Title: Gotham Central.
Volume: 4.
Story Arc: Corrigan.
Writer(s): Greg Rucka & Ed Brubaker.
Artist(s): Kano & Steve Lieber.
Inker(s): Steve Gaudiano & Steve Lieber.
Colourist(s): Lee Loughridge.
Letterer(s): Clem Robins.
Publisher: DC Comics.
Format: Paperback.
Release Date: March 15th, 2010.
Pages: 224.
Genre(s): Comics, Superheroes.
ISBN13: 9781401231941.
My Overall Rating:
Previously in the Gotham Central series:
Gotham Central, Book One: In the Line of Duty by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka.
Gotham Central, Book Two: Jokers and Madmen by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka.
Gotham Central, Book Three: On the Freak Beat by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker.
How does one confront evil when it continuously succeeds in pervading the world, bringing everyone down on their knees, begging for change, peace, and justice? Despite having the most virtuous beliefs, for a single person, it sometimes just isn’t enough when your whole police department is overflowing with corrupt authorities and the city you constantly try to protect sees lunatics roaming around, destroying everything that they set their eyes upon, killing innocent lives, and taking away, inch by inch, the little good that there’s left out in the world. Collecting issues #32-40, this final volume in the Eisner and Harvey award-winning Gotham Central series concludes in the hands of critically-acclaimed writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker and contains four stories: the stand-alone saga titled Nature, the four-part murder mystery titled Dead Robin, another stand-alone tale titled Sunday Bloody Sunday, and the three-part finale titled Corrigan II.
What is Gotham Central, Book Four: Corrigan about? The first story presents the corrupt life of a police officer within the Gotham City Police Department. This is followed up by a larger murder mystery that begins with the discovery of a boy found dead wearing a Robin costume. With no one but Batman and several other superheroes aware of the boy’s real identity, the cops must proceed on the presumption that it is the real deal and that Batman is their prime suspect. Tying into the once-upon-a-time ongoing events of Infinite Crisis, the following one-shot story brings Major Crimes Unit’s detective Crispus Allen to discover the truth regarding detective Renee Montoya and what she had to do about Crime Scene Technician Jim Corrigan to exonerate him. The final story sees MCU’s detective Crispus Allen take matters into his own hands and try and rid once and for all the GCPD of their most corrupted crime scene technician.
“And I know you hate the guy… But you gotta know that whatever the present situation… At the end of the day, he’s on our side, in his own way.”
— Greg Rucka
Focusing once more on the core cast of detectives, these stories remain grounded and ever-so-engaging, bringing writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker to restrain their usage of the supernatural, to focus on the police procedural elements and shine a light on the character drama at the heart of these stories. While short cameos of Gotham’s superheroes and even a quick nod to the events of Infinite Crisis, limited to the story titled Sunday Bloody Sunday, are inevitable, most of these stories continue their exploration of the GCPD’s corruption and their complex relationship with the press, constantly breathing down on their necks while they are already pummeled and tormented by the pressures of their job in a world where justice cannot strive without people believing in it. Writer Greg Rucka, who was the last of the co-creators to still be writing the series, does a fantastic job with the final story arc, brilliantly unveiling a tragedy while allowing the emotionally-troubled detective Renee Montoya, whose life has been in constant turmoil lately, to experience a character-defining episode and end the series on a high note, one where readers are brought to reflect on the onslaught of evil faced by heroes who only want good for those they are trying to protect.
With co-creator and artist Michael Lark having also left the series back since issue #25, the artwork by Kano, Steve Lieber, and Stefano Guadiano manage to once more capture the essence of the original artwork, without necessarily matching or improving it. The monochromatic background, subtlety evolving page by page, also helps establish the crime procedural tone, portraying a depressed and vice-ridden world. The unexpected cameo of a team of beloved DC Comics teenage superheroes in their vibrant primary-coloured costumes also made for a contrasting reminder of this series’ artistic vision. That being said, the artwork goes hand in hand with the stories presented in this final volume, and had these original creators of this series all stayed, Gotham Central could’ve easily continued its realistic exploration of by-the-book heroes within a city protected from above by a man dressed as a bat. Nonetheless, the series now brilliantly ends with this fourth volume and will surely be revisited in the future.
Gotham Central, Book Four: Corrigan is an astounding finale further highlighting the meticulous work of Gotham’s Finest detectives and the weight of their duty on their own psyche amidst the evil in their city.
Roars and Echoes 
this comment is on a completely unrelated note to the review, fyi.
I was checking for broken links on my site (using brokenlinkchecker.com) and a whole bunch of your linkbacks and what not came up. So I went to investigate and bookidote wouldn’t load for me. I’m assuming the site has lapsed? If so, did you get all of your content out of there? It’s more just idle curiosity than anything.
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Oh yes, it’s the first thing I did before moving on. I couldn’t let all that hard work rot away. However, I should do that wholr broken link check thing too. I feel like many of my reviews can’t be found easily from a quick search. Is the fix simple?
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Oh good! Glad to hear that.
How many posts do you have? The free version (which I use) is good for 3000 posts/pages. The fix is completely manual on your part, so it takes some effort but if you work away at it a little bit it goes pretty quick. I’ve been working on mine for about 2-3 months now and while I have about 4500 posts, I figure 3K of them is good enough 😀
Here’s the link btw:
https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/broken-links.php#status
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I’m inching my way closer to 1k. Wow, 4.5k. Give me a couple decades before ever reaching those numbers hahaah
Thanks for the link. You motivated me into looking into all the little issues and beginning a whole cleaning process for past super-old posts hahaha The only broken links that pop up are links to blogs from followers who put the wrong URL to their blog in their gravatar thing… I don’t think I could do anything about that… 😦
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Well, about 4200 of those are all of my reviews. Because I’ve nuked multiple blogs over the years, most of my non-review posts don’t survive the move from one place to another. Otherwise, it would probably be closer to 7K 😀
yeah, there is no way to fix the gravatar issue. I tried 😀
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You’re definitely a champion in that category, that’s for sure. I doubt anyone is anything close to those numbers right now out there and is still going strong when it comes to blogging!
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You’d have to compare me to some of the people on Devilreads. But since I can’t be on there (oh man, I tried again. To leave a comment on a review left by my cousin. And some jackass goes and comments in reply to me. It pissed me off so much that I deleted my account all over again, sigh), well, this is kind of a personal book database 🙂
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Lashaan, I am not familiar with this series, but it certainly sounds like an exceptionally solid contribution to the legacy of The Batman. Enjoyed reading your thoughts on this.
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Thank you so much for reading, Bruce. I appreciate it. It’s a fantastic series that I highly recommend checking out if you’re looking for something within Batman’s universe and a bit more grounded and realistic.
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I’m glad you are enjoying this series, Lashaan. I find all the new Gotham stuff so dark, give me the old Batman anyday. (I know, I’m old 😁)
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Hahaha thanks for reading, Carla! Silly Bats is fun here and then but I’ll always be happy to get the grittier version! 😛
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This sounds interesting. It sure must be hard put the heroes aside and focus on normal characters and making it their story along with investigation. Excellent review, Lashaan!
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Thanks, Yesha! I appreciate it! I love how the series explored these detectives way more than all the superhero stuff happening around them.
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Awesome! Great to see it ending on a high note. From the first time you mentioned this series I loved the premise of it being more about normal folks than the superheros. Seems it might provide some level of grounding and a reminder there’s a “real” world in this fictive realm of larger than life characters.
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Exactly, Todd! I love that it explores the grounded facet of this universe that is often associated with SFF. I highly recommend it if you’re itching for something within the DC Universe. 😀
P.S. If you haven’t already seen it, check out the email I wrote you! 😀
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Haven’t read any of these but will look for them. Saw volume 1 on sale recently.
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Glad this piqued your curiosity, Alex. I highly recommend the series. 😀
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Interesting take on a superhero (or regular service career) job of getting weary always fighting the same evil that infiltrates the good. I love that there are good mysteries at the heart of this series of stories and that the art reflects the tone of the story so well.
Great review, Lashaan!
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Thank you so much for your kind words, Sophia. It’s indeed fantastic that they were able to tell some awesome stories with a police procedural touch within a superhero universe.
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Well then it seems a worthy continuation of the series!
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Yep, a great sequel, Sophie! 🙂
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A lovely review, Lashaan. And good to know this modern take has brought something new to a very established and much-loved franchise.
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Thank you so much, Sarah! I do love how this series managed to focus on something way more grounded instead of the usual superhero shenanigans. It was quite refreshing to read!
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You mentioned that the supernatural was somewhat minimized in this project. Do you enjoy reading things that are more relatable than those that are completely out of this world?
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I enjoy them both pretty much equally and a lot, if the stories and characterization are done right. From epic fantasy to noir crime! 😀
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