Gotham City is a busy place, with a lot going down each and every week. In this monthly column, Joshua Lapin-Bertone helps you stay on top of it all by letting you know what you should be paying attention to within the Bat-Family…and why.
Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon both came to Gotham in search of justice. Instead, they found one another, creating one of the DC Universe’s most unconventional bromances.
DC High Volume: Batman has caused me to look at Batman: Year One with new eyes. DC’s new narrative podcast—available to listen to for free on all platforms—is retelling some of the greatest Batman stories in audio form. Currently, High Volume is in the midst of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Batman: The Long Halloween, but they kicked things off with Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s classic four-issue origin story. In many ways, Year One was the perfect choice to kick off the new endeavor, as the story’s crime noir aesthetic makes it feel like a 1930s-era radio play.
I love it when classic DC stories are retold in different mediums, because it often helps me consider the story from a different angle. The original Year One comic, the 2011 animated movie and the DC High Volume: Batman audio adaptation each chronicle the same events, but there are subtle differences. When you read Batman: Year One in comic book form, your imagination fills in the blanks, deciding how much emotion was in a line, or how a scene is paced.
DC High Volume: Batman’s script is highly faithful to the comic, to the point of lifting lines directly from it. But the voice acting, the soundtrack and the overall pacing change the rhythm of each scene, giving listeners a new perspective on a beloved comic they may have known for decades. In my case, I walked away reconsidering the early days of Batman and Jim Gordon’s partnership.
A large part of this was due to Jason Spisak’s portrayal of Batman. Spisak’s voice acting sells Bruce Wayne’s desperation during some of the story’s most iconic moments. Throughout Batman: Year One, the Dark Knight struggles to stay one step ahead of the Gotham City Police Department, and he’s almost caught on more than one occasion.
Reading the comic, I always got the sense that Batman was nervous and had only narrowly escaped capture, but Spisak’s vocal performance really drives home how desperate the situation is. You can hear the fear in Batman’s narration as he tries to evade the police throughout Year One: Chapter Three. Even the scene where Batman confronts the television thieves in Year One: Chapter Two takes on a new tone, with Spisak’s line delivery making it clear just how much the inexperienced Dark Knight is struggling.
It makes it pretty obvious that without Jim Gordon, Batman may not have survived his first year. The Dark Knight says as much in Chapter Three.
“I can’t afford mistakes,” he muses. “I have to learn to make it work step by step, method by method. But that won’t be enough. Too many people want me dead. Can’t do it alone. I need an ally, an inside man. I need Jim Gordon on my side.”
I’ve read these words for years, but it wasn’t until I heard Spisak deliver them that I realized just how true they are. Listening to Batman’s fear and desperation, it suddenly hits you just how close his career was to ending before it had truly begun. Batman is strong and resourceful, but Gotham City is a dangerous place, and without Jim Gordon’s help, the city would’ve swallowed him whole.
Jay Paulson voices Jim Gordon, adding new depth to his character arc. For years many people, myself included, have said that Gordon is the true protagonist of Batman: Year One. Throughout the storyline, Jim goes on an interesting journey and grows as a character. He begins as a newly arrived police lieutenant who refuses to compromise his values in the face of massive corruption. However, the sudden appearance of Batman challenges all of that.
Batman is an outlaw, and as a cop, it’s Gordon’s job to catch him. But it’s quickly apparent to Gordon how much good Batman is doing. His fellow police officers disregard the law and have no issue with harming, or even killing innocent people in the crossfire. Meanwhile, Batman is saving lives.
One of the key themes in Year One is Gordon’s struggle not to get corrupted by the city. It may be one of the reasons he begins his affair with fellow cop Sarah Essen. Perhaps it’s his way of finding comfort in the face of Gotham’s chaos, or maybe it’s the city’s darkness starting to influence him. For Jim Gordon, his values are everything and cheating on his pregnant wife flies in the face of that.
All of this conflict weighs heavily on Gordon by the end of Chapter Three, where Paulson delivers an emotionally powerful monologue.
“I shouldn’t be thinking, not about Sgt. Essen and not about Batman,” Gordon declares. “He’s a criminal. I’m a cop. It’s that simple. I’m a cop in a city where the mayor and commissioner use police as hired killers. He saved that old woman. He saved that cat. He even paid for that suit. The hunk of metal in my hand is heavier than ever.”
Do yourself a favor, even if you’ve read Year One dozens of times, listen to this podcast and take in the way Paulson delivers this monologue. It’s chilling.
By the end of Year One, Gordon has ended his affair, saved his family and helped expel corruption from the GCPD. He has formed an uneasy partnership with Batman, realizing that the Dark Knight’s place in the city isn’t black and white. Yes, Batman is an outlaw by definition, but Gordon has grown, realizing that justice has gray areas. Partnering with Batman doesn’t mean he has compromised on his values. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s the beginning of an occasionally challenging arrangement that is now getting explored even more deeply in DC High Volume’s adaptation of The Long Halloween.
Without Batman, Jim Gordon never would have been able to stand against the encroached corruption of the GCPD, and listening to the podcast, I wonder if he also would’ve lost the battle for his soul. Batman needed Jim Gordon, and Jim Gordon needed Batman. Without one another, neither man would have survived—and frankly, neither would Gotham.
Catch new episodes of DC High Volume: Batman every Wednesday on the DC website, YouTube channel and wherever podcasts are available.
Joshua Lapin-Bertone writes about TV, movies and comics for DC.com, is a regular contributor to the Couch Club and writes our monthly Batman column, "Gotham Gazette." Follow him on Bluesky at @joshualapinbertone and on X at @TBUJosh.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Joshua Lapin-Bertone and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
