Cover Story - Top 12 Gotham Central Covers

Edited by Robert Beach 

Hello, and welcome to Cover Story, diving as little into the world of comics as possible. Fox’s Batman prequel show Gotham will be returning this Monday. While I have plenty of problems with Gotham, the basic premise of following the lives of normal police officers trying to deal with the crazy criminals and rampant corruption endemic to Gotham City is pretty great. In fact, I know that’s a great premise because DC comics made it into a superb comic book in the late ‘90s called Gotham Central.  

Gotham Central has done a lot in the modern era to shape the Batman supporting universe, giving focus to characters now considered a base element of the canon like Maggie Sawyer, Renee Montoya, and Harvey Bullock. What’s more, it’s just a superb comic that shows how interesting a story set in Gotham city can be without even needing the Batman.  Let’s dive into the shallow end and honor Gotham’s finest with the Cover Story on Gotham Central.

12.

Starting out slow, let's look at the strong, superb cover by Michael Lark. Part of what’s always made Gotham a compelling location in fiction is it has a definable aesthetic as a city.  Places like Central City or Metropolis tend to become interchangeable locations with any other metropolitan urban center, but Gotham stands out thanks to its blend of sleazy urban decay and gothic architecture. It doesn’t get more gothic than a graveyard in the snow.  

The visual of these rows and rows of crosses peppered with a worsening snowfall is a supremely beautiful example of Gothic art, and it’s place in defining Gotham. Additionally, we get a pretty nice rendering of Catwoman here too. I’ve never been a big Catwoman fan myself, yet this is still a cool visual for her stalking between Gotham’s dead on a cold winter’s night; you can almost feel the chill just looking at this cover. A lot of that is the excellent color work emphasizing a blue spectrum of color from the icy, pitiless blue of the sky to the deep abyssal blue of the tombstones. 

11.

This is honestly one of the creepiest Joker covers I’ve come across.  The Joker, as a character, is a massive can of worms to be unpacked another time, but I really like how much this image plays on the fact that we expect a certain level of announcement from him. If you look, the newspaper clippings behind Joker all talk about a murderous sniper killing indiscriminately through the city, though there’s no mention of it being the clown prince of crime. It’s like he’s adopted some camouflage as just another crook in a city full of criminals; some nameless killer that’ll fly under the radar of anyone who might have a chance in hell of actually stopping him. 

What’s more, the subtitle “Soft Targets” implies he’s going after people’s family members or loved ones. Something that’s all too in line with the Joker’s M.O. Every Joker story must define its place in the character’s massive history and this one seems to be grounded thoroughly around the period of Killing Joke only without the inevitably of Batman to keep us safe. The Joker finds his greatest edge against the Batman: anonymity. 

10.

One of the great things about Gotham Central is the way it played around with branching out into villains and characters beyond the Batman universe. For instance, Maggie Sawyer was originally part of the Superman mythos before immigrating to the Bat-verse as part of Gotham Central.  In the case of this cover, it’s setting up the arrival of a mildly obscure, but still excellent, Flash villain named Dr. Alchemy. 

The allusion is actually superbly hidden in this cover as the only clue to Alchemy’s involvement is that great background of the periodic table of elements. Combine that with the striking image of the beat cop on fire, and this is an expertly constructed cover. It's a great example of the modern style of blending representational covers and actual content from the story.

9.

I’m not sure if this is true for other Batman fans, but I’m a massive sucker for trophies and gadgets of captured Batman foes. I tend to think I’m not the only one given there’s an entire sub-basement of the batcave dedicated to trophies Batman stole from his enemies, for this cover brings up a pretty unique point on that front. Every day the GCPD have to deal with mind-control hats, machine gun umbrellas, freeze guns, and fear gas, so the question becomes where does that stuff all go?  

I like the presentation of the stuff here as a museum, even if things like Penguin’s umbrella should be kept in an impound.  Additionally, this covers features Renee Montoya. While I’m not a big fan of her as the Question, I still love her time on the force in Gotham Central. Her body language here adds a nice element of danger, keeping you on your toes despite the inherent goofiness of the fact she’s standing next to a lovingly preserved lime green bowler hat. 

8.

Just for the record, nearly all of these covers are the work of Michael Lark, even this one in which he shows off his excellent range. Lark’s work tends to embody a crooked jaggedness that comes with the territory of harsh and honest stories about the reality of being a normal person in a comic book universe. Here, he throws off those elements for a spectacular change of pace. The style is obviously cribbed from the classic DC Romance comics that punctuated a lot of the ‘50s. More specifically Lark echoes the work of Mike Sekowsky that was later used to form the basis of the works of Roy Lichtenstein. 

I’m not exactly sure there’s more to the stylistic flourish here than a fun affectation, but I enjoy a good shout out, especially to the more obscure elements of DC’s varied genre history. What’s more, I adore romance stories that involve Batman if only because trying to manage a love life and crime fighting is the whacky scenario that the caped crusader should be engaged in far more often. Like I said, this is a fun one. 

7.

This is our first non-Michael Lark cover, switching over to the work of Joshua Middleton who does a unique job following a similar aesthetic while informing it with his own sensibilities. As far as just baseline renderings of Batman go, this is a pretty good one. It avoids some of the over-muscled looks that plagues a lot of artists, and it tints the cape and cowl with a gray/blue palette that’s far too often underused. More so, I like the volumetric lighting complemented by the cloudy sky in the background.  

It’s hard to tell exactly when this is other than like the soul’s midnight I suppose, yet that blend of deeply brown and unnatural clouds with the single patch of light shining down on the dark knight’s cowl is really spot on. Also, the utility belt looks like it could hold stuff in this cover so that’s a big plus. Combine that with the very evocative subtitle, and this is a standout cover for a story that’s about Batman without needing to have Batman as its center character. 

6.

Even though it transpires, this isn’t the real Tim Drake. Sean Phillips' rendering of Dead Robin (that’s the actual name of the story) is striking and memorable. Again, this cover uses great light effects, especially in terms of how the single column of light informs the reader of this as some grimy alleyway without having to show you the full picture.  

What really sells this, however, is the content. Robins have always had a short lifespan (of the 5 major ones, 3 died on the job), so it’s thoroughly possible that lying dead in some anonymous alley really will be the ultimate fate of Tim Drake or Dick Grayson or whoever is unlucky enough to become Batman’s next adopted son/sidekick.  The cover also adds a very tricky subversion to that idea with Robin being found by some random patrol officer. As normally when Robin dies, Batman is on hand to cradle him dramatically.  Robin left alone and discarded in the streets of Gotham raises the very distressing question of where is Batman in all this? 

5.

Back to Michael Lark for another great example of blending literal content with metaphorical imagery. This is part 2 of that Flash villain crossover I mentioned earlier, as is probably indicated by the prominence of the Flash logo in the background of this cover. That big, iconic, block background is absolutely stunning and tragically underused. Far too often artists try to fall back on block colors when this symbolism is infinitely more memorable. Additionally, there’s the very freaky monster looking guy ripping out of his clothes in front of the Flash logo. 

What I like about this cover most is the unspoken sense of stakes raising that’s part of it. For all the bluster about Batman’s enemies, they’re a piece of cake for normal cops compared with the foes Flash or Superman deal with on a daily basis. The GCPD dipping into the Flash’s rogues gallery for an afternoon comes with a unique sense of “you don’t know who you’re f**king with” that this cover perfectly embodies. 

4.

I swear I get chills every time I see this cover. Even more than the Joker cover from this arc I showcased earlier, this embodies how terrifying criminal anonymity can be in the world of Batman. The unspoken truth of a lot of Batman foes is this: even though they’re crazy and occasionally have super powers, they’re so loud and larger than life and focused on killing Batman they’re not that threatening to the average citizen.  

Sure, Joker might pop on TV to announce he’s blowing up the city come midnight, but you basically know Batman will stop him.  However, some anonymous citizen just indiscriminately murdering people with a sniper rifle, a single violent soul lost amid all the gothic architecture and urban madness, that’s chillingly real and deadly. I can’t think of a more terrifying image than this just for how well that sniper rifle blends into the side of the building, the kind of death you never see coming till it’s far too late. 

3.

Back to Sean Phillips for this very fun dip into the DC universe.  While I’m not a big fan of the Teen Titans, I love the idea of them being dragged in by the GCPD for some innocuous crime.  Admittedly in story, they’re here as part of that whole Dead Robin investigation, but there’s nothing in this cover that inherently ties it to that truth. The idea of the Teen Titans going out joyriding or clubbing too hard to the point of needing to get busted by a bunch of hard-boiled Gotham cops is exactly the thing that makes the DC universe such a fun place to explore and develop.  

I admit, these aren’t the best renderings of these characters, mainly colored by the fact their expressions are all decidedly neutral. It’s still pretty great to get Kid Flash, Cyborg, and Wonder Girl together for a police line-up. Given Gotham Central basically ran off the idea of finding the humanity in the DCU’s emphasis on gods and myth, this is a perfect encapsulation of that idea. 

2.

Doesn’t look so scary now does he?  In all seriousness, ironically, I really like the realization of Joker in this cover for how different it is from the standard portrayal of the character in a modern context.  At time of writing, the Joker morphed into this all-powerful slasher killer who must always embody the most vile and sadistic aspects of humanity. It’s a pretty tedious characterization that’s done a lot to drain the comical elements of his character or even the sense he’s someone who might do anything that funny or silly.  

This cover takes the character right back to a Joker classic set-up of a bad comedian turned psycho-killer. His “making faces at the camera” joke is infantile and terribly outdated, but that’s true of all his jokes. From squirting flowers to joy buzzers, that’s the whole point of the Joker. Additionally, the idea of him as a guy who acts really silly despite being violent and deadly is way more interesting than the vision of him as just an out-and-out crazy killer. 

1.

Of all the Gotham Central covers, this is the one that feels the most iconic. The cover perfectly embodies what Gotham Central wanted to be and one of the only covers to turn a standard group shot into something special. Firstly, you’ve got the same shadowy shroud that elevates so much of Lark’s work on Gotham Central, giving us characters forced to exist at crooked angles caught between light and dark.  

More than that, the symbolism of this cover is so instantly striking and memorable it’s incredible. The bat symbol, the point where the world of the police ends and the world of superheroes begin, shines brightly into the night sky as Gotham’s finest stand defiantly in front of it. 

No costumes, no powers, not even any gadgets like the science police or S.H.I.E.L.D., just people unwilling to let the freaks and the super criminals make them live in fear. They’re basically knights in their own way, on the front lines where myth meets humanity and where humanity pushes back. 

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