Some books just read better in collected format, and Gotham Central is clearly one of them. Oh, I've been championing this book from almost the very start, and continue to do so, but it's clear in reading In The Line Of Duty how much more I'd enjoy the book (and how much easier it'd probably be to sell) if it were published in trade paperback format in the first place. In these stories, which take our detectives through a manhunt for a cop-killing Bat-foe (and into a larger scheme) and on a search for the death of a teenage girl which leads somewhere unexpected as well, the character arcs seem clearer, the plots tighter and the overall storytelling just stronger. It's not - it's the same stories I've been reading - it's just that the pacing is so much better when the whole story is read together. So if you've been waiting on the trade for Gotham Central, or even if you picked up the single issues and couldn't get into the book, now is the time to check this book out. It's ten bucks for two damn fine stories and artwork, and the format that the book was really meant for in the first place.
One of the things that's both a selling point and potential detriment to Gotham Central is the expansive cast. In theory, the whole thing is broken up into day and night shifts, and the focus is on a couple of detective pairs, but in reality, the creative team has been keeping things in a constant state of flux since the beginning. Partners change even in the second arc, one of the cops dies early on, and while the focus might be on anywhere from four to six detectives, there are a number of them on the periphery. Fortunately, while this can get confusing in single issue format, for the most part, it's easy to keep track of who's who in the trade format, as the story arcs themselves tend to focus in on one or two pairs of detectives with strong motivations for solving the case. The personalities are grounded and down to earth, which makes them spark less than slightly cartoonish former cop Harvey Bullock or GCPD icon Jim Gordon, but in reading the stories in this format I never lost track of who was who or the relationships that they have, something I couldn't always say in single issue format. In fact, I picked up on things that I didn't catch the first time around (or didn't remember), like the coroner being the wife of Detective Fields or that there's tension between Probst and Sawyer beyond him just being a jerk to everyone.
A complaint that I had with Gotham Central early on was that it tended to involve Batman's villains too often for my taste. Indeed, these first two arcs both culminate in a showdown with a Batman foe. However, I've come to realize that this is to a great degree the point of Gotham Central, to examine these familiar supervillain faces through more human eyes, to examine how cop procedure deals with a guy being frozen to death or with an arsonist who uses high-tech gear rather than gasoline and a match. One could argue that there's a bit too much coincidence going on, since both cases pretty much involve the cops stumbling onto the antagonist through blind luck, but y'know, I'm afraid that's probably a pretty good reflection of reality, and the cops do get to show off their smarts and the puzzle-solving skills in putting all the pieces together once they've been put onto the scent.
This creative team really knows how to bring Gotham to life. And I don't mean in an Anton Furst gothic style or a Schumacher neon-glow "oh god my eyes" style. No, I mean this reads like a Gotham you could live in, one with different neighborhoods, the scars of earthquakes and other superhero detritus, courthouses, rundown cop precincts, a city that has been lived in. Lark is responsible for a great deal of this realistic look, just as he's responsible for the characters who look like they came out of central casting instead of a Lee and Kirby production. Again, in single issues these characters, especially "cop looking" guys like Fields, Driver and Probst, can start to look awfully similar, but when we're seeing them over a longer period of time, the differences are perfectly clear. And forget about Lawrence Block's meandering, pointless introduction to the trade, Gotham ain't New York. It's Gotham City, and it doesn't need any real-world analogues when it's got creators this talented bringing it to the page.
Even though this is a bargain-priced trade, DC hasn't skimped on the extras. The back has character sketches done by Michael Lark, explaining that the creative team gave him "extensive notes on each of the detectives and uniformed characters." Which explains how the writers think they don't need a role call... they know a lot more about these characters than what's ever going to make it to the page. Then there's the introduction, which comes from Lawrence Block, a writer with impressive mystery credentials that makes him the ideal guy to write the intro. A shame he dropped the ball by writing an utterly generic paean to New York, leaving the reader wondering if Block has even read the book he's writing the intro for, but still, the intent was in the right place.
I know it's never, ever going to happen, but in an ideal world, I'd love to see DC give up on the lower-selling serial format for Gotham Central and kicking out one of these deluxe, one or two story trades every six months or so by the same creative team.
