One of my all time favorite shows was the HBO series The Wire. I could go on for days about how this series turned the traditional cops & robbers formula on it’s ear and created something rarely seen on TV, but I just want to talk about one aspect of the show – having the city of Baltimore be one of the characters. I have never been to Baltimore but after watching all 6 seasons of The Wire I know that city like the back of my hand. I know it’s bad neighborhoods, it’s downtown, I know the ship yards and the schools. Like any city it has it’s secrets and it’s darkness, but also has it’s goodness and light. The city takes care the working class people with its streets where everyone knows your name and kids play in till dusk, it also harbors the broken and lost souls in its shooting galleries and crack houses at the dark end of the street. They all co-exist together here. The city will never turn its back on them.

And Batman will never turn his back on Gotham – the city that killed his parents. Batman is determined to rehabilitate Gotham, to cleanse it. This is a struggle that will never end.

What Scott Snyder has done in the first issue of this new Batman is introduce us to Gotham City and is telling us that the city is has important of a character as The Joker or Commissioner Gordon. The Gotham in Batman #1 breathes a life that I haven’t seen in any Batman comic in years. And it’s not done with giant splash pages of the city scape with Batman swinging between it’s buildings (in fact Capullo draws the city with almost a reserved tone). No, instead we get introduced to Gotham through the words and the people of the city. One of those people is Bruce Wayne.

Wayne loves this city you can tell in the speech he gives at the party in honor of the city. A speech of the hope of a better tomorrow. He talks of the city streets becoming the fears and frustrations of it’s people. Becoming it’s demons. Bruce knows this all too well, just one trip to “crime alley” will illustrate his point crystal clear. Instead of boring us with fist fights, Snyder let’s us be the invisible guest of Bruce Wayne as he meets the citizens of Gotham – Vicki Vale, Lincoln March, Jim Gordon – all who will share a love of Gotham. But the party is cut short for Bruce as across town a murder victim is found by Detective Harvey Bullock. And we tag along for the ride, going from the glitter and glitz of Gotham to it’s boarded up and condemned barrows – where the city hides its horror from the flashbulbs. Where a mystery is unfolding.

This a story started over 70 years ago, but Snyder and Capullo have given us a new beginning.

damn this a good comic