Batman: Bad Seeds – Gotham Central Review
Batman: Bad Seeds – Gotham Central is a two issue miniseries by Christopher Cantwell (Halt and Catch Fire) and Jacob Phillips (That Texas Blood, Everything Dead and Dying) tying into the ongoing Bad Seeds Batman/Poison Ivy event, which sees Gotham taken over by “the Green”, covering the city in plantlife and vines that will forever change the city by Sunrise. Gotham Central is a very storied title I would not envy any writer taking on, a crime procedural following normal Gotham cops during the early 2000s that ran around 40 issues and is largely seen as one of the best Batman-related books of all time. Doing a follow-up, especially 20 years later when society has a widely different view on the police, even just for a two issue event tie-in mini, is a lot of pressure.
The appeal of Gotham Central was always the focus on regular crime and a more grounded tone, even when taking on actual Batman villains, so I was a little apprehensive when this was announced as an event tie-in, but Cantwell does a great job of keeping it focused on boots on the ground cops even in the midst of the chaos. The mini focuses on two cases, a murder, buried under the noise of the plant takeover and ignored by the bulk of the police in favour of hunting down the Bats trying to save the city, and Anarky robbing a triad poker game, a largely unimportant case given unnecessary priority by a corrupt police force. The two cases collide towards the end of the first issue as they’re both forced onto the last train out of Gotham – amping up the pressure even further.
The first case is a really compelling mystery that comes together in such a compelling way in the first issue, it’s rare to see a murder case in comics that feels believable, and more importantly the solving of it does too. Gordon and Espinoza have a great back and forth in developing the clues and it feels like an actual crime. Once the actual killer, Zsasz, gets involved, Cantwell has a great voice for him and I really like how he and Phillips portray him in a really off-putting way without going too over the top. There’s a little tragedy to him as well that humanises him in a way that doesn’t seek to excuse his actions at all. I appreciate how the book threads in Dr. Zeller and the Crown of Thorns from Matt Fraction’s Batman too. It’s a great way to keep the series connected to the larger event without diving too deep into the plant monsters stuff. It does dive in later though, and it literally, not figuratively, derails the book in a very interesting way. Once the situation gets too big it shows the limits of the GCPD and the need for the Bats of Gotham, as Batgirl is forced to literally swoop in to save the day. The tone fundamentally changes as soon as she’s involved, threats are bigger, the cops become more helpless and the mission changes from stopping the villains to just saving who they can.
There’s a clear struggle around the portrayal of the police in this issue. On one hand we have the main GCPD, led by Commissioner Vandal Savage, a leader who is just cartoonishly evil, but is slightly balanced out by the face of corrupt cops – the newly Captained Arnold Flass (of Batman: Year One). The GCPD itself is portrayed as uncaring of actual murders, too focused on hunting down Bats. Police radios don’t even mention the actual lives in danger, just the vigilantes they’re hunting. Capturing Anarky to retrieve Triad money is seen as a top priority though, with Savage tasking it to Flass and him immediately giving it to a young beat cop, threatening her job if she doesn’t chase him on her own.
On the other side are our protagonists, two young black women beat cops, Espinoza and Baker, the once-Commissioner-now-rookie Jim Gordon, and his former partner, now PI, Harvey Bullock. Although Espinoza is inherited from Fraction’s Batman, it’s hard not to see a clear political element in the casting of the two main cop roles as black women, a clear attempt to avoid any real criticism of “copoganda” or any of the burdens that come of a remotely positive portrayal of police in 2026. Personally, I think a certain level of copaganda is so deeply built into the Batman mythos that it’s just not worth addressing. His best friend is a cop, it’s unavoidable, any overly deep interrogation of that aspect will just break the franchise. None-the-less, this issue does a good job of showing a clear difference between the establishment, and the handful of people on the ground trying to actually make a difference.
It’s hard to think of a better fit for this book than Jacob Phillips, who is no stranger to the crime genre with his past work on the likes of That Texas Blood. Michael Lark, the main artist on the original Gotham Central, set a very distinct style that Phillips aligns with pretty well, but keeping his own style too. There’s a real grit and grime to it that really captures the ground floor of Gotham City. He portrays a real claustrophobia in the later scenes in the subway, especially in the action scenes, making them feel so tight and constrained, the cars feel packed while still keeping the main characters in clear focus. He colours his own work too, which just heightens the vibe even further. One specific detail I loved is later in the book when Batgirl shows up, and the more vibrant purple colour of her costume stands out so clearly from the rest of the books colour palette. She feels deliberately out of place in the issue and it’s a great visual identifier.
Considering the upcoming Gangs of Gotham series from Cantwell, I was really eager to see how he writes Stephanie Brown and Anarky since both would appear in the book. Anarchy especially gets enough of a focus here that I’m excited to see more of Cantwell’s take on him. There’s a clear hypocrisy to his actions shown as soon as he steals that money, as he briefly considers burning it before planning to just spend it on whatever he wants. It’s a take classic Anarky fans might not agree with, but personally I think it makes him more relevant to today, showing him as a guy with big ideas he never shuts up about, but never really believes. We only get a taste of his Steph, but she walks a great balance between funny, capable, and a little over-confident, going into situations a little underprepared as long as lives are in danger. Overall, it’s a good taste that’s got me excited for more Gotham from Cantwell.
The one downside to this mini is its ending, which focuses a little too much on a cliffhanger I assume will lead into Gangs of Gotham and not enough on the threads started in the book. While everything does wrap up pretty well, the shift in focus leaves the book a little underwhelming as its own book, or even as a chapter in Bad Seeds. It’s disappointing because I’m a really big fan of every other part of the book up to that point, and am even excited to see what’s next, but the end just undercuts the book as it’s own standalone thing.
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