Gotham Central Vol. 4: The Quick and the Dead
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Michael Lark & Stefano Gaudiano
Company: DC Comics
Whether or not the end result of this series was perfect, the ideas that Gotham Central presented on the whole were gutsy and always seemed to hook my interest. For a comic book, that ain’t a bad thing. What has always interested me about the series is the unflinching glimpse into the hard boiled and harsh realm of the Gotham City Police Department. Very much in the same vein as the television shows NYPD Blue or The Shield, the book allows you to see a city we already know through a different set of eyes and values besides that of the famed Dynamic Duo. In this fourth volume, titled Gotham Central: The Quick and the Dead, we get a pair of stories that while not exactly perfect or as strong as previous stories have been, still adhere to the book’s tone and strengths.
I have some mixed feelings about the first one, Corrigan, which is penned by Greg Rucka (Whiteout/Queen and Country) and penciled by Michael Lark (Daredevil/Scene of the Crime). It deals with a shootout with the assassin the Black Spider and the inevitable fallout when things in the line of duty go wrong. And while portions of the story do work for me, mainly the corruption angle of the police force and Rucka’s characterizations of Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya, the further exploration of Jim Corrigan, a crooked crime scene tech, and the sporadic meshing with Batman arcs such as War Games irked the hell out of me. Why? Because out of so many good things that the book has to offer, these bits feel the most out of place. For the character of Corrigan to be such a conniving prick while inexplicably having the same name as the original host of the Spectre mars the story line, and that the connection is never even explained feels bothersome.
That being said, Michael Lark’s tight pencils truly capture the four most important things that you want waving in the limelight with a book like this: Action, character emotion, mood and last but not least, setting. The rough, certainly noir-ish tone seems cinematic in scope and he handles everything from a simple conversation in a pizzeria to a knock down, drag out brawl between two officers with such an inherent ease that’s more than a little impressive.
The second story, Keystone Cops, is again written by Greg Rucka while the art duties are handed off to Stefano Gaudiano (Starman/Pulse). Gaudiano’s style in Gotham Central certainly evokes many of the same qualities that Lark’s does and he seems to channel the visual style aptly. It isn’t perfect though, and compared to Lark’s, it’s much looser and tends to have less definition.
As for the story, Rucka weaves a dense, extremely dark piece that focuses on a group of kids who accidentally unearth one of Dr. Alchemy’s old secret hideouts, and inadvertently let loose one of his many experiments. The result? Turning a beloved member of the police force into a giant monster that may or may not be dangerous. Not the most fantastic story idea, but there are some really good moments to it. For one, it was just nice to see Dr. Alchemy, normally a Flash villain, bridge the gap between Keystone City and Gotham. Also, the interaction between the two police forces adds bonus, almost easter egg-like, surprises that enriched the story.
Still, as per usual, uber-amounts of darkness creep into the characters. Dr. Alchemy is essentially revamped from a fun B-lister villain into something much grander and more powerful than he should be. Actually, there were moments where Montoya and Alchemy are talking in Iron Heights Prison that feel eerily like scenes out of Silence of the Lambs. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t see Dr. Alchemy as Hannibal Lecter. But like I said, that’s me.
Gotham Central the Quick and the Dead holds snippets of great work, but in the end, it doesn’t quite succeed in the same way the other trades of the series have. Maybe this was due to a portion of the creators moving on to do other things, or maybe not. All I know for a fact is that Michael Lark draws one of the best versions of Batman there is. That may not be saying much for the book but you know, that’s how the cookie crumbles.
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Gotham Cenral is one of those books I’ll always forget about how good it is untill I read a new TPB of it. I really enjoyed the second arc in the book although the Hannibal Lecter thing was a little too obvious, without knowing anything about Dr. Alchemy, but the rest of the story was just fun to read.
I know GC stopped but this was also the last released TPB? Would really be a shame because I really looked forward to be reading the next TPB of it
25 Nov 2006 at 7:37 pm
QuoteI hope they collect the last few.. #32 is the Steve Leiber drawn Poison Ivy chiller. #33-36 is “Dead Robin” and #38-40 closes out the Montoya/Allen stories.. Seems like a good thing to collect. #36 has one of my favorite Batman moments.. the detectives let Batman do some in-terror-gating. HA! Kano on pencils that ish.
26 Nov 2006 at 1:45 am
Quotei am a huge fan of GC and i am truly sorry to see it go. i’ve bought every issue and the trades. it’s everything i like about batman: to take him seriously, as though he really existed. i like the humanity of this book as opposed to the more childish superhero stuff that plagues most batman books. i know brubaker and lark signed exclusive contracts with marvel. but there are characters in GC too terrific to forget about.
it’d be great if at least dc made one more GC original graphic novel with rucka and gaudiano, like they did with the forty-niners (top ten, another great series which we’ll never again see).
26 Nov 2006 at 9:33 am
QuoteYou know, I haven’t heard for sure or anything, but it would surprise me if DC didn’t finish trading this series up. Tim.agen is right that there were some good stories after this trade…Well, maybe not as fun as the Harvey Bullock one or the first story with Mr. Freeze per-se…But still good enough to be traded. And while I wasn’t a huge fan with where the book ended up, overall, it’s one that I enjoyed enough to buy.
26 Nov 2006 at 3:13 pm
QuoteFYI: The Jim Corrigan here has no relationship with the former host of the Spectre, other than the coincidence of their names. (Of course, he has a much closer relationship with the new host of the Spectre…)
I seriously doubt that this title will be collected in its entirety. They’ve already skipped some issues and it’s unlikely they’ll go back and include them in other TPB’s. They’ll probably just collect the major arcs - #33-36 and ##38=40. It’s a huge shame, because ##11 and 32 were two of the best issues in the run.
26 Nov 2006 at 3:58 pm
QuoteI wonder what a black and white reproduction/ recollection of Gotham Central would look like. Maybe sized like the most recent “Sin City” reprints.
26 Nov 2006 at 7:05 pm
QuoteNothing on Dave Cockrum’s death this past weekend?
27 Nov 2006 at 8:06 am
QuoteFil, we’re not really a news site, nor do we do a lot of commentary… pretty much strictly reviews. Every other site has pretty well covered Cockrum’s death, so there wasn’t anyone who hadn’t already seen the basic info.
For my part, I don’t have anything to add other than the obvious thoughts most everyone is having: Cockrum co-created the All New, All Different X-Men, for all intents and purposes, making him one of the fathers of the most enduring sets of new characters in comics, and the comics industry will definitely miss him.
27 Nov 2006 at 12:41 pm
QuoteSeba said:
it’d be great if at least dc made one more GC original graphic novel with rucka and gaudiano, like they did with the forty-niners (top ten, another great series which we’ll never again see).
If Brubaker were to come back and do a GC OGN, I’d be interested… Rucka, not so much. I’ll be honest, I liked Rucka’s work a lot more before he became a DC guy, where his sensibilities just don’t align with what I want in a superhero universe. When Brubaker was writing Gotham Central, it felt like an ensemble book, when Rucka was writing it it felt like “The Adventures of Renee Montoya and friends.” I like Montoya, and I really liked Rucka’s story that “outed” her, but I wanted a more balanced cast.
This was the first GC trade I didn’t buy. There were moments I liked in both stories, but I feel that the Hannibal Lecterization of supervillains has become a lazy writing trick, bordering on cliche, and Dr. Alchemy probably doesn’t warrant such treatment in the first place. Like Nick, I was also put off that the long build-up of “Who is Jim Corrigan?” culminated in “Uh, well, he’s just a corrupt guy, no relation, just a coincidence.”
My biggest frustration with GC in the end, though, is that instead of being a look at Gotham through the eyes of cops, or just a cool as hell police procedural, in the end it became a launchpad for the new Spectre and the new Question or Batwoman or laser-gun toting P.I. or whatever the hell Montoya winds up as.
Tim.agen wrote:
I wonder what a black and white reproduction/ recollection of Gotham Central would look like. Maybe sized like the most recent “Sin City” reprints.
I want to say that generally, color superhero art from the modern-day won’t reproduce as well in black and white. It was made for color, and the color was tailored to the art, and that’s probably the best presentation of it.
BUT… having seen Lark’s black and white work on CRIMINAL, I have to say, I’d be interested in seeing what GC would look like as affordable B&W digests. Or maybe one gigantic “SHOWCASE” style collection.
27 Nov 2006 at 12:47 pm
QuoteLark on Criminal?! When is this happening?
As for Gotham Central, it joins the list of a number of good books I was sad to see go. While I think Brubaker leaving did hurt the book, I thought Rucka still did a good job on the last few arcs without him. And while I really didn’t like having the book lead into the Spectre and superhero stuff, I thought the ending was quite good, but I can see people having problems with it.
27 Nov 2006 at 4:20 pm
QuoteWhoops… I said Lark and meant Phillips. But I have seen Lark’s black and white work, and it has looked really nice.
27 Nov 2006 at 8:43 pm
QuoteYou know, I think it’s kind of a drag that they’re not going to include all the Gotham Central stories in the TPBs. I’m not sure which others ones have been excluded, but I know the Stacy story has been left out of the collections. A shame, since people being introduced to Gotham Central in trades are only going to know her as “the girl who flips on the Bat-signal” unless they go back-issue hunting.
Anyway, this trade has a lot of stories I like (Black Spider’s costume redesign is great), but I agree that Dr. Alchemy was made too Hannibal Lecter-ish. He even says “quid pro quo” at one point, right? I did like seeing Detectives Chyre and Morillo from Geoff Johns’ run on “The Flash”, though.
28 Nov 2006 at 7:32 pm
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