Where is Batman’s Gotham City located in the pages of DC Comics?

One of Stan Lee’s many innovations as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics He was preparing superhero stories for the publisher in the real-life location of New York City. This greater sense of reality and connectedness within comics helped create a sense of community among fans (which Lee intentionally cultivated). You can track the trend of creators and Fans are trying to integrate superheroes into the “real world” back in Lee’s wonderful New York City. Compare this to the older DC Comics heroes, who had their adventures in places like Gotham City, Star City, etc. These characters made homes because they were. clearly Characters that could never exist in our world; Writing a superhero comic is like telling a fairy tale.

Notice how Superman’s home, Metropolis, is named literally for “big city.” But then again, a lot of comic book fans really like to know where fictional DC cities are located, if only for the sake of internal consistency. This is especially true of the most famous city: Batman’s Gotham City.

So, basic answer: Gotham City is located in New Jersey. (Maybe there’s a reason “The Penguin” takes a lot from “The Sopranos.”) In issue #14 of “The Amazing World of DC Comics” (published in 1977), writer Mark Grunewald wrote an encyclopedic history of the Justice League. In the character bio section, Gruenwald explicitly classifies Gotham City as being located in New Jersey. (Gruenewald also Metropolis is listed as being located in Delaware in this issue, which is also accepted as canon.) New Jersey is logical enough as the location of Gotham; It’s not New York itself, but it’s close enough. Since then, Gotham City has been implied to be located in New Jersey, but not always.

In the animated film “Young Justice”, a map of the East Coast of the United States shows that Gotham City is located in southern Connecticut, near the real-life city of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Warner Bros. Animation

Like New Jersey, Connecticut is a state on the East Coast that abuts New York, so it fits the image of Gotham He should He owns. As a born-and-raised Connecticut native, Batman and co. Obviously, being a fellow Nutmeggers appealed to me. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Gotham City is supposed to be anywhere and nowhere, Like Springfield in The Simpsons, So that anyone can see his hometown in it.

DC has resisted the assumption that Gotham City is an alternative to New York City. the TRUE New York City has appeared in several DC Comics, so it and Gotham exist at the same time in the DC Universe. But if there’s one real city that Gotham symbolizes, it’s New York City.

“Gotham” is a nickname for New York City, coined by writer Washington Irving in the 19th century. When Batman first appeared in 1939, DC Comics (then National Comics) was also based in New York City, and this is where credited Batman creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane lived. In fact, “Detective Comics” #33 (the first depiction of… Batman’s origin story is often retold) He explicitly described his hometown as Manhattan. It had only been a year since Batman #4 was published in the 1940s, when Batman was transported to fictional Gotham City.

In “Steranko’s History of Comics” by Jim Steranko, Bill Finger recounts:

“Originally I was going to call Gotham City ‘Civil City.’ Then I tried ‘Capital City,’ then ‘Coastal City.’ Then, I flipped through the phone book and noticed the name Gotham Jewelry Company and said, ‘That’s it, Gotham City.’” We didn’t shoot. It has the name New York on it because we wanted anyone in any city to recognize it, and of course, Gotham is another name for New York.

Later Batman writers also based Gotham City in New York. In his novel Batman: Knightfall, Dennis O’Neil describes Batman’s urban aura as reflecting our collective fear that cities are full of evil hiding in the shadows. He concludes, “Batman’s Gotham City is located in Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven o’clock after midnight on the coldest night in November.”

There’s a quote often attributed to Frank Miller (writer of “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Batman: Year One”) that states, “Metropolis is New York by day; Gotham City is New York by night.” Miller talked about how he was mugged while living in New York City, which helped color the Batman comics and his previous “Daredevil” series (which, being a Marvel series, is literally set in New York). “Being robbed made me, at least for a time, as angry as Batman.” Miller told CBR in 2016.

Gotham City may have been modeled after the East Coast city, but the 1960s Batman TV series brought it to the West; The show is filmed throughout Southern California and the Los Angeles area.

Then director Tim Burton took Batman across the pond. The 1989 film “Batman” was filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios in England. The exterior of Wayne Manor was actually Knebworth House, a stately home in the Hertfordshire countryside. Burton’s sequel, Batman Returns, was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios. In california. Director Joel Schumacher shot some of Batman Forever in New York (Wayne Manor’s new exterior was actually the Webb Institute of Marine Engineering on Long Island, which was later reused in the 2014 TV series Gotham), but much of the film “Forever” and its sequel “Batman & Robin” are still being filmed on sound stages in California.

Zack Snyder’s “Batman V Superman” was filmed in Detroit, with Michigan City representing both Gotham and Metropolis. Snyder’s film presented Gotham and Metropolis as twin cities, separated by a bay, implying that they are located in New Jersey and Delaware, respectively, just like the comics.

Christopher Nolan’s goal with the Batman films was to ground the hero in the real world. This meant avoiding the magnificent Gothic sets used by Burton and Schumacher. Instead, Nolan filmed the Dark Knight trilogy in real cities, reinforcing the idea of ​​simulation and the idea that this Batman could actually exist in the real world — because we watch him move through it in every scene.

Although Batman Begins was filmed mostly throughout England, Nolan filmed the outer city areas of not only London, but also New York and Chicago. Chicago then became the main filming location for The Dark Knight. Nolan spent parts of his childhood in Chicago, and he felt it The right look for Gotham City: “I think the architecture of the city is really amazing, and gorgeous. That gave us an incredible amount of diversity that was used as a backdrop for the film.”

“The Dark Knight Rises” moved from Chicago, and was instead filmed in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, New York City, and Newark, New Jersey (with some outposts in London and Glasgow, Scotland). Richard Moskal, then director of the Chicago Film Office, He told the Chicago Tribune in 2011 He believed the filmmakers wanted to stay “fresh” by not reusing Chicago in the third film. However, with The Dark Knight being Nolan’s most famous Batman film, Chicago remains synonymous with Gotham for many. One of the people who agreed to this connection is the late Batman comic artist Neal Adams. Who said?:

“Chicago has been known for a certain kind of crime. Batman is in this kind of corrupt city and trying to bring it back to a better place. One of the things about Chicago is that Chicago has alleys (which actually don’t exist in New York). Back alleys, where Batman fights all the bad guys “

Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” takes cues from Nolan, grounding the Dark Knight in reality and taking it a step further with a Batman (Robert Pattinson) who is truly unbalanced. Similar to “Batman Begins,” “The Batman” flew and shot over Gotham City in the United Kingdom. Specifically, “The Batman” was filmed primarily in Liverpool, but with additions from London, Glasgow and Chicago as well. According to The Batman’s production designer, James Shenlund, the filmmakers chose Liverpool because its natural gothic architecture evoked the history they wanted to suggest for Gotham City: an old and “decaying” city, but one that had seen periods of renewal.

The tower from which Batman dives with his wingsuit to escape the Gotham Police? This is actually Liverpool Royal Liver Building. Chinlund recounted to the BBC:

“I started looking around that area and it slowly started to reveal itself, how rich this world is and what an incredible city Liverpool is in terms of (how) it follows the story. It had an amazing boom, and then it crashed hard. Many times over the years, the ivory that was Being in the buildings, obviously the extreme weather…it all fit like a glove.”

The spin-off TV series “The Penguin” was filmed in New York, however Driver’s licenses were briefly glimpsed in the show Reeves still calls Gotham City after its location in New Jersey. Cristin Milioti (Sofia Falcone) He is The native daughter of Jersey, and with the accent Colin Farrell uses as Oz, Gotham couldn’t be anywhere else but the Garden State.