Gotham City: Year One #1

[laughing_tree]

[My editor] said go into Detective before the 27th issue and find something there that’s interesting. So I went and found the best I could and here’s the basic problem with those first 26 issues: Oh my god, they’re racist. They’re like super-racist. […] Most of the heroes are just generic white guy #23 just beating up lots of brown people. So it was an immediate, “Oh, crap, what do I do with this?" -- Tom King

Comments

[leahandillyana]

That's the best summary of like the whole first decade of Detective Comics tbh.

[tcampbell1000]

This is pretty good, overall. Plays to King's strengths. The notion of going back to the days when people didn't see Gotham as either one big Crime Alley or a supervillain-encrusted hellhole is interesting, and the way those people think it needs to be "saved" from undesirables is a dark mirror of Batman's more noble attempt to save it from corruption and supercrime.

I do have to wonder about the chronology we're working with here: Slam Bradley was an experienced detective in the...1930s, if we're channeling his original publication dates? And now he's talking with Batman, or maybe this talk happened when Batman was just starting out? Seems like he'd still be at least 100, and he's a pipe smoker? But that's comics for you.