DC Cities

I've come to the conclusion that one of the DC Universe's biggest flaws is their over reliance on fictional cities (i.e. Metropolis, Gotham City, et al). Since I'm currently working to create my own DC campaign using the MSH rules (Earth 4), I've been thinking about replacing DC's fictional cities with real locations. Metropolis, IMO, should be New York City, Central City should be Kansas City, MO (Keystone City is Kansas City,KS), and I combined Coast City and Star City into Los Angeles. But Gotham City has me stumped. While it was clearly based on New York City (Batman was even originally headquartered in NYC during his first appearances), I don't want Batman to share a city with Superman. I thought about Newark, NJ, but it's landlocked. I'm currently debating it to be Chicago. Does anybody have any other suggestions or ideas?

Have you considered Baltimore, Maryland. It is a major coastal city, has its own baseball franchise as well as a "past its prime" grit and grime feel to the place. Very historical and colorful. Not too far from New York. Any city which could spawn the likes of Edgar Allen Poe seems a likely candidate for the Dark Knight...

No, I hadn't. Thanks. I'm from the midwest, so I don't really have a lot of first hand knowledge about east coast cities.

For Batman I recommend Chicago, the latest Batman movie was done there. Another option could be Detroit, it's dark and gritty.

Hmm... you could always try just going with where they're supposed to be, according to the DC Universe's Atlas...

Here's the page on New England for ya.

Dohiyi,







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2005 03:06PM by Shadow Viper.

A real city that would work is Boston. Beantown too has it's seamy underside, like Baltimore, but unlike Baltimore it has a very high classed area as well with very little in betweeners. The "Combat Zone" in Boston used to be the most dangerous area in ANY major US city (and thus in any major metroploitan city in the world; sad commentary on US cities that) and there are areas in it that the Police avoid, et al. It's a port city and a major one... so give it a bit darker history (ie: don't change the history, just the reasons and rationale for some of it's historical happenings, the darkness as it were) and let the architecture be a bit more Gothic and you've got it.

Gerrod

Although I am a Marvel Comics fan I dont think DC Comics using created (fictional) cities is a big flaw. I'm sure thru the years it caused some problems for the writers ( maybe ) but I give them credit for going that route. so to speak.

Hahaha
I'm from Baltimore. I would suggest Philly instead, simply because Baltimore is so small, we have less than 400,000 people because we were the murder capitol of the US for a decade (not per capita, but actual, we kill more people than Detroit, East St. Louis, Southside Chicago and NY City, crazy)

We do have three very rich neighborhoods, with a few million dollar mansions (Rolland Park, Guilford and Ruxton) plus the west side has been an open air drug market-total combat zone for the last 20 years (a tractor trailer of crack rolls out of my town to NY every day).

We are the only city to be too dangerious for outside national gangs like Crips and Bloods to get a foothold (they end up dead everytime they try)

We were the first city to murder a Guardian Angel.

We have a horribly racist, violent, corrupt police force and a corrupt city council.

We have very gothic arcitecture but our downtown is totally not suitable for swinging from buildings.

We have huge underground caverns and old tennels under the city and you can walk the trainlines underground (if you time the trains correctly)

Baltimore is dangerious but alas, just not big enough for super heroes.

Why not stick Batman in DC? Let the caped crusader take on the District of Criminals, lots of crime there and rich neighborhoods.

Well, you can place him in the closest city that Gotham is suppose to be, Atlantic City. According to the DC materials (I'm not talking about the Game materials, but the Comics), Gotham is believed to be in the "Egg Harbor" area of Jersey, about 30 miles north of Atlantic City. This is a great source from Wikipedia:

Several maps of Gotham City have been produced over the years. Many of them are directly based on Manhattan, though one map is based on the Rhode Island coastline, and others are completely original. A map of Gotham City used in the 1989 film Batman was actually an inverted map of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In the same movie, a map of the Axis Chemical plant was actually a map of the Capitol Hill neighbourhood in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The current definitive maps of Gotham City are those based on the ones produced for the "No Man's Land" story arc.

Gotham City's location has, like other fictional cities in the DC Universe, varied over the decades, due to the capricious nature of the various writers, editors and storylines. At various times, Gotham was depicted as being on the shores of "Lake Gotham." The majority of appearances place Gotham as being on the east coast of the United States, however.

Current Batman comics state that Gotham City is located in New Jersey, with recent maps closely following the geography of southern Ocean County, with Gotham City's location nearly matching that of the Mystic Island section of Little Egg Harbor Township.

The 2005 film "Batman Begins" places Gotham somewhere near the American east coast, as Alfred comments that the caverns beneath Wayne Manor that are to be converted into the Batcave were once used by a Wayne ancestor to hide escaping slaves in the Underground Railroad.

The distance between Gotham City and Metropolis has varied over the years, with the two cities having been shown as everywhere from being hundreds of miles apart to being twin cities on opposite sides of a large bay. Blüdhaven, a city that's the current home of Nightwing, is located near Gotham City.

Now, if you make Gotham into Atlantic City, keep the Gotham skyline and local interest. Atlantic City has none of it. It really is a dump. The casinos are really the only thing keeping it on the map, and even those are cheesy. I'd rather see Atlantic City razed to the ground and replaced with a real world Gotham City, crime and all.

I should follow up this this article on Metropolis from Wikpedia:

Like many of DC's other fictional cities, the location of Metropolis has varied greatly over the years. Metropolis, however, is usually portrayed as a major city on the east coast of the United States.

It has been said that, metaphorically, Metropolis is New York during the day, and Gotham City (home to Batman) is New York at night; this comparison is usually attributed to Frank Miller. Longtime Batman writer and editor Dennis O'Neil also said figuratively that Metropolis is New York above 14th St., and that Gotham City is New York below 14th St. However, New York City does exist as a separate city from Metropolis and Gotham City within the comics.

A role playing game DC Universe atlas guide published by Mayfair Games claimed that Metropolis was in the state of Delaware, which DC itself has also cited on occasion.

The 2005 comic Countdown to Infinite Crisis places Metropolis in the state of New York.

Metropolis is frequently depicted as being within driving distance of Gotham City, home of Batman. DC has on occasion cited Gotham as being located in the state of New Jersey, though, like Metropolis, its location isn't permanent; however, Gotham is usually treated as also being a major east coast city. The distance between the two cities has varied greatly over the years, ranging from being hundreds of miles apart to Gotham and Metropolis being twin cities on opposite sides of a large bay.
In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths comics, Smallville was often shown as being within driving distance of Metropolis, though with no definitive location. Since John Byrne's revamp of Superman in 1986, however, its location has usually been cited as being in Kansas.

In the Smallville television series, Metropolis seems to be located in Kansas or in a neighboring state. In an interview, the creators of Smallville have stated that Metropolis is approximately 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Smallville. In one episode, a letter is shown with the address "Metropolis, KA," suggesting the city is located in Kansas; however, the United States postal abbreviation for Kansas is "KS", not "KA."

In 1978's Superman: The Movie, its sequels and in the 1990s television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Metropolis is shown as being in (or taking the place of) New York. (The first movie even showed such New York landmarks as the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center).

Mayfair's "Atlas of the DC Universe" also put Keystone City in Kansas with Central City in Missouri with the Mississippi River running between them. The problem with that is that Kansas doesn't touch the Misssissippi. My simple solution was to make it the Missouri River. Later, in the "Flash Secret Files," DC put Keystone City in Ohio. But I decided to make Keystone Kansas City, KS and Central Kansas City,MO. The more I think about it, the more I feel drawn to keep Gotham and Metropolis but use real cities in place of DC's other fictional locations. Gotham and Metropolis are as much characters in the comics as the heroes and villains in many ways. I do want to thank everybody for their ideas and help.

By using fictional cities, DC is free to do whatever they want to with the cities. Metropolis was blown up, rebuilt by a magic spell, rebuilt again by a computer virus, and finally restored to normalcy. Gotham got most of its modern architecture blown up, revealing a city of still-standing 19th century buildings, leveled in an artificial earthquake and subjected to a plague, and finally cured and rebuilt.

Marvel put itself in an increasingly ludicrous straitjacket by placing every single one of their books in NYC. Not that it matters, I suppose, as Manhatten Island has been lifted into the stratoosphere, lifted later into orbit, towed out to sea (how the hell did it get past the Narrows?????), turned into a Hyperborean realm, burned to the ground by race riots, burned to the ground by demons, and invaded by more aliens than anyone can count.

Marv Wolfman tried to talk DC into dropping the fictional cities back during the early '70s. For one issue during the "Sandman-Superman" arc, Metropolis was refered to as New York City. Most of us thought it was a typo and just ignored it.

Comic book cities, like comic book characters, represent ideals, archetypes, or nightmares. Metropolis is an ideal city, Gotham a nightmare. I could see Metropolis as Philadelphia or Baltimore, Gotham as Newark, Trenton, or any of the other rundown New Jersey cities.
The original Mayfair map of Central City was that of Des Moines Iowa which makes sense to this former Iowan.

Basically you take a real city, enhance its good points, exaggerate its nightmares, and dump the boring stuff in the middle. Take Milwaukee, where I'm living. You could exaggerate the city's bad points and build a fictional city with a series of racially and ethnically divided enclaves, a city-wide cabal of ultra-conservatives controlling the media and much of the government, a terrorist gang with Christian Fundamentalist leanings under the protection of the DA, and large abandoned industrial areas (perfect for criminal lairs and secret superhero bases). Set the fictional city in the WWI-WWII era and you could throw in pro-German Fifth Columnists hiding in plain sight.
On the other hand, you could throw in a strong occult community with a combination of Wiccan, Druidic, and Native America magic (since this is a comic book city the magic... sorry, magicke really would work). Maybe a cluster of aging Hippies who are still maintaining/guarding a mystery accidentally uncovered during the 60s.

ok well you can put them in the right states at least Gotham's in Jersey and Metropolis is in maryland. the others are pretty much already stated.

My own preference is that Metropolis exists near the place that we call Dover, Delaware. No one in Metropolis ever mentions a state capital or really anything out in the rest of the state. Admittedly Metropolis is NOT its state capital, as we've never seen a governor in residence, but that can be explained. Dover-DC exists but, whille it is the state capital, it was eclipsed in size and importance long ago by nearby Metropolis. The same thing happens all the time in US states.

Personally, I've always considered Metropolis Chicago.

As the creator of Superman originally hailed from Toronto, and created Supes during his time there, one might imagine that Metropolis was originay based upon Toronto.

I wonder if Superman's Canadian origins had anything to do with his placement in a fictional city; be it via the creators desire to sell his creation to a broader audience, or the later developers desire to Americanize said creation?

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"You just decided *all by yourselves* that you are the Earth's protectors. And that you, and *only* you, not your teammates or family, are trustworthy enough to include in the process..."

T'Challa, The New Avengers: Illuminati 1

Batman: Sub-Zero
Batman looks at a computer screen showing Barbara Gordon's file with the Gotham blood bank. Her address as "10015" as a zip code.

Um........its DC, so who cares. Did you know everytime someone posts on this board about DC an angel dies?


But if I had a gun to my head I'd say Batman should be from Chicago if not New York (and I agree that Batman shouldn't be in same city as Supershmuck). Chicago is the only city IMO that is gritty enough and has the right tone to be Gotham.


By using fictional cities, DC is free to do whatever they want to with the cities.

It also stops you from using your real life knowledge of a city to fill in the gaps and create a better mental picture of the place the writers are trying to bring to life. Its also another example of how DC set its characters apart from real life and its problems instead of sticking their characters in the muck with the rest of us. Superdork is a uber god living in a fictional world, while Spiderman is a normal person with normal problems (the super powers make his life worse instead of better) and living in a real world. Even Batman this supposed regular man of the bunch is an uber rich playboy, not to mention a Captain America with noe drugs and Reed Richards with no college degree.

DG X(

Marvel > DC

Spiderman is a normal person with normal problems ... living in a real world.
ROFL.............
God, what a loser........... Why Peter Parker didn't end it all decades ago escapes me.
Unless he's a masochist.
Which explains a lot.

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It also stops you from using your real life knowledge of a city to fill in the gaps and create a better mental picture of the place the writers are trying to bring to life.

Which is what everyone does anyway. It's how all fictional settings (should) work -- what the writer doesn't outright tell you, he leaves enough to make you easily think of a similar place, or else the things he doesn't tell you have no direct bearing and so their absence doesn't matter.

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Even Batman this supposed regular man of the bunch is an uber rich playboy, not to mention a Captain America with no drugs and Reed Richards with no college degree.

Which he worked ten years to get, instead of a (relatively) simple injection. Which is what folks like Jack LaLane have been telling us for decades that we can do, that with enough dedication and effort, we can become Adonis's.
Where's he been shown to be near as smart as Richards? I'd say he's maybe as scientfiaclly/tech-headed as The Wizard.