Straight from their panel at San Diego Comic-Con, DC Comics has announced an all-new comic series from the creative team of writer Tom King and artist Phil Hester, Gotham City: Year One. Set to debut issue #1 in October of this year, the series will run for six issues total and wrap up in March of 2023. An official press release teased this story set "two generations before Batman," focusing on private investigator Slam Bradley and showing how Gotham went from "a shining city on the water" to its ultimate "fall from grace." Check out the art preview and cover reveal below!
In a statement, King said: "Having written a ton of Batman comics I can say it's incredibly rare to write book like this, where you can add something large and essential to the mythos of the Dark Knight, as Scott did with Court of Owls or Grant did with the introduction of Damian or Frank did with, well, everything he touched. In Gotham City Year One, Phil and I will take you to a noir drenched past, where the secrets that made Gotham become Gotham, the sins that made Batman become Batman are finally and violently revealed."
Hester adds, "Night falls quickly in Gotham City. The shadows cut across guilty and innocent alike. I feel lucky to be the artist to show you just how this city got so dark in the first place...."Tom has crafted a story that will echo across Batman lore past and present, and I hope the storytelling techniques Eric, Jordie, Clayton and I are bringing to bear will augment his razor-keen approach. I'm honored to play a small part in bringing Siegel and Shuster's landmark creation to a new audience, and in giving one of DC's oldest legends the white-hot spotlight he deserves."
King and Hester are joined in working on the series by Eric Gapstur, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles, with Gotham City: Year One #1 publishing on October 4. An official description reads as follows: "Taking place two generations before Batman, private investigator Slam Bradley gets tangled in the headline-grabbing 'kidnapping of the century' as the infant Wayne heir Helen disappears in the night...and so begins a brutal, hard-boiled, epic tale of a man living on the edge and a city about to burn."
