4 crampons out of 5

It’s must be hard to have great ideas at the big publishers.  You’ll get a greenlight from whoever greenlights things who is passionate about your project, but regardless of how big a name is attached to the book, when sales flounder (as they often will if Wolverine isn’t tearing things to shreds), the book will be requested for a revamp, or a crossover, or it will just get canceled.  We’ve all seen some favorite titles go this way.  At the time of Gotham Central, Brubaker and Rucka were well known but still up and coming.  Both writers had poked around in Batman history, but Brubaker wasn’t yet the go-to noir guy and Rucka had yet to be wrapped up in 52 and similar events.  So it was enough to say, yes, go ahead and write Gotham Central, which will focus on the Gotham Central Police Department and not Batman.  But it was not enough to keep it alive beyond 40 or so issues, despite conceding to some big name cameos and crossovers.

This was one of the few series that hooked me with a preview in another book.  The opening pages of Gotham Central were previewed in several DC books at the time.  I had not seen Michael Lark’s amazing artwork at that point which, to date, is still my favorite version of that heavily shadowed realism look.  Other artists using this method – including Sean Phillips – range from one end of the scale to another, too detailed or too sketchy.  Lark’s style leans more toward realism but his shadows breathe an erratic energy, really giving each panel a perfect sense of movement and weight without using the photo references that can make realism styles too rigid.  It impressed the hell out of me panel by panel even in that preview, and the story promised a street level view of the after effects of Batman’s rogues gallery, which seemed like a cool spin well suited to Brubaker’s and Rucka’s common-man story telling styles.

When the series arrived, it wavered a bit before finding its feet.  The initial story – by the two writers together – was obviously just a taste, showing us our principles and how the department interacts with Batman.  It’s a very quick story about Mr. Freeze that starts with a bang and then seems to fizzle out at the end.  But it was a bid for attention, and the series would settle down into a more procedural feel afterward, when Rucka would take over writing the morning squad and Brubaker the night, switching off for story arcs.  The next arc is a minor Brubaker tale about trying to track down a literal firebug – the DC villain Firebug’s suit has been sold online.  It’s a good story but still feels like a step down from the potential high drama to be found in the formula.  Then Rucka returns to one of his old story haunts from No Man’s Land – Detective Montoya and Two Face.  It gets to stretch over several issues and is proof of Rucka’s skill for fleshing out characters but, again, still feels unlike what the series promised, as the focus is narrow and not on the GCPD as a unit.

Ten issues in and I’m still saying it’s so-so?  My bar for books is normally three issues.  If you haven’t impressed me by then, it’s over.  Gotham Central was impressing me, I just thought it was capable of more.  And: from the next arc on until near the end of the book’s run, it becomes fantastic – a police procedural with a great huge cast and a background of superheroes, giving us, as human readers, a place in the big world of Superman and Batman.  The alternating format the writers take is perfect, never bogging us down in anything too convoluted.  The villains actually feel threatening, something that’s hard to make matter in the big titles, because the stories promote that you can’t hope to stop these people, only contain the damage.  And the interactions with Batman also take on a more appealing format – he skulks around in corners when needed, but isn’t the savior of the day.  In the modern era we’ve gotten many titles that hope to explore the “dark side” of characters who have had their dark sides explored a million times over, or force realistic constraints on them to show that we know heroes would be problematic in the real world.  Some of these books have been great, but overall, we want Batman to be Batman and Superman to be Superman.  Gotham Central avoids this by dealing with humans.  It’s the same style that’s worked so well for Law and Order over the years, and so it should be no surprise to say that GC would make an amazing TV show.  But it would probably be ruined by what would happen towards the end of the series – people like Batman, so let’s put more Batman in it.

Countdown / 52 began to happen and Michael Lark would leave the title to Stefano Gaudiano.  Stefano did great work, but being sketchier lost some of stability that Lark added to the title.  GC was always a fan book (non hero books usually are), so it was always on the edge of cancellation, despite great press.  Batman starts to pop up more frequently toward the end.  Then the book had a countdown crossover issue.  It’s handled well within the context of the series, but it was still a sign of a book on it’s last legs, and, lo, it ended soon after.  But perhaps it was for the best, because it’s hard to maintain quality in an ongoing.

Brubaker and Rucka have written some of my favorite titles.  They made their names with crime influenced books, and Gotham Central gave them a cool opportunity to bridge the gap between that and the spandex world.  It stumbled to find its direction at first but would have a good solid 30 issues of amazing crime / noir with a great twist of the fantastic.