Gotham Central

[Magus]

So I just got done reading this great comic book series called Gotham Central that ran from 2003 to 2006, with 40 issues total. Basically it's a police procedural drama but within the Batman universe, focusing on the Major Crimes Unit of the Gotham police department. It's pretty interesting in that Batman is NOT a major factor in most of the stories, and it shows every day police officers having to deal with Batman villains like Mr. Freeze, Firebug, Two-Face, the Joker, and the Mad Hatter, in and amongst several more "normal" villains and murder mysteries, including corrupt cops and the like. It seems pretty unique for the scope of its cast, which numbers in something like a dozen detectives of the day and night shifts (though the main characters seem to be Renee Montoya, Crispin Allen, and Marcus Driver), all with different personalities and traits which set them apart. It's also interesting in how different story arcs interconnect and return to the spotlight after a few issues of their absence, but in a way that doesn't seem hackneyed or forced like a lot of comics series, especially longer running ones.

In a way, it's a shame that the series was canceled but due to its length it feels like a "complete" story instead of a never-ending series of "but he wasn't really dead!" Well, I mean, I guess they did bring back characters from this in further stories and so forth in other comic series, and the fate of one of the villains is left to some other comic book I'm not going to dredge up (a little internet research saved me the time and energy), and someone who dies is resurrected later. But taken in and of itself it forms a great narrative with a superb, non-cliche ending. I really liked it.

Couple of things I'd recommend, is if you're not into the entire DC universe thing, to skip issue 37, which was just a stupid Infinite Crisis tie-in. I have no real idea what the hell Infinite Crisis was but I'm sure it was dumb if it bears a similarity to "Crisis on Infinite Worlds" or whatever. In any case, 38 continues as if nothing has happened so it apparently had little bearing on Gotham Central's universe. Also, about halfway through the series something from the War Games arc changes how the department treats Batman, but it's explained pretty well within the series itself so you don't have to have read War Games to know what's going on (I personally have but that's one of the few regular Batman comic book arcs I've bothered to read, and it was pretty disappointing and disjointed all told). There's also some references to major characters who had something or other happen to them in the past but personally I thought it was pretty interesting to sort of piece together stuff I was unaware of from past comics, since it doesn't just come right out and say what Harvey Bullock did to get fired, for example. On the one hand it sort of acts like you'd already know it, but provides enough information eventually that if you don't, you do know it and it actually seems on purpose that it didn't just come out and tell you all of it at once.

Anyway, the question is, what with everyone's love of cop shows in the past decade, why this never came to television via the WB or CW. Well, Greg Rucka, one of the main writers, basically said that the WB would've produced the series in a heart beat, but due to the critical failure of the series Birds of Prey (which I was unaware of, I kind of wish I was still unaware of a series that starred Batman and Catwoman's super-powered child, urgh), stuff involving Batman was put on moratorium until 2005's Batman Begins, and has basically continued for TV related things involving Batman, despite Gotham Central fitting right in in tone with the current Nolanverse. Since it ended in 2006 it's not currently pulling in fans, either. However, if they were to make it into a series they'd have a full start and end-point for the plot and so it would probably be very easy to adapt and not be filled with horrible filler.

Anyway, check it out. Trade Paper Backs seem to skip some of the minor story arcs, so I'm not sure how you should read it (well, I know how I read it, but that's not legal so we can't talk about it, you know! Wait, I just did), since some of them seemed more than fine, and the final one doesn't even skip 37 like it probably should while skipping some of the others that didn't have a thing wrong with them as far as continuity and all. In any case, read as much of it as you can, it's a great series.