6 Times Gotham Improved Batman's Mythology (And 4 Times It Failed)

5. Allowed The City To Breathe

Gotham City
Fox

Across a wide variety of mediums, over multiple decades, Gotham City has so often simply been the city which is the backdrop to so many of Batman's battles.

What Gotham the show did so well, is that it allowed its titular city to breathe and become its own beast. Sure, anyone who’s ever read a single Batman comic will likely be aware that Gotham City is intended to be its own character, yet we’ve never seen that play out in a way anywhere remotely close to how the city was handled in Gotham.

By not solely focussing on one person’s journey, and by exploring so many corners of Gotham’s dingy streets, the series managed to make Gotham City its own monstrous locale. Each Gotham building, each Gotham street, each Gotham room, they all felt like individual beings in their own right.

Never in the world of Batman – well, bar possibly the iconic Batman: The Animated Series – has Gotham City been treated with so much respect and care by a creative team.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.