Comics Rainbow - Gotham Central

Edited by Robert Beach 

Hello, and welcome to Comics Rainbow. This week has marked the return of Gotham, Fox’s well-intentioned if not terribly great Batman prequel show, to the airwaves. Though I’m not a huge fan of Gotham, I do get the impetus to do a show like it. Cop shows have been around more or less since the idea of “shows” came about. 

Batman’s relationship with the G.C.P.D. has always been fertile ground for storytelling. This has left the comics with a pretty expansive roster of cops to fill the ranks of Gotham’s character sheet, thanks in no small part to Greg Rucka’s excellent Gotham Central comic. So I decided today we’d get the full spectrum on the many members of the Gotham P.D. in all their shades, shames, and successes. 

I kind of doubt most folks know this guy actually exists, but he’s one of those weird characters who’s just recent enough to be worth talking about because he might show up again in future TV shows or the like. Something a lot of modern fans have come to accept is the idea Gotham has had multiple police Commissioners. This mostly attributes to the character of Commissioner Loeb from Frank Miller’s Batman Year One story. Akins was a more recent attempt at shaking up the Batman status quo by bringing in a new, young Commissioner who was more antagonistic in his relationship with Batman. 

I’m hard pressed to say if the Akins experiment ever could’ve worked given there’s never really been an extended period of time not focusing on Batman’s origin when Gordon wasn’t the commissioner. I like the idea, but it’s one of those comic pitches like New Krypton or Jane Foster Thor that comes with an expiration date. You know Akins isn’t going to last as Commissioner unless he REALLY takes off with the fans and his anti-Bat persona certainly wasn’t winning anybody over. 

His only real contribution to the Bat mythos was serving as Commissioner during the pretty solid Batman event comic War Games, yet even then he was more of an afterthought than the focus. Eventually, Akins was basically just shunted out of reality during Infinite Crisis, which has got to be the most damning form of job termination possible. 

This one comes with a bit of a caveat. Allen comes directly from Rucka’s Gotham Central where he became a key figure in the so-called Major Crimes Unit, a group of cops Gordon put together because he knew he could trust them to weed out corruption. Allen was a cool member of the team, which already had its eye firmly on diversity as a nice change of pace, but he didn’t really claw his way into my heart till he died. Allen ended up getting shot in the back by a dirty cop he was investigating. While that would’ve normally been the end of the story, this is the DC universe; death is a temporary inconvenience in this world.

After his death, Allen returned as the human vessel for the literal spirit of God’s vengeance the Spectre. I’m already a massive Spectre fan, but Allen is easily my favorite iteration of the character. We see his very human transition from reluctant good man to wrathful spirit of eternal ironic punishment. It’s a hell of a transition that featured some of the darkest and most horrific stuff you’ll ever see in a comic book, both in terms of the Spectre’s ironic punishments and the crimes. Crispus Allen is the most realistic and human depiction of what might actually happen if you afforded someone unlimited power to meet out justice against the worst of humanity.

Well, this isn’t going to win me any favors. Look, I know a lot of people really love Renee Montoya, and to a certain degree, I understand the appeal. Spawning out of the highly popular Batman Animated Series, Montoya is one of the few prominent Hispanic women in comics as well as a prominent gay character. Additionally, her transition from cop to The Question was a pretty smart lateral move as well as a great standout in the already beloved 52 comic series. But for me, I’ve just never been able to get over how whiny she is as a character.    

I get that’s kind of short sighted and a little “judging a book by it’s cover,” but it’s my list so whatever. My problem with Renee has always been this: whenever she shows up, she has a real problem getting the job done and tends to just sort of flounder about the main story. To be clear though, this is limited to her brief time as The Question as opposed to her time as an actual cop in the G.C.P.D. During her tenure in Gotham Central, she was pretty strong and solid, so maybe this is just a case of a character being slotted into the wrong situation.  

So far, Renee has yet to reappear in the New 52. And The Question seems to have reverted back to Vic Sage, the previous Question.  Maybe she’ll pop up in the wake of DC’s new Rebirth event. Hopefully, she'll just be a member of the GCPD again and not a superhero. Not everyone needs a cape. 

Who the hell else was it going to be? Commissioner Gordon has become such a centrally ingrained part of the Batman mythos and comics in general. He’s probably most people’s fundamental conception of a police officer. Gordon stands up there with John McClane and Dirty Harry as one of the most iconic and quintessentially realizations of the police, only without the angst loose canon baggage that McClane and Calahan bring with them.  There are a lot of reasons Gordon has become the ideal projected image of the police as public servants: his honesty, his strength in the face of insurmountable odds, or his integrity in working with the Batman, but I don’t think any of those are the main thing.

The main reason I think Gordon has become such an iconic conception of a police officer comes from his relationship with Batman, which is essentially that of a surrogate father. One of the key differences between DC and Marvel is the importance of family to the individual universes of these characters. Marvel heroes are defined by a sense of community and social circle all their own while DC heroes are all about family in a massive and definitive way. 

In terms of Batman, while he eventually grew into a paterfamilias in his own right, folks like Alfred and Commissioner Gordon serve as the “dads” of the franchise. That father figure position is something we really crave in representation of police. That’s why so many lead cops in serialized storytelling now like Flash, Supergirl, Brooklyn 99 are designed to be the “dad” of the show.  Alfred may be the official surrogate father of the Batman universe, yet Commissioner Gordon is right there with him, especially given he actually IS Batgirl’s dad. 

I love the entries where I get to be weird with my choices. Pettit was the head of G.C.P.D. SWAT during No Man’s Land, a year-long event where Gotham was declared no longer part of the United States following a catastrophic earthquake. While most citizens fled, there was a large contingent of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society who were left behind along with basically Batman’s entire rogues gallery. Additionally, a lot of the G.C.P.D. remained behind in an attempt to enforce order to the wasteland. Pettit was one of them for a while till things changed at about the 2/3rds mark for the series. 

One of the big problems in No Man’s Land was a lack of ammunition (literally). That all changed when it was revealed Pettit had a secret mass stockpile of ammo prepared way in advance of the entire situation. Allegedly, he had prepared a single bullet for every man, woman, and child in all of Gotham City, “just in case” he needed them.  It was a hell of a turn that actually split Pettit and his followers from Gordon’s group. I love this idea of Pettit because it makes the most sense as part of the Batman universe. 

See, every so often hack writers will saddled us with a story about some new vigilante who actually kills bad guys instead of arresting them, usually because of unresolved personal trauma. At this point in comics, it’s a pretty tedious storyline. Swapping out the whole “angsty troubled murderer vigilante” for a cop that’s just finally had enough of the sickos and the crazies of Gotham city slipping through the cracks in the justice system sounds great. Especially in today’s climate with major concerns about police misconduct and brutality, a villain like Pettit would be all to chillingly believable as a bad guy. 

Strap in, this is a weird one. Remember a couple entries earlier when I talked about how Crispus Allen was a dead G.C.P.D. cop who became the human embodiment of God’s vengeance? Well, Allen wasn’t the 1^st time that actually happened. See, back in the ‘40s when the character first appeared, The Spectre was just the ghost of a murdered cop named Jim Corrigan. For years, Corrigan existed as one of the few characters removed from a home city, always hovering under the dubious title of “a dead cop from a big city” while acting as the Spectre’s host. Eventually, Corrigan was replaced as the host of the Spectre by Green Lantern Hal Jordan, which is a whole different can of worms we’re not going into. That normally would’ve been the end of it. Here’s where I take issue.

Corrigan was revived as a Gotham City cop, in particular the corrupt cop that actually killed Crispus Allen, thus allowing him to become the new Spectre. Since then, Allen’s been quietly shuffled out of continuity, and Corrigan has resumed his place as the Spectre, now working as a black magic cop for the G.C.P.D. in the comic Gotham By Midnight. Cards on the table, I really don’t like this vision of The Spectre. It lacks the blend of hard-boiled cop fiction and grimy horror aesthetics that makes the character so great.  

Additionally, Corrigan functions now as an actual person, running around and having adventures with The Spectre just popping out from inside him on occasions, which feels like a real let down. The whole point of Crispus Allen’s Spectre was that to be The Spectre is like gazing into the abyss forever. Constantly vigilant, it doesn’t swallow you with how enticing it seems. Trading that idea for essentially R.I.P.D. is a big step down. 

Of all the characters that everyone just seems to want around, Harvey Bullock would not be my first guess. He’s actually more recent than a lot of folks tend to think. First appearing in the mid ‘80s, this makes Bullock unique as one of the few Gotham cops to not have been there from the beginning or pop up during Gotham Central. Before Bullock, the closest thing to his character could be considered Chief O’Hara from the Adam West Batman show, and he was a borderline offensive Irish stereotype that was only ever relegated to the TV series. 

Bullock’s whole thing is that he’s a cop who seems like he should be on the graft but isn’t. He’s loud, overweight, and incredibly belligerent. By all accounts, he should be in the pocked of half a dozen mob bosses. Shockingly, he remains one of the straightest arrows in the department. It’s pretty obvious what people like about him is his grumpy, schlubby guy demeanor. Aside from that, the particulars of his character are actually pretty fluid. In some comics, he’s actually a very smart and gifted detective who uses his slovenly manners as a Columbo style misdirect. Other times he’s basically just there because he’s Gordon’s right-hand man and the one guy who can be trusted in the department while other times he leads up manhunts against Batman. 

In a way, Bullock has become another cop archetype in his own right much like Gordon. Instead of the archetypal “cop as public servant,” Bullock is the cop it’s okay to laugh at. Whether it’s because he’s genuinely bumbling or just trying to get you to underestimate him, Harvey Bullock is the goofy, stumbling human face of the G.C.P.D.; no wonder this city needed a nut in a bat suit to clean it up. 

Maggie Sawyer’s another mid-80s cop. Unlike Bullock, she holds a unique role in the comic cop pantheon. For the longest time, Saywer served as part of the Superman supporting cast. Saywer was part of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, a department specifically equipped to deal with super criminals. She even appeared on Superman the animated series in that same capacity and marks one of the first openly queer characters to be featured in animation. Eventually, Maggie was transferred to the G.C.P.D. where she ended up a major reoccurring staple of Gotham Central and future queer standard barer Batwoman. In fact, Maggie eventually ended up getting married to Batwoman in a pretty awesome pairing as far as these things go. 

Aside from being a pretty kick-ass queer representative in DC comics, Maggie Sawyer holds a special place in my heart for how shockingly detailed her history and career actually are as law enforcement and as a person. The whole reason geeks like me get a kick out of continuity and lengthy character histories is because it makes it easier to get lost in the fantasy of the comics because they feel genuinely alive.  

The idea of Sawyer rising through the ranks in Metropolis before transferring to Gotham makes it feel like these worlds are genuinely connected in a more ground level way than usual.  What’s more, Gotham Central made a great point with her about how Superman’s presence in Metropolis shaped the situation with beat cops and corruption within the department. It turns out it’s way harder to get away with criminal misconduct when your superhero can see through walls and hear dust storms on Saturn. 

This is a bit of a weird one, but a personal favorite and a reoccurring condition to enough of a degree that it’d feel awkward not to mention it. Ever since the creation of Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) on the Adam West Batman show, the question of where she’ll go in the future has loomed over her character. While in some continuities she continues as Batwoman, the Batman Beyond universe imagined her eventually becoming Commissioner in her own right. That's an idea Grant Morrison later adopted in his vision of a Gotham where Bruce’s son Damian Wayne became Batman. 

The idea of Barbara as a new Commissioner Gordon for a new future has only gained traction, and it’s easy to see why. A lot like Maggie, the big reason I like this idea is because it makes the universe come off more real and texture as it features a character actually aging and changing as a person. That’s part of why a lot of fans treasure stuff like Dick Grayson development from Robin into Nightwing or Spider-Man’s graduation from high schooler to college student to full staffer at the bugle. 

Look, I’m already an absolute sucker for Barbara Gordon stories, especially ones where she remains differently-abled as opposed to the miracle healing New 52 pulled to get her back in the Batgirl costume. Barbara’s relationship to the Batman family has always emphasized the fact she walks in two worlds, both a child of Batman’s philosophies and iconography while also very much tied to legitimate crime fighting through her father Commissioner Gordon. 

Crowning off that complex relationship with Barbara abandoning her connection to Batman to embrace her father’s legacy, even going so far as to actively fight against new incarnations of Batman on several occasions, is the progression that feels harsh yet honest. This is much like the transformative stories that shaped Barbara’s transition from Batgirl to Oracle in the first place. 

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