In the Line of Duty by Ed Brubaker

In the Line of Duty Reviews

• 
  Swrp

  Gotham Central from a cop and detective perspective, and not about the superhero.
  
  
  
  Even with a superhero around, the Gotham City Police Department officers still have a difficult living and working life. In many ways, these police officers are the real heroes. Indeed, they are Gotham`s finest.
  
  
  
  Blurb:
  Living in the shadows of the Dark Knight makes the detectives of Gotham's police force determined to prove that have what it takes to enforce the law in a city rife with criminals... with or without Batman's help.
  
  Meet Commissioner Akins and his Major Crimes Unit commander Maggie Sawter (fresh from Metropolis). Keeping the streets safe are detectives Renee Montoya, Crispis Allen and others newly introduced to readers. The race is on to stop Mister Freeze while solving a crime before the Caped Crusader intervenes.
• 
  Anne

  Gotham Central tells the stories of the different police detectives in the GPD. Batman makes a few cameos, but really he has little to nothing to do with what goes on in this book.
  This was not my cuppa. I thought the art was ugly, and I like a heavy dose of spandex-clad superheroes in my graphic novels, so I really doubt I'll be revisiting these books any time soon.
  But.
  Even though I don't care for this kind of crime drama story, it was really well written. If you enjoy reading stuff like
  Whiteout, then I have a feeling you would love Gotham Central.
• 
  Chelsea 🏳️‍🌈

  Law and Order: Gotham City
  
  This is my favorite of Rucka's works. Of course, he co-wrote this with Ed Brubaker.
  
  This is basically Fox's Gotham without Jim Gordon. It's all about the lives of the GCPD officers we so fondly think of as useless peons in the war on Gotham crime. Seriously, this department is a fucking joke to a lot of us. That scene in the Dark Knight Rises when they all run at a group of machine gun wielding criminals comes to mind. They appear utterly useless in the face of the Batfamily who are actually doing something to stop crime.
  
  There is an interesting dynamic that's usually explored in snippets of Batfam stories. Some of the GCPD appreciates Bat for helping out where they can't but by and large, they don't like him. They resent the fact that if they can't solve a case before the sun goes down, Batman will solve it for them. In this book, one of their own is targeted and his partner refuses for the longest to ask Batsy for help. It's pretty interesting to see his from their point of view instead of Batsy's. In Batman books, the department's resistance makes them look stubborn and silly. Here, you kind of understand why they feel this way.
  
  The characters blended together for me quite a bit but I want to know more about them. Seriously, this is full of Law and Order caricatures. I would kill to have a show about these characters. The only ones I recognized were Renee and Maggie. There was just enough depth to the ones we were meant to care about. More kudos for female characters with some bite to them.
  
  The mysteries themselves were pretty good. I saw the killer from a mile away. I didn't quite guess the big twist but still, it was kinda easy to predict.
  
  I have the second volume from the library as well and I can't wait to read it! I wish they adapted this for a TV show.
• 
  The Lion's Share

  This book starts strong and surprisingly fits my dark humour with some laugh out loud moments. It's the way Brubaker makes the conversations realistic to every day life.
  
  
  
  
  I love how this hits the ground running with 2 cops accidentally discover Mr. Freeze when following a bad tip from a source. Mr. Freeze doesn't fuck around!
  
  Some great realism and wonderful artwork.
  
  See, DC comics can be good sometimes.
• 
  Sesana

  How do Gotham's Finest really feel about Batman? The initial assumption is that they'd feel grateful, of course. In Gotham Central's Major Crimes Unit, the detectives often feel a bit miffed that some guy in a Halloween costume can do their job better than they can. There's a certain amount of resentment, that they can't do their job without him.
  
  There are five issues here, representing two seperate but interrelated stories. Two cops are investigating a kidnapping when they stumble across Mr. Freeze. The first two issues the MCU attempts to nab Freeze, and the next three cover the investigation of the actual kidnapping itself. As a procedural, they work for me. The pacing is tight, and there's a lot of interesting legwork going on. The actual solutions require a little too much serendipity for my taste, but I can live with that.
  
  There aren't many books in the superhero genre that treat the reactions of normal people to all these costumed maniacs. I personally can't get enough. (Wasn't there a short-lived series in the 90s about insurance adjustors who dealt with superhero battle damage? I remember wanting to read that and now I can't remember what it was called.) Superhero books almost always forget the human element. They're protecting somebody, after all. I liked the conflicting emotions the police have here. On one hand, they resent Batman for doing their job better than them. On the other, they know they need him at times. It felt completely realistic to me.
  
  The art is really good, and perfect for the tone of the series. It's dark, with a very earthy color palate and an almost retro feel. The one issue that I have with it is that there's not quite enough definition in character faces to make it easy to pick out who's who. There are a lot of white guys with short hair, and I'd like to be able to figure out who's who at a glance. This is early in the series, though, and I'm hoping they end up with more definition later.
  
  This is a really promising start to a series I've heard really great things about. I'm eager to read more.
• 
  Shannon

  INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
  
  There are many graphic novels about superheroes and their world and how important it
  is for them to save the regular mortals but rarely do we get a perspective of the mortals unless they're family or lovers. In this series we focus almost exclusively upon the detectives (morning and night shifts) of Gotham who sometimes resent “The Bat” for solving their cases. It's a fresh and interesting approach with Batman showing up less than 5% of all the tales.
  
  BOOK ONE
  
  Story focuses are upon two detectives discovering Mister Freeze in hiding and then the whole force trying to stop him from doing something sinister. There's another tale of a missing teenage girl while a villainous “Firefly” returns to Gotham and the last and longest tale is about the return of Two Face who proceeds to capture and torment Detective Montoya.
  
  There's a lesbian detective who fears being disowned if her parents find out, another detective is guilt ridden that his partner died on his watch and a host of other personal stories. Truly is this about the characters. The “Sarge” is a great sub character who goes off on some interesting arguments here and there.
  
  ARTWORK
  
  I found the artwork hit or miss. Yes, it's dark and gritty looking but sometimes it feels like only 80% of the normal details are there in the artwork. Batman doesn't look terribly impressive though maybe that's intentional to add to the mundane setting. That alone didn't make me give it a “B” grade so much as my former reason.
  
  RESULTS
  
  This series received great critical acclaim and a passionate fanbase but never did well commercially.
  
  STORY/PLOTTING: B plus; ARTWORK PRESENTATION: B; CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: B plus to A minus; WHEN READ: early June 2012 (revised review end of July 2012); OVERALL GRADE: B plus.
• 
  Terry

  3 – 3.5 stars
  
  Wouldn’t it be great to be a cop in Gotham City? I mean the Bat would pretty much take down anything serious leaving you more time with your coffee and doughnuts, right? Well, as this comic series from Ed Brubaker shows: not so much. It appears that Bats is a whacko-magnet and given that he’s only human (despite what editorial fiat from the DC offices may pretend in the storylines they approve) that means that there are a ton of crazy psychopaths with either superpowers or the military hardware of an advanced alien civilization who have a point to prove or score to settle who mark Gotham as stop #1 on their magical mystery tour and even if the caped crusader nabs half of them before they commit too many lethal crimes it still leaves more than any three police forces can handle running rampant in the city.
  
  This comic had a pretty cool vibe, sort of Law and Order meets the DC Universe as we follow the trials and travails of some of the cops on the beat in the city of the Bat. All of the members of the unit we are following were hand-picked by Jim Gordon, former police commissioner and good buddy of the man in black. Not all of these officers share his love for the vigilante, though, especially when the kind of crime he seems to attract means that friends and co-workers are getting terminated after they fall into situations the police academy did not prepare them for. This first story arc covers the fallout from the death of a detective who thought he was on a routine check on info from a snitch, only to fall into the hands of Mr. Freeze. Add on to that a kidnapping case going nowhere and an arsonist displaying the costume and arsenal of Batman’s old foe “the Firebug” and things are getting difficult for the cops at Gotham Central.
  
  I enjoyed this comic and thought it was probably one of the more effective ones I’ve read when it comes to displaying the ways in which having a costumed superhero in something approaching our world might not be such an awesome thing. By centring not so much on Joe Schmoe in the street who may be able to avoid much interaction with any of the craziness of the metahuman world and thus retain his sense of hero-worship, but on the cops who can’t help but deal with events and people they are in no way trained or equipped to handle it gave an interesting perspective to things. In some ways it could be considered similar to Brian Michael Bendis’
  Powers, but I have to admit that _Gotham Central_ seems to approach the issues from a much more realistic perspective. All in all a good read and, at least from my perspective, something that covered new ground which is not what I generally expect from DC comics.
• 
  Craig

  This is a very good book, as one would of course expect from Brubaker and Rucka. It focuses on the "common" officers of the Gotham City Police Department, living and working as they are in the shadow of the Batman. Naturally there's resentment on a number of levels, and the story is all from the viewpoint of the officers who want to do their jobs without having to rely on someone who isn't limited by the same rules they have to observe and who seems to have unlimited resources that they lack. The art by Michael Lark is simple and nostalgic with a regimented yet noir-ish feel that fits perfectly. There's also a nice introduction by Lawrence Block.
• 
  Sam Quixote

  Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka draw focus from Batman to the men and women of the Gotham City Police Department in “Gotham Central”. In a city watched over by a Dark Knight filled with colourful villains running amok, how do ordinary police fare against such an outlandish backdrop?
  
  As a huge Batman fan, I think it’s an interesting idea to see the goings on in Batman stories from the perspective of the characters who’re always in the background, looking on as a guy dressed as a bat does their job for them. Having read this first volume though, I’m less convinced of the GCPD’s abilities or the appeal of the series.
  
  The first story features Mr Freeze who’s doing his usual thing (ie. freezing stuff). The difference is we see the GCPD attempt to apprehend him rather than Batman - and they fail. Freeze’s tech kills one of the characters and the detective’s death affects the department as we see his surviving partner deal with the psychological trauma, guilt etc. and then search out the clues and figure out Freeze’s plan. Which is kind of interesting if you enjoy police procedurals - but I don’t. Also, the GCPD completely fail to take Freeze down. Batman shows up at the end and apprehends him, leaving him for the cops. Great, so they’re pretty incompetent.
  
  The second story is again mostly procedural as the detectives set out to solve a homicide, a topic that’s fairly commonplace for crime stories. This one involves Firebug, one of Batman’s D-list Rogues, but only briefly after many pages of detectives doing the usual police work of gathering evidence, speaking to witnesses, etc. On the plus side, the GCPD do manage to take down Firebug on their own even if he is without his equipment.
  
  The third and final story features Renee Montoya (the only recognisable cop on the GCPD as Gordon’s retired and Bullock’s been fired for corruption) as she becomes framed for the homicide of a disgraced colleague. Again, kind of your run of the mill police story with a lot of character work for Renee, if you like her character, but once again Batman, standing in the wings like in the Freeze story, swoops in to save the day at the end. Good job, GCPD!
  
  The biggest problem, besides the seeming uselessness of the GCPD to capture the villains themselves, is the cast. None of the characters are particularly interesting. They’re the kind of usual cop characters you’d expect to see if you’ve seen cop shows like “The Wire” or “CSI” or “Law and Order”. The blandness of the characters isn’t helped by Michael Lark’s artwork who draws all of the male characters in a similar way. They’re all in their 30s-40s, white, average build, short hair, and wear shirts, jackets and slacks, some with ties, some not. They all look alike and their expressions are pretty much neutral whatever the situation - Lark can’t convey much emotion with his characters so they have the same look whether they’ve lost a colleague or are drinking a cup of coffee. The lack of visual variety adds confusion to the story as there are at least a dozen of these guys wandering around and it’s hard to keep track of who they are and what their stories are.
  
  That said, these are fairly well written stories and they held my attention. It’s just the effect, once I put the book down, was very underwhelming though, despite some problems with the stories, I can see why people like them. They’re as realistic as you can get for a cop series set in Gotham. But the problem is when you set a story in Gotham, I don’t want realism. I want to read about Batman, not the boring cops who sit around whining about how Batman’s undermining their public rep. So every time Batman showed up in the series (about once or twice per story), I kept wondering where he was going and wanting the story to follow him instead of sticking with Cop#1 and Cop#2 as they struggle to keep up.
  
  While “Gotham Central” is a decent cop series, I’m just not into police procedurals so wasn’t as impressed with the book as a lot others have been. I’m glad I saw Gotham City from another angle but I don’t think I’ll be returning for Book 2.
• 
  J

  I've read this before but failed to log it on Goodreads, but honestly, this was such a genius idea to have a look at what it's like to be a cop in a town as messed up as Gotham. Some of Brubaker's early work and it's really fun (tho I'm used to comics that don't use random characters for ##%@$^ swearing). A nice little caper where you see how the other half lives and works and solves crimes that the Bat hasn't got the time for.
• 
  Seth T.

  I grew up loving superheroes. As a first grader, I faithfully watched Spider-Man catch thieves—just like flies. In fourth grade, I picked up my first Marvel comic on a road trip. In fifth grade, my mother took me to my first comic shop. And for the next seven years, I was wholly devoted to the superhero and the hero’s genre. I belonged to superheroes and they belonged to me.
  
  
  
  It was the kind of relationship that is built on a foundation of passive aggression and enablement. The heroes would string me along and I would love them for it.
  
  And then, at long last, I grew up. Or something. That probably comes off as being a bit of snobbery, the idea that no longer being a child, I put away childish things. A.K.A. superheroes. While there’s certainly some truth to the idea, it’s probably a bit of an overstatement as well. While the superhero genre is nearly overwhelmed by childishness and pandering, this isn’t entirely the case. There are occasional examples worth seeking out and spending time with. But I will say this:
  
  Good comics that are also superhero books are pretty rare.
  
  So while I’ve almost entirely abandoned the genre, I will occasionally pick up superhero books if a) they’ve come highly recommended or b) they glow with arcane magicks. We’ve seen two
  recent
  examples of just how well Option A has worked out for me. Still, undaunted, I picked up Gotham Central for the same reason: I had heard good things about it. It also helped that the three creators involved (Rucka, Brubaker, and Lark) have also produced work that I’ve enjoyed.
  
  (I may as well also note here that I haven’t heard anything about any books conferring arcane anythings, let alone books that would glow while in the act of conferring.)
  
  So after the last two underwhelming experiences, I was a bit reluctant to try out another romp through the DC Universe. It’s not that I didn’t believe that fun or interesting stories could be told there. More, I just believed that those kinds of stories weren’t currently finding their way to audiences. But I gave DC another chance despite my reluctance and because Gotham Central is actually pretty good, it kind of justifies my opinion.
  
  See, the thing is, every character in Gotham Central, a book about precinct detectives in Batman’s Gotham, is at odds with the DC Universe. These are detectives trying to solve cases in a world where Batman can seemingly solve any crime so long as he’s given enough time (there is only one of him after all). So really, less than being the only way that families and loved ones can gain closure after a terrible crime, these detectives really just find themselves stuck in a sort of game of Cops and Batman. The goal of the game is of course to close cases before Batman does. The detectives pretty much rely on the fact that Batman will get the collar if they’re too lazy or too dense or too unlucky or too overmatched, so the book tends to play a lot on their frustrations with a game that is rarely tipped in their favour.
  
  Of course, most of this is subtext and Rucka and Brubaker rarely get mired in that aspect of Gotham Central's world, but it’s always there, always present. And it goes a long way to explain these detectives’ short tempers and overtly competitive feeling toward Batman. They all seem well aware of the idea that were there more Batmen, they would all be obsolete, unnecessary relics of that brief period of law-enforcement history when there were no indefatigable costumed vigilantes.
  
  And because this foundation of the story generally remains in the shadows—much like the Bat himself, only appearing at opportune moments to assert his presence and remind us of just whose city we’re visiting—Brubaker and Rucka are able to tell some just plain good crime stories without having to worry so much about heroes and villains. Of course Batman has to make his appearances and of course his rogue’s gallery is bound to take their part as well, but Gotham Central succeeds in keeping a lot of that noise off-screen, where we’re aware of its presence but can pretend alongside the detectives that its the normal people, the citizens, victims, and detectives who are the ones who matter.
  
  It’s all part of the game and Rucka and Brubaker are happy to help us play along.
  
  
  “It is finished.” Batman is like a Creepy Jesus.
  
  Michael Lark, for his part as artist, is probably the perfect choice to help the reader imagine that these detectives’ cases matter. He illustrates these men and women with a subdued, sober-handed treatment, eschewing both the more bombastic fantasy-indebted artwork that people will commonly associate with the genre and the facsimile-tracings that have seemed to multiply over the last decade. With Lark’s artwork, we are much more easily drawn into the illusion that these stories matter—that were these detectives not closing cases, Gotham’s civilized aspect would quickly grind to a halt. I loved Lark’s work for its ironic insistence that we could trust what we saw.
  
  So far as the writing and storytelling goes, with but one complaint, my entire experience in Gotham Central was exactly what spending time in such a story should be. I was excited by the cat-and-mouse chase. I was involved in the wonderful cast of detectives and their host of interpersonal troubles, affections, and loyalties. I was anxious for them to solve their murders and kidnappings, if only to see them stick it to the Bat, to sneer at the Fates as it were.
  
  My sole issue with regard to the story is in regard to the hinge on which each case is solved. For all the hard work these detectives put in, the solutions they find (at least in this first volume) each rest on unbelievable discoveries, recollections, or leaps of logic. Raymond Chandler would not be impressed. Rather than reasonably deduce a perpetrator’s identity or whereabouts, these detectives come across their answers by what amounts to narrative magic.
  
  
  
  And as much as that disappointed me as a lover of the intrigue of a good detective story, it really does fit Gotham Central squarely in a universe where miracles and metanatural occurrences are a matter of course. A universe where a yellow sun can make a guy more powerful than a locomotive, where an invulnerable Amazonian warrior would employ a lasso as a primary weapon and still do okay, where a wealthy man in what amounts to a Halloween costume could keep the entirety of a criminal city in line (for the most part). In the end, even Gotham’s police force finds itself working miracles and making use of uncanny powers of observation, insight, and prediction, marking them as superheroes in their own right. In a world of Batmans and Supermans, these officers of the law will never be seen as more than just normal people, but in comparison to we readers, they are powerful examples of how in a fantasy world, even the mundane are creatures of fey magic.
  
  I very much enjoyed the three stories contained in this volume and look forward to reading the rest of the series.
  
  [review courtesy of
  Good Ok Bad]
• 
  Wendy

  Gary Oldman ordered Ben McKenzie to do his homework when he was cast as Jim Gordon in the upcoming Gotham tv series, so it’s only fair that I do my homework too. While Gotham is considered to be losely based on this graphic novel series, the show will take place at the beginning of Gordon’s career, with Bruce Wayne and many other villains as children—meaning, there will be no Batman. Gotham Central takes place after Jim’s retirement and focuses on the various cops in the precinct and how they handle crime fighting under the shadow of a man they can’t admit exists. Some of them aren’t particularly happy that he does exist, and I love the balance between their animosity and their realization that, considering the utter crazy of their opponents, at times Batman is a necessary evil. The story does not rely on Batman’s existence, though, and he appears only briefly. There are many other crimes that don’t necessarily involve mentally deranged costumed freaks. There is a level of crime procedural drama involved, and, while the particular cases might not be all that inspired, it’s the GCPD themselves that make this story really work.
• 
  Nnedi

  thought i'd be so bored by this because i don't typically like this genre of story (not into mysteries or anything remotely hard-boiled) but...this book was brilliant. it was really cool seeing gotham city from this angle. i liked seeing batman on the outside. he's there, then he's gone and outside the plot. and seeing how the police department deals with constantly being upstaged. and seeing that they are not just incompetent. and seeing that police and detectives can be diverse in gender and race. this one surprised me...in a good way.
• 
  Marc Weidenbaum

  Been planning to read this series straight through, starting with the couple of volumes I already had read. I am, just to cut to the chase, sad this series didn't catch on. To me, it is one of the best Batman series, if not the best Batman series, since Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. It is Gotham as seen from the point of view of cops, and not just cops, but very much the sort of cops we recognize from TV serials. And that's a compliment. This is as engaging as the best cop dramas -- from NYPD Blue to The Shield -- and the way it employs Batman is truer to the character than most contemporary renderings. Most Batman comics make much of how remote a figure Batman is, yet keep him front and center -- they try to have it both ways, and fail at both. Gotham Central treats him as a truly unusual presence. Issues go by during which he isn't even seen, and the cops, embarrassed that they depend on him to solve the tough cases, do their best not to mention him. Brubaker and Rucka are very different writers, yet they seem so sold, themselves, on the series' unique conceit that their tales really do meld together, much as TV series like Lost and The Wire have managed to have known writers on board who, despite their seasoned voices, put ego aside and serve the overarching story.
• 
  Greg

  An interesting premise, the Batman story told from the point of view of homicide detectives in Gotham. Batman is seen more as a menace who is responsible for having all of the suited wackos running around, than as the savior of the city. The story itself of the cops seems like it's really inspired by the show Homicide, which isn't the worst since it was one of the better cop shows. I never really got into this though, although it was entertaining enough.
• 
  Toby

  Brubaker and Rucka, but primarily Brubaker, writing a series of Homicide: Life on the Streets set in Gotham City, of course it's great. Dark and human, focussing on the obsessive nature of homicide detectives and the inner turmoil the job creates, it's well travelled ground, but always a pleasure when done well and I look forward to travelling this ground with Brubaker's creations for the rest of this series.
• 
  Jam

  One of the best comic book series out there. Set in Gotham, but about the Gotham Central Police Department. All the best bits of noir and procedurals, great characters, great use of familiar faces. The Joker, Batman, Mr Freeze or Ivy might make appearances, but it's always about the GCPD.
  
  One of those books you try to force everyone to read.
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  Gotham seen not from the perspective of the superhero but from the cop and detective level. Great, compelling stories, fine crime fiction, just crime-solving and no crazy monsters.
• 
  Batastrophe

  This was a nice, gritty look into Gotham's police force, and I really enjoyed it. Detective Driver is the main character, a "driven" (get it?) cop who seems like he's trying to live up to his mentors, his deceased partner Charlie Fields and Commissioner Gordon, who hand-picked him to be a detective. Driver is determined to get to the bottom of his cases--and to do it without Batman's help.
  
  I really loved how successful Brubaker and Rucka are in these issues at making the outlandish villains and heroes of Gotham fit into a realistic setting and showing what life on the ground of Gotham can really be like. Driver's desire to solve cases without Batman is understandable, and the book really gets at the tenuous relationship between Bats and the cops of Gotham.
  
  Though Driver is the main character, some other familiar faces show up, most notably Renee Montoya, Maggie Sawyer, and Jim Gordon. Harvey Bullock gets name dropped as well, though he doesn't make an appearance. In addition to the familiar names, the book also introduces several other Gotham detectives, and the book lays a good groundwork of their varying relationships.
  
  All in all, it reads like a typical police procedural, but with the added bonus of taking place in Gotham, a place where batarangs might become pieces of evidence, interviewing henchmen for leads is commonplace, and Batman might drop in on your investigation. The characters are strong and the plots compelling, and I'll be looking forward to the next installment of this Gotham police force slice of life.
• 
  Arsénico

  El tomo me parecía entretenido hasta que llegué a la última historia, la de Renee Montoya y su salida del armario, que le ha sumado puntos al tomo y ha hecho que me deje con ganas de seguir leyendo más acerca de la vida diaria de los policías de Gotham. Recomendado si queréis alejaros un poco de Batman y descubrir aquello a lo que se enfrentan cada día los agentes de la central de Gotham cuando el murciélago se esconde de la luz del sol.
• 
  Matt Mazenauer

  A brilliant idea for a premise - following the Gotham cops in the shadow of Batman. Really well done in a Law & Order sense, the Rogus Gallery and Batman really serve as interesting background, whle the real focus is on the cops.
• 
  Sara Jean

  Boring Central, Vo. 1: In The Line of Dramamine
  This was a complete yawn fest. I got halfway through and felt like I wanted to quit comics forever.
  Quick, someone find me some Matt Fraction...
  
  http://saraandmikeoncomics.wordpress....
  
• 
  Brandon

  This book, at first, seemed to be an interesting addition to the Batman universe. Namely, the pursuit of justice seen not through the eyes of the Caped Crusader but through the work and toil of the Gotham PD. This is a book about the nuts and bolts of the Gotham City law machine and not the heroic actions of man in a bat costume. It, to me anyway, seemed to promise a workaday ethic applied to the same cases that the Batman would solve using his superior analytical skills and cunning. For the most part the book does achieve this. We see the detectives pounding the pavement and collecting countless statements that lead nowhere, we go into the interrogation room were the rules may not be followed to the letter but they are not blatantly ignored as they are by the Dark Knight. This is all fine and well written and, maybe, insightful but the story doesn't quite get far enough into the bones of the case before all is resolved and the Batman appears to save the day much to the chagrin of the cops who have put in all the ground work. Instead, the reader is giving a lot of scenes in the squad room, some obvious tension between the detectives and Batman with little or no time given to depict the drudgery and daily grind of being a cop in the crime ridden city of Gotham which leads me to the biggest problem I had with this book and that is that Gotham is underplayed.
  
  In the Batman stories the city is too often seen during the night time under the cover of shadow or in the guilded halls of Bruce Waynes' world. Seen through the eyes of Gothams finest I was expecting a different Gotham. One seen in the daylight hours and peopled with a wide variety of the Gotham populace. Instead, Gotham seemed to take the day off and the reader is only giving a handful of street scenes - an area were the artists could really let their pen fly - in favor of tense situations in the squad room and a police force of hard-boiled cops to quick to use their fists - even against each-other. I felt the reader was under served by this omission especially with the 1940's film noir type vibe of the story; a genre were the city scape provides so much atmosphere and context to the story. This book could have benefitted greatly by moving all the tension out of the squad room and onto the streets and back alleys. Let the cops push around some street trash or a lowly mob goon to get were their going instead of fighting amongst themselves and always arriving one step behind the Caped Crusader. I think I would have enjoyed the three stories of this book more that way - Seeing Gotham in a new light and watching Gotham PD work the case from the ground level.
  
  In truth this was a well written and drawn book despite the problems I had with it but I wasn't compelled by any of the cases and the cop were stereo types - a cross between the 1940's hard boiled cop with a liberal dose of Dirty Harry renegade cop in pursuit of the truth at all costs - that I found it hard to feel any affinity for their plight. If Gotham had played a bigger part and I saw a little bit of variety in the large cast of cop character than I might of given this book another star because it is well done and does have a place in the Batman universe albeit a small one.
• 
  Cathleen Ash

  You’ve heard of Batman, right? Drops from out of nowhere and saves the day? Beats up on skels and leaves them hanging unconscious from a street sign? Big damn hero, that guy.
  Detective Marcus Driver works in the Major Crimes Unit of the Gotham City Police Department, and he’d less-than-respectfully disagree. See, who do you think has to clean up after the Dark Knight does his dramatic swooping and beating up? Who do you think has to pay attention when they’re cutting down the criminal from the street sign and he is whining about his rights?
  Batman doesn’t seem to get that there is this little tiny thing called procedure and these other little things called laws, and while he seems to bend and break them as he sees fit, he isn’t the one who has to put the bad guys away – if they don’t walk on technicality. Batman is a walking technicality.
  Which is why they can’t turn on that Bat signal themselves. If GCPD even touches the thing they are stating that they endorse his methods and work in cooperation with him – instant admission that the system doesn’t work, and an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card.
  If Driver had his way he would toss the signal right off the roof. He believes that it is demoralizing, and that the GCPD doesn’t need Batman. But he also knows deep down that this is Gotham, and in Gotham it isn’t NYPD Blue, where all of the skels are regular people: from purse-snatchers to serial killers, at the end of the day in New York they all have a motive and they are all still human somewhere. In Gotham, there are criminals that are beyond insane, that deserve an honorary doctorate in serial killing, or there are the ones with special powers who are so twisted, they defy psychology.
  With so much crime there inevitably comes corruption, so sometimes the guys the GCPD are after are their own – and when the good guys go bad in Gotham, it makes The Shield seem like kindergarten recess.
  So sometimes the GCPD do have to ask their secretary to turn that damned signal on – because Batman has resources they’ve only dreamed of, and he always seems to get the bad guy in the end. Even if these psychos do end up walking because Batman doesn’t pay attention to the details, it’s good that the really dangerous criminals are off the street, even for a little while. Sometimes they even manage to pin something solid on the creeps before they walk.
  But last night Marcus Driver and his partner Charlie Fields were following up on a tip about a little girl that had been kidnapped, and accidentally walked in on Victor Fries, known by his criminal handle, “Mister Freeze.” The tip was bad, maybe a set-up. Before anyone could move, the psycho turned Charlie into popsicle, and then forced Driver to watch as he broke his partner into a bunch of chunks. So now Driver wants to take this guy down – and he doesn’t want the Bat to touch the case. He and the Major Crimes Unit have to solve this one for Charlie, and for the honor of the GCPD, and they have less than twelve hours until nighttime, when Batman comes out to play.
• 
  Falcon Blackwood

  I loved this book. I'm a huge Batman fan, but had been warned not to expect too much of the Bat in this volume. Yet he was all over it. His shadow stalked almost every page, with the cops wondering about turning on the Bat signal, thinking about not turning it on, or what was the procedure for doing so anyway? Trying to keep the Bat away from the investigation, determined to clear it up themselves...I thought that this would be me, if I was one of those cops. Gotham's finest, going about their mundane daily investigative tasks, finding stray cats, writing car theft reports and more paperwork- while the Bat hoovered up anything heavy duty or bizarre that came along. Why wouldn't they resent him?
  I come from a family of cops, my Grandad, my uncles, my Dad- even my Mum worked as a cop before she met my Dad...so I know that the majority of police work is dull routine slogging. Cops often don't have time to dig into cases because they are overworked, underfunded, constrained by resource managers...that's even before you factor in the rare lazy or corrupt ones. Yet we have a fixation with the idea of detection in so many (excellent) comics and TV series. We've turned it into a genre, an art form- and I love that. I've bought into it, hook line and sinker. That's what made this title so attractive. You have these stock characters looking like like cops from central casting, cleverly drawn with a grubby, noir Kojak style, wisecracking and then getting all fussed because one of their number is outed as gay. I thought we were over all that, and could accept people for what they are, but apparently Rucka and Brubaker think not. But apart from that one hiccup, the whole thing works so well. I don't know, maybe I was reading it ironically, but I loved the book. I was even slightly disappointed when things got a bit "costumed hero" in the last story. I wanted the cops to solve this one without my beloved Bats, and for a while, it seemed like they just might. Montoya was in a hopeless situation, framed up in the best Frank Cannon style but eventually the Bats takes over and makes it all look so simple.
  I loved the interplay between the cops and the implied presence of Batman, which somehow made him seem all the more awesome and mysterious.
  I can't wait to read the next in the series. Incidentally, I know a couple of folks have dissed the artwork in this book, but for me, it was brilliant. A definite five out of five.
  
• 
  Charles

  I didn't actually realise how old this was until I started reading it. The issue I have with a lot of older comics is that the art is often a lot worse than what's being produced today, the colours are washed out or less bright in the first place (though in this case there weren't many bright colours in the mix which was perfect for the tone of the thing), the characters are blocky, and there's very little detail. I had some trouble telling the men apart throughout the entire thing (not many women and they were different sizes, skin tones, hair colours) and in the very few panels Batman appeared (I knew what I was getting into but I did feel a little let-down by his absence) he was indistinct and ill-defined, a little grainy at times. Now the first I understand as fitting and intentional; Batman appears at night, sticks to the shadows, the pallor and darkness of Gotham are highlighted by what they fail to illuminate (#noir :P) but the second seems less intentional. Now, if this had been a police report this might have made sense; details are forgotten in the aftermath, people don't focus on certain things in the heat of the moment, they're often even intentionally hazy. But there are no excerpts from police reports overlaying the panels and there are personal asides mixed in; it feels more like a police procedural or cop drama - whatever you want to call that sort of show (Gotham <3). I think the rare streetlight and fluorescent bulb need to show harsher-than-life detail, in contrast to the darkness that the characters stumble about in.
  
  Storywise it was good but very much an ongoing series, which I sadly don't have more of. It's an interesting perspective, new to me.
• 
  Erik

  Pretty much a straight police procedural with Batman as a backdrop. It's a pretty great angle to take...
  
  Brubaker's book takes as a given that GCPD detectives probably share an ambivalent attitude towards Batman at best--given his undermining effect on their sense of self-efficacy, and the prevailing opinion that his presence actually draws the lunatic criminal element to the city. We then proceed to follow the endeavors of some of Gotham's finest to solve a couple murders on their own. The language and imagery (e.g. red names on the board) owe a great deal to the Wire (certainly not a bad thing), but overall this is an inventive and entertaining read. Lawrence Block writes the introduction. Poof.
• 
  Electric

  Can´t get enough of gotham? Tired of the same old "is he a hero/is he a psycho?" take on the dark knight? Do you like police procedurals? Then this is for you. Grim, gritty police work with believable characters and storylines that take a very different approach to the Cops that have to deal with the day to day struggle in the city of supervillains. Great artwork that captures the dark and fatalistic mood perfectly. Minor criticism: In the second storyline a moajor charcter is introduced without giving a backstory, so some knowledge of the DC continuum is imperative.