New To You Comics #137: The Right To Remain Silent With ‘Gotham Central’

Everyone has different tastes in comics. With New To You Comics, we explore that as Tony and Scott dive into comics that, well, it’s right there in the column title. This week, it’s time to shut down the bat signal and tackle protecting Gotham City differently. 

Gotham City attracts many types of criminal activity, from standard thieves to gangsters to those of the supervillain variety. Batman can’t be everywhere at once, even with a whole army/family of allies. That’s where the Gotham City Police Department, chiefly the Special Crimes Unit, comes into play. 

Gotham Central ran from 2002-2006 by writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, who were no strangers to Batman or his city, and drawn by Michael Lark. Starring a handful of established characters (Renee Montoya, Maggie Sawyer) alongside those who were relatively new (Crispus Allen, Commissioner Akins) or brand new, the series was a police procedural that took the police from their Batman support role to a starring role. Even without a starring role for the Bat or any bat-family member, it ran for a hefty forty issues before it came to an end in time for the line-wide changes following Infinite Crisis. 

Note: Our discussion covers the first four issues of the series included in Gotham Central Book One: In The Line Of Duty which collects the first ten issues.

Scott Redmond: Batman and police are pretty much like peanut butter and jelly, a classic pairing that likely won’t ever go out of style. 

This is another one of those titles that has been on my reading list for many years (I’ve had the digital edition of the first volume since 2019). Seems to be a theme in the things we have covered lately, which is good and amusing. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this one, even in recent times where attitudes around police and police procedurals have shifted amongst some audiences. How about you Tony, is this a fresh read for you or a return to the series?

Tony Thornley: I might have read an issue or two years ago, but I’m almost certain this is completely fresh for me. And I’ll say this- Batman has a copaganda problem in general, but this book just nails it. For a book from 2002, it doesn’t shy away from the problems with modern policing while also remaining a smart, tense mystery procedural. Even better, it does it with almost zero established characters.

I absolutely loved this book.

Scott: Amazing how a book in 2002 came at the issue of police with such an eye, yet the most recent attempt within the Batman line felt pure blue line copaganda just from reading the solicits. Maybe it wasn’t, I’ve never looked at nor read the book, but based on heavy cop focus that came in I Am Batman (from the same writer) I’m betting I’m not far off. 

Anyway, back to the actual cop book we’re talking about. I’m right there with you on actually really liking this one. Honestly I was not sure how I would feel about it, despite all the good things I’ve heard. I thought it would be one of those books that had I read it at the time I would have loved but being older, more cynical, and aware of the world at large I’d be like “Ehhh.” Nope! This 100% feels like a “they don’t make them like this anymore” situation, even though I don’t always buy that sentiment.

Tony: Oh absolutely. It helps that this is written by probably the two best crime writers that have even written comics. Rucka and Brubaker capture the just right mixture of character beats, action, detective work, and world building. And it’s weird to say that about a Batman book, but they do tons to show what being a cop in Gotham is like. One officer is killed by Mr. Freeze, the department legally can’t light the Bat-signal so they hired someone, there’s an unwritten disgust towards Metropolis cops, because Superman makes it easy on them. There’s SO much here that makes this world so interesting, and it already was.

Scott: Loved that bit with the bat signal assistant. I had forgotten this was during a rough period of time for the Bat/Cop relationship. Like you said, it feels so real to how cops would act if some cowl wearing vigilante was always stepping in. 

A huge part that helps is the gritty street feeling that Lark has in the artwork. It just feels exactly what I would expect from a book of this nature. Pairing the right artwork with the right story is not always a simple thing, plenty of books have missed the right pairing. A tonal mismatch that is no fault of anyone involved, just not two flavors that work. Sometimes even pairings that work beautifully, there is room where another vastly different style could still make the story work. 

I’m going to go out on the limb and say there are very few styles that would work the same here. My feeling is this is one of those stories that needs the rough, gritty, or even exaggerated types of artwork. No house style clean smooth superhero stuff would work here. 

Tony: Or cartoony, ultra-expressive or stylized art either. Lark does so much stunning work here. It’s kind of surprising that he didn’t do a significant Batman run before or after. Though he did do Daredevil with Brubaker, which share a lot of DNA.

To me, Lark makes the book feel like a police procedural. Something like Law & Order SCU. He paces the layouts like storyboards for a TV show. His point of view is never overly dynamic, except when the scene really calls for it. His characters are always realistic, and very human- even Mr. Freeze.

I don’t think there’s an aspect of this book I disliked. It’s always smart, tense, and never slows down. In fact, the pacing is just right. It acknowledges the issues with detective work- particularly that it can be slow with lots of dead ends- but the way it’s written and drawn it’s still tense and interesting.

Where did you land on it?

Scott: It’s just such a solid package all around. On the one hand it’s totally what one probably would have expected the TV show Gotham to be, though the absurdity and “Screw it, let’s just bring all the villains” attitude made me love that show more. 

To your point, the case the force had been on before their officers were killed gets taken from them and has a poor end of its own. Only Batman’s appearance saved anything, and even though my attitude toward cops is less than pleasant, you can sort of feel for the characters. Having a job and feeling there are things you are supposed to do, but no matter how hard you try it’s rough and hard and someone outside of it keeps getting all the credit and “wins” for lack of a better term. 

There is little doubt that I’m not going to devour the rest of this book, and series, ASAP. 

Thanks for joining us folks, next time we’re leaping over to a little place in Westchester as a new era for mutants begins with the seminal New X-Men: E Is For Extinction!