This week on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the Major Spoilers Crew dive into Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka’s Gotham Central in Book One: In the Line of Duty.
The first ten issues of the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning series is collected in hardcover for the first time! Written by Ed Brubaker (Captain America) and Greg Rucka (Detective Comics, 52), this series pitted the detectives of Gotham City’s Special Crimes Unit against the city’s greatest villains – in the shadow of Batman himself.
This volume collects two cases of the Gotham Special Crimes Unit. In the first, a cop is killed by Mister Freeze, and the squad is in a race against time to bring him in without the help of the Dark Knight. In the second story–the acclaimed, award-winning “Half a Lifeâ€â€“Detective Renee Montoya is outed as a lesbian and finds her work environment and personal life turned upside down. Things only become more complicated when she’s kidnapped by Two-Face. This debut volume features an introduction by acclaimed mystery author Lawrence Block.
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2 Comments
One of my favorite series to date and right up there with Watchmen and Y: The last man. Gotham Central delivers believable characters and great stories in a really interesting format (considering its a sorta blend between the Brubaker supercrime story and the more typical crime TV show school of storytelling. Not that it feels like a gimped TV show… Its actually better than most and it feels more like a noir novel rather than Law and Order at times, while obviously still being Comic-esq..in a good way not in a CSI Miami way…which is more comical…in a sad way, like a dead clown.
Its also interesting to see Gotham, superheroes and super villains from a new and interesting angle. I remember reading Runaways and going OMG it Spider-Man when they met Spider-Man…Why would i do that?…The contrast and the new angle is the answer, suddenly Spider-Man is a legend not just the comic relief of the Avengers. And this series does exactly that every time it jumps from the incredibly well written crime stuff and into the fantastical superhero stuff…And both sides gain from it. Its like Marvels wrapped in Noir covered in Law and Order, boxed inside a Batman comic and buried in DCU sauce, with the cherry on top being the well written crime drama i rarely see outside of Dexter.
In conclusion: GC is a series using the well know “everyman’s POV” element (which i love) But with the addition of genuinely great…nay BRILLIANT art storytelling, characterization and setting (AND Gotham Police Department…I mean can ya think of a better concept) I love Batman, police procedural shows, i love crime fiction, i love noir, i love Brubaker…and i loooooove this series and its characters.
Oh and guys you don’t have to review the whole series but one day you have to read and discuss the ending….Only comic death in history i actually had a reaction to other than meh.
This was the book that made me take notice to Brubaker in the comics industry. It doesn’t really feel like a Super Hero comic book… It reads more like burn notice with Law and Order and some super heroes thrown in the mix.
The fact that this book struggled to gain an audience in the floppy releases really surprises me, but the fact that sales began to pick up soon after the trade was sent out proves what impact the TPs can have on the industry’s buyers.
Overall, Gotham Central trully excellent Batman comic and a worthy introduction to Brubaker for people that want to get a feel for his writing style before they dive into Captain America.