Batman, Where Are You?

Well I have been meaning to write about this since we saw the movie in IMAX but I have been so busy with work and also dealing with other postings. I promise to write soon. Well anyway... The other day I went out to see Batman Begins. As usually happens with me when I hang out with my friend we ended up walking around the mall for hours... seriously it was hours. This time we finished watching the movie and while we were walking around we began to wonder where Gotham City was.

Well I called Qubeley because I knew that she would know... The whole time I was betting that Gotham is in Maryland somewhere. I could have sworn that a couple of years ago I saw a map that had all the fictional cities from the DC Universe on it. There I saw that Metropolis was near New York City and that Gotham was somewhere near Washington D.C.. Well when I got a hold of Qubeley she told me that she thought Gotham was near New York... Oh well I guess I could have been misinformed. Still, where did this map come from.

So I did some research on Gotham City and this is what I found...

Gotham City was finally named in Detective Comics #48 (February 1941); before then, Batman's adventures happened in either New York City or an unnamed city. Gotham is known to be architecturally modeled after Chicago, Illinois or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Frank Miller said that metaphorically, Metropolis (home to Superman) is "New York during the day," and Gotham is "New York at night." Someone else said that Metropolis is New York above 14th St., and that Gotham City is New York below 14th St.

Gotham is a traditional nickname for New York City, but there is a separate NYC in the DC universe. It is definitely a port city, probably on the east coast; too much plot has depended on that fact. Again, various sources have placed Gotham City all along the east coast, often near Metropolis. The distance to Metropolis has also varied; from hundreds of miles to linked by a bridge.

Also, in Adventures of Superman #425, Clark and Lois board a train traveling from Atlanta to Metropolis. Cities mentioned as in-between stops are Charlotte, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Gotham City, in that order. This would seem to imply that both Gotham and Metropolis are in New Jersey as the train is heading in a northern direction and New York City is not mentioned.

Anther interesting thing to note is that Mayfair Games published an Atlas of the DC Universe, written by DC staffer Paul Kupperberg. While not completely official, it does jibe with locations that DC used when its house fanzine of the mid-70s discussed this same question. The locations given for the main DC fictional cities are:
-- Metropolis: Delaware
-- Gotham City: New Jersey

So with a little bit of more searching I found a map of the Eastern coast of the DC Universe. as published by Mayfair Games. Finally I have found my map.

Well so that is all I could find about Gotham. Except for the fact that the other day I was in the New York Historical Society building (More on that later.) and there I found this book. So in conclusion, I would say that Gotham is just about anywhere those crazy people at DC want to put it and that we really should not spend to much time thinking about it since it is a fake city...


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