Gotham Central: Still Relevant, 10 Years Later

Gotham Central was an oddball idea back in 2002: a book focused on the Gotham City Police Department, with no Batman, starring minor characters like Detectives Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen, and a whole host of new ones, some of whom wouldn’t survive the series.
Writer Greg Rucka took the day shift of the Major Crimes Unit of the GCPD, Ed Brubaker the night shift, though their collaborations often overlapped earlier in the series. Michael Lark’s art captured a signature noir style. The trio received Eisner nominations for their work in 2003.
Brubaker, Rucka, and Lark’s careers had intersected before—Lark and Brubaker were frequent collaborators, while Rucka and Brubaker both wrote Batman titles at the same time—but this was the first time they worked all together on a single title.
By the time the book ended, only Rucka remained, and he didn’t want to continue without his fellow creators.
Most obviously, there is Gotham, the television show, which is focused on the police force of Gotham in a world before Batman. Gotham is an amalgam of various Batman stories, including Gotham Central,  Batman: Year One, and various villain origin stories, but at its heart rests the same concept as Gotham Central: how do normal police officers handle supervillains, and what toll does that take on them?

That is the question at the heart of the comic series, as good cops lose partners to villains and are often overwhelmed in their attempts to protect people against menaces far beyond what a nomral cop should face. Perhaps the best-remembered story is “Half a Life,” which focused on Renee Montoya’s coming out and the blackmail inflicted by Two-Face in a sick, twisted attempt to prove Montoya belonged to his world.
Montoya would go on to become the new Question, while Rucka and artist J.H. Williams III would write another lesbian character, Kate (Batwoman) Kane, to critical and commercial acclaim, so much so that not only did Kate star as the lead in Batman: Detective Comics for a time, but also received her own series. Montoya and former girlfriend Kate were ahead of their time. It’s unfortunate that Batwoman‘s comic series ended with a whimper and that Renee’s career as the Question has been retconned out of DC Comics history but, at least, the former is back as a GCPD detective in the current comics, and the GCPD itself was an important supporting element to Jim Gordon’s recent tenure as Batman.

As for Brubaker and Lark? If you’re a fan of the Captain America movies and, particularly, The Winter Soldier, then you owe them a debt, as they collaborated with artist Steve Epting on a definitive Captain America run that resurrected Bucky Barnes.
Lark and Brubaker also worked together on Daredevil, following up a long run by Brian Michael Bendis (the creator of Jessica Jones) and Alex Maleev. Brubaker and Lark dealt with the fallout from Matt Murdock’s public outing as Daredevil, adding to the character’s already rich history, and bits and pieces of their work can be seen in the Daredevil television show.
Brubaker’s run on Catwoman, which began in partnership with Darwyn Cooke, also deserves mention, especially as it gave rise to Selina’s current status quo as an anti-hero, plus a new costume, commonly known as the “Googles Catwoman.”

Then there’s Wonder Woman.
Rucka’s run  is one of that series’ best in the last two decades, alongside Phil Jimenez’ and Gail Simone’s work on the character. (Yes, Cliff Chiang and Brian Azzarello’s run has merit, but I personally view that as quality work in which everything was wonderful except Wonder Woman, but your mileage may vary.)
I suspect some of the concepts for Wonder Woman in the upcoming motion picture may well be pulled from Rucka’s time on the title. (He’s also returning to the comic this summer, writing two stories per month.) One focus will be storylines unpacking the origins of the Amazon that DC will likely use as the basis for the character going forward, and, hopefully, removal of the characterization of the Amazons as murderers and child-slavers, as they were depicted in the Azzarello/Chiang stories.

Rucka often writes female protagonists, going back to  his Queen & Country series. He’s and Lark created the ongoing Image series Lazarus, a dystopian tale of societal and family dysfunction. Like many Rucka protagonists, that book’s heroine, Forever, is an outsider looking to find a way to belong. Lazarus has been optioned for a television show, and it would make a fantastic one.
I’ve been also reading and enjoying Black Magick, by Rucka and artist Nicola Scott, about a police detective who’s also a practicing Wiccan. She becomes embroiled in a magical conspiracy that has its roots in hundreds of years of fighting. Alas, that series will go on hiatus while Rucka and Scott write Wonder Woman.

Brubaker has also been more than prolific. He and artist Sean Phillips again went noir in Criminal, featuring tales of criminals down on their luck. The book won an Eisner for Best New Series in 2007.  Fatale, by the same team, swirls together Hollywood legends with the supernatural. Brubaker also co-created Velvet with Steve Epting, a book whose concept can be summed up as, “what if Moneypenny was an awesome secret agent/spy?”
Each and every one of the above books is well worth reading. Now, if only Brubaker, Rucka and Lark would reunite for a new Gotham Central series. Alas, given their workloads, that’s likely to remain only a dream.