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Gotham City

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"Gotham City has been in such a decline since your parents died―especially your father. He loved this city. And I guess you do, too. Maybe it needs something―or someone―to shake things up."
―Alfred Pennyworth to Bruce Wayne[src]

Gotham City is a bustling, dark city located in the U.S. state of New Jersey. In addition to being the home and main base of operations for the heroic figure known as the Batman, Gotham is also rife with corruption, poverty, vermin infestations, pollution, and numerous crime waves.[2] The city's motto is "Sic Parvis Magna."[3]

History

Foundation

Gotham City was founded sometime in 1724 by a little known architect named William Gotham though some sources seem to discredit this account.

Murder of the Waynes

In 2002, billionaire Thomas Wayne was out late one night with his wife Martha Wayne and son Bruce Wayne as they had gone to see a movie at the Monarch Theatre. After the film was done, rather than call their butler Alfred Pennyworth to come pick them up, Thomas and Martha decided to walk home.

Their stroll took them down a back alley called Park Row where they were confronted by a mugger who wanted their money and jewelry. Though it was just a simple standup, something went horribly wrong when the man shot and killed both Thomas and Martha in front of their son, leaving Bruce orphaned.

Arrest of Salvatore Maroni

With Thomas dead, it wasn't long before the criminals and corrupt officials of Gotham would see the appeal in his Renewal Fund. Salvatore Maroni, along with Carmine Falcone and several other high-ranking members of Gotham's criminal underworld would take control of the fund and start using the money for their own purposes. However, Falcone was unsatisfied with this arrangement and eventually set Maroni up during a drug bust, allowing him to take Maroni's place as the city's biggest crime lord after Maroni was incarcerated in Blackgate.

The First Laugh

During Batman's first year in protecting Gotham City, a serial killer known as the Joker began plaguing the city with a series of mass murders. Eventually, the masked vigilante captured the sadistic monster and locked him up in Arkham where he remained for nearly a year.

Riddler's Game

One Halloween night, Gotham City mayor Don Mitchell Jr. was murdered by the Riddler, a masked killer. Bruce, now a reclusive billionaire who has been operating for two years as the vigilante Batman, investigates the murder alongside the GCPD. Lieutenant Jim Gordon discovers a message that the Riddler has left for Batman. The following night, the Riddler abducts and kills commissioner Pete Savage and leaves another message for Batman.

Batman and Gordon discover that the Riddler has left a thumb drive in Mitchell's car containing images of Mitchell with a woman, Annika Kosolov, at the Iceberg Lounge—a nightclub operated by Falcone's top lieutenant, the Penguin. While the Penguin pleads ignorance, Batman notices that Selina Kyle, Annika's roommate, also works at the club as a waitress. When Annika goes missing, Batman sends Selina back to the Iceberg Lounge for answers and discovers that Savage was secretly on Falcone's payroll, as was district attorney Gil Colson.

The Riddler abducts Colson, strapping a timed collar bomb to his neck, and sends him to interrupt Mitchell's funeral. When Batman arrives, the Riddler calls him via Colson's phone and threatens to detonate the bomb if Colson cannot answer three riddles. Colson refuses to answer the third—the name of the informant who gave the GCPD information that had led to the historic drug bust that ended Maroni's operations—and dies. Batman and Gordon deduce that the informant may've been the Penguin and track him to a drug deal. They discover that Maroni's operation has been transferred to Falcone, with many corrupt GCPD officers involved. Selina inadvertently exposes them when she arrives to steal bags of money and discovers Annika's corpse in a car trunk. After a car chase, Batman captures the Penguin but soon learns that he is not the informant.

Batman and Gordon track the Riddler's trail to the ruins of Wayne Manor which had been converted into an orphanage by Bruce's parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, just weeks before they had been murdered. There they learn that the Riddler holds a grudge against the Wayne family. Bruce's butler and caretaker, Alfred, is hospitalized after opening a letter bomb addressed to Bruce. The Riddler then leaks evidence that Thomas, who had been running for mayor before he was murdered, had hired Falcone to kill a journalist for threatening to reveal details about Martha and her family's history of mental illness. Bruce, who had grown up believing his father was morally upstanding, confronts Alfred, who maintains that Thomas had only asked Falcone to threaten the journalist into silence; Thomas planned to turn both himself and Falcone over to the police once he found out that Falcone had had the journalist murdered instead. Alfred believes that Falcone had had Thomas and Martha killed to prevent this.

Selina reveals to Batman that Falcone is her neglectful father. She decides to kill him after learning that he was the one who had strangled Annika because Mitchell had told her that Falcone was the informant. Batman and Gordon arrive in time to stop her, but the Riddler successfully kills Falcone as he is being arrested. The Riddler is caught and unmasked as forensic accountant Edward Nashton and is committed to the Arkham State Hospital, where he tells Batman that had been inspired by the vigilante to take violent action against the corrupt elements of the city. Batman also learns that Nashton has stationed car bombs around Gotham and cultivated an online cult that plans to assassinate the newly elected Bella Reál.

The bombs end up destroying the seawall around Gotham and floods the city. Nashton's cultists attempt to kill Reál and the other survivors but are stopped by Batman and Selina. In the aftermath of the flood, Nashton meets and befriends another patient in the asylum, while Selina decides that Gotham is beyond saving and chooses to leave the city. Meanwhile, as a result of the flooding, martial law was declared in Gotham and the National Guard is dispatched to the city to maintain order as Batman aids recovery efforts and vows to inspire hope in Gotham.

The Penguin's Rise to Power

A week after the flooding, as Gotham continues to reel from the devastation and economic hardship caused, Oz planned to step up as the new crime kingpin of Gotham. After impulsively murdering Alberto Falcone, Carmine's son and heir to the Falcone Crime Family, Oz covered up his involvement and pitted the Falcone Crime Family against the Maroni Crime Family. also temporarily using orphaned teenager Victor Aguilar as his protege while ressembling his crew and slowly gaining more power in the criminal underworld. However, when Carmine's daughter Sofia Falcone, who was released from Arkham after being falsely accused of the "Hangman" killings a decade ealier, learned that Oz killed Alberto, she allied with the Maronis to kill him and destroy his operation, also wiping out most of her family and creating the Gigante Crime Family.

Over the next month, Penguin operated underground as the Gigantes and Maronis carried out their feud against Penguin, although Salvatore would die of a heart attack while fighting Penguin. Despite Sofia targeting Oz's mother and orchestrating a devastating bombing in Crown Point, which destroyed Penguin's crew and operation to sell Bliss, Penguin ultimately gained the loyalty of other crime organizations and had Sebastian Hady, a corrupt councilman, arrest Sofia and send her back to Arkham Asylum once more. With the Gigantes and Maronis destroyed, Oz proceeded to form the Cobb Crime Family and fulfilled his ambition of becoming Gotham's new kingpin.

Description, Society, and Culture

Gotham Square

If Gotham City could be summed up in just one word, it would be bleak. The bureaucrats are all corrupt, the rich are filthy rich and the homeless clog the streets. A sense of eerie foreboding hovers over everything and there always seems to be a storm brewing on the horizon.

Gotham is a crowded and gloomy city stuck in a rigid class system that's pretty much a death sentence if you're below a certain point filled with smoke and narrow alleyways riddled with crime. It can often be seen pouring heavy rain day and night with a thick fog floating in the air. Gotham itself is below sea level and is walled off from the Gotham harbor to avoid flooding. This sense of helplessness combined with the state of being sunken further demoralizes the Gothamites from believing the city is worth saving. Many inhabitants of Gotham have also given up on the city and turned to crime. In addition, Gotham is infamous for its countless neo-gothic buildings, churches and skyscrapers.

Although Gotham has always been a breeding ground for organized crime and corruption, in more recent years a frightening new trend of truly disturbed individuals have surfaced to plague the city seemingly started by the arrival of the Batman and Joker. Unlike the average criminal whose goals usually revolve around rational motives i.e., money, power, etc. This new breed of "super-criminal" appear to have no other motive other than to cause as much chaos as possible and will horrifically mutilate, torture and murder their victims and often attack and kill people seemingly just for the enjoyment of it.

Inhabitants

Current
Incarcerated
Former

Known Visitors

Known Mayors

Known Commissioners

Known District Attorneys

Known Families

Islands

Districts

Locales

Human Resources

Health

Education

Public Safety

Media and Entertainment

Transportation

Economy

Government and Politics

Organizations

Gotham Organized Crime

"In Gotham City, the roots of organized crime run very deep."
―Alfred Pennyworth[src]

Appearances

Appearances for Gotham City
In chronological order:

Gallery

Trivia

  • The Batman delves into the criminal underbelly of Gotham City through a noir-style storytelling and highlights themes of corruption that runs rampant within the city's government and police department. The movie used London, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Chicago as filming locations for Gotham City. Although filmed in various locations, Reeves modeled Gotham on New York City. A towering skyscraper similar to the Empire State Building looms over Gotham with an emblazoned sign that reads "Gotham Empire". A busy, commercial intersection called "Gotham Square" is seen in several shots and resembles Times Square with its bright signs and giant digital screens. The film's concluding sequence, while filmed at London's 02 Arena, is called "Gotham Square Garden", taking its naming convention from New York's Madison Square Garden. Various members of the Gotham City Police Department and the city's mobsters speak with East Coast accents similar to those of New York and New Jersey.

Behind the scenes

  • In the DC comics, Gotham City is the home of the hero known as Batman. Gotham City is located in the Northeastern United States, in close proximity to Metropolis, with the majority of DC comics references placing Gotham City specifically in New Jersey.
  • In real life, "Gotham" is a nickname that writer Washington Irving attached to New York on November 11, 1807, referencing a village in England inhabited, according to folklore, by people who feigned madness and were branded as true fools.[4]
    • Batman creator Bill Finger took inspiration from that nickname[4] and New York City itself provided the basic visuals for the fictional city.
  • The city of Glasgow was used as the skyline and architecture for this version of Gotham City, with it also being filmed in New York City.

References

  1. ↑ The Art of The Batman
  2. ↑ Reeves, Matt & Craig, Peter (writers); Reeves, Matt & Clark, Dylan (producers); & Reeves, Matt (director) (March 4, 2022). The Batman.
  3. ↑ Translates to "Greatness from Small Beginnings"
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "The real Gotham: The village behind the Batman stories" - BBC News

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