Quarter Bin #41 "Gotham Central and For Tomorrow"

GOTHAM CENTRAL #16 (DC)

From April 2004

GOTHAM CENTRAL #22 (DC)

From October 2004:

Harking to another Comic Book Resources article, I found myself finally reading some issues of GOTHAM CENTRAL, a Batman family comic that centered on the regular police presence in the Dark Knight’s home turf, written during its run by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, two creators who have made names for themselves by mostly staying within a more realistic interpretation of superheroes.  Rucka has stuck mostly to crime comics, though he remains one of the best Wonder Woman writers of the modern era, while Brubaker, who has done his share of similar comics, has in the meantime made his name most familiar with a sustained run with Captain America, in which he totally transformed the franchise (and influenced the coming movie sequel by introducing the concept that Bucky Barnes managed to survive WWII by unwittingly becoming a Russian agent codenamed the Winter Soldier).  These particular issues of GOTHAM CENTRAL were written by Brubaker.  I was persuaded to read these because of the covers.  The first features a misleading reference to the Joker, who I was assured had been handled brilliantly in the series, though he is not in this issue, which rather features fairly routine police work from pretty much everyone in the book who didn’t actually become name characters (those survivors would be Crispus Allen, who would go on to be the new host of the Spectre; Jim Corrigan, who I assume was used as a red herring, because he shared the name of Spectre’s original host; and Renee Montoya, whose profile was subsequently elevated when she became the new Question in the pages of 52).  The effect of this is that GOTHAM CENTRAL reads like a comic book adaptation of any TV procedural drama you can name, and is not an impressive demonstration of the quality I’ve heard about.  The second issue has Harvey Bullock on the cover, with a reference to the Penguin (which is either ironic, given what Geoff Johns did with BATMAN: EARTH ONE, or a story he was actually referencing, and the reason I got this one), which actually pans out in the story.  This one was worth reading, not just because I knew and therefore cared about the characters, but because it made sense as a standalone read.  Coming out of the experience, I’m not sure I would personally recommend GOTHAM CENTRAL, at least not if you’re willing to make a bigger commitment than a few sample issues.  Following the perspective of the regular law enforcement of Gotham City is a worthy subject, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to ignore Batman when you’re doing so.  Any issue should reference him a little more prominently than was evidenced by these issues, not because it’s relevant, but because it’s conceptual necessary.

SUPERMAN #215 (DC)

From May 2005:

This was the conclusion to Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee’s “For Tomorrow” arc, a sort of culmination to everything DC had been trying to do during the first decade of the millennium prior to INFINITE CRISIS, or in other words five years of desperately attempting to make Superman cool and relevant to readers.  Since that time the company has cooled its jets a little, trusted its creators a little more, and even gotten some of them to embrace writing the character for the character’s own sake.  “For Tomorrow” features a continuity that no longer exists, another of those interpretations of General Zod that I personally consider to be instantly irrelevant after Geoff Johns’ ACTION COMICS run (and subsequent New Krypton adventures).  Yet it makes an interesting point, and one I suspect was Azzarello’s intention, that for a guy whose origins are defined by great loss, Superman has made a life out of preventing bad things from happening to anyone else, kind of overlooking that good can sometimes come from tragedy.  I would use that as an argument to get Azzarello writing more Superman, see what else he can say about that.  The artwork from Jim Lee, meanwhile, looks more like his Image material than his current JUSTICE LEAGUE work (or either of his Batman projects), and is a little more distracting than it is a draw, and I think that’s another reason why “For Tomorrow” has fallen between the cracks since it was originally presented, harking back to an era that not only no longer exists, and isn’t something anyone besides Kurt Busiek is interested in revisiting, other than in the pages of the late SUPERMAN/BATMAN, which itself became increasingly irrelevant before disappearing at the dawn of the New 52.