I have preached too long and too much on what a hero is, and, when considering people like Aquaman or Green Lantern: truth be told it’s not hard to do the right thing when you have the fire power to back it up. Then again, I have spoken about heroes like Robin and Ant-Man: again, it is not difficult to be a hero when you’re a super-genius, or have so much money you can buy a car that can hit 260 mph without breaking down and still have enough gadgets on it to take down a small country. See, in this article I want to talk about the supporting characters, the ones who don’t wear costumes, the ones who got to do all of the dirty work and get little credit. I’m talking about the Alfred Pennyworths, the Mary Jane Watsons, or all the Rick Jones type characters out there. But there is one man in particular that I hold above all others: he’s the representation of incorruptibility, the shinning hope of mankind, and he represents all the good hearted cops out there in the real world. I’m referring to James Gordon Sr., Gotham’s true guardian. WARNING: contains spoilers in certain Batman Story arcs.
Gordon began humbly as a police officer in Gotham City, a.k.a the worst place to live on the planet. Starting as a beat cop, you’d think he’d spend his time learning the ropes and trying to get on his fellow officers’ good side; instead, Gordon decided to hunt down and weed out the corruption within the police force. While investigating corruption within the city council election, he soon found that two of his fellow officers were dirty cops, and chose to take them down publicly to show Gotham the corruption within the city. Not soon afterwards, he foiled a robbery attempt that exposed a mafia capo which made Gordon a celebrity within Gotham. Fearing that his work would soon unearth all of the corruption within the police department, Captain Loeb requested he transfer to Chicago. While in Chicago, Gordon did the exact same thing, exposing the corruption in the Chicago police department and taking down several dirty officers in the process. During this time, Gordon took criminology, which made him eligible for the role of detective. Acting on this, the commissioner of Chicago PD requested that he be transferred to a detective position that just opened in… Gotham City (yeah, the logic behind this baffles me too). Back in Gotham, Gordon did what he did best and took down more dirty cops, this time with the assistance of Batman, his one true ally in all of Gotham. With Batman’s help, Gordon took down the entire police department and was put as acting Captain. He handpicked an entire new team to be the new Gotham police department. Eventually, Gordon moved up the ranks and took down most of the mafia, with Batman picking up the small percentage that fell through the cracks. Within a year, Gordon and Batman cleaned up the police department and put a big hole in the mafia. Gordon went on to be the sword of justice in Gotham city, taking down the residual mafia rackets that still existed and fighting new super criminals like the Joker and Two-Face.
Now, there is a lot more to Gordon’s story that I’m leaving out, mainly due to the fact that it would make this article longer than the declaration of independence, but I’d like to mention some of his defining story arcs. Gordon has indomitable willpower; he is able to suppress the most basic and primal human emotions to uphold morality and justice. In the world famous story arc, The Killing Joke, Joker kidnaps Gordon and cripples his daughter Barbara Gordon. Joker then begins to torture Barbara while stripping her of her clothes and taking pictures throughout. He then takes Gordon and sticks him in an abandoned amusement park ride, strapped to a chair naked, while forcing his eyes open and showing him the pictures of his daughter. Joker was trying to prove to Batman that any man can fall to the darkness after just “one bad day”. When Batman shows up and saves Gordon, Batman is ready to break every bone in Joker’s body. However, Gordon stops him, saying: “No, we have to show him that our way works.” Gordon then arrests the Joker and brings him into custody, keeping his own sanity intact and upholding his moral standards.
Gordon believes in the justice system, which some may call foolish and wide eyed; he sees it as a light people can look to for hope of good in the world. No criminal is off his radar. He takes no emotion into the job: he’ll take down friend, ally, and family if they become evil. This is portrayed beautifully in the story arc Black Mirror. In this story, Gordon and Batman hunt down the Peter Pan killer, which turns out to be his son James Gordon Jr. After finding this out, Gordon takes him down just like he would any other criminal, by the book without a shred of mercy.
Gordon can do what most heroes can’t do: leave emotion at the door and do what needs to be done. Even without years of training or super powers Gordon has taken down killers, the mafia, and super criminals. He weathers each blow to his life and keeps his crusade to rid his city of crime. Gordon is an extreme view of what a hero needs to be, and he gets too little credit for it. Gordon is the embodiment of hope the people of Gotham can look to; Gordon is Gotham’s true guardian.
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