Renee Montoya and Anna Ramirez

There's a character in the Batman mythos named Renee Montoya. She was created as a Gotham City police officer for the animated cartoon of the early 1990s, and quickly slipped into the comic books to tie the two media together. Montoya served several roles in those early stories, from providing Batman with a regular contact on the cops to offering a non-stereotypical role for a female and Hispanic.

Soon Commissioner Jim Gordon promoted Montoya to detective and assigned her to the Major Crimes Unit. Over the years her partners were Harvey Bullock and Crispus Allen, two other established DC supporting characters. Two-Face developed a crush on her in the No Man's Land arc.

Montoya was a major character in the Gotham Central series, which revealed more of her personal life: she had a girlfriend, and parents who disapproved of that relationship. Some fans disliked this revelation, seeing it as changing the character they'd imagined rather than filling her out. For others, Montoya became even more interesting and admirable.

In a series that DC published in 2006, Montoya took up the role of the Question, a superhero Steve Ditko had created for Charlton in 1967 as a mouthpiece for his Ayn Rand philosophy. (The Question became part of the DC stable when Charlton sold its superhero properties.) I've written about how this development exemplifies the dominance of costumed-hero adventures in American comic books.

I mention all this because early on in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, we see a young Latina detective working closely with Jim Gordon. She's played by Monique Curnen. More than a few Batman fans assumed that she was Montoya, as I did. Only late in the film do we learn that her name is Ramirez.

Earlier this month, Joanne at Comic Genius wrote about why the character of Det. Anna Ramirez was appearing not only in The Dark Knight but also in an animated film just released to DVD, Batman: Gotham Knight. Where was Montoya? she demanded.

The answer becomes clear once one sees The Dark Knight. [And now we get into ***SPOILER*** territory for people who haven't.] The screenwriters, Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, undoubtedly used the sight of a Latina detective to lure fans into thinking that character was Montoya, and would behave as Montoya has behaved in numerous Batman stories since 1991. But Ramirez acts differently, providing a surprise for the cocky fanboys who think they can predict everything the Joker will do. The filmmakers could pull off that trick only because they were working within an established universe with a big fan base.

At the same time, having built Renee Montoya into a heroine and even a costumed heroine, DC and Warner Bros. got to preserve that character free of whatever fate Anna Ramirez might face.

The Greatest Gotham Stories Ever Told

DC Comics published forty issues of Gotham Central from 2003 to 2006. The magazine won admiring reviews, industry awards, and consistently low sales. This comic book stretched the bounds of storytelling within the oldest superhero universe, but ultimately showed the persistent dominance of the traditional superhero tale.

I first saw Gotham Central recommended by comics creator Eric Shanower. But that was before I'd decided to explore my fanboy roots through the Robin characters, so I didn't follow up. Last year I read all five "graphic novel" collections of the series with pleasure.

Created by writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker and penciler Michael Lark, Gotham Central was a police procedural set in Gotham City, the home of the Batman and all his crazy nemeses. The stories read like Ed McBain's novels of the 87th Precinct in comics form, except that every other criminal out there is the Deaf Man--with super powers.

The detectives and commanders of Gotham's police department depend on the half-crazy vigilante named the Batman to capture those crazies, but also resent their dependence. Ordinary cops get caught in the sights of mad criminals like Mr. Freeze, the Joker, and the Firefly. Gotham politics and society are corrupt. Some citizens have become fixated on supervillainy, trading souvenirs from crime scenes on eBay or committing spectacular crimes to gain attention. And in the middle of that all is the GCPD's Major Crimes Unit, trying to solve what crimes they can, manage their personal lives, and keep from beating each other up.

The series was not without its weaknesses. As in some procedurals in prose and on television, the realistic depiction of police work means a large, changing cast. The noirish art style and fly-on-the-wall dialogue which work so well at setting the mood also make it hard to keep all those detectives straight. One character reveals some psychic powers, a development that never gets fully explored but bends the series' dedication to regular folks. Even so, these stories are far grittier than the grittiest Batman melodramas.

The Gotham Central series eventually came to focus on two partners in the Major Crimes Unit, detectives Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya, both introduced in earlier DC stories (Montoya actually in the animated Batman TV show). A major ongoing subplot was Montoya's relationship with her traditional parents, aghast that she was in love with another woman.

It looks to me like DC tried to tie issues 33 through 37 more closely to its superhero world, perhaps in an effort to boost sales. This story arc, collected in Gotham Central: Dead Robin, follows the investigation of a serial killer murdering young men in Robin costumes--meaning that the first issue could scare comics readers into wondering if the real Robin has died. Subsequent covers feature the Batman and the Titans instead of series regulars. Tim Drake eventually enters the scene, as quietly decent as ever, and the Batman's never been scarier. But that superhero celebrity didn't save Gotham Central, and the series ended with issue 40.

As soon as this comic book was canceled, Allen became the human host of the Spectre, a Golden Age comics figure who embodies the avenging wrath of the murdered. Montoya took the identity of the Question, a 1967 creation for Charlton Comics. I can't think of a clearer example of how superhero stories dominate mainstream American comic books than how that genre literally swallowed up the heroes of Gotham Central.