The Gotham premiere brought in solid ratings for Fox, but while it was a solid hour of TV that was well written and acted, it may not have quite knocked your socks off. If that's the case, then buckle up and hang on tight because you're about to see something that'll make those socks go flying.
Fox has released a 2.5-minute trailer for the entire first season of Gotham, and it's twice as thrilling as the pilot. Aside from teasing various plots from the first season -- including the Arkham Asylum thing, which some have suggested might be Season One's overall story arc -- the big news is the revelation of at least one major villain from Batman's rogues gallery that's headed to the show.
First, watch.
Victor Zsasz! For the unaware, Zsasz is one of Batman's most despicable villains, a criminally insane serial killer who carves one tally mark into his own skin for every life he takes.
As you can see, he has several tally marks already, but in current comics, every inch of his body is literally covered in them. So by comparison, Gotham's Zsasz is just getting started.
And then there's this guy, who seems to have taken an old theater as his hideout and is wearing a mask that resembles the one the Scarecrow wore in the film Batman Begins.
Who is this? Could he really be Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow? Anything's possible, but it seems unlikely he'd appear so early in the series when there are already other heavyweights involved like Penguin, Catwoman and Riddler. (Not that there's any shortage of biggies to play out for years to come... Joker, Two-Face, Bane, Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn, Hush, Red Hood, Hugo Strange and so many more.)
So who's the masked man? His victim looked drugged. Hmm...
This is Sal Maroni, a mob boss almost on the same level as Carmine Falcone. He's bad news. They tend to vie for the same territory in the comics, so his inclusion in Gotham was to be expected. Fun fact: in the comics, it's Maroni who inadvertently creates Two-Face by throwing acid onto attorney Harvey Dent in an assassination attempt (on the witness stand, no less).
If you blinked, you may have missed this guy wearing a pig mask. He could be the disturbed Professor Pyg, a villain who mutilates his victims by affixing doll faces onto them, among other perverse surgeries. Or, he could just be a random thug hiding his identity.
And here's the famed Arkham Asylum, a permanent fixture in the comics. It's a prison for the criminally insane, so of course it's where all of Batman's villains end up. The Gotham trailer mentions that Arkham hasn't operated in years, and how cool is it that the Mayor wants to transform it into a new district called "Arkham City"?
Those two words were never before put together until 2011, when Rocksteady Games released the celebrated Batman: Arkham City. Even if nothing ever comes from it, it's a really nice bit of fan service.
What about this female shooter? Is she someone we should know? Or a one-off baddie created just for the show?
Spot anything else interesting in the trailer?
