Why is Gotham such a crap hole?
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
Well, people still live in New Orleans... Let's look at some of Gotham's problems:
High crime rate? Check.
Giant Natural Disaster leading to third world anarchy? Check.
Corruption on every level, especially the police force? That's a big check!
Weird costumed people running the streets at night? Check.
High crime rate? Check.
Giant Natural Disaster leading to third world anarchy? Check.
Corruption on every level, especially the police force? That's a big check!
Weird costumed people running the streets at night? Check.
Well, people still live in New Orleans... Let's look at some of Gotham's problems:
High crime rate? Check.
Giant Natural Disaster leading to third world anarchy? Check.
Corruption on every level, especially the police force? That's a big check!
Weird costumed people running the streets at night? Check.
High crime rate? Check.
Giant Natural Disaster leading to third world anarchy? Check.
Corruption on every level, especially the police force? That's a big check!
Weird costumed people running the streets at night? Check.
I don't think Gotham's actually that bad. The audience is shown what Gotham is like in Batman's mind, colored by his personal tragedy: a random act of violence that could happen anywhere, not a systemic problem the city was having. And with all of the action taking place at night, it's easy to start thinking of Gotham as rather dismal.
I wouldn't want to live in Gotham.
From the end of the first film, Joker was already active and not really (or just barely) inspired by Batman; the mob feeling pressured led them to accept more desperate measures but Joker's ambitions would have likely steadily increased regardless.
Part of the problem with Gotham and Batman in general is the very nature of his mission...his never ending war on crime. Batman is one individual who has decided to spend his entire life to rid a nearly impossible concept. There will always be crime. In Gotham City the crime level is high. Recently while watching a walk through for Arkham City or perhaps it was a review for Arkham Aslyum I can't remember now the person stated that crime created Batman, he didn't create crime. I tend to agree with this statement in the question of if Batman makes things worse due to his presence. Crime existed before Bruce Wayne was born and it will exist after he is long gone. The point of Batman is that he will be there to fight it no matter what.
I think the point of the film's finale -- as clearly stated in the dialogue -- is that the Joker's emergence was a response to Batman's emergence. When crimefighting became more theatrical and proactive through Batman, crime responded in kind through the Joker. True, the potential for it already existed -- see Ra's al Ghul and the Scarecrow -- but by clearing out the mob, Batman left a power vacuum in the underworld and the Joker emerged to fill it.
As for Gotham, its portrayal has varied over time. I believe the idea of Gotham as a perpetual cesspool of corruption is pretty much a creation of Frank Miller in Batman Year One. Sure, there were stories before that about corrupt Gotham political figures like Rupert Thorne and Hamilton Hill, but I don't think it was until BYO that we saw the codification of the notion that Batman needed to exist because the establishment was totally compromised by crime and incapable of fighting it. From the '40s through at least the early '70s, Gotham was portrayed as a perfectly healthy, prosperous city with responsible, upstanding leaders, and Batman was simply a member of the establishment whose methods for fighting crime were somewhat more advanced and flamboyant than those of the police.
And the portrayal since then of Gotham as perpetually corrupt and decaying is, I think, kind of missing the point of Miller's seminal works. The Dark Knight Returns was meant to show a dystopian possible future for Gotham, one that had fallen apart after Batman's retirement and needed him to return in order to save it, while BYO represented how bad Gotham was before Batman came along and cleaned things up. In both cases, I believe, the idea was meant to be that Gotham was only this bad in the absence of Batman, that having him around made things better. But the later comics writers who were falling all over themselves to imitate Frank Miller missed this point and portrayed Gotham as a perpetual disaster area no matter what Batman did. Which does kind of undermine Batman as a character.
Refresh my memory, but did they ever mention where Joker was or what he was doing prior to The Dark Knight? Committing crimes in Star City or Metropolis perhaps?
Yeah, but the dangerous part of DC is very small and tourists don't go there. The rest of the city is fine.
Don't joke! I have a feeling that we'll learn of a Joker-League of Shadows connection in TDKR.
In the cancelled continuity, an evil Wizard slept underneath Gotham for thousands of years, his dark dreams just generally bringing everyone down. When he awoke he called himself Doctor Gotham, and was the main foil of Shadowpact (like an older version of Justice League Dark). Shadowpact had Ragman on team rotation, who's another Gotham vigilante, but cooler.
^So you're saying their actual canonical explanation was "A wizard did it?" 
"Cancelled continuity". I like that. Haven't heard it described like this before lol.
In the "cancelled continuity", there was also a story which basically suggested that a "demon did it" - more or less. In the 18th Century, a demon called Barbathos was raised by a group of Satanists in an old house, who then freaked out and fled. He was trapped in suspension due to the unfinished ritual, and, in his own words: "My heart, kept locked in this pit. While all around me, Gotham grew. And grew. Like my own body, expanding year by year, my blood and seed mixed with the mortar, my breath in the mud and the sewers and the buildings great and small; my spirit in every brick, in every inch of timber. The whole city a misshapen echo of my own desolation..."
It isn't made exactly clear the extent the influence Barbathos has on Gotham, but it is clear that his presence made it a place that breeds and attracts evil.
The story was "Dark Knight, Dark City" by Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyer; it may sound a bit weird, but it's well worth reading and a favourite of mine. It was recently released as a DC Comics Presents mini-trade, but I recommend getting the original issues (Batman 452-454) for those lovely Mike Mignola covers.
It isn't made exactly clear the extent the influence Barbathos has on Gotham, but it is clear that his presence made it a place that breeds and attracts evil.
The story was "Dark Knight, Dark City" by Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyer; it may sound a bit weird, but it's well worth reading and a favourite of mine. It was recently released as a DC Comics Presents mini-trade, but I recommend getting the original issues (Batman 452-454) for those lovely Mike Mignola covers.
