The “Gotham” Season 3 (8 p.m. Mondays on Fox) premiere showed again why it’s one of the best shows on TV – packing in lots of story and stylized comic-book intrigue while staying fairly faithful to the lore. As the “Mad City” arc begins, it’s a good time to look up the “Batman” comic histories of some of the new characters while also checking in with an old favorite who is about to undergo a major change.
Valerie Vale
A quick scene to open the episode dispatches of the Lee (Morena Baccarin) storyline: Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) sees her being happy with another guy, and he resolves to focus on his new bounty-hunting gig. Enter Valerie Vale (Jamie Chung), Gotham newspaper journalist, as the new love interest. I know they’ll be lovebirds only because I’m an experienced TV watcher; in this episode, he hates her guts and she is interested in him for the information he can provide.
Valerie is technically a brand-new character to the “Batman” lore, but it’s not a coincidence that her name is similar to Vicki Vale, the Gotham reporter who dates back to 1948 (in “Batman” Issue 49) and who was played by Kim Basinger in 1989’s “Batman” movie. Since Vicki is usually portrayed as a contemporary of Bruce Wayne, perhaps Valerie is her older sister.
“Gotham” Season 3 (2016)
Mondays, Fox
Creator: Bruno Heller
Stars: Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, Maggie Geha
Man-Bat
Valerie snaps a quick photo of one of the Indian Hills escapees sprouting wings, leading viewers to the obvious conclusion that this is “Gotham’s” version of Man-Bat (he’s at right in the photo above).
Man-Bat was introduced in 1970 (in “Detective Comics” No. 400), and he also has the distinction of being the villain in the pilot episode of “Batman: The Animated Series,” “On Leather Wings.” I had a Man-Bat themed 45-rpm record as a kid, and I remember him being a particularly scary member of the rogues’ gallery.
Killer Croc
A proto-Killer Croc is also in this episode, but as more of a cameo, as he gets run over by a truck and apprehended by Jim in the pre-credits sequence. While he might return down the road, it seems like Man-Bat is a tighter member of Fish Mooney’s circle at this point.
Killer Croc was invented for “Batman” No. 357 in 1983, and he went on to appear in “The Animated Series” and in the recent movie “Suicide Squad.”
Bizarro Bruce Wayne
Another of the escapees is a long-haired Bruce Wayne doppelganger who watches the real Bruce interact with Selina from afar. This character should give David Mazouz a chance to flex his acting muscles further and lead to some funny scenes with Selina and Alfred.
Previous incarnations of the lore didn’t precisely have a Bizarro Bruce Wayne, but there was a Bizarro-Batman in Action Comics No. 856 in 2007. And the Emergency Awesome YouTube channel posits that this long-haired Bruce lookalike could self-identify as Thomas Wayne Jr., as per a comic-book arc.
Poison Ivy
As has often been the case with this character, she doesn’t have much to do in this episode; she just falls into an underground river and gets washed away. But she’ll be back next week, having physically aged – thanks to something related to the Indian Hills monsters-on-the-loose — from a girl to a woman, and having been recast from Clare Foley to Maggie Geha.
I have mixed feelings about this move. While it’s not the first time “Gotham” has tweaked “Batman” lore – to cite one example, Poison Ivy is named Ivy Pepper here, rather than Pamela Isely – this is a particularly big departure. It squanders the notion that Bruce, Selina and Ivy are contemporaries, and it seems unfair that Foley won’t get to portray Ivy’s transformation.
Further confusing matters, reports say that the new Ivy will be physically 19 years old (while retaining her 14-year-old mind). So I guess it won’t exactly be a “13 Going on 30” storyline, even though Geha is 28 – and clearly so. A 19-year-old Ivy flirting with a 15-year-old Bruce could work, but when the performers are 28 and 15, it gets a bit odd.
On the other hand, Poison Ivy – introduced in “Batman” No. 181 in 1966 – was one of the most popular villains on “The Animated Series,” and Geha’s portrayal seems like it will be in that vein rather than the misfire casting of Uma Thurman in 1997’s “Batman & Robin,” the only previous live-action Poison Ivy portrayal.
My appreciation of the character will no doubt come down to whether I’m convinced that she is a continuation of the Ivy we’ve known so far.
What are your thoughts so far on “Gotham” Season 3? Share your opinions below.