10 Smartest Decisions In DC Superhero History
3. Showing A Different Side Of Gotham - Gotham Central
Ignoring for just one second that maybe DC shouldn't have so many Bat books on the shelves at a given moment, one spin-off book that definitely justified its existence was Gotham Central, a project co-authored by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka in the early aughts that focused on the GCPD.
Brubaker and Rucka - joined by artists Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano and others - drew inspiration from television series Homicide: Life on the Street and invited readers to experience Gotham from a new perspective.
It was street-level, on the ground, and showcased how Gotham's ordinary cops do their jobs when they have to face supervillains like Mister Freeze, Two-Face and Joker, all with the Dark Knight operating outside their authority and all the internal conflict that brings.
Gotham Central is a truly extraordinary book, with arguably its crowning achievement being the Half a Life arc, which saw Renee Montoya outed as a lesbian, but the true genius of the comic lies in its ground-up approach to the DCU, spotlighting the ordinary dealing with the extraordinary.