josie dismisses such ‘gut’ instincts. She points out the systemic flaws of protecting unstable ex-cops like Bullock, such as when Sarge dismisses charges against Bullock after he drunkenly assaults the Penguin. Gotham Central often portrays the M.C.U. as ‘good cops’ in a corrupt system, but “Unresolved” shows how they can perpetrate this very corruption. Josie understands the “old boy loyalty network” prevents internal reform, protecting rotten police like Bullock (no matter how ‘noble’ their intentions) until the whole squad is spoiled. It’s a defensive that insulates the system (kinda like Mad Hatter’s looping rhyme self-defense), preventing it from getting help. Including the troubled Bullock.

Josie also has a hidden difference, possessing a minor clairvoyant super-power. It is how she miraculously found Two-Face’s getaway car in “Half a Life”, her hidden coffee-cups in “Daydreams and Believers”, and the misplaced evidence in “Unresolved”. Although part of her character before joining Gotham Central, it has not yet been explained in the series itself. Instead it is shown from the outside, appearing to the other detectives and first-time readers as simply good luck. But perhaps this super-power just makes Josie even more skeptical of Bullock and his old-fashioned ways. Her own ‘gut’ is not her ‘gut’ but a power, but she knows Bullock lacks this ability. Instead his legendary persona is just an abusive outdated archetype, which needs to be retired.

The actual solution to the bombing lies in neither of Bullock’s original theories. Not in any connection to underground-gambling, nor as revenge from two “geeks” tormented by some of the baseball team. This second angle did lead Driver and Josie to the correct answer, as the two “geeks” knew Jervis Tetch before he became the Mad Hatter, when he was living in the boarding house of their friend Connie Littleton. It turns out Connie got pregnant with one of the baseball players, which her conservative mother Ellie took as rape, and used the Mad Hatter to kill the whole team. Connie says her mother lives “in her own little world”, and she’s presented as someone incredibly anachronistic, possibly not even accepting “integrated couples” in her boarding house. Ellie disparages against the ‘sins’ of the modern world, showing her own delusional world-view, one thoroughly shaped by outdated attitudes of the past.

As Ellie is being arrested, Bullock again goes after the Penguin. He is also shaped by false and outdated ideas. And the placement of this pursuit leaves no doubt that he is wrong. All the justifications of such old-school grizzled cops, the notion that ‘a tough job requires a tough man’, has been nullified. Bullock’s vigilante assault is utterly misguided, and his old-fashioned ‘gut instincts’ would have meant an ‘innocent’ person (the Penguin is innocent for ‘this’ at least) was murdered. When Driver and Josie are able to confront Bullock holding the Penguin hostage on a rooftop, they are able to break Bullock’s delusions about still being a heroic cop. He realizes that the past cannot be sustained, and therefore sees no future either; “there’s nothing left for me now”. In a parallel with “Unresolved”’s opening, the hostage situation turns into a suicide attempt. Although this time Josie is able to avert it, by shouting “Look! The Bat!”. Batman himself does not appear in “Unresolved” (becoming a prolonged absence from Gotham Central), but as always his reputation hangs around Gotham, enough to remind Bullock of the moral standards he’s supposed to uphold. Bullock hits rock bottom in “Unresolved”, but perhaps it’s the push he needs to get out of the past, and move on towards recovery.

A subplot throughout “Unresolved” has been Romy Chandler grappling with the hospitalization of her partner Nate Patton after the bombing in “Soft Targets”, his life support being turned off this story-arc. Like many others, Chandler has also been holding onto the past, obsessing over the incident itself. She tells Lt. Cornwell she will return to work after sorting Patton’s “unfinished business”, but we are shown (unlike Driver’s ex-partner in “Motive”) his clearance-board is empty. Chandler is grasping to his memory for its own sake, confronting Angie Molina (who Patton was rescuing from the bombing) about what actually happened that night, whether she was saved by Patton or Batman. Essentially, whether the GCPD means anything or not. But Molina was unconscious for most of it. Chandler cannot find any concrete resolution to her grief. Yet she is able to find some solace with Driver, to pick herself up and continue with the job. These characters cannot resurrect the past (lest it consume them), but they can steel themselves to attend another funeral, accepting the uncertain steps into the future, whatever the next case will be.

Gotham Central: The Unresolved (#19 - #22)

GOTHAM CENTRAL #19-22 “Unresolved”
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artists: Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano
Colorist: Lee Loughride
Letterer: Clem Robins
Editors: Matt Idelson and Nachie Castro
Writer Ed Brubaker begins a new chapter in the GOTHAM CENTRAL saga with "Unresolved" Part 1. Detective Driver finds himself in the middle of a hostage situation that quickly turns deadly, and the resulting investigation reveals a link to a ten-year-old mass-murder case and a disgraced detective not seen in the Bat-books in years: Harvey Bullock!
Buy It Digitally: Gotham Central Book Two

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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.