Gotham City is by far the most infamous fictional city of all time. With villains galore, and the gothic architecture to match its villainous inhabitants, Gotham City, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, is a hub of crime and deception. Its streets are caked in criminal activity, whether it be situated from the Iceberg Lounge, owned by Oswald Cobblepot (Pengu🀅in) himself, Blackgate Penitentiary, Arkham Asylum, or from the lower depths where giant crocodiles lurk, demons lay dormant, and a court of owls nest among the deceased. Gotham is a city built on crime, societal d🐼ysfunction and, albeit secretly, the occult.
However, amongst the darkness and travesty let off by Gotham and its people, a shining ligh༺t stands heroic and vigilant, intent on protecting the city from itself and from the evil within. That light is, of course, Batman. Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in 1939, Batman has always been the dark knight of Gotham City. Leaping rooftops and beating criminals, the Bat is a fundamental addition to the crime-ridden city and transcends as its protector to almost being an inevitability - a product of circumstance - that without Gotham City, there’d be no Batman.
Gotham’s origins are steeped in mystery and have had many incarnations along Batman’s 80-year publication history, and thus, there are many ridiculous🉐 things most people will forget about t🧜he criminal metropolis. That’s why here in this list we’ve decided to come up with the 25 misremembered facts and/or mysteries about Gotham City that only a devoted comic book fan would be able to remember. This is the 25 things about Gotham City that everyone forgets.
25 Batman Wasn’t The First Su🌼perhero To Gr𒀰ace Its Streets
Although the caped crusader is well-known for originating from and establishing his base in or around Gotham City, he wasn’t the first superhero to do so. Indeed, it was Alan🍨 Scott, the Golden Age🍰 Green Lantern that took up the mantle of protector of Gotham long before Batman (at least in modern continuity). Once President of Gotham Broadcasting Company, and varying somewhat from the other Lanterns, Scott’s powers come from The Starheart, rather than a colored lantern, a magical entity created three-and-a-half billion years ago bound with a collation of mystical energies once astray in the universe.
24 💮 Its First Utterance 𒐪
Gotham itself wasn’t even mentioned until Batman issue #4 published in 1940. Titled, The Case of The Joker’s Crime Circus, this issue established Gotham as the monolithic,𒆙 grandiose, criminal cesspit we know to𒆙day, with its dark color pallet and high-rising, impending skyscrapers and its dirty, crime-swollen streets. This is the issue that started it all. Incidentally, it’s also the issue that established Batman’s no-elimination rule, albeit rather incredulously as our titular character still manages to slice open a shark while letting his side-kick, Robin, duck in order to dodge a bullet and let someone else take the hit.
23 New Place, New City, 🐎New Me 🐻
In fact, Batman himself didn’t truly move his base of operations to Gotham City until issue #48 of Detective Comics in 1941. Prior to this, Batman’s adventures were se🎃t in New York City, but Bill Finger, creator of Batman, wanted his own fictional city for the hero, an exploitative playground that is both original yet, identifiable with a number of real-world cities. Henceforth Gotham has been predominantly Bruce Wayne’s city of origin and, in the modern continuity, he has ꧙been situated there for most of his life.
22 Gotham’s History Acco🌺rding To Alan Mo🌊ore
Gotham has a myriad of different origins in comics, TV, and movies alike, but the one that most refer to as the established history of the city was written by Alan Moore, in 1986 for issue #53 of DC anti-hero series, Swamp Thing. In this issue, he describes Gotham as being founded by a Norwegian mercenary in 1635 and later taken over by British Colonists (a tale that mirrors that of New York). During the American Revolution, Gotham was the site of a great battle as detailed in Rick Veitch’s Swamp Thing issue #85 featuring the revolution🌞ary hero, Tomahawk.
21 The Gothic I𝐆n Me🌃n
There’s a reason why Gotham is so drenched in gothic architecture, and it’s due to a certain ancestor of Bruce Wayne, the judge and extensive businessman, Sol♎omon Wayne. Bruce’s great-great-great-grandfather moved to Gotham when it was nothing more than a small village, with nothing but a Havard degree, a law book, and a bible.
Yet, with a little initiative, he established a number of businesses and became the most prosperous citizen in just six years.
After meeting architect, Cyrus Pinkney, Solomon decided he’🃏d found the style that suited Gotham best, the Gothic, and thus, promoted this style throughout his remaining years.
20 The 𓄧Bridges Are Named After The Founding Father🌺s
Another ancestor of Bruce Wayne (I’m starting to see a trend here) and anothe🔯r impactful set of changes to the now infamous Gotham City. The son of Solomon Wayne, Alan, lived in Gotham his whole life, largely due to his family house being considered haunted, and is attributed as one of the founding fathers of the Gotham City we know today. Along with Theodore Cobblepot (yes, Penguin’s ancestor) and Edward Elliot, Alan commissioned the construction of three great bridges, within Goth🐽am, by step-brothers Nicholas Anders and Bradley Gates, each adorning a respective founding father’s name.
19 Like, What Even Is A Phone Book, Anyway? ♐ ꧒
The name, Gotham, can be attributed to various historical inf𝔉luences but the one most precedent to fans of t🔯he series is the method in which creator, Bill Finger, decided upon it.
While flipping through the New York City phone book, Finger landed upon a store labeled, “Goth🔴am Jewellers.” He liked the name so much, he moved to change his original title, Civic City, to Gotham City and the rest is history. It’s also coincidently the name of a small village i⛄n Nottinghamshire, England and derives from the term for “homestead where goats are kept” in Old English.
18 It Was Once Home𝄹 To A Daemon Bat Creature ♕
Thomas Jefferson was one of the founding fathers of America and a prominent figure in the Batman mythos. Fiction has it that prior to his political incentive, Jefferson was rather interested in the occult. So much so that in 1765, alongside his secret cabal companion, Jacob Stockman, Jefferson summoned the bat Daemon, Barbatos,🍌 in an attempt to tame and control it. Yet, inevitably, Barbatos turned against them and attacked the occultists until they were able to seal it in an underground temple situated beneath Gotham. Jefferson abandoned occultism after this point and decided to pursue a career in politics instead.
17 Wayne🥂 Tower And Its 13th Gargoyle
Alan Wayne, after the construction of the three great bridges surrounding Gotham, wanted to construct something that would stand tall amongst the city, something that would i൲nsight protection and inspiration for the p♛eople of Gotham.
That’s why, in 1888, he commissioned the construction of Wayne Tower - the tallest building in Gotham and occasionally the HQ of Wayne Industries and a home away from home for Batman, with twelve gargoyles situated atop to guard each entrance to Gotham City. However, there is a hidden thirteenth gargoyle that works to pr♑event entrance to the tower from the air. How handy!
16 🤡 🦹 Greater Creators
On the topic of Wayn🐭e Tower, did you know that the streets in which it is situated are named after the two very specific comic book creators? Yes, indeed the tower is built on the corner of Finger and Broome streets, the former an obvious reference to Batman co-creator, B🦩ill Finger, and the latter a less well-known reference to the comic book legend, John Broome, who famously contributed the creation of an all-new Flash, Barry Allen, and the Silver Age Green Lantern, Hal Jordan. Now their names are etched in fictional concrete.