Gotham By Gaslight - Tumblr Posts

Cover art for Pretty Missteps by Skalidra, created for the 2022 WIP Big Bang

Batman; Gotham by Gaslight

Within the annals of cultural, pop cultural, and historical crime, there are few whose macabre methods could reach the bloody depths that 'yours truly,' Jack the Ripper, managed to plumb.

Five brutal deaths were all it took for that deadly name to resound for Five centuries. The echo of the deed has so scarred the psyche of man that Man collectively found 'champions' of their own to face the blood-soaked beast on the battlefield of 'what if' in an attempt, perhaps, to find a semblance of cold closure on one of the most famous cold cases in history.

A murderer must be hunted by a detective, and there is no more excellent detective at DC's disposal than Batman to solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper. It is a contest between legendary figures, a Dark Knight on a quest to capture a monster, two ghosts playing a grisly game of hide-and-seek through the foggy alleys of a Victorian-era Gotham lit not by neon ...but by Gaslight.

Ironically, even though Batman is DC's greatest detective, barely any detective work is done in both the movie and the original comic it is adapted from. Any investigative work done by Batman in both mediums to uncover the identity of Jack is brushed over, and the reveal of the killer's identity had nothing to do with anything Batman had done throughout the narrative.

Ultimately, Batman is almost railroaded into solving the mystery, and the climax is somewhat underwhelming and blunts the effect of the twist reveal of Jack the Ripper's true identity.

YES. Commissioner James Gordon IS Jack the Ripper. This risky reimagining elevated this adaptation to a height that its original comic did not achieve. The twist shocked the system for any DC fan familiar with Batman's relationship with Gordon. It is also expertly hinted at throughout the film for any sharp-eyed viewer interested in a whodunit, as the narrative presented many possible suspects, but Gordon was the only one who would have fit all the facts of the mystery. The twist was further muddied by the inspired decision to design Jack the Ripper to be as angular as possible, while Gordon had a softer, more rounded silhouette.

This culminates in a climactic showdown atop a burning Ferris wheel, which was ironically begun by a knocked-over gas lamp. At the end of a brutally animated brawl, Gordon allows himself to be consumed by the fire of the burning wheel. He is a good man driven into hellfire by his hellish desires. Was he the last evil of a bygone age sacrificed for a better future? Or was he just the latest in a never-ending cycle of self-destruction, doomed to go around in a wheel until the wheel eats itself alive?

Whatever the case, Gotham by Gaslight turned a throwaway 'what if' comic story into a film that embodies everything that makes a Batman story great. The film shows that, even if lit by gas, Gotham is still a city that needs its Dark Knight, regardless of what the city deserves.

So I was reading Nightwing #73 and thought this exchange seemed familiar:

Then I remembered:

Proving that out of the first 3 Robins Tim is the only one who has a braincell as both Dick and Jason are dumbasses who don't follow their own rules 😂

(Sorry if anyone has pointed this out already!)

Nevermind, all 3 of them are dumb when it comes to hiding their names...