10 Insanely Detailed Comic Book Worlds That Blew Fans' Minds

3. Gotham City - DC

Gotham City is the DC universe's little slice of gothic Europe, and a locale that's managed to sustain a world of its own for decades.

Pioneered by the likes of Bill Finger, Gardner Fox and others, no city has undergone as big a transformation in the DCU than Gotham. It's been an ordinary American hub, a modern day metropolis and even Victorian in design on occasion. For my money's worth though, the definitive version of Gotham will always be gothic and timeless, a surreal mix of retrofuturism and nineteenth century-era horror that coalesced to impart something special.

Tonally, Batman's world is almost peerless. Although derivative in certain respects, the city's changing landscape and inhabitants has ensured it never feels stale. The Dark Knight and his supporting characters, meanwhile, help ensure the locale's many contradictions somehow make sense; Batman can be tussling with the Joker after a murder-spree, for instance, while at the same time the Boy Wonder could be pursuing a task far less macabre in nature.

It doesn't work for everyone, but the marriage between light and dark - as well as past and present - has left readers with one of the most enjoyable settings in comics to date.