Gotham Central, Case by Case: CORRIGAN II
The final entry in our Gotham Central: Case by Case series uses the last arc, Corrigan II, to explore the themes and ideas that have been present in this run from its beginning.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
The second-to-last edition of Gotham Central: Case by Case is here, and it’s focused on the one-shot story SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, an Infinite Crisis tie-in that delves into religion.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: DEAD ROBIN
Our Gotham Central - Case by Case series continues today with a look at the penultimate arc of the book, Dead Robins, in which a serial killer is dressing his victims up as the Boy Wonder.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: KEYSTONE KOPS
“Keystone Kops” is another tragic tale, wherein early on Batman appears 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.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: ON THE FREAK BEAT
Late in “On the Freak Beat”, Josie Mac shares with Detective Driver some illicit photographs of their recent murder victim, the televangelist Reverend Buford Pressman….
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: LIGHTS OUT
With Gotham Central being a series that is all about the police and their relationships with Batman, “Lights Out” explicitly redirects conversations towards Batman’s status as vigilante.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: CORRIGAN
By Bruno Savill De Jong — Before now, Jim Corrigan has appeared in the background picking through crime scenes of Gotham Central, collecting evidence and providing forensic analysis as a C.S.U. of the GCPD. In “Corrigan” he comes to the foreground, with a Gotham Central storyline where numerous established themes start to coalesce. It is a half-way point that connects the previous issues to a thread crucial for the book’s ultimate ending. Here, the GCPD corruption creeping around the edges of Gotham Central shows its clearest form yet. The previous “Unresolved” arc brought a reminder of Harvey Bullock’s old-fashioned self-justified corruption. Now “Corrigan” shows this corruption as a still-present part of the system, a toxic element that hinders even the ‘righteous’ elements within the department.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: UNRESOLVED
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.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: LIFE IS FULL OF DISAPPOINTMENTS
By Bruno Savill De Jong — Life is Full of Disappointments is an odd storyline. It feels almost purposefully removed from the tapestry of Gotham Central, downplaying the immersive world-building that was central to all the previous issues. Gotham Central might make minimal use of Batman, but Life is Full of Disappointments has zero Batman, nor any ‘freaks’, nor (nearly) anything connected to Gotham’s ‘culture’. Even the recognizable detectives from Gotham Central itself (Montoya, Driver, Josie Mac) are dropped to foreground the underdeveloped police from the Major Crimes Unit, the three issues rotating in a new pair of detectives to examine the case.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: SOFT TARGETS
By Bruno Savill De Jong — While Half a Life is Gotham Central’s famous storyline that examines the weight of Gotham upon a single cop, Soft Targets is another popular plotline that examines a single case’s impact upon the whole city. Over Christmas, Gotham is gripped by a supervillain’s terrorist threat. Now, that might sound like a typical superhero set-up. Indeed, Tom King did exactly this in The War of Jokes and Riddle (Batman Vol. 3, #25-32) a few years ago. But while I like that storyline, Gotham Central, well, centralizes Gotham in a way mainstream Batman titles cannot
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: DAYDREAMS AND BELIEVERS
By Bruno Savill De Jong — Following the long dramatic storyline of “Half a Life”, it seems the single-issue “Daydreams and Believers” will be a relaxing break. Brian Hurtt temporarily replaces Michael Lark with a softer and rounder art-style, and Lark himself gives an Alex Toth/John Romita Sr/Romance Comics tribute cover between Batman and Stacy, a fantasy which loosely frames the story. Stacy, the GCPD’s secretary, narrates “Daydreams and Believers” (a focused focalization rare to Gotham Central), which operates like a backdoor-introduction to the GCPD staff seen from her perspective.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: HALF A LIFE
By Bruno Savill De Jong — During her morning jog, Renee Montoya is approached by a stranger. Moving from her familiar neighborhood where she lives into an isolated park, Renee is asked to identify herself. Identity and recognition are core concepts of Gotham Central, a series about what it means to ‘be a cop’ in Gotham, especially when your efforts are overshadowed by symbolically masked vigilantes. Detective Driver, our de facto protagonist for the preceding issues, is so desperate for the efforts of the GCPD to simply be ‘seen’. Now whether she likes it or not, Montoya is dragged into the spotlight, as Gotham Central strays from procedural casework into an interpersonal storyline, where Renee herself is at the centre of the investigation.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: MOTIVE
By Bruno Savill De Jong — “The problem with motiveless crime is that there’s always a motive”, Detective Marcus Driver tells his temporarily assigned partner Romy Chandler, “we just can’t see it. ‘Cause no one kills someone with no reason”.
Read MoreGotham Central, Case by Case: IN THE LINE OF DUTY
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.
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