Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: Batman, dc comics, james tynion iv

James Tynion IV To Make His Gotham Head Canon Into Batman Continuity

Reading James Tynion IV's latest Empire  Of The Tiny Onion newsletter I suddenly got a Batman-style flashback to Evan Dorkin's return to The Eltingville Club. I mean, even more than usual. Remember this?

James Tynion IV, as well as writing the two big indie hits from Image and Boom, The Department Of Truth and Something Is Killing The Children, is also the writer of the biggest seller in the direct market, Batman from DC Comics. And is turning into a showrunner for the rest of the Batman line in the manner of Jonathan Hickman on X-Men. And it involved the character of Sean Mahoney, the Arkham Asylum guard who was turned into Peacekeeper-01 by Saint Industries as part of The Magistrate for Future State. Initially, he was shown as a hero, saving nurses from death in Arkham Asylum in A-Day and losing limbs in the process, before he was used by nefarious sources. But recently he had gained more of a twirling moustache, planting bombs to blow up Gotham City Hall to make people afraid, and have had Harley Quinn talk about his previous abusive ways working at Arkham Asylum. And James Tynion will now be telling his origins in a new Batman Secret Files one-shot from DC Comics in October but also using it to make his own headcanon about Jim Gordon and Gotham City PD official DC continuity.

I've got another BATMAN: SECRET FILES issue cooking in October, this one featuring the origin of PEACEKEEPER-01. We've hinted at a bit of this in the main title, but I have this whole mythology that lives in my head about the GCPD that I've always wanted to make canon because it just makes absolute sense that it would be this way. Basically, when Jim Gordon was made Police Commissioner, he would have purged the entire department of a whole bunch of the most obviously corrupt officers. And the families of those officers would have developed a deep-seated grudge against how Gordon ran the GCPD, and his relationship with Batman. Sean Mahoney came from a family of corrupt cops. The sort of folk who moonlit as armed security for the Falcone Crime Family in the pre-Batman days, and who were all on the take, but they were embedded enough in the power structure of Gotham that they were untouchable until Gordon took the top job. That would have happened right around when Sean Mahoney was looking to sign up. He was raised believing that he would be one of the finest officers in the history of Gotham, but Gordon wouldn't let a member of such a corrupt family join up… So Sean ended up as a prison guard at Arkham Asylum, and the resentment started to grow, until it all boiled over at A-Day, and then Simon Saint had the clever idea of putting him in one of the most advanced suits of Police Armor the world has ever seen! What could go wrong?!

So basically Jim Gordon was a prejudiced and bigoted son-of-a-bitch? And that's now established Batcontinuity? And we have a League Of Extraordinary Corrupt Cop Kids out there? Here's how we first met Sean…

And saw his heroism in action…

That's how he started. But this is how he's going.

This is what he's planning.

And this is what Harley Quinn remembers.

The one-shot is also written with Ed Brisson and drawn by Joker Puzzlebox and Batman/Fortnite artist Joshua Hixon, with whom he is working on a new thing and another Fear State Secret Files one-shot to come…

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