Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: Batman, gotham, gotham city year one

Gotham City Year One Contains Warnings For Racially Offensive Language

Gotham City Year One is a new DC comic book series by Tom King, Phil Hester and Eric Gapstur, set many years before Batman and Bruce Wayne, and starring the original Detective Comics police detective Slam Bradley. Those stories from the thirties and forties starring the character famously depicted racist caricatures of East Asian people, which previously saw DC Comics cancel the Detective Comics Before Batman volume.

The character has been used a lot more recently, but his racially offensive history has been ignored. However, it seems that Tom King may be wanting to lean on it a bit more in this upcoming comic, out in October. Bleeding Cool has been told that it will contain the following warning on the first page, though there has been no heads up so far to comic book retailers who may be ordering the title.

"This comic contains language of a racially offensive nature and may not be suitable for all age groups. Its inclusion is an intentional creative choice intended to highlight the fact that language if this type was frequently deployed in past decades and remains in use today, even as contexts evolve. Readers for whole such language is triggering or hurtful should be advised."

These are previous Slam Bradley scenes from Detective Comics in the 1930s.

And these are the solicitations to Gotham City Year One,  below, just in case retailers or readers want to take this into account.

GOTHAM CITY YEAR ONE #1 (OF 6) CVR A PHIL HESTER & ERIC GAPSTUR
(W) Tom King (A/CA) Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur
There once was a shining city on the water, a home for families, hope, and prosperity. It was Gotham and it was glorious. The story of its fall from grace, the legend that would birth the Bat, has remained untold for 80 years. That's about to change. Superstar creators Tom King and Phil Hester team up for the first time to tell the definitive origin of Gotham City: how it became the cesspool of violence and corruption it is today, and how it harbored and then unleashed the sin that led to the rise of the Dark Knight. Two generations before Batman, private investigator Slam Bradley gets tangled in the "kidnapping of the century" as the infant Wayne heir 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.
Retail: $4.99 FOC Date: 9/11/2022 In-Store Date: 10/4/2022

GOTHAM CITY YEAR ONE #2 (OF 6) CVR A PHIL HESTER & ERIC GAPSTUR
(W) Tom King (A/CA) Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur
The bloody, bare-knuckled crime series continues! A bruised and battered Slam Bradley find himself embroiled in a shocking case as the infant heiress to the Wayne fortune has been kidnapped! But as with all things in Gotham City, nothing is what it seems… Can he solve the case in time to save a young life and secure the Wayne legacy or will the secrets of Gotham bury them all? Retail: $4.99 In-Store Date: 11/1/2022

GOTHAM CITY YEAR ONE #3 (OF 6) CVR A PHIL HESTER & ERIC GAPSTUR
(W) Tom King (A/CA) Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur
Slam Bradley has been one step behind the kidnappers the entire time…can he turn the tables in time to save the infant heiress to the Wayne fortune? Is this hardened private investigator prepared to deal with a dark, deadly twist that will define Gotham City for generations to come?
Retail: $4.99 In-Store Date: 12/6/2022

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