The Comic Influences of Gotham Season 4

Screen Rant

Gotham Season 4 Draws from Long Halloween & Batman: Year One Comics

By Matthew Erao

Published Jul 27, 2017

Season 4 of Gotham will be based around The Long Halloween and Batman: Year One, bringing the seminal graphic novels to the small screen.

The new season of Gotham will draw from two of the most definitive Batman tales from the comics. Gotham has always played fast and loose with the source material from DC Comics. Still, a number of things from the page have been translated to the screen over the course of the show. And though many of these adaptations have been met with mixed reactions, they've still allowed classic story elements to make their way to live-action.

Thanks to Gotham's panel at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, more information about the upcoming fourth season of the show has been revealed. Along with continuing the evolution of characters like Selina and Butch, Bruce will start to look and act more like Batman. Meanwhile, villains such as Scarecrow and Professor Pyg will be jumping from the page to the screen this season. But it won't just be heroes and villains that will be adapted. Two major graphic novels will also serve as inspiration for season 4 of Gotham.

CBR was on hand at Gotham's SDCC panel where it was revealed that the first half of the new season will be loosely based upon Batman: The Long Halloween. Meanwhile, the second half will take cues from Batman: Year One. While the arcs won't be recreated verbatim, fans of the two stories will get to enjoy a number of plot elements from the books.

Published between 1996 and 1997, The Long Halloween was created by writer Jeph Loeb (the current head of Marvel TV) and artist Tim Sale. In it, Batman is confronted with Holiday, a serial killer who uses his namesake to kill someone once a month. The story takes place during Bruce's early years as the Dark Knight, so it's a fitting story to bring to Gotham. It also includes a variety of rogues, including Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Solomon Grundy, Scarecrow, Catwoman, the Penguin, and the Joker. Considering all of those characters exist in some form on the show -- assuming Jerome is Joker -- a fairly faithful version of the story could make it to the screen.

Year One, meanwhile, was crafted by Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli (who worked with Miller on Daredevil: Born Again, which partially inspired the first season of Daredevil). The 1987 story serves as the inverse of The Dark Knight Returns, with Miller retelling the first year of Bruce's journey as Batman. Also inspiring an animated film and parts of Batman Begins, Year One is the perfect story for the writers of Gotham to look to. Not only does it flesh out Batman's early years, but it reaffirms what the character is all about.

With the show looking to The Long Halloween and Year One for inspiration, the new season of Gotham should be an exciting one.