DC Reveals How Crime Alley Got Its Name, And It’s Not The Wayne Murders

You can’t say that DC Comics doesn’t leave any stone unturned, especially when it comes to anything related to Batman lore. The recent new series from writer Tom King and artist Phil Hester, Gotham City: Year One, dials the clock back from the main DC continuity to a time when Bruce Wayne’s grandparents were still alive and when masked criminals and vigilantes weren’t the norm. The latest issue of the series turns over a major stone, one that reveals how the notorious Crime Alley got its name, and it’s nothing to do with Thomas and Martha Wayne’s murders. Full spoilers for Gotham City: Year One #4 follow!

For those unaware, the series follows Slam Bradley, a classic golden-age comics character that first appeared in the pages of Detective Comics way before Batman. The framing for the series is Bradley making a bit of a deathbed confession to none other than Batman in the modern age, telling him about a case he worked that saw Helen Wayne, an ancestor of his, who was kidnapped as a baby and held for ransom. The last issue of the series saw Bradley finding her body, with issue #4 picking up almost immediately. When the story starts, Bradley has been brought in by the Gotham police, who suspect him of killing Helen himself. Using some old school tactics, they beat him senseless in their custody, specifically Commissioner Huff.

Bradley, a former member of the GCPD, has butted heads with Huff in the past but after the Commissioner beats him for days following the discovery of Helen’s body. Huff’s status as a tough on crime, and good for the city, type of man is highlighted throughout the series, in part because he’s clearly fudging the statistics to make Gotham appear safer than it really was. This is when Bradley decides how he’ll get his revenge. 

Late one night, Huff goes to meet an escort and takes a different route to the hotel where they’ll meet, with Bradley following. In a dim alley, Bradley returned the favor for the beating that he took, leaving the man busted and set to be found unconscious the next morning. Later forcing his retirement and as a result a drastic increase in crime across Gotham. As Slam tells it, this spot in the city where the Commissioner was beaten without any eyewitnesses would go on to be known as the epicenter of this explosion in crime.

“After he left, murders and robberies and vice and all of it soared to heights never before seen in Gotham,” Slam’s narration reads. “.People even got superstitious about it. Especially when the city started burning. They said there, in the concrete, by a bunch of trash cans and howling cats, that’s where it started. There. They even gave it a name. Crime Alley.”