Posts from

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  The Hidden Nests of The Court of Owls

  The Court of Owls are a group that claims to have secretly ruled Gotham City since colonial times. Over the course of more than a century, they have infiltrated Gotham’s architecture and infrastructure to create a secret city whose passages are known only to the members of the Court, including an enormous labyrinth hidden deep below […]
• Occupy Gotham: Slavoj Žižek On ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

  Slovenian Philosopher, cultural critic, and overall public intellectual Slavoj Žižek has written an excellent piece considering Christopher Nolan’s Batman films as political metaphors, focusing in particular on the civic uprising led by Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. In the essay “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” Zizek compares Bane’s motives and ideology  to those of Harvey Dent / Two-Face, the […]
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  Gotham City History: Arkham Asylum

  FICTIONAL HISTORY Arkham Asylum is the home for the criminally insane denizens of Gotham City. But, as Director Jeremiah Arkham will tell you, it’s much more than that: “Arkham Asylum is not just any institution for the criminally insane. It’s the Ivy League of insanity.” Arkham Asylum was founded by Amadeus Arkham after his mother, […]
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  The Dark Knight Rises Gotham City Map

  This Gotham City Map was taken from a The Dark Knight Rises viral marketing campaign game, The Fire Rises, that asks players to join Bane’s gang in their request to take over Gotham. The Map confirms that the Gotham City of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films follows a very similar cartographic design to the Gotham City […]
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  Batman Demolishes Penn Station in Chip Kidd’s Death by Design

  [The cover to Batman: Death by Design] What if Bruce Wayne wanted to demolish Penn Station in order to surreptitiously construct an auxiliary Batcave beneath the new building? That, in essence, is the plot of Chip Kidd’s new graphic novel Batman: Death by Design. Though a few familiar faces –and grins– make an appearance, Death […]
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  Gotham City Architecture: The Gotham City Police Department Headquarters

  Having survived the Pinkney bombings, the Gotham earthquake, and No Man’s Land, the Gotham City Police Department Headquarters is one of the oldest and most resilient landmarks in the city. Located in Old Gotham, the Cyrus Pinkney-designed building serves as the primary headquarters for the dedicated officers of the Gotham City Police Department. Though the […]
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  Gotham City: No Man’s Land

  The Gotham earthquake was the worst on its kind in recorded East Coast history. It measured 7.6 on the richter scale and was centered in the Spillkin Hill area of Bristol Township about 10 to 20 miles north of the city center. Worse still, mosts buildings in Gotham had not been properly prepared for the […]
• A Dark Night in Gotham City

  Since it’s inception, Gotham City has been presented as the embodiment of the urban fears that gave rise to the American suburbs, the safe havens from the city that they are. Gotham City has always been a dark place, full of steam and rats and crime. A city of graveyards and gargoyles; alleys and asylums. […]
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  Gotham City History: The Origin of “Gotham”

  Gotham City was named by Batman writer Bill Finger. When he was asked about how he chose the name “Gotham” and why he didn’t just use New York City, Finger has said: “Originally I was going to call Gotham City ‘Civic City’. Then I tried ‘Capital City’, then ‘Coast City’. Then I flipped through the […]