Ever since we first heard about Fox’s Gotham, there has been one major question floating around: When will the show introduce Batman? Fans have obviously met the man who becomes the Caped Crusader—or at least the boy who becomes the man who becomes the Caped Crusader—in the form of a young Bruce Wayne. But as for Batman proper, one of the stars just revealed when we can expect to see the Dark Knight on your TV screens.
During the Gotham panel at Wizard World Chicago, star Ben McKenzie, who plays future Commissioner James Gordon on the comic book procedural, revealed the answer to the question everyone wants to know. But don’t get too excited, it won’t be for a while. ComicBook.com filmed the panel, where McKenzie said:
The last frame of the last shot of the last scene of the last episode of Gotham, whatever season that may be, is Bruce putting on that cape.
So now you know. While you’ll get to see the build up of young Bruce Wayne growing and getting closer and closer to adopting his crime-fighting alter ego, we won’t actually see him don that iconic cape and cowl until the very, very, very end of the Gotham. And isn’t that really how it should be? The series was intended to be a precursor; after all, we have tons of Batman stories, this is supposed to set up the world that is responsible for creating the character, not necessarily a series following he exploits. We have decades’ worth of comics for that.
This is, of course, assuming that Gotham has the opportunity to play out and reach the end of it’s run and isn’t abruptly cancelled by Fox with little or no warning, as they’ve been known to do in the past. Maybe the producers should consider filming that one last shot so they have it ready to go in the event the series gets the axe they can just slip it in at the very end.
Gotham’s ratings have been good, but not great, and critical reception has been mixed. Many have remarked that it took some time to really figure out what kind of show it wanted to be and what kind of story they wanted to tell. Early on it felt like they couldn’t decide if the show couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a gritty police procedural or an over-the-top, comic book-style narrative, but things smoothed out as the debut season progressed. And next season looks kind of outstanding, as hinted at in the promo below.
From what we’ve seen of season 2 of Gotham, it looks like it’s going to be all kinds of crazy and fun. We’ve got tons of future villains, Arkham Asylum, and much more to look forward to. Gotham returns on Monday, September 21.
