With so much history in the comics, along with various other media, Batman is a character that has provided Fox's Gotham with a rich pool of cops, villains and other assorted players to draw from without ever needing to use the Dark Knight himself. Season 3 has done some wild things in its opening chapters, and it the remainder of the season will introduce a mysterious new character called the Shaman that likely pays homage to the comics, and Gotham tapped Justified and The 100 vet Raymond J. Barry to play him.
As the Shaman, Raymond J. Barry will join Gotham as a potential sage guide for the maturing Bruce Wayne as he paves the road to donning the cape and cowl. The Shaman claims his interests are in tapping the true depths of Bruce's mind, and he says Gotham City's future is all on the young billionaire, who must become the man his city requires. It sounds like a ripe time for Gary Oldman to come into Gotham as The Dark Knight trilogy's James Gordon, alongside that other Dark Knight actor. Someone bring the Mad Hatter back for more hallucinations for this universe's Jim.
The name "the Shaman" probably isn't the most recognizable to Batman fans, as it's not a character that has been used with frequency, first appearing in 1989 for the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight line in the miniseries Batman: Shaman. (It was written by Dennis O'Neil and illustrated by Ed Hannigan.) The latter titular character entered into a strange narrative about a deadly cult, and the storyline takes place around six months or so into Bruce' time as Batman proper, with Shaman offering some mystical insight into the significance of the Bat to Bruce's psyche.
Deadline's report had none of the comic business in it, which is suspect, since the description matches up fairly well. Minus the fact that Bruce hasn't become Batman yet, obviously. But even the whole suspicious angle fits into the comic miniseries in a way I won't spoil here. Without our own mystical leader here to whisper answers, we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Raymond J. Barry has been a TV presence for years, on shows from The X-Files to Cold Case to Ray Donovan, and he's as busy as ever. Appearing on the big screen for The Purge: Election Year last year, he's also been in the star-studded TV drama Ice and a handful of other films, with even more coming in 2017 and beyond. Hopefully his Gotham stint will be a memorable one.
With another famed comic book character whose name rhymes with "bloker" on the way, Gotham will return to Fox and to audiences on Monday, January 23. To see what else is hitting the small screen in the near future, head to our midseason premiere schedule.
