Gotham: Five Great Arkham Storylines We'd Like to See Jim Gordon Face

Following the events of last month's midseason finale episode of Gotham, former homicide Detective James Gordon has been transferred to act as a guard at the Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane.

The move is a game-changer for the series, much of which has revolved around Gordon's (often-unofficial) hunt for the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

And we saw the first bits of it tonight, but before Gordon returns to his regular beat, what are some classic Batman stories they could put a twist on and try to adapt for Gotham? We have a few ideas...

Knightfall

This one, one of the best-selling Batman stories of the last 25 years or so, is an obvious choice because when you remove Batman from the equation, it's really just about a maniac who breaks everybody out of Arkham through an act of terror so that he can pursue his criminal goals.

Using Bane is probably not likely to happen, and shouldn't, but the idea of a prison break at Arkham being used to keep the cops busy 'round the clock while some scheme is put into action is in general not a bad one -- and not one that positively requires Batman.

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

This is, for all intents and purposes, the basis for Batman: Arkham Asylum, the best-selling game...and again, could be translated from Batman to Gordon fairly seamlessly.

The premise is that a master criminal traps our hero inside an Arkham that's been overrun by the inmates and forces him to deal with them.

In the video game, it's mostly combat- and plot-based, whereas in the graphic novel, it gets a bit more into the psychology of founder Jeremiah Arkham, as well as Batman and his villains.

Again, stripping the named villains and Batman away from it, this is a pretty promising notion overall: allow the inmates to successfully take over the asylum and subject Gordon to the kinds of challenges that he'd face trying to get this mob under control, presumably in this case without revealing that he's not abiding by whatever rules are placed on him as hostage.

Arkham Manor

Not the big concept of taking over Wayne Manor after Arkham's destruction, of course; it's just been repopulated so that would be a crazy direction to take it...but a murder mystery happening inside the manor and playing out over the course of several episodes, with somebody (maybe Essen, Montoya or Allen, since Bullock has been seen as a cop there now) forced to work undercover alongside Gordon? That has a ton of promise.

The only downside is that they've already had a string of assaults culminating in a double-murder there and the place hasn't been open too long. At what point do you run the risk of Gordon appearing ineffectual, or the building being closed down?

And, of course, the fact that even if they did adapt the idea, it wouldn't be likely we'd notice it was Arkham Manor because, after all, it's not like they could take over the Manor in this series...!

Arkham Asylum: Living Hell

The only major DC story from Marvel staple Dan Slott, Arkham Asylum: Living Hell dealt with a white collar criminal who faked insanity to get out of jail and ended up in Arkham...a decision he would, of course, come to regret.

It wouldn't be difficult to do this, and it would give us another justification to get Bullock into the action at Arkham. Maybe it's one of his collars who is there, and Bullock wants to prove he isn't crazy...but by the time they assemble the evidence in question, the world of Arkham has driven the man over the edge and he's where he belongs.

Like A Serious House on a Serious Earth, this one deals a lot with specific villains who could, at least in theory, be removed and replaced by analogues for Gotham...and introducing new characters, or giving us the first tale of a Batman villain out of the episode/arc might be a treat to hide inside it.

Batman: The Killing Joke

This is the one you'd have to take the most liberty with in order to "adapt" it, but having somebody break out and then somehow disguise themselves and sit in an interview room with Gordon for a while before anyone realizes what's going on could be a cool concept for a bottle episode; stuff is happening outside and Gordon is stuck in an interview room with the impostor struggling to get any useful inforation out of him, or something similar.

Obviously the rest of that book? Just no.