The 75th anniversary of the creation of Batman is approaching. Continuing the theme of superhero television series revolving around crusaders defending their city, DC Comics and Fox released the first trailer for their new series Gotham. Shifting from Arrow’s Starling City to the more famous Gotham City, DC Comics also is continuing its focus on a cast of supervillains, this time as a prequel starring Ben McKenzie (Southland, The OC), who previously was the voice of Batman and Bruce Wayne in the animated adaptation of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One.
But if the new series is able to latch onto some of the success seen by CW Network’s Arrow, it may be because of supporting cast, like the always great Donal Logue (Vikings, Life, The X-Files, Ghost Rider, Sneakers). Gotham is also taking a cue from AMC’s Bates Motel, revealing the creepy pasts of Catwoman (Camren Bicondova), Poison Ivy (Clare Foley), the Riddler (Cory Michael Smith), and the Penguin (Robin Taylor) in their early days in Gotham City. On the downside, DC Comics is now taking a cue from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. by leaving the key superhero–Batman– out of the story, other than the Bruce Wayne origin story from Miller’s Batman: Year One.
Check out this first preview for Gotham:
At a panel at this year’s WonderCon in Anaheim, in a Q&A an attendee asked a representative of DC Comics why original Batman writer Bill Finger–who wrote the origin story and created characters like Commissioner Gordon–never has been given credit alongside the often-seen “Batman created by Bob Kane” legend. No one had an answer, although the DC representative stated that all was good with Finger’s family and DC Comics. Move along, all is well here, etc.
Turns out Finger’s descendants aren’t happy and this morning Finger’s granddaughter announced her plan to set the record straight, just in time for the Caped Crusader’s 75th–definitely a long time coming, especially since Finger wrote a quarter century of Batman stories for DC Comics.
Will Gotham finally credit Finger along with Kane? We’ll find out later this year. Gotham begins this Fall on Fox.
C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com
