A day in the life of a major metropolitan news organization:
Really, Perry White? You don't have a bureau in Gotham City, or stringers? Every time Batman faces some "weird" crooks, you send your top reporter all the way to Gotham City?? Surely the crime would be over with, one way or another, before poor Clark Kent could make it there.
Of course, this begs the question of exactly where Gotham City and Metropolis are in relation to each other. DC has always been annoyingly vague about this, especially post-Crisis. Some sources, such as an Ask The Answer Man column in 1977, said they were both in New York, adjacent to NYC. (That same column also put Midway City in Michigan--yay!! we have our own heroes!!--Central City in Ohio--really?--and Star City in Connecticut--not so sure about that).
Most sources, though, put Gotham in New Jersey and Metropolis in Delaware. An issue of Amazing World Of DC Comics placed them there, as did Mayfair's RPG supplement, Atlas Of The DC Universe. It's an open question how canonical those were, though. And of course, that was pre-Crisis, and pre-Zero Hour, and pre-Infinite Crisis, and pre-Dakota, and...
Some folks on the net have made their own stabs at this project. But again, not canonical. So how about it, DC? Since you're doing a new History of The DC Universe, how about settling some of these geography questions once and for all?
Plus, I can't believe that someone hasn't done a Google Map with all of DC's fictional cities...Get on the ball, nerds!!
Perry White wastes a lot of gas money in World's Finest #105 (1959)
Really, Perry White? You don't have a bureau in Gotham City, or stringers? Every time Batman faces some "weird" crooks, you send your top reporter all the way to Gotham City?? Surely the crime would be over with, one way or another, before poor Clark Kent could make it there.Of course, this begs the question of exactly where Gotham City and Metropolis are in relation to each other. DC has always been annoyingly vague about this, especially post-Crisis. Some sources, such as an Ask The Answer Man column in 1977, said they were both in New York, adjacent to NYC. (That same column also put Midway City in Michigan--yay!! we have our own heroes!!--Central City in Ohio--really?--and Star City in Connecticut--not so sure about that).
Most sources, though, put Gotham in New Jersey and Metropolis in Delaware. An issue of Amazing World Of DC Comics placed them there, as did Mayfair's RPG supplement, Atlas Of The DC Universe. It's an open question how canonical those were, though. And of course, that was pre-Crisis, and pre-Zero Hour, and pre-Infinite Crisis, and pre-Dakota, and...
Some folks on the net have made their own stabs at this project. But again, not canonical. So how about it, DC? Since you're doing a new History of The DC Universe, how about settling some of these geography questions once and for all?
Plus, I can't believe that someone hasn't done a Google Map with all of DC's fictional cities...Get on the ball, nerds!!
Perry White wastes a lot of gas money in World's Finest #105 (1959)
Well, when you've got Kent, you need a lot less reporters.
ReplyDeleteNo self-respecting New England City is going to call itself 'Star City'... It sounds like a west-of-the-Mississippi thing. Or Florida
ReplyDeleteMayfair's DC Heroes rulebook (I think first edition so that would make it pre-Crisis) had a map of Gotham in it that looks suspiciously (read: damn near identical) to Rhode Island.
ReplyDeleteI recall Kurt Busiek taking a stab at the geography question in the JLA vs. Avengers project several years back. Busiek's concept was that Earth-DC was a much larger planet, with a likewise larger North American continent able to accommodate so many huge cities along its eastern coastline. Kind of a novel, out of left field theory...but one I kinda like.
ReplyDeleteIt still doesn't excuse Perry White's lousy management style, though.
In that story, Superman was all cheesed off because Marvel-Earth had so many fewer inhabitants than DC-Earth...
ReplyDeleteThis whole post reminds me of that Jerry Seinfeld routine where he makes fun of the Planet for being a great metropolitan newspaper...with only 3 reporters.
ReplyDelete