GCPD and Gotham: Analysis

[Elheru Aran]

Well, I was going to post this in the Batman at 80 thread, but it started growing like any good story, so here goes.

Not sure how on topic this is, but a possibly interesting twist for Batman stories to take that we discussed on the discord last night--

Gotham is broken AF, right? And part of the reason it got that way was because the cops are bent. Now, yeah, every now and then Batman will bust some of them or make an example. But in general most of his interactions with them are positive, and even if the cops are bent, apparently they tolerate him enough to not openly pursue catching his vigilante ass. If he finds bent cops, often enough he just figures out a way to openly expose them rather than going in, kicking their asses, and dropping them off at the police station.

But turn it around. If the majority of cops are criminals (and considering how much crime happens in Gotham, the cops almost HAVE to be majority criminals... either that or criminally negligent), what would happen if Batman started beating up cops as regularly as he does the average mugger? If some twelve-year-old holding a toy gun gets shot down by a bunch of cops... who is Batman going to go after? Is he willing to make an enemy of the entire GCPD apart from the token good guys? Is Batman willing to go up against the Blue Wall?

Of course, considering that the comics have to be reasonably family-friendly (in SOME ways anyway), it's a pretty unlikely scenario. Can't have superheroes openly beating up cops aside from the occasional crooked one. But nonetheless, you have to think that if Batman was -really- interested in enforcing justice and the law, he'd be busting asses without regard for badges. Hell, even as Bruce Wayne, he could basically sponsor an entire independent police/private security force for the city, or go on the talk-show circuits and openly advocate for the FBI to come in and clean up the force.

One's latitude for this notion does depend, I suppose, on how you think Gotham City works. Is it basically run by the criminals? Is it a real city with a serious criminal problem? Does it function normally otherwise? How has Batman not cleaned it up yet in 80 years of busting muggers and gate-crashing mobster parties? Even if you reel it back and reboot the stories, as DC did with New 52, resetting Batman to something like 5 or 10 years of work, you'd think he'd have gotten more done. Something has to be fundamentally dysfunctional here (and for the love of Stan Lee let's not get into bullshit like "the Court of Owls actually founded Gotham" or whatever). Perhaps its police force is actually clean for the most part (or at least only slightly shaded by corruption), it's just unreasonably small and/or incredibly hamstrung by city regulations. Perhaps the city government/bureaucracy is full of associates of the various criminal families, who were somehow legally elected and/or appointed, so Batman doesn't feel like he can go after them.

If you want to contrast some other heroes-- Big Blue's villains are largely either global threats (aliens, robots, whatever), or Lex Luthor, who in a lot of ways is kind of an evil Bruce Wayne who just doesn't like to get his hands dirty too often so Superman doesn't often get (these days) to kick his ass. Wonder Woman's bad guys are usually mythological figures and one-on-one type stories, there's not so much 'cleaning up the town' type stuff. The Flash doesn't have a lot of new villains, he just has his classic Rogues' Gallery rotating in and out. Green Lantern's bad guys are mostly all out in space, which is a notably big place. But one city on a shithole planet like Earth provides fodder for 80 years of Batman? Even if you stretch it to include the Bat-Family, which brings the neighboring city of Bludhaven into the picture, it's still rather extraordinary.

So the TL;DR of this is: If Gotham's cops, and possibly (probably) government, are largely criminal, why hasn't Batman gone after them more? If Gotham is (supposed to be) a reasonably ordinary city, where is its extraordinary crime problem coming from? Why do new supervillains keep popping up even as Batman puts away the old ones?

(Yes, I know a lot of this can be chalked up to 'comic books are stupid because no lasting consequences because they want to keep publishing stories about the same hero forever'. Let's put that aside for the moment, shall we)

[FaxModem1]

The comic book explanation is supposed to be that making Jim Gordon commissioner was the way to clean up the police, as he started cleaning up the ranks from the top-down. The issue with that, of course, is the question of how good the cops are after Gordon's cleaned them up, or why does he not seem to get anywhere if they are still corrupt. In the film version of the character, Gordon's telling line is, "I'm not rat. Besides, in a city this bent, who's there to rat to anyways?' Gordon is part of the blue wall, to an extent. But he also seems to not view 'ratting out' people as a possible tactic anyway, due to lack of support from the city's elected officials. Ras notes to Bruce that the League was able to infiltrate every level of the city's infrastructure. That's noteworthy in it's level of corruption.

But that's the Dark Knight trilogy. What about the comics? Bruce Wayne's level of interference in the city's running seems to be propping up candidates, and watching them fall apart one way or another. His big hope was Harvey Dent, who became Two Face. After that, he seemed to stop trying in regards to propping up candidates. His big scene of stopping corrupt officials? It's in Batman: Year One, in which he interrupts their dinner party, but that's about it:



While it's a great scene, it doesn't really go anywhere. The corrupt in Gotham are still in power, they only seem to change in names or titles. There's a solid history of Batman going after the mafia, but not so much fellow billionaires like himself, unless it's Luthor. Batman, either through his own conscious choice, or more likely, his own blindspot, doesn't realize that the well-to-do in Gotham are the cause of most of the problems in Gotham.

And, like it or not, the Court of Owls is supposed to be the answer to that. Gotham is such a shithole because the rich are rigging the game that way. The fact that Bruce Wayne never got involved shows his blindness towards them. To paraphrase Dr. Horrible, he's used to dealing with the symptoms, not the actual disease.

[TheFeniX]

So the TL;DR of this is: If Gotham's cops, and possibly (probably) government, are largely criminal, why hasn't Batman gone after them more? If Gotham is (supposed to be) a reasonably ordinary city, where is its extraordinary crime problem coming from? Why do new supervillains keep popping up even as Batman puts away the old ones?

Because the setting just ignores reality. Only thing I can come up with and it's not exactly high-level sorcery on my part. Fanboys just like to think the setting they love has to be rational for them to like it.

NOTE: I know some people like to think I just hate shit because it makes me feel cool (IT DOES!), but I mostly hate dumb stuff because it's dumb. And it's not even that: it's listening to d-bags like Nolan (and his/Batman dumbshit fanboys) in interviews telling me how super-realistic new Batman is and how "this version COULD REALLY EXIST!" even though they somehow made something even MORE comic-book levels of absurd than Burton Batman. Yes, IMO "I don't read comics" Burton made a more realistic take on Batman than Nolan. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooled by a new coat of paint (such as with that dumbass "Roller" batmobile).

Keaton Batman cops seemed totally overwhelmed and are mostly just fucking morons. Which has it's own problems, but I don't recall corruption being the standard. But Nolan Batman turned this on it's head with ONE SCENE where it's pointed out that Gordon is SUPER-special in that he DOESN'T take bribes and this might make other cops think he's a rat. So, at LEAST a majority of cops are on the take. And let me ask you (anyone): if your town was cleaning up it's police force, would you ever trust any cop who took bribes? Doesn't matter either way because EVERY defense lawyer would make this a major issue in any case: "You were on Gotham's payroll when it was insanely corrupt!" You're literally talking about IAs (or really the FBI) coming in and kicking major ass since Gotham IS New York and NY has ~FORTY THOUSAND cops.

My town had corrupt cops. SO corrupt the state had to step in. There were 13 of them (in a town of like 900). This is a whole different monster. The Fed being involved is just the start. This would be national news for weeks if not years. What Federal Agency is REALLY going to stand by while a guy in a Bat Costume punches order back into New York?

Gotham just... makes NO fucking sense. Billionare's are shot on the street for wrist watches. The murder of ADAs is ordered by fat mobsters with the understanding that no one will care. It's a fucking warzone and I have to wonder if the rest of the USA even exists in the Batman-verse and/or is some kind of total dystopia that makes Gotham function as a city. Otherwise, WHO (with money) is going to stay there?

There's just no way Gordon cleaned-up the department from the head down by himself or even internally. He'd be wearing concrete shoes in 5 seconds and/or his family threatened/murdered.

The setup for goddamn Demolition Man is tons more plausible than anything Nolan shit out. Or really, any Batman I can think of besides West Batman.

[Solauren]

The Nolan verse can make sense with a few extra little bits. Unfortunately, any reasonable explainations were left out and people were left to make assumptions.

#1 - In addition to at least one judge, Carmine Falcone (or someone else, see #3) has several State and Federal politicians in his pocket. (Given how he is supposed to be Mafia, this is feasible). They run interference against any investigation sent at Gotham

#2 - Gotham City Police is actually good at dealing with 'day to day' crime, and stuff not authorized by the Falcone. i.e Some punks knock off a jewelry store, GCPD is on them like they should be. Someone is selling drugs outside of Falcone's control? Taken down.

But anything related to Falcone; certain drug dealers, underground casinos, brothels, are ignored.

Why? Combination of a few higher level police officials taking bribes, while most of the force is kept in line by a combination of threats, and financial support. (Remember, in the second Nolanverse movie, one of the officers had been turned due to her parents medical bills)

#3 - Gotham's problems started due to the economic depression that was engineered by the League of Shadows. This almost implies the League of Shadows is also influencing the outside world to keep them out, or at least keep them from looking at Gotham to badly, while they prepare to destroy it. i.e State and Federal level officials.

However, once Batman neutralized Falcone and the League of Shadows, alot of people that were kept under thumb were now free. With that control removed, you probably had alot of people come forward with evidence in exchange for immunity. This leads to the mob more or less fracturing, but working together still.

That would explain the situation in the second movie. The mob is on the defensive due to the police no longer being restrained or controlled. The Mob belives it's just Batman that's the influence, not realizing how much the League of Shadows was responsible for.

This leads to the desperation and using the Joker, and the final breaking of the back of the Mob when the Joker neutralizes all their money.

Combine with the 'Dent' Act, Gordon finishes cleaning up Gotham.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I was going to post this in the Batman at 80 thread, but it started growing like any good story, so here goes.

Not sure how on topic this is, but a possibly interesting twist for Batman stories to take that we discussed on the discord last night--

Gotham is broken AF, right? And part of the reason it got that way was because the cops are bent. Now, yeah, every now and then Batman will bust some of them or make an example. But in general most of his interactions with them are positive, and even if the cops are bent, apparently they tolerate him enough to not openly pursue catching his vigilante ass. If he finds bent cops, often enough he just figures out a way to openly expose them rather than going in, kicking their asses, and dropping them off at the police station.

But turn it around. If the majority of cops are criminals (and considering how much crime happens in Gotham, the cops almost HAVE to be majority criminals... either that or criminally negligent), what would happen if Batman started beating up cops as regularly as he does the average mugger? If some twelve-year-old holding a toy gun gets shot down by a bunch of cops... who is Batman going to go after? Is he willing to make an enemy of the entire GCPD apart from the token good guys? Is Batman willing to go up against the Blue Wall?

Of course, considering that the comics have to be reasonably family-friendly (in SOME ways anyway), it's a pretty unlikely scenario. Can't have superheroes openly beating up cops aside from the occasional crooked one. But nonetheless, you have to think that if Batman was -really- interested in enforcing justice and the law, he'd be busting asses without regard for badges. Hell, even as Bruce Wayne, he could basically sponsor an entire independent police/private security force for the city, or go on the talk-show circuits and openly advocate for the FBI to come in and clean up the force.

One's latitude for this notion does depend, I suppose, on how you think Gotham City works. Is it basically run by the criminals? Is it a real city with a serious criminal problem? Does it function normally otherwise? How has Batman not cleaned it up yet in 80 years of busting muggers and gate-crashing mobster parties? Even if you reel it back and reboot the stories, as DC did with New 52, resetting Batman to something like 5 or 10 years of work, you'd think he'd have gotten more done. Something has to be fundamentally dysfunctional here (and for the love of Stan Lee let's not get into bullshit like "the Court of Owls actually founded Gotham" or whatever). Perhaps its police force is actually clean for the most part (or at least only slightly shaded by corruption), it's just unreasonably small and/or incredibly hamstrung by city regulations. Perhaps the city government/bureaucracy is full of associates of the various criminal families, who were somehow legally elected and/or appointed, so Batman doesn't feel like he can go after them.

If you want to contrast some other heroes-- Big Blue's villains are largely either global threats (aliens, robots, whatever), or Lex Luthor, who in a lot of ways is kind of an evil Bruce Wayne who just doesn't like to get his hands dirty too often so Superman doesn't often get (these days) to kick his ass. Wonder Woman's bad guys are usually mythological figures and one-on-one type stories, there's not so much 'cleaning up the town' type stuff. The Flash doesn't have a lot of new villains, he just has his classic Rogues' Gallery rotating in and out. Green Lantern's bad guys are mostly all out in space, which is a notably big place. But one city on a shithole planet like Earth provides fodder for 80 years of Batman? Even if you stretch it to include the Bat-Family, which brings the neighboring city of Bludhaven into the picture, it's still rather extraordinary.

So the TL;DR of this is: If Gotham's cops, and possibly (probably) government, are largely criminal, why hasn't Batman gone after them more? If Gotham is (supposed to be) a reasonably ordinary city, where is its extraordinary crime problem coming from? Why do new supervillains keep popping up even as Batman puts away the old ones?

(Yes, I know a lot of this can be chalked up to 'comic books are stupid because no lasting consequences because they want to keep publishing stories about the same hero forever'. Let's put that aside for the moment, shall we)

Notably, early in Batman's tenure in some continuities the cops are largely corrupt, and he does go after them. Police corruption (in cahoots with the mob) is the main adversary in Year One, and the Nolan trilogy drew heavily on it, with Batman ending up in direct violent clashes with the police force on at least one occassion in all three Nolan films.

Later on, we're supposed to believe that the cops are better with Gordon in charge, I guess- which I guess leaves incompetence, or that they're just not able to deal with the shear supernatural insanity of Gotham and the DC Universe in general. This is a general problem with the action genre- they need to create a situation that justifies their lone vigilante hero, and they usually do that by making the authorities either corrupt, useless, or both (there's a bit I read in the No Man's Land novelization where Gordon mentions how at one point he gave in and tried to find work in other cities, and found out that none of the other police departments took him seriously because he needed Batman to do his job for him).

Personally, though, as I said in the other thread, I think it makes sense for Batman to not spend all his time focussed just on Gotham. Have a new version of Batman spend his first year or two in Gotham, and then move on to focussing on bigger picture threats with the Justice League.