BATMAN is about to make his eagerly awaited return to the small screen after 50 years, the latest salvo in the fierce decades-long rivalry between the comic book giants Marvel and DC.

The new series, Gotham, is a world away from Adam West’s camp 1960s outings, a dark ultraviolent prequel in which Bruce Wayne is 12 years old and barely out of short trousers, let alone getting measured up for a cowl and cape.

The DC Comics spin-off is an “origins” story centred not around Batman but young detective (later commissioner) James Gordon, and explains how the villains — the Penguin, the Riddler and the Joker among them, as well as Catwoman — became quite so villainous.

Gotham, made by the US studio (and DC owner) Warner Bros, is another sign of the entertainment industry’s insatiable appetite for comic books and the latest example of a film franchise transferring to television.

It also ramps up the rivalry between DC, which has multiple adaptations in the pipeline including big screen team-up Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Disney-owned Marvel, which boasts Iron Man, Spider-Man and the X-Men among its stable of characters. Gotham’s creator, Bruno Heller, whose previous credits include the US cable channel HBO’s epic Rome and CBS television series The Mentalist, has said the programme “won’t go for the full theatrical, Spandex costume aspect of the villains”.

Echoing the Superman spin-off Smallville, in which Clarke Kent did not don the tights and cape until the last episode of the 11th and final series, Heller said Gotham would “allow us to tell the saga from a much earlier point without ever having to get into a cape and cowl — and without having to worry about superpowers”.

Katie Keenan, head of acquisitions at Channel 5, which fought off fierce competition to buy the rights to the show in the UK, said the story was not “just trying to put the big screen on to the small screen”. She said: “It feels like a new take on this world with stories that have never been told. The hero and the heart of the piece is Detective Gordon.”

Starring Ben McKenzie in the James Gordon role played by Gary Oldman in Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed film adaptations, and with British actor Sean Pertwee substituting for Michael Caine as the Waynes’ loyal servant Alfred, the 16-part series will premiere in the US on Fox on Monday and in the UK next month.

A more traditional police procedural type of show, it avoids direct comparisons with Nolan’s Dark Knight films and is presumably easier to make on a TV budget. All the familiar villains appear alongside a new creation, Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith).

Gotham was named most promising new show of the autumn season by the Television Critics Association in the US. But switching the focus to future commissioner Gordon is inherently risky, in effect a Batman show without Batman.

Jordan Farley, community editor at sci-fi magazine SFX, said: “There have been comic series based purely on the Gotham police department which have been very successful. The challenge for the show is that people will go in expecting Batman.”

Gotham is one of a number of new TV comic book adaptations including Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America spin-off Agent Carter. DC has developed a series around the Flash, who has super-speed, itself a spin-off of another superhero show, Arrow. Another DC series, Constantine, based on the hit comic Hellblazer, has also been picked up by NBC in the US.

The online TV service Netflix signed a five-series deal with Marvel last year, beginning with Daredevil — the “man without fear” — followed by Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones, and ending with a “dream-team miniseries”, The Defenders, in which all the characters are brought together, Avengers-style.

By arrangement with the Guardian

Published in Dawn, September 21st , 2014