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As Gotham’s criminal past is dredged up in Batman: The Adventures Continue Season II #5, a major player in the underworld is confirmed in the DCAU.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman: The Adventures Continue Season II #5, on sale now from DC Comics.
Inmates of Arkham Asylum like the Joker, Two-Face and the Riddler have dominated Batman’s rogues gallery since the character first appeared over 80 years ago. Since then these costumed criminals have intrinsically linked the stories of the Dark Knight with psychological intrigue and questioned the very sanity of Gotham’s guardian. The presence of these villains doesn’t mean there aren’t more run-of-the-mill criminals to contend with though. Gotham has plenty of old-fashioned crime in its underworld – and one of its most famous faces just entered the DC Animated Universe.
The Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder are called to the crime scene of the previous issue’s explosive opening in Batman: The Adventures Continue Season II #5 (by Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Rick Burchett, Monica Kubina and Josh Reed). They find the washed-up body of Ambrose Chapell, who was killed by the Muscle last issue to pave the way for Emerson Mayfield’s mayoral campaign in this issue. While the focus is largely on the criminal dealings of Mayfield, some of Chapell’s other clients are name-dropped by Commissioner Gordon. Some are familiar names from Batman: The Animated Series but one name comes from outside the DCAU.
Alongside Mask of the Phantasm‘s gangster Sal Vilestra and Animated Series regular Rupert Thorne, Gordon mentions that Chapell also worked for the Falcone crime family. This is the first acknowledgment of this prominent mob family in the DCAU’s Gotham City and it doesn’t stop there. Later on, in a flashback to Batman’s first year as a crime fighter, the head of the Falcone crime family, Carmine Falcone, is mentioned.
Carmine Falcone was created by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchelli for 1987’s Batman: Year One. After the introduction of more traditional crime to Gotham’s streets in that more grounded story, the Falcone crime family became a major part of Gotham history, with the inner workings of the family being explored in Batman: The Long Halloween (by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale). Although the character perished in the sequel, Batman: Dark Victory, Carmine Falcone himself appeared a few times in flashback stories in post-Flashpoint continuity.
Even though he doesn’t appear directly in this issue, his presence is felt in the aforementioned flashback sequence. A young photographer seemingly took a picture of the infamous mob boss and apparently the DCAU’s Carmine Falcone doesn’t like his picture appearing in the press. As one of the gangster’s personal enforcers threatens the young photographer, the Dark Knight swoops in from above to save the day. As he takes down the thug, his picture is taken too. As he tells the Bat-Family, this was the first time that Gotham City realized the Batman was real.
Though Carmine has only just been introduced to the DCAU, other villains filled the traditional mobster role he usually took in the comics within The Animated Series. Mostly these were characters created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini for the series, like Rupert Thorne and Sal Vilestra. Thorne was a composite character, combining elements of Carmine’s character with rival mobster from the comics Sal Maroni. In the case of Valestra, he represented the early Gotham mobster pushed out by up-and-coming criminals like Joker, similar to Falcone’s story in the comics.
As well as those characters, the Penguin in The Animated Series was portrayed as more of a traditional mobster like Falcone. Despite his original design being based on Danny Devito’s portrayal from the film Batman Returns, he wasn’t nearly as monstrous and ran his own version of the Iceberg Lounge in The New Batman Adventures.
Although the DCAU’s Gotham isn’t exactly lacking in its own mob bosses and crime families, the inclusion of Carmine Falcone here brings this iconic Batman villain a little bit closer to his comics counterpart.
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