Category Archives: GOTHAM CITIZENS

On Gotham City’s beat cops

According to Mike’s Amazing World, the very first Batman tale came out eighty years ago this week, in Detective Comics #27. I figured I should mark the occasion on this blog with something different, so this week I’m going daily … Continue reading

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The looks of Vicki Vale

          Among the fascinating things about Batman comics is the fact that, because they have been going on for eight decades, you get to trace social and aesthetic evolutions on all sorts of fronts. One of those fronts is the … Continue reading

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Spotlight on Aquaman / Batman team-ups

I tend to give DC’s live-action movies a lot of crap in this blog, so I guess it’s only fair to admit I had a great time watching James Wan’s Aquaman. It’s a fun slice of schlock that manages to … Continue reading

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Spotlight on Batman’s Z-list villains

Welcome to Gotham Calling’s 200th post! Solo #7 Back when we reached the first hundred posts, Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was about to come out and I wrote about a handful of oddball villains whom I … Continue reading

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The tragic fate of Sarah Essen

Batman #406 When people talk about the tendency for bestowing gruesome violence against prominent female characters in comic books – the ‘women-in-refrigerator’ trope – Sarah Essen is always one of the first names to come to my mind. She was … Continue reading

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Things you can learn from Barbara Gordon comics

Besides kicking ass as Batgirl, over the years Barbara Gordon has been a librarian, a member of Congress, and a first-rate hacker who – under the codename Oracle – supplied intelligence to the crime-fighting community of Gotham City. The combination … Continue reading

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Bruce Wayne, disco party animal

Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie may be a genuinely funny absurdist comedy, an inventive visual delight with spot-on voice acting, a postmodern, good-natured spoof of superhero blockbusters as well as, at the same time, an action-packed mega-crossover adventure yarn … Continue reading

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AzBats’ X-mas spirit

During this time of year, I usually address the holiday spirit of Gotham and its citizens. This season, I was going to play with AzBats’ sunny disposition by cracking jokes about how all his favorite Christmas movies are probably rather … Continue reading

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6 cool AzBats moments

One of the most infamous Batman eras was that time Jean Paul Valley – a university grad student brainwashed by a sect of the Knights Templar into becoming the assassin called Azrael – temporarily replaced Bruce Wayne as the Dark … Continue reading

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Batman HATES guns

I’ve explained before why I don’t think Batman should use firearms. Given how much attention the gun debate has been getting of late, however, perhaps it is a good time to take a closer look at how strongly the Dark … Continue reading

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