How Gotham created the most faithful version of the Joker

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GOTHAM: Guest star Cameron Monaghan in the ‘A Dark Knight: A Beautiful Darkness’ episode of GOTHAM on FOX. ©2018 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Barbara Nitke/FOX; Acquired via Fox Flash

Surprisingly, Gotham has produced the most comic book faithful version of the Joker to date.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the first four seasons of Gotham.

Although a number of different TV shows and movies have brought the Joker to other media since the character’s debut in 1940, none has have captured him as well as Gotham.

That fact is ironic given that the Fox series has an ambivalent relationship with the comic book canon. While the series broadly tells the story of Bruce Wayne’s (David Mazouz) journey to becoming Batman, it’s taken several significant detours on the way there. So far, Gotham has been primarily focused on police Captain James Gordon’s (Ben McKenzie) attempts to protect the city from Batman’s monstrous rogues’ gallery. In the comics, the cadre of monsters, criminals, and psychopaths that bedevil the Dark Knight come to the city after the hero makes his debut.

As a result, Gotham has played out like a strange remix of the Batman mythos. Characters created seemingly for the show are later revealed to be infamous Batman antagonists, such as Butch Gilzean (Drew Powell), a mob henchman later revealed to be zombie strongman Solomon Grundy. Other characters, like Wayne and Selena Kyle (Camren Bicondova), have taken on traits of the alter egos decades before they do in the comics. And minor characters, such as hapless Barbara Keane (Erin Richard), have been elevated from continuity footnotes to major players.