I've been catching up with the Gotham TV show and It seems the city is always covered with dark clouds and everyone is carrying or put on a overcoat. Does it always rain in Gotham ?
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4Not a bad question at all. Only pointer I can give is to make it a liiiittle bit less broad. i.e. "Is this something that the producers are aiming for?", etc.– MöozOct 30, 2014 at 1:16
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I thought Gotham City was originally based on Chicago, also known as "The Windy City".– Joe L.Oct 30, 2014 at 2:57
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5It can't rain all the time.– phantom42Oct 30, 2014 at 10:47
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Well, when Bruce finally gets old enough to put on the suit, Jim will need the clouds as the canvas to paint the signal on ;) (as @Thaddeus points out in his great answer) (^^V^^)– BMWurmApr 3, 2015 at 10:27
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2@JoeL. No, Gotham City is based on New York City (and "Gotham" is in fact a real-world nickname for New York). This is only natural, since DC artists were almost exclusively New Yorkers until recently. Metropolis is also based on New York, which is of course confusing. Frank Miller attempted to address this when he said that "Metropolis is New York in the daytime; Gotham City is New York at night."– Doug WarrenNov 19, 2015 at 15:20
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2 Answers
No. It does not always rain in Gotham. However, sunshine does seem to be in short supply. It is likely the producers want to create an overall feeling of gloom and existential despair.
Gotham is as much of a character in this series as any of the Gotham City Police Department. But it wasn't always so.
Batman's first appearances in Detective #33 were thought to be in New York. Batman was as liable to appear in the day as he was at night. These early depictions of his home city didn't have much character.
The concept of Gotham City was first developed by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. In the early Batman stories, his home base was established as New York. The name "Gotham City" was first used in Detective Comics #48. (1941)
Gotham would start to get more character in the 1970's as Batman's writers and editors began to alter Batman from his more campy appearances in the 60s. In Detective #327 we start seeing more of Batman at night and both Gotham and the Batman take on a much darker tone.
The Gotham we see in the televised series is strongly patterned after Gotham from the famed No Man's Land event of over 80 comics in 1999. Many of the characters of the GCPD became well known during this time. This would lead to the well-received comic police procedural, Gotham Central.
- Though the events of No Man's Land haven't taken place, Gotham is much darker, the citizens are harder and the criminals are fierce and competitive. During No Man's Land, Gotham itself became a character in the stories, not just a backdrop for the Gotham City Police Department.
"No Man’s Land" is an American comic book crossover storyline that ran for the whole of 1999 through the Batman comic book titles published by DC Comics. The story architecture for "No Man's Land" and the outline of all the Batman continuity titles for 1999 were written by cartoonist Jordan B. Gorfinkel.
The lead-up story began with the "Cataclysm" story arc, which described a major earthquake hitting Gotham City. This was followed by the storylines "Aftershock" and then "Road to No Man's Land" which resulted in the U.S. government officially evacuating Gotham and then abandoning and isolating those who chose to remain in the city.
Gotham exists as a city of gloom, darkness and despair with weather to match. This Gotham is Gothic. It has highly stylized, dramatic and varied architecture, a city with an Old World aura much like the current depictions of Gotham television series.
Most depictions of the city are overcast, with constant cloud cover if not outright rain. The overcast can be taken for granted because there is never a time at night, the famed Batsignal couldn't be shown on the cloud cover above the city.
In terms of atmosphere, famed Batman writer and editor Dennis O'Neil has said that, figuratively, "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November."[O'Neil, Dennis. Afterword. Batman: Knightfall, A Novel. New York: Bantam Books, 1994. 344.]
- Gotham and Metropolis are often played as sister cities but spiritually opposite. Metropolis, future home of Superman is depicted as a city of the future. Metropolis is bright, modern or even futuristic. Gotham is depicted as dark as Metropolis is bright.
answered Oct 30, 2014 at 8:04
Due to the sheer size of Gotham, the metropolis generates its own microclimate which in turn has allot of rainfall.
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