Vigilante heroes are an extreme response to crime; Gotham City, one of the most crime-ridden cities in comic books, gave rise to one of the most extreme, and efficient, vigilantes there is: Batman. One storyline, Batman: The Black Mirror, ended with a horrifying hint at the future of Gotham, with the blame for the city’s troubles falling directly on one surprising member of the Caped Crusader’s rogues’ gallery.
During Dick Grayson’s tenure as Batman, Batman: The Black Mirror – by Scott Snyder, Jock, Francesco Francavilla, David Baron, Jared K. Fletcher, and Sal Cipriano – an encounter with an unexpected villain results in a plot that could have changed Gotham’s fate irrevocably.
This storyline saw the shocking return of James Gordon Jr, the son of Commissioner Gordon, as the main antagonist, revealing his pivotal role in the future Gotham’s plague of criminality.
James Gordon Jr. Changed The Fate Of Gotham
All of DC’s cities, from Metropolis to Keystone City, have crime, but none boast a crime rate comparable to Gotham’s. Batman: The Black Mirror provided a bold, unexpected explanation as to why. The return of James Gordon Jr. found Commissioner Gordon’s son trying to present himself as a reformed psychopath, only for the storyline to slowly reveal that James was worse than he had ever been. What’s more, the arc revealed that he had found a way to make other people just like him. His plot to infect the children of Gotham with his psychopathy was one of the most diabolical seen in Batman’s history – and it may have worked.
James’ Plot Is One Of The Boldest, And Scariest, In Batman History
Batman: The Black Mirror revealed that James Gordon Jr. tried to cure his psychopathy by using medication which allowed him to feel empathy, but eventually he came to view empathy as a weakness. To deal with this, James reversed engineered his medicine; instead of suppressing his psychopathy, it amplified his anti-social behaviors. James’ grand scheme was to introduce his psychopathy serum into the vats at baby formula factories across the city. While Batman and Commissioner Gordon were able to track down all the vats of baby formula James targeted, the deliveries and cleaning of the vats were long finished by the time the two arrived.
This means while it’s possible that James failed in his plan, with how methodical and cunning he was throughout the story, this isn’t likely. James managed to stay one step ahead of both Dick Grayson and his father Commissioner Gordon, who are both trained detectives. It is extremely unlikely that James would’ve allowed his plan to be known if there was any chance to stop it. As he stated in Batman: The Black Mirror, the only way to know for sure is wait twenty years and see how Gotham looks.
While the long history of crime in Gotham City is complex, the future of crime in Gotham may very well have been authored by James Gordon Jr., one of DC’s most underutilized villains. Commissioner Gordon represents the best, the most idealistic of what Gotham has to offer, while in contrast his son too direct, concrete action to ensure the city’s unrest would continue to grow worse. Secret societies like the Court of Owls may benefit if Gotham is crime-ridden, but James Gordon Jr is the villain who took such direct methods to ensure that even two decades from now, Batman will still be fighting criminals.
