Gotham’s finest

Fox’s “Batman” prequel focuses on the origins of everyone but Batman

As ill-conceived comic book cash grabs go, “Gotham” isn’t bad. I haven’t seen “Arrow” or “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and, frankly, have no desire to; my enthusiasm for the genre all but disappeared years before the oversaturation crept off the big screen and into my television. For me, superhero fatigue has turned into superhero resentment-bordering-on-hatred. To paraphrase a friend’s recent lament: who knew the golden age of Marvel and DC would be so boring? 

There are, of course, recent exceptions. “Guardians of the Galaxy” was a blast. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” managed to be urgently political (a first for Marvel). And the first episode of “Gotham” is surprisingly fun. If you’ve somehow missed Fox’s relentless ad campaign: the series is a prequel to DC’s most successful property, a Batman story without the Bat that takes place when Bruce Wayne is still a child. The central character is young Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), a newbie detective in Gotham who we know will eventually become Police Commissioner and Batman’s sole ally within the department. 

The pilot opens with yet another iteration of the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents. The scene stays faithful to canon: back alley, masked gunman, creepy voice, ripped pearl necklace. Enter the idealistic Gordon and his grizzled partner, Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), who are tasked with solving the murder of one of Gotham’s wealthiest families. 

Over the course of the investigation, Gordon and Bullock descend into the city’s criminal underworld, seeking help from gangster Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and rubbing shoulders with a slew of future iconic villains: Mooney’s abused soldier Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor), riddle-obsessed police coroner Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith), Mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Doman), and tween thief Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova), a witness, unbeknownst to anyone, to the Wayne murders who decides to stalk Bruce for no apparent reason. There’s even a brief appearance from a 7-year-old Poison Ivy. 

As overstuffed as it is with fanboy service, “Gotham” works, at least out of the gate, thanks to the vision of creator/writer Bruno Heller (“Rome”). If Christopher Nolan’s deathly serious Dark Knight trilogy was a major course correction from Joel Schumacher’s Saturday morning cartoon approach to the material, “Gotham” operates somewhere between the two. Think Tim Burton’s “Batman” meets “L.A. Confidential,” with just the smallest hint of Adam West-era absurdity.

If there’s a weak link, it’s Ben McKenzie (“The O.C.”), an actor who can be good with the right material (“Junebug”) but whose barely-contained-explosive-intensity shtick often comes off like an awkward teenage boy overselling his weird idea of masculinity.

Selina Kyle’s presence, too, feels awkward and superfluous to the plot, but it’s easy to imagine her stalking of Bruce yielding an interesting friendship down the road. And that’s the key question, really: will Heller’s fanboy service eventually payoff with a richer tapestry of fleshed-out characters, or will the series remain a largely one-note gimmick?

As always, it’s hard to judge the overall quality of a series based on its pilot, but “Gotham” offers a promising enough start.