Deep Thoughts Spawned By An Unlikely Street Sign

In yesterday's Detective Comics #900 #19 (sigh), Dick Grayson is leaving Gotham for his new haunts...

Now, that's kind of a ridiculous sign, as most highway signs aren't going to show you a city 800 miles away as the first and only stop on the interstate. If I trundled onto I-94, I'll see distance signs for Benton Harbor and Chicago, or Ann Arbor and Detroit, not New York City or Las Vegas.

Still, it does give us the first real chance in the nu52 to indulge my ridiculous obsession with DC Geography. (Although it is the second time we've been clued in by highway mileage signs while Dick trundlers by on a motorcycle. Is there some rule in the DC stylebook mandating this?)

Of course, we have usual fistful of caveats. A) Highway signs are only an approximation; B) It's driving miles, not as the crow flies; C) Highways, and indeed other "real" cities, may be substantially different in the DC Universe; and D) If the Busiek Hypothesis (that the DC Earth is larger in size than ours, to accommodate all those extra cities and such) then our speculation is really frakked.

Ah, but what's the point of being careful when you're a nerd? So, given that Gotham's ports mean she's on the water, probably on the East Coast (no matter how Nolan tried to trick us in The Dark Knight Rises). So, playing with Google Maps tells us...

Well, not all that much. Being approximately 800 driving miles from Chicago could place us anywhere from southern Delaware (820 miles) to most of New Jersey (Atlantic City--820 miles! Asbury Park--824 miles!!) to parts of Long Island to southwestern Connecticut (New Haven, at 864 miles, is problem as far as a reasonable interpretation of 800 miles will allow).

You could argue for parts of the Maryland coast--but Gotham sure doesn't feel Marylandish to me. Rhode Island and Massachusetts? Right out. (And no, nowhere along the Gulf coast is close to being 800ish miles to Chicago...

So along the Eastern seaboard, above the Mason-Dixon line? I guess we really didn't narrow it down very much at all, did we? Still, I'm going to go with Asbury Park, so we can get the Batman/Springsteen crossover we've all been waiting for.

Ah, well, keep your eyes opened for more clues...

Finally--The True Location Of Gotham City!!

As many of you know, we here at Slay Monstrobot are ridiculously obsessed with tracking down the "actual" locations of various fictional DC cities...and especially Gotham City. (And it's not just me...others share this deep thirst for geographical knowledge!)

But finally, we have a break in the case!! Irrefutable evidence!!!

Turn away if you don't want minor spoilers for The Dark Knight Returns...

At the end, Blake is given the GPS coordinates for the Batcave!! And it's flashed right on the screen!! OMG!!!

Now, let's introduce the caveats:

A) We see only the complete latitude---the degrees longitude are covered, so we only have half the equation.

B) Wayne Manor has often (but not always) been described as outside of Gotham City proper...so this is only an approximation of Gotham's location.

C) DC Movie Universe geography, of course, may be significantly different than DC Comics Universe geography.

D) If the Busiek Hypothesis--that DC Earth is physically bigger than our (and Marvel's) Earth, thus with more room for all these extra cities--is correct, well, that blows my work here to hell.

E) Nolan may be mind-frakking us.

Still, nerdishness insists that we press onward. Watching TDKR (too many) times reveals that the latitude entrance to the Batcave is:

34 degrees, 8 minutes, 22 seconds North.

Now, as mentioned, we don't have the longitude. But given that Gotham is on the seaboard, Nolan is clearly telling us that Batman's home is...in southern North Carolina?!?

Near Myrtle Grove?!?

Well, getting closer, that's puts the Batcave right near these two houses...neither one of which, looks too much like Wayne Manor...

So...Gotham City south of the Mason-Dixon line? Way south, in fact? Bruce Wayne is a Tarheels fan (or, gasp, a Duke fan)?!?

Well, that doesn't seem right, does it? Especially with the snow we see in TDKR.

Ah, but wait. Let's check back in with caveat E above...Nolan may be mind-frakking us.

After all...why would he give us the latitude, but not the longitude? It's not like that hides anything, because if we know that Gotham is on the East coast, than we don't need longitude, right?

IF we know Gotham is on the East Coast.

IF.

And that's why you obscure the longitude...because you're playing a terrible trick on us. Because, as best as I can recall, there is nothing in any of the three movies that gives us any geographical point of reference, at all.

And Gotham City could have that latitude and still have a port...if it were on the West Coast!!

And 34 degrees North along the Pacific coast just happens to be...Los Angeles!!

And...get ready to have your mind blown...troll along 34 degrees 8 minutes North, and you come to the inescapable conclusion that--and I am not making this up--the Batcave is beneath...

Seriously. The Batcave is beneath Universal Studios.

Christopher Nolan, you magnificent bastard. I'm not sure how Warners feels about that, though...

Or, if you travel Google Earth up in the Hollywood Hills, to precisely 34º 8' 22", you see that there is a spot, not far from the famous Hollywood sign, with this picture uploaded...

A cave overlooking Hollywood. Perfect!!

So, the Batcave is in Hollywood, probably extending top directly under the Hollywood sign!! Case closed.

What about the snow, you ask? Oh, that was just symbolic, showing uh, well, how upset the natural order was at Bane's takeover. Yeah, that's the ticket!!

But what about the waterfall in front of the cave?

Shut up.

Let's Play Carmen San Diego, Shall We??

As you know, I'm kind of obsessed with the geographical location of DC's fictional cities (as is my friend Siskoid). So when I come upon actual data in an actual DC story, you know I'm paying attention.

In Batman: Gotham Knights #1 (2000), Dick Grayson is tolling down the highway on his bike, and we see the following sign:

After taking Robin's call, he does a quick U-turn and...

We should acknowledge the following caveats: A) These are road signs, so this is driving distance, not "as the crow flies" distance, and there can be some considerable differences based on how much meandering various highways do. B) Many highway distance signs are notoriously poor approximations C) This is the DC Universe, so of course things there may not be located exactly where they are on our Earth...(particularly if you buy the Busiek Hypothesis. In Avengers/JLA, Kurt Busiek revealed that the DC Earth was larger than the Marvel Earth, and hence had more surface area, and thus more room for all these fictional towns.)

So, given those limitations, these signs tell us:

**Bludhaven and Gotham City are about 40 miles apart.

**Gotham is between Boston and Baltimore. And the distances are right: Google Maps has the driving distance between Boston and Baltimore at approximately 400 miles. So the signs, which have Gotham 100 miles from Boston and 300 miles from Baltimore, make sense.

**So, given that Gotham has a port, and assuming that it's not in the middle of the ocean; that's it's in a generally southwesterly direction from Boston; given that it's about 300 miles from Baltimore, and 100 miles from Boston; and moving little markers around on Google Maps...

We can conclude that Gotham City is most likely in southern Connecticut (with a slim possibility that it might be in Rhode Island.

Case closed.

Next up: finding a story where someone is driving between Metropolis and somewhere...

Census

In this week's Red Robin #21, there's a very silly storyline wherein Tim Drake has to destroy the Ünternet (please don't ask) in order to keep the old Blue Beetle villains, the Madmen (who had been turned into "living servers" by Darkseid--again, don't ask), from infecting everyone on Earth with their "cancer of the soul" (again, asking is contraindicated).

Anyway, it turns out the only way to stop them is to channel the entire Gotham City power grid through them, with leads Fabian Nicieza to drop this little bomb on us:

So...Gotham City is the fourth largest city in the U.S., at least in the DC Universe??

Game. On.

We already know that DC geography is...somewhat different than our world. My pal Siskoid has had some fun recently discussing where they might be located, and having a contest to that effect, as well.

But that's just location. Today's question: just how big are the cities? Hmmmm...

1) Is New York City still the largest in the DC Universe? Or has Metropolis surpassed it? If so, how does the Big Apple feel about being #2?

2) What about Chicago and Los Angeles? Which one (if any) is bigger than Gotham City?

3) Given earthquakes, plagues, military blockades, and the everyday deaths caused by the Joker, Killer Croc, Black Mask, etc., it's pretty much amazing that Gotham still would have enough population to be as high as fourth. And seriously, why haven't the survivors moved away from there? Death wish?

Of course, that begs the question--before all the disasters, was Gotham higher? First place, even?

4) So, where did Coast City rank before, well, you know? Blüdhaven? Seriously, DC cities--unsafe places to live!

5) What about the other DC cities? Where does Fawcett City rank, or Midway, or Opal, or Star City, or...?

Have at it, minions. Show your work.

The Woefully Understaffed Daily Planet

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)