DC Entertainment and Warner Brothers Television are going back to Batman’s roots this fall with their new show, Gotham. The series, set several years before Bruce Wayne makes his first appearance as the Caped Crusader, explores Batman’s world in its infancy. Jim Gordon, the erstwhile lawman and Batman’s trusted confidant, is just a rookie officer in the Gotham City Police Department and is several years away from becoming Commissioner. Batman’s world class rogues gallery doesn’t exist at this point either in the show’s narrative, giving viewers the opportunity to chronicle the likes of the Penguin, Catwoman, Poison Ivy and the Joker before they infamously rise to prominence and go on to terrorize the citizens of Gotham City and the DC Universe.
Gotham’s cast includes Ben McKenzie as Jim Gordon, Sean Pertwee as Alfred Pennyworth, and Jada Pinkett Smith as crime boss, Fish Mooney. The show will take its inspiration from the excellent Gotham Central, published by DC several years ago. Written by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka and drawn by Michael Lark, the comic focused on the members of the GCPD as they fought crime and occasionally came up against Batman’s arch enemies.
While DC and Warner Brothers will continue their assault on the silver screen with Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice in a couple of years, their quest to rule the small screen is in full swing. Alongside Gotham, DC will debut the new Flash series which was spun off from the highly successful, Arrow. The Flash will help establish some more of DC’s characters, with the recent news that Firestorm will be a part of the show. The excitement doesn’t stop there for fans of the DC Universe however, as it was announced during the San Diego Comic Con, that Green Arrow will get one of Batman’s iconic villains, Ra’s al Ghul for Season 3. If DC can continue the momentum generated by Arrow with its new shows and hit a home run on the big screen in 2016, it will be well on its way to challenging Marvel for television viewers and box office supremacy.
Check out the latest installment of Readers of the Lost Arc to read more about Gotham Central, the series that inspired the upcoming Gotham television show, in the September issue of Comix Asylum.
