Gotham: Comic Book Influences (Obvious Spoilers...)

[BatmAngelus]

"Worse than a Crime"

Bruce says that his favorite animals are owls. A potential reference to the Court of Owls? In that storyline, young Bruce shortly tried to investigate the existence of the court after his parents' deaths.

Leslie's pregnancy could indicate that she's the mother of Barbara Jr./Batgirl or James Jr. Given the ages of the characters in the comic book canon, Barbara Jr. would have been born around the time that Bruce was a kid, whereas James Jr. was born during Batman's first year.

Victor Fries seems to already have become Mr. Freeze in this continuity and is using his freeze gun to kill people. This version may tie in more closely to the Paul Dini origin of the character, since casting news revealed that an actress will be playing Nora Fries.

[Silver Nemesis]

This is a great thread, BatmAngelus. I'm not a fan of Gotham and never made it past the first few episodes, but I'm still curious to know how they're handling the source material. This ongoing analysis is a great resource for the one aspect of the series I'm actually interested in: namely how it relates to the comics.

The fact they're referencing so many characters, particularly villains, from the source material just reinforces what many of us have been saying for years about the viability of a Batman TV show. I just wish they'd approached it as a proper Year One type of affair instead of taking the Smallville route. Particularly if characters like Mr Freeze are being portrayed as more or less fully formed.

[johnnygobbs]

This is a great thread, BatmAngelus. I'm not a fan of Gotham and never made it past the first few episodes, but I'm still curious to know how they're handling the source material. This ongoing analysis is a great resource for the one aspect of the series I'm actually interested in: namely how it relates to the comics.

The fact they're referencing so many characters, particularly villains, from the source material just reinforces what many of us have been saying for years about the viability of a Batman TV show. I just wish they'd approached it as a proper Year One type of affair instead of taking the Smallville route. Particularly if characters like Mr Freeze are being portrayed as more or less fully formed.

It's a shame that Mr Freeze is going to be presented as a fully-formed villain.  If any character demands a slow-burn portrayal, it's Victor Fries and his tragic descent from esteemed, philanthropic scientist with a loving marriage to insane, misanthropic villain.

That said, I must admit I enjoy "Gotham" for what it is.  Every time I read the synopses for the show I sigh with despair (the UK, where I live in several months behind the show in the US), and yet the actual show is surprisingly entertaining and compelling.  My only issue at all is the unnecessarily graphic violence.  The actual acts of violence on the show are no nastier than the stuff that occurs in Burton and Nolan's Batman films, but they're shot in a much more graphic and gory way which can be off-putting at times.

[BatmAngelus]

And we're back

"Mr. Freeze"

Oswald deliberately lands himself in Arkham Asylum to avoid jail. The Penguin in the comics has been an inmate of Arkham before.

It's implied that Victor Fries used to work for Wayne Enterprises. In the New 52, Victor also used to work for the company before becoming Mr. Freeze. Much like in the Paul Dini origin, Fries is out to save his ill wife, Nora.

Hugo Strange is the head of psychiatry at Arkham Asylum. Contrary to popular belief, Strange never had this role in the comics. Strange went in disguise to treat Jonathan Crane there in the Terror arc as well as took inmates from Arkham to experiment in Matt Wagner's update of the Monster Men. But it was The Batman cartoon where he was shown to be in charge of it. Arkham City ran with a similar idea in having him run the facility.

[Silver Nemesis]

Excluding fan films, isn't this the first time Hugo Strange has appeared in live action? If so, that's pretty crazy. Besides Doctor Death and the Monk, Strange was the first classic villain Batman ever faced. He's been around since 1940, predating even the Joker, and they're only just now adapting him in live action for the first time.

[BatmAngelus]

Indeed.

I think it's also kinda ironic that some people thought they should've cast an Asian actor to play Marvel's Dr. Strange instead of Benedict Cumberbatch and then Gotham turns around and casts an Asian actor for a very different Dr. Strange...

"A Dead Man Feels No Cold"

Ace Chemicals is heavily featured in the opening. Here, it's the source for the chemicals in Dr. Fries's freeze gun. In the comics, it'll be known as the birth place of the Joker.

It's shown that Ace is a division of Wayne Enterprises. I believe the New 52 established this connection, connecting Kane Chemicals (Martha's family's company) with Apex Chemicals (which is from Detective Comics #27) and Ace Chemicals into one company.

Leslie Thompkins finally visits Wayne Manor to help Bruce examine his feelings. In the comics, Leslie is mainly known for having comforted young Bruce after his parents' deaths and being a maternal figure for him.

During his session with Dr. Thompkins, Bruce shares his feelings that he can be "two things at once" and is already starting to develop the idea that he will have to carry out his mission for vengeance in secret.

Hugo Strange's lab coat in the beginning makes him look like a dead ringer for the Arkham City Hugo Strange.

Alfred reveals that, despite Silver's claim of making it up, "M. Malone" is a real person- Patrick "Matches" Malone. This will become Bruce's disguise in the criminal underworld years later. It's unknown at this point why the series decided to go with Matches Malone rather than Joe Chill.

Victor Fries's suit, when storming Arkham, is much closer to the Mr. Freeze refrigerated costume.

Nora has Victor retrieve her necklace for her to wear before he freezes her. In the Arkham games and Batman & Robin, Nora Fries also had a necklace in frozen form.

While Nora in many versions is still alive and kept in a tank of water, this Nora commits suicide by switching the cartridges in Victor's gun so that she'll die when he freezes her.

In the comics, Victor became Mr. Freeze through a lab accident. In the show, it's due to freezing himself in his suit, in a suicide attempt after Nora dies.

Victor Fries wakes up at the end with white hair. While most versions of Mr. Freeze are bald, the white hair evokes the Eli Wallach version of Mr. Freeze from the 1960s show. (George Sanders also had hair, but it was his natural grey).

[johnnygobbs]

Thank you again for these BatmAngelus.  I really appreciate the time and effort you put into these comprehensive analyses of the on-the-page and on-screen precursors to "Gotham".  I wish I could contribute but unfortunately the UK is quite a few episodes behind the US.

[Silver Nemesis]

I think it's also kinda ironic that some people thought they should've cast an Asian actor to play Marvel's Dr. Strange instead of Benedict Cumberbatch and then Gotham turns around and casts an Asian actor for a very different Dr. Strange...

Were people really clamouring for an Asian Doctor Strange? I saw a lot of people saying Iron Fist should be Asian, and I kind of get the logic behind that. But Stephen Strange himself... I'm not sure I could see that working, since I generally think of Strange as looking and sounding like Vincent Price. But an Asian Hugo Strange seems legit. From the pictures I've seen, B D Wong sure looks like the Strange from the comics.

How's the depiction of Leslie Thompkins? I've always thought she was one of the most underrated characters in the mythos, but I find it difficult to imagine Morena Baccarin in the role. I know Denny O'Neil voiced concerns over the portrayal of the character when they announced she was set to appear. Have they done her justice?

One other question - are there any Batman villains who've appeared in both Gotham and Arrow, and if so which series handled them more faithfully?

[BatmAngelus]

There are some people who believe that Ditko intended Strange to be Asian. For example:
http://community.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?14281-Was-Ditko-s-Dr-Strange-originally-Asian

Gotham's Leslie Thompkins is pretty far from the comics. She hasn't had much interaction with Bruce Wayne and Alfred until "The Last Laugh" episode and this past episode. And obviously Morena Baccarin is a far cry from the little old lady that Dennis O'Neil originally created.

She's more like Barbara Gordon (Sr.)- Gordon's (currently pregnant) civilian love interest, who worries about how the job's consuming him- with a bit of Sarah Essen since she works at the GCPD too (in this case, Leslie is their medical examiner).

Since she's currently pregnant, I suspect she'll be the mother of future Jim Jr. and future Batgirl, Barbara Gordon (however, the show's Barbara Gordon Sr. is a homicidal maniac who nearly killed Jim and Leslie so unless Barbara Sr. heavily redeems herself, I don't know why this version of Jim and Leslie would name their daughter after her). The show version of Sarah Essen is also dead, so this mainly leaves Leslie as the mother of Jim's future children, unless they introduce an original character soon.

There have been two Rogues who've been shared in Gotham and Arrow so far: The Dollmaker and Firefly.

For faithfulness, I'd say the shows are 50/50- Arrow gets their identities right, but Gotham captures their M.O.s more accurately.

The Dollmaker appeared in Arrow Season 2, played by Michael Eklund (who funny enough appeared in Gotham later as a different character). He was given the identity of the New 52 Dollmaker, Barton Mathis. While Mathis in the comics had a vendetta against Jim Gordon for killing his father, this Mathis had a vendetta against the show's Gordon counterpart, Detective Quentin Lance, for capturing him, and attempted to kill Quentin's daughter, Laurel (future Black Canary), in revenge.

He was given a different M.O., however. While Mathis in the comics takes different body parts and stitches them together into dolls, this Dollmaker was more audience-friendly and got his nickname from the way he displayed his victims, like dolls. At the end of the episode, "Broken Dolls," he was killed by Quentin's other daughter, Sara Lance, aka The Canary/future White Canary, after she and Oliver saved Laurel.

The Dollmaker appeared again in Gotham Season 1 a year later, played by Colm Feore. This Dollmaker was given the original name Francis Dulmacher and instead of a known serial killer, he was a doctor on an island, dealing in the organ trade and imprisoning people there. Like the Barton Mathis Dollmaker, however, he would take different people's bodyparts and stitch them together, including putting his office manager's head on the body of a woman and giving Fish Mooney her new eye. He was later wounded when Fish Mooney escaped his facility in Season 1 and hasn't been seen since.

(The Dollmaker is technically on Supergirl too- the character of Winn Schott (Jr) on there is the son of the Toyman, Winslow Schott. In the comics, Toyman's son, Anton, becomes the Dollmaker, too. Winn has yet to become a supervillain, however, and is basically a supporting character on Supergirl's team).

As for Firefly, he first appeared in Arrow Season 1, played by Andrew Dunbar. Like in the comics, his name was Garfield Lynns. But that's about it. In the show, he was a firefighter who was horribly burned in a fire and felt like his cohorts left him for dead. He returns, in his firefighter outfit, and burns his ex-colleagues to death until Oliver finds him and stops him. Seeing his life without purpose, Lynns steps into one of his fires and commits suicide. In Arrow, the team of firefighters were given the nickname "Firefly" and each had a tattoo of a firefly on their hands.

Two years later, there was a very different Firefly in Gotham Season 2- Bridget Pike, played by Michelle Veintimilla. This female Firefly was the young half-sister of the arsonist Pike brothers. After one of the brothers is killed, they use Bridget on a job since she's the only one small enough to crawl through the vents and set off one of their explosions. She fashions the full Firefly outfit and arsonist gun from the comics and ends up growing obsessed with fire. She burns her brothers to death after they threaten her and tries to go after human traffickers and pimps who abuse the little people, like her. In a police standoff, Bridget gets lit on fire due to an accident from her gun and is believed dead. It's revealed later, however, that Bridget survived, with burns all over her body, and is currently at the Indian Hill facility under Hugo Strange's care.

Both versions have Firefly's burns as part of the origin, even though in the comics, Firefly got burns over his body much later in his criminal career. Both versions also do not use the pyrotechnic/special effects expert origin and opt to do their own takes instead.

Personally, I'd say Arrow had the better Dollmaker while Gotham had a way better Firefly. It's interesting that Gotham changed their identities after Arrow and makes me wonder if this was a studio mandate to "not confuse the audiences." Recently, a couple characters on Arrow were killed off and seemed to be making room for their appearances in Suicide Squad in August.

[Silver Nemesis]

I figured Baccarin's Thompkins would be a perfunctory take on the character. It's a shame. I don't mind them depicting her younger, since this is a prequel, but she's got a rich characterisation in the comics that's never been capitalised on in a live action medium. O'Neil's said he originally modelled her on liberal activist Dorothy Day (who he apparently met) and that she was meant to be a sort of surrogate mother to Bruce, nurturing his charitable nature and informing his moral outlook. We've already seen how other characters helped define the crime fighting side of his personality; it would've been interesting to see how Thompkins influenced his humanitarian side. But if she's just an in-name-only love interest for Gordon, then it sounds like another wasted opportunity.

Since she's currently pregnant, I suspect she'll be the mother of future Jim Jr. and future Batgirl, Barbara Gordon (however, the show's Barbara Gordon Sr. is a homicidal maniac who nearly killed Jim and Leslie so unless Barbara Sr. heavily redeems herself, I don't know why this version of Jim and Leslie would name their daughter after her).

I watched a few early episodes of Gotham when it first started, and I remember thinking Babs was a phenomenally unlikeable character. But I didn't think they'd take it that far. And Sarah's dead? Wow. And they're only on season 2?

Regarding those villains, it doesn't sound like either show's really done them complete justice. But it's interesting to hear how they each focussed on different aspects of the character, as if they were deliberately trying to avoid covering the same ground. As a comic fan who doesn't watch either of these shows, I really appreciate your write-ups on this subject. I'm keen to see the Arrow analysis when it's done.