What happens if James Gordon is no longer the Police Commissioner of Gotham City? The answer to this question is being played out right now in James Tynion IV’s current storyline in Batman and the tie-in franchise books of the Bat-Family, “Joker War”. The Batman character is often depicted as a dangerous and extralegal vigilante and he certainly is those things. However, he has almost always operated with the full or tacit approval of the Gotham City Police Department thanks to his unique partnership with GCPD Commissioner James Gordon. How will things change when he's replaced by Lieutenant Harvey Bullock?
The actual passing of the baton appears to have happened off-panel, somewhere between the revelation that Gordon has been infected by the Batman Who Laughs in Batman/Superman #3 and the first mention of Commissioner Bullock in Batman #86. (Though the current massive event storyline Dark Nights: Death Metal is currently unfinished and takes place in this gap.) As Bullock himself said to Batman in #87, “Hell. I’m a seat-warmer. We both know it.” Though he has shown his characteristic antagonistic nature when confronted with Gotham’s unscrupulous new corporate player Harlan Graves, whom the readers already know is also new villain the Underbroker. Bullock has always feigned laziness to get out of work but he knows a bad egg when he smells one.
Gordon has been missing from Batman for months and even disappeared from the entire franchise of books with the exception of the series that stars his daughter, Batgirl. There, both his children giving him major frustrations. Barbara has returned to being in and out of a wheelchair by her own choice to escape being controlled by the Joker. Meanwhile, the murderous and mentally-ill James Jr. is acting uncharacteristically normal.
Despite a rocky start, Batman and Gordon formed an uneasy alliance based partially on desperation: both wanted to save the intensely corrupt Gotham City and they had few allies. They needed each other and eventually grew to respect each other and even to build a kind of friendship. In many presentations of the early days of Batman going back to 1939, the audience meets Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon at the same time. Detective Bullock has only been around since an incidental appearance in 1974’s Detective Comics #441 and a cameo a decade later in Batman #361 before making his full first appearance in the following issue. He was promoted to lieutenant in the aftermath of the No Man's Land storyline in 2000. He's remained usually little more than a background character. Being featured heavily in the Emmy-winning Batman: The Animated Series of the 1990s has meant the character has remained a fan-favorite despite this.
Every time Gordon has vacated the position he’s always been most associated with, some trick of fate has always found a way to bring him back to it. While the rest of the Bat-Family has begun to appear in Gotham as Batman put out a call to “everyone” in issue #98, Gordon has remained mostly absent. Meanwhile, Commissioner Bullock has only held the position for 10 months, at most, of publishing time and 13 issues of the Batman title. Will it last? Or will Commissioner Gordon make a dramatic return in Batman #100? To find out if this time is different, we’ll all have to wait and see.