Gotham Central: Soft Targets - part 1

[espanolbot]

The story begins with the Mayor of Gotham City and Commissioner Atkins getting into another arguement. The Mayor wants to cut the amount of money the City is paying the GCPD, particularly in overtime, and says that people like the Major Crimes Unit just abuse it to line their wallets. Atkins (knowing that the Mayor is pretty open about receiving the likes of paid holidays from LexCorp) points out that by cutting overtime means that people will have to walk out at the end of their shifts regardless of where they are in an investigation and will contribute to the corruption problem that already has the GCPD marked as the second worst in the US.

The conversation comes to an abrupt hault when a sniper blows the Mayor's head off in front of the Commissioner, via someone shooting through one of his office windows with a highpowered rifle. The MCU are quickly called, some dryly commenting that they are technically on overtime now as they were just about to go home when the call came in and other muse whether the Mayor's dirty deals may have come back to bite him in the ass.

Thought that this might be due to the Mayor being a corrupt asshat are quickly put on the backburner though, when it turns out that a school superintendant has been shot in the same manner while leaving a highschool he was inspecting. This causes the standard media hullaballo, whether it's an antigovernment militia or spree killer on the loose, but some hours later when the press are gently but firmly hustled away so that the forensics people can get to work, so they learn that the situation is actually far, far worse.











After checking the building and finding that the Joker's already done a runner, the team call back to HQ where they tell Lieutenant Probson (their main boss Captain Maggie Sawyer is giving a press conference) that this is the Joker going on another crime spree. Probson quickly grabs Stacy, their temp and the only one allowed to operate the batsignal as she's not an official member of the GCPD, and drags her up to the roof to turn the signal on, even though they need the Commissioner's permission to do so.

This being the Joker they're dealing with (and this storyline being one of the inspirations behind his portrayal in the Dark Knight), it turns out that they weren't the only one who realised that someone might attempt to do just that...

Comments

[pyynk]

Slowly, but surely getting this series in trade. I really regret not picking it up in issues.

[espanolbot]

The deluxe volumes include all the issues of the series, but not the connecting issues from other titles. Which means that it has things like the oneshot with the corrupt cops coming a cropped by Poison Ivy, and the issue Stacy narrates, but not the Cataclysm tie-in that started Two-Face's fixation with Renee Montoya.

[pyynk]

Deluxe volumes? Any way you could toss up a link?

In Order...

[espanolbot]

In the Line of Duty
http://www.amazon.co.uk/In-Line-Duty-Gotham-Central/dp/1401220371/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347316661&sr=8-1

Jokers and Madmen
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jokers-Madmen-Gotham-Central-Brubaker/dp/1401225438/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347316661&sr=8-2

On the Freak Beat
http://www.amazon.co.uk/On-Freak-Beat-Gotham-Central/dp/1401232329/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1347316661&sr=8-7

Corrigan
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gotham-Central-Deluxe-Corrigan-Bk/dp/0857681885/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1347316661&sr=8-3

Re: In Order...

[mrstatham]

Well, thank you. I've been trying to find the correct versions of the paperback deluxe editions for a while now, but Amazon usually throws up the earlier versions and other languages for me. So I definitely appreciate you digging those up.

[anothermoviegeek]

"Cataclysm tie-in that started Two-Face's fixation with Renee Montoya."

Technically it was a No Mans Land tie-in in Batman Chronicles #16 and then the Two Face sending Renee flowers for her birthday Detective Comics #747. IIRC those were included in the 'Half a Life' TPB of Gotham Central.

[randyripoff]

Such a good series. As a fan of police procedurals, I loved this comic. Shame it didn't sell well enough to continue.

[aulayan]

Actually Brubaker went to Marvel, and it was decided to end it rather than continue without his voice. (He and Rucka co-wrote the series).

[randyripoff]

You're correct as I'm remembering that now. Shame too, as I preferred Brubaker's take to Rucka's. Still a great series, and I wish there was something like this around now.

[espanolbot]

Marvel, in their infinite and follow-the-leaderish wisdom, did attempt to copy Gotham Central into one of their X-Men affiliated books, District X, which was about cops attempting to police a neighbourhood populated mostly by mutants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_X

Don't know how good it was though, to be honest. Never seen the trades anywhere and I don't care about Marvel enough to hunt them down.

[mrstatham]

I think it was another book that a - didn't do too well to begin with and b - got derailed by House of M.

[red_cyclone]

Man I misss working in a comic shop, this is one of the many series I read but now can't afford to buy to reread, these scans have realy made me miss it though, potential Christmas present I think.

[shadur]

... It's almost three seconds before I realize that Batman deliberately jumped them because he figured (correctly) that the Joker had them in his sights the whole time and was waiting for Batman to show up before pulling the trigger.

Because gunning down the people asking him for help is more fun when you do do it just when he arrives.

Ugh.

(That's not a comment on the writing, which is excellent throughout, but on just how sick and sadistic the Joker really is)

[espanolbot]

And the Joker was deliberately trying to shoot Stacy on the basis that her death would screw up the MCU more than Probson's (which traumatises her, especially when he meets her again later in the story...).

[bradygirl_12]

The GCPD is the second most corrupt Police Department in the U.S.? Good lord, what's the first?

[espanolbot]

Hub City, the place where the Question is from. It's pretty much the Detriot to Gotham's New York in that's a former industrial town that's rapidly gone to the dogs extremely fast.

While the Mayor of Gotham gets free holidays from LexCorp in exchange for greasing the wheels of their business in Gotham, the former Mayor of Hub used to hold cocaine parties in City Hall, hired assassins like Lady Shiva to openly murder anyone that spoke out against him and once had to hire motorcycle gangs like the Hell's Angels since the HCPD was so lack in what they were allowed to do.

[bradygirl_12]

Yikes! I guess that tops it! :)

Though I suppose Bludhaven might get Honorable Mention. ;)

[espanolbot]

Bludhaven at least managed to function at least somewhere near passable standards for a major city, in Hub they didn't even have money to spare after the Mayor and his cronies took their cut of the city's funds to even pave the streets properly.

[bradygirl_12]

Hmm, sounds like my hometown! ;)

[damar148]

Wasn't Nora the same woman who's husband was killed by Freeze?

[espanolbot]

Yup, one of the cops in the next issue cracks a joke about how she's got "Gotham luck" right after Driver arrives back at the MCU, still covered in her blood, so he gets punched in the face.