Comic Book / Batman: Gordon of Gotham

Batman: Gordon of Gotham is an omnibus of three thematically linked limited series of four issues apiece. Gordon's Law follows Gordon seeking to bring some dirty cops to justice while receiving little support. Batman: GCP focuses on several prominent GCPD detectives working disparate cases. Gordon of Gotham is an origin story about Gordon's time as a Chicago cop and the events that brought him to Gotham. Each story follows normal cops investigating crimes committed by non-costumed criminals, while Batman only makes cameo appearances. The book is a Spiritual Predecessor of sorts to Gotham Central, which also features Gotham cops working cases without Batman.

Tropes in Gordon's Law

• Big Bad Friend: Gordon's quarry is his friend and former mentor, Captain Daugherty.
• Disney Villain Death: When Gordon’s ally, Sheriff Shotgun Smith, is captured and tortured, he throws himself against his main captor, knocking them both out of a third floor window. The villain, Captain Daugherty’s son, dies in the process of breaking Smith’s fall.
• Eyepatch of Power: Robbery Division captain Danzien has a powerful presence and an eyepatch.
• His Name Is...: A dying and hospitalized Checkers tries to say that the Dirty Cop behind his murder is Captain Daugherty, but Gordon initially thinks that he’s just begging for a "doc."
• I Was Never Here: After Gordon learns that his FBI contact is working with the villains, the man reveals that he used his vacation days to come to Gotham and his superiors have no idea that Gordon ever contacted him.
  Agent Thorpe: I kill you and no one even knows I was here.
• The Irish Mob: Bloodthirsty racketeer Junior Mankln uses IRA torture and murder methods that he learned from his cousin in Belfast.
• It's Personal: When "Checkers" Hoagland tells Gordon that a bloody heist was committed by rogue cops, he orders Batman to leave the case alone and sets out to bring the culprits in himself.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: A vice squad raid discovers several mobsters pouring cement onto the corpse of a dead associate. In exchange for leniency, one of the prisoners then offers to blow the lid on a 6 million dollar robbery that left ten innocent people dead.
• Samus Is a Girl: Officer Bell, the mysterious undercover cop who infiltrates Manklin's gang, turns out to be Manklin's Moll Pamela.

• Stealth Hi/Bye: During his Darkest Hour, Gordon is alone in his office and hears a sound behind him. He tells Batman that he was wrong to order him off the case and is ready to take his help...only to realize that all he heard was the wind coming through the open window.
  Gordon: The one time I think you're there and it's just the blinds.

Tropes in Batman: GCPD

• Amoral Attorney: Detectives Kitch and Salucci investigate a robbery ring where the thieves are selling the goods back to the insurance company using George Mellonshaw, a lawyer who knows Kitch (a former lawyer himself), as a go-between. Kitch initially defends the man, saying he has a duty to his clients, but this goes out the window with the reveal that Mellonshaw is masterminding the robberies and betraying his legitimate clients.
  Kitch: I'm glad I became a cop, Mellonshaw. I'm proud of it. It means I don't become something like you.
• Career-Ending Injury: Detective Soong faces possible mandatory retirement when he loses a kidney after Taking the Bullet for Bullock.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Billy Petit's SWAT team wipes out a band of professional armed robbers without losing a single man.
• Damsel out of Distress: A kidnapped Montoya pulls her wrist out of handcuffs despite how much it cuts her wrist, then takes out her kidnappers single-handedly once she grabs one of their guns. When one of the thugs tries to pin her arms from behind, she manages to shoot his foot.
• Dead Partner: The trope is lampshaded in regard to Bullock's new partner, Detective Eric "Survivor" Soong, who has survived firefights that killed his last three partners. He and Bullock both live.
  Detective Murphy: The partner always dies in the first reel. You seen the movie, right? Soong lives it.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: The miniseries follows four unrelated investigations focusing on a Serial Killer, a terrorist group, a band of increasingly Ax-Crazy thieves and the theft of office supplies from the squad room.
• Gilligan Cut: Soong tells Bullock that he's capable of making a difficult jump down a fire escape to pursue a fleeing Serial Killer. The next panel shows Soong in the hospital, being treated for a sprained ankle.
• Internal Affairs: Bullock is harassed by an IA cop for viciously beating a costumed criminal who slightly injured a rookie cop. The IA cop does make some legitimate arguments, but is an Obstructive Bureaucrat and has been stealing office supplies.
• Men of Sherwood: The SWAT cops are an intimidating presence and wipe out a group of violent thieves in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Serious Business: Detective Hendricks is really obsessed with catching whoever has been stealing office supplies, despite how this annoys his coworkers.
• Sherlock Scan: Soong realizes a suspect is lying about never having had children when he sees that the home is installed with child proof outlets.
• Villain Respect: Montoya is kidnapped while serving as the body double for the wife of self-centered South American ambassador Carlos Trujillo. She's quite a Defiant Captive (never breaking cover), and her impressed captors comment that "her" country made the wrong Trujillo their ambassador.

Tropes in Gordon of Gotham

• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: The Spook who serves as Greene's assassin loves showing off his fighting skills and gloats to a wounded Gordon that he could beat Gordon on the cop's best day. Gordon proves him wrong when they face off again twenty years later.
• Corrupt Politician: Harcourt Greene wins a political election by rigging voting machines and having his own mother killed to get sympathy votes. Twenty years later, he tries to do something similar while running for President.
• Everyone Knows Morse: During the robbery of a family diner in the 1970s, a waitress makes an SOS signal in Morse with the electric lights by repeatedly pulling at a plug behind her back while facing the opposite direction.
• Foreshadowing: Several people Gordon passes on the street complain about slimy local politician Harcourt "Dumbo" Greene and say that at least he's not running for President. Twenty years later, Greene does run for President.
• Handicapped Badass: Gordon beats up two assailants with his arm in a plaster cast.
• Karma Houdini: Captain Ford participates in vote-rigging and multiple murders but never gets punished for it, unlike his superior (eventually) and main subordinate.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Gordon tickets Officer Davidson for causing a traffic collision while driving a police truck, then gets suspicious when Davidson’s report lies about where the accident took place. Davidson was delivering rigged voting machines away from his beat, and is willing to make a stab at murder to keep Gordon from figuring this out.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: After The Conspiracy cover their tracks and discredit Gordon, his superior makes it clear that he believes Gordon’s version of what happened and calls in a favor to get him a fresh start in Gotham City.