Gotham has existed as one of the greatest fictional settings for decades, meaning comics have graced readers with hundreds of Gotham City facts at this point. The sheer amount of information on Gotham City, not to mention its many conflicts, makes studying the town almost impossible. It would honestly take the greatest detective in the world to fully understand everything there is to know about Gotham.
For starters, why is Gotham City so bad? Seriously, the city has been burned to the ground dozens of times over, and that’s certainly not normal. Well, it turns out there’s a very magical reason for Gotham’s inherent terribleness – just like there’s a reason for Gotham’s interesting architectural choices and the real-life cities that inspired its creation.
1. There Was An Evil Warlock Buried Under The City Millennia Ago
Metropolis and Gotham City are about as different as the heroes who patrol them. Superman is a shining light to his people and has kept the city clean and pristine. On the flip side, Gotham City turned Bruce Wayne into a hero fueled by vengeance, and Batman has been unable to make a real dent in the city’s crime.
Why is Gotham City so bad? Well, some believe the city is actually cursed. Thousands of years ago, before the idea of the city even existed, an evil warlock was interred on the grounds that would one day become Gotham. It is believed this warlock’s dark being tainted the earth itself around Gotham – meaning the city is truly cursed, and it will never be fixed.
Eventually, the evil warlock actually does wake up. Being an evil warlock, he’s actually quite proud of the twisted city that was built around him, and he decides to adopt the name of the city and calls himself Doctor Gotham.
2. Amadeus Arkham Started Arkham Asylum In His Own Home
Many of Batman’s greatest villains call Arkham Asylum their home at one point or another in the comics. But, when it is first created, it is literally the home of Amadeus Arkham. Arkham decides to transform the building into a home for the mentally ill because he doesn’t think the city is doing enough for the mentally ill on their own.
Sadly, Amadeus continues to call Arkham home for the remainder of his life. Except, instead of the proud owner, he becomes a patient. Over the years, the asylum stays in the hands of the Arkhams, and a descendant of Amadeus named Jeremiah runs the facility in the modern-day.
3. Gotham City’s Gargoyles Were Built In The 1840s To Scare Away Evil
Gotham is known for its distinctive visual style, much of which came around in the 1840s. It was during that time that an ancestor of Bruce’s, Judge Solomon Wayne, began working with an architect known as Cyrus Pinkney to set a tone and style for the city. As it turns out, the reason Gotham looks so dark and frightening is that Wayne was a Christian man who wanted to create a city that would scare away the evils of nature.
The gargoyles littered throughout the city were built as a part of Wayne’s commission and were specifically created to scare away evil. Clearly, that’s not exactly working out, as neither the Joker nor the Penguin has ever seemed to be frightened away by these stone statues.
4. The City Has Been Secretly Controlled By The Court Of Owls Since Its Inception
Scott Snyder’s famed run on Batman introduced the world, and Batman, to the fearsome Court of Owls. Bruce Wayne had heard of the Court of Owls throughout his whole life, but until this storyline, he had always assumed they were just a story to scare children.
As it turns out, the Court of Owls is a cabal of powerful Gothamites who have been controlling the city from the shadows for centuries. They execute their will over the town through their powerful assassin known as the Talon, who operates from various nests hidden in the architecture throughout the city.
5. Crime Alley Isn’t Gotham’s Worst Neighborhood – It’s The Borderline For Its Worst Neighborhood
Crime Alley is the location of a lot of pain for Bruce Wayne, but it’s not so bad of a neighborhood that his parents can be blamed for taking their son (and a necklace full of pearls) there. In fact, Crime Alley actually acts as the border for the real worst neighborhood in Gotham, known as the Bowery.
Also, to be clear for new fans out there, Crime Alley isn’t called Crime Alley in the comics until after the Waynes’ historic demise. Before that, it was known as Park Row.
6. Green Lantern And Black Canary Were Gotham City’s First Superheroes In The 1930s
The history of the DC universe is rather convoluted. In real life, Batman was created around the same time as Superman in the late 1930s, and they fought for justice as peers of the JSA. However, in the subsequent years, the JSA stopped getting published, and when they reappeared in the universe years later, it was as crime-fighters of the past that predated Batman and Superman.
So, the original Green Lantern, a man named Alan Scott and a member of the JSA, fought crime long before Batman. Interestingly enough, Alan Scott’s base of operations is also Gotham City. This means that even though Batman is the most famous of the Gotham crime-fighters, he is not the first. In fact, Batman is also predated by another member of the JSA based in Gotham, the Black Canary.
7. Gotham City Is On The East Coast, But Somehow Experienced A Catastrophic Earthquake
Gotham City is an East Coast city, typically shown to be somewhere in New Jersey. Yet, in the events of Batman: Cataclysm, a massive West Coast-sized earthquake demolishes the city. The epicenter of this earthquake is near Wayne Manor and does a massive amount of damage to the property. It’s not just the Waynes who are hit, though; the earthquake does so much damage to Gotham City at large that the city descends into chaos, as shown in the Batman books for years following.
The storyline concludes in “No Man’s Land,” wherein the US government evacuates most of the population from the destroyed Gotham and declares that the city itself is a no man’s land and its remaining inhabitants will be receiving no help from the government in any form.
8. Batman Has Mini-Caves Located Around Gotham
After the Joker War, Bruce Wayne is no longer rich. Well, he’s still a millionaire, so he’s definitely rich, but he’s no longer a billionaire. Part of his transition out of being in the one percent of the one percent involves moving to a brownstone in the middle of Gotham and operating as Batman using mini-caves hidden around the city.
Bruce Wayne owns a lot of real estate in Gotham. This means it’s easy for him to make the entire city his turf. In the new status quo, that means having safe houses littered around that he can stop into and gear up at in a moment’s notice.
9. Gotham Isn’t The Original Home Of Bruce Wayne
One of the few things everyone knows about Batman is that he lives and operates in Gotham City. In reality, however, Batman doesn’t fight for justice in Gotham in his original appearances. In his Detective Comics appearances and up until Batman #4, he actually fights crime in New York.
Where does the name Gotham come from? Well, Gotham has actually been a nickname for New York City for much longer than Batman has existed. The name of Batman’s city was switched to Gotham to give the stories a more fantastical setting for Batman’s adventures.