Timeline of Early History of Gotham City in the Modern Age

by Anthony Fallone
edited by Collin Colsher

What follows is a mythos timeline of Gotham City’s early history in the Modern Age (i.e. everything before the birth of Bruce Wayne in 1963). Notably, some RPG source books have been used as references. If you have any suggestions/additions, drop me (Anthony Fallone) a line in the comments.

—Circa 50,000 BCE. REFERENCE from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1. Cro-Magnon groups, such as the Bear Tribe and Wolf Tribe, are active on the Eastern North American coast, including at the future site of Gotham. The immortal Vandar Ang takes leadership of the Wolf Tribe, which will eventually come to be known as the Blood Tribe (aka Blood Mob).

–Circa 38,000 BCE. REFERENCE from Shadowpact #5. When an unnamed evil immortal warlock is nearly killed, his assistant puts him in a state of magickal hibernation and buries him in a hidden underground tomb at the exact future site of Gotham. (This item is said to occur forty millennia before the 21st century.) The sleeping demonic presence of the warlock (who will later take the name “Doctor Gotham”) will influence a thousand generations of area residents to come, acting as a secret catalyst for strangeness and evil at this location.

–Circa 38,000 BCE. REFERENCE from Final Crisis Director’s Cut #1, Final Crisis #6-7, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1, and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #3. Following the demise of the Bear Tribe (and the death of its last living member, Anthro), a war erupts between the Deer People aka Deer Tribe and the current incarnation of Vandar Ang’s Blood Mob aka Blood Tribe. The interference of a time-traveling 21st-century Batman (Bruce Wayne) leads to victory for the Deer People. (Vandar Ang leaves the Blood Tribe and will later take the name Vandal Savage.) Influenced by Batman, bats become a central part of the Deer People’s mythology. Eventually, the Deer People will split into subgroups, but a central group will change its name to the Miagani, meaning “Bat People”.

–Early 1600s. REFERENCE from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #3. Jon Valor aka The Black Pirate becomes the scourge of the local waterways.

–1609. REFERENCE from Batman: The Cult #1, The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City, and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. The three islands off the east coast of North America that make up modern-day Gotham are now primarily inhabited by the Native American Miagani tribe (formerly known as the Deer People). A group of pilgrims/pioneers attempts to colonize the region but quickly disappears, leaving only a pool of blood for members of another colony to discover. With the arrival of more and more pilgrims in the area, the last of the divided Deer People move deeper into the local woods and caves, joining the Bat People (now also referred to as the Ghost People, due in part to their elusiveness).

–1635. REFERENCE from The Atlas of the DC Universe, The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City, and Swamp Thing #53. Swedish (sometimes claimed to be Norwegian) mercenary-sailor Captain Jon Logerquist establishes the settlement that will later become Gotham. Accounts of its founding differ by source. Dutch records state that Logerquist founded a settlement on the South Island named Nieuw Rotterdam, which was incorporated into the colony of New Netherland. Swedish accounts, by contrast, claim the settlement was christened Fort Adolphus in honor of the famed Swedish general Gustavus Adolphus. These versions are reconciled by the prevailing view that the settlement was first established under Swedish control as Fort Adolphus, then passed into Dutch hands and was reconstituted as Nieuw Rotterdam (aka New Rotterdam).

–1630s. The Wayne Family comes to colonial America from Scotland and settles in New Rotterdam, also known as Gotham, Gothame, Gotham Village, Gothame Village, Gotham Town, Gothame Town, Gotham Colony, or Gothame Colony. Most of the Waynes become merchants, and they found a merchant house that will soon come to be known as the Wayne Corporation (later WayneCorp).  

–1640. REFERENCE From Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2. In New Rotterdam/Gotham/Gothame, Martin Van Derm is the “keeper of the register of Gotham Colony.” He is also a painter. 

–1640. FLASHBACK from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2. Nathaniel Wayne is a witchfinder in New Rotterdam/Gotham/Gothame who goes by the alias Brother Malleus, most likely a reference to the book Malleus Maleficarum (1486).

–1650s. REFERENCE from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5—originally told in Detective Comics #205. Colonial frontiersman, Jeremy Coe, uses a section of what will become the modern-day Batcave as his hideout.

–Mid 17th century. REFERENCE from The Return of Bruce Wayne #4. A Van Derm couples with a Miagani tribesperson, not only creating a link between the Van Derms and the Miagani but also granting the Van Derms access to the Miagani’s secrets.

–Mid 17th century. FLASHBACK from The Batman Chronicles #6—and REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1 and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. (This entry is variously dated, with some sources placing it in the early-to-mid 17th century and others as late as the early 18th century. Suffice to say, it must go after the slave trade has gotten underway in the Americas.) A recently freed slave of mixed African and European ancestry named Hiram, who has been on his way to the whaling settlement of Blüdhaven, stumbles across the dead body of a murder victim. (Blüdhaven is located in Haven County, mere miles south of Gotham and separated only by a large waterway.) Hiram does his best to give the dead man a proper burial, but, upon entering Blüdhaven, he is accused of being the murderer by the victim’s brother, a local merchant named Rance Benedict, who is about to be appointed as the town constable. Hiram retreats north to the woods of what is now the civil township of Sommerset on the mainland shores west of the Core Islands. He intends to clear a plot of land to build a shanty home or a church. En route to the Sommerset woods, Hiram meets a mysterious “doctor” who warns him of a mad killer from London named Epsilah Clevenger. Clevenger is also known to the London police as “The Mimic” for his uncanny ability to impersonate others. The doctor urges Hiram not to build a home or church, but an asylum instead. That night, during a storm, Hiram believes the doctor is being murdered. He then hears Rance Benedict approaching, apparently seeking vengeance. Fearing for his life, Hiram shoots and kills Benedict in what he believes is self-defense. The doctor then reveals himself to be Clevenger, having staged the murder and impersonated Benedict. Whether Benedict truly intended violence is left unresolved. Clevenger uses the killing as blackmail to force Hiram to build an asylum. The site of Hiram’s asylum (in Sommerset Township) will become the site of Arkham Asylum many years later. (Notably, in The Batman Chronicles #6, historian Cecil Longacre writes about the long-held myth that Arkham Asylum was built on the same field Hiram once cleared to honor his faith. However, in The Batman Chronicles #23, official records from the Gotham Public Library prove this account to be wrong, confirming Benedict was killed on the land that would become Robinson Park, a considerable distance from Arkham.)

–1674. REFERENCE from The Atlas of the DC Universe and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. New Rotterdam is seized by British forces (presumably following the Treaty of Westminster). English General Adam Howe (named Joseph Howe in The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City) is appointed Governor and officially drops the name New Rotterdam, making the settlement’s only names Gotham or Gotham Village.

–REFERENCE from The Atlas of the DC Universe, The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City, and DC Heroes Roleplaying Game. Now in his later years, Jon Logerquist maintains farmland on the northern island of Gotham known as Logerquist’s Acres (present-day Park Row and The Bowery). Refusing to pay taxes to the British, Logerquist’s farmstead is burned by British authorities, and he dies in the fire. Rumor will forevermore have it that Logerquist’s ghost haunts the surrounding area.

–1718. REFERENCE from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2-3. Jack Valor aka the Black Pirate II (grandson of the original Black Pirate) wars with his rival Commodore Thatch aka Blackbeard aka Vandal Savage along the shores of Bristol Bay. Valor is joined by a time-displaced 21st-century Bruce Wayne, who helps him defeat Savage. Valor also communes with the Miagani aka Bat People. Bruce gives Valor instructions. The Black Pirate will have adventures in the area for decades to come. (He’ll eventually retire to Philadelphia.)

–REFERENCE from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6. A Van Derm meets with the Miagani aka Bat People. Together, they create a small box/casket, which can only be opened by a Miagani whistling sound. They place several items related to the 21st-century Bruce Wayne’s time-jumps in the casket. The Van Derms are tasked with guarding the casket.

–1750. REFERENCE from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #3. Jack Valor visits the Van Derms in Gotham, upon which he sees the Bat-casket for the first time and adds his notes inside it.

–1765. FLASHBACK from Batman #452 and Batman and Robin #16. In the underground temple (i.e. the cellar) of Jacob Stockman’s farmhouse in Old Gotham (the part of South Gotham Island formerly known as Gotham Village and site of what will come to be known in the future as Stockman’s Square), an occult ritual is performed by the so-called Powdered Wig Brigade. This group, which includes Thomas Wayne (who will later name himself after Simon Magus, taking the name “Simon Hurt”), Stockman, Thomas Jefferson, and three unnamed others, attempts to summon the demon Barbatos by sacrificing a woman named Dominique. When the ritual goes wrong, everyone except Wayne flees. Wayne eventually departs, but not before locking Dominique in the cellar, where she starves to death. Shaken from the experience, Stockman writes down all he can recall about the botched ritual in his journal. He then sells the farm and moves to Canada. The unnamed members of the Powdered Wig Brigade will meet grisly ends following this item, some by suicide and others killed during the American Revolution.

–1776. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. By the time of the Declaration of Independence, Gotham is occupied by British and Hessian forces. Great Britain hopes to continue holding Gotham in order to keep the patriot forces to the north and south of the city from maintaining reliable communications and supply lines.

–1779. REFERENCE from The Atlas of the DC Universe, Detective Comics #653, Batman and Robin #10, and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #4. During the American Revolution, Darius Wayne, his brother, real-life historical figure “Mad” Anthony Wayne, and Transbelvian-born General Jarsc Volzcek fight against the British and Hessian forces. The British have held Gotham for much of the war, but with the help of Darius, the Americans secure a victory as Volzcek’s forces retake the city on November 21, 1779. Darius is immortalized in a portrait depicting him defiantly setting ablaze British ships during this battle. Volzcek will also be forever hailed as a hero in Gotham.

–Late 1770s to early 1780s. REFERENCE from Gotham Underground #9. On the opposing side of the American Revolutionary War, Sir Nigel Cobblepot fights against Gotham before eventually calling the city his home.

–REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. By this point, Gotham has expanded to cover the lower half of South Gotham Island. The remainder of the island, along with the two neighboring islands and the mainland to the north and west, collectively make up what is known as Gotham. Shortly thereafter, Gotham is incorporated as a city. This is the first instance of the name Gotham City.

–1790. REFERENCE From Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #6-10 (“Gothic”) and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. Construction begins on Gotham Cathedral, which will eventually reach 150 feet. The cathedral is built along one of the borders of Old Gotham (formerly Gotham Village) on South Gotham Island. The area around the cathedral becomes known as Cathedral Square. The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City contradicts “Gothic” by saying that the Gotham Cathedral was built in 1810. We can take this to mean that construction on the Gotham Cathedral starts now, but won’t be topped out until 1810.

–1795. REFERENCE from The Atlas of the DC Universe, The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City, and Batman and Robin #12. A large plot of land is rewarded to Darius Wayne in Bristol Township’s Crest Hill district on the mainland shores north of the Gotham Islands (or south of the Gotham Islands, according to The Atlas of the DC Universe) for his heroic efforts during the war. Architect Nathan Van Derm begins construction on Wayne Manor. During the construction of the manor, an accident takes the life of Darius. Construction ceases, and the unfinished manor falls into the possession of the Van Derm family. 

–Early 19th century. REFERENCE from Batman: Gates of Gotham #2. The patriarch of the Elliot family founds the Gotham Herald. The Elliots will make a fortune in the media/news business for a century to follow.

–Mid 1820s. REFERENCE from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5—originally referenced in The Brave and The Bold #89. The date is pure conjecture, but this item is said to have occurred about 175 years before the events of The Brave and The Bold #89. The fanatical religious cultists known as the Hellerites (led by Joseph Heller) become active in Gotham City. Immediately feared and hated by most of Gotham City’s residents, the Hellerites meet a tragic end as their settlement is burned to the ground by an angry mob. The entire sect is killed.

–1825. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. By this point, Gotham City’s borders have now expanded upward to include some three-quarters of South Gotham Island, including the annexation of the village of Neville.

–REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1 and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. Financier Charles Arwin Wayne comes to Gotham City from Boston with his two sons, Solomon Zebediah Wayne and Joshua Thomas Wayne. (Solomon’s original middle name had the initial E, but it was later retconned to Zebediah.) Charles manages the Wayne family’s modest fortune by buying cheap property, including swampland. Shortly after their arrival, Charles dies from tuberculosis at the age of 52, leaving his fortune to his sons.

–REFERENCE from the second feature to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27 (“Handcarts and Hellholes: A Brief History of Gotham City”). Solomon Wayne returns to Boston, where he earns a Harvard degree and obtains an appointment to a federal judgeship. He gains his judgeship through the influence of his classmate’s father, Senator Nugent Bolle. Shortly thereafter, Judge Solomon Wayne returns to Gotham City (specifically to Old Gotham, formerly Gotham Village), where he becomes an entrepreneur, starting a dozen businesses, including the Gotham Buggy Whip Works. Over the course of six years, Solomon becomes one of Gotham City’s most prosperous citizens. Solomon’s brother Joshua, though overshadowed by Solomon, jointly maintains nearly a dozen Wayne businesses.

–1840. FLASHBACK from Legends of the Dark Knight #27—and reference from the second feature to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27 (“Handcarts and Hellholes: A Brief History of Gotham City”) and Batman: Gates of Gotham #2. Judge Solomon Wayne declares a man guilty and sentences him to thirty days in jail for assaulting a man named Cyrus Pinkney. The man tries to attack Solomon, who then beats him in the head with a law book and the Bible. After constables send the man away to jail, Solomon talks with Pinkney, finding out he is an architect. Interested in seeing samples of Pinkney’s work, Pinkney shows Solomon sketches of Gothic architectural designs. Solomon writes a letter to his wife-to-be (presumably second wife Dorothea) about this interaction. (Note that both Batman: LOTDK #27 and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City place this item in June 1865, but, thanks to retcons from Batman: Gates of Gotham, it specifically occurs in 1840. Interestingly, the second feature to LOTDK #27 tells us that Cyrus Pinkney will die at the young age of forty, which points toward the earlier placement of this item anyway. Factoring in the upcoming birth of Alan Wayne, 1840 makes more sense overall.)

–1840. FLASHBACK from Legends of the Dark Knight #27—and reference from the second feature to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27 (“Handcarts and Hellholes: A Brief History of Gotham City”) and Batman: Gates of Gotham #2. Six months after meeting with Cyrus Pinkney, Solomon Wayne gives a speech to the Gotham Property Holders Association, promoting Cyrus Pinkney’s vision for Gotham City’s architecture, much to the chagrin of certain critics. (As mentioned above, both Batman: LOTDK #27 and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City place this item on December 12, 1865, but, thanks to retcons from Batman: Gates of Gotham, it actually dates to 1840.) The second feature to LOTDK #27 tells us that Cyrus Pinkney will die at the young age of forty, which points toward the earlier placement of this item anyway. Factoring in the upcoming birth of Alan Wayne, 1840 makes more sense.)

–Mid 1840s. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. By this point, Gotham City’s borders have now expanded upward to include all of South Gotham Island as well as the western third of Center Gotham Island, creating its Chelsea and Burnley Harbor districts, which by this point have become the permanent home of Gotham University.

–Mid 1840s. REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1. Solomon Wayne (age 77) and his second wife, Dorothea (age 37), have a child named Alan Wayne (full name Alan Kingston Wayne).  

–1855. REFERENCE from Batman: Shadow of the Bat #45. Magnate Jerome K Van Derm finishes construction on the ten-bedroom Wayne Manor just outside of Gotham, adding a railroad line through the property as well. However, when Van Derm’s company goes under, Van Derm commits suicide, leaving the property vacant and in the hands of a realty agency.

–July 4, 1858. REFERENCE from Batman: Shadow of the Bat #45. Judge Solomon Wayne and his brother Joshua Wayne purchase Wayne Manor, bringing the property back into the family. According to an entry in Solomon’s diary, he likes that the estate is outside Gotham but close enough for him to stay in touch with his property interests in the city. However, the main reason the Wayne brothers purchase the manor from the realtor is that they discover a swarm of bats coming from a subterranean tunnel underneath the manor grounds. As abolitionists, the brothers decide that purchasing the manor will benefit their cause, as they can help lead escaped slaves from the South up the East Coast to freedom in Canada through the underground tunnels.

–1860. FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #2. Nicholas Anders, his stepbrother Bradley Gate, and his father arrive in Gotham City. 

–November 4, 1860. FLASHBACK from Batman: Shadow of the Bat #45. Charles Lindon, a friend of Solomon Wayne, brings a group of escaped slaves to Wayne Manor, but on their trail are bounty hunters. Joshua has gone back to find one of the slaves, Sam Barley, who wanted to return to Maryland, and fights off the bounty hunters before bringing Sam to the caves beneath Wayne Manor. Solomon, whose wife is pregnant, and Joshua go out in a snowstorm to cover their tracks, and when they run into the bounty hunters, Joshua promises to draw them away. Solomon never sees him again. Joshua leads the bounty hunters onto a rope bridge, where one stabs him, and he brings down the bridge, killing them all. Joshua knows he is dying, and he knows he can’t let his body be found, as it will damage the reputation of the Wayne family, so he crawls into the drainage outlet (what will later become the Wayne Manor wine cellar) to die.

–November 9, 1860. REFERENCE from Batman: Shadow of the Bat #45. A Gotham Gazette newspaper article from 1860 shows that the Maryland bounty hunters’ bodies were found in the Gotham River. Gotham’s biggest newspaper is the Gotham Gazette (sometimes called the Gotham City Gazette). Other newspaper companies in Gotham are the Gotham Herald (founded and run by the Elliot family), the Gotham Globe, and the Gotham Times (sometimes called The Gotham City Times). The presumable radius of coverage for these news agencies includes at least the whole Greater Gotham area. It’s possible that some of them already have national syndication. It’s also not entirely clear if the Globe and/or the Times exist at the juncture.

–Early 1860s. REFERENCE from Gotham Underground #2. Several gangs rise to prominence in Gotham, including the Irish Wounded Ravens, Italian East-Siders, Free Men Gang, Jewish Sons of David, and All-Americans. When a masked gang member kills a man named Jeremiah Whale, authorities are unable to pin the crime on any particular group. Soon, entire gangs start wearing masks to hide their identities. 

–1861-1865. REFERENCE from Gotham Underground #9. During the American Civil War, Union Army Colonel Nathan Cobblepot rises to hero status after defending Gotham in the Battle of Gotham Heights.

–1860s. REFERENCE from Detective Comics #843-844 (and gleaned from several other titles). The original Cosa Nostra crime organization in Gotham City is the Sabatino Mob, which now comes to America from Sicily. Over the next decade, other Sicilian mafia groups will quickly emigrate to Gotham City as well.

–REFERENCE from the second feature to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27 (“Handcarts and Hellholes: A Brief History of Gotham City”). Cyrus Pinkney dies on the eve of his fortieth birthday.

–REFERENCE from Batman: The Chalice. The Holy Grail has long been in the hands of the Wayne Family, passed down from generation to generation. Solomon Wayne now plays an active role in the Wayne family’s long guardianship of the Holy Grail, but he will fail to pass this task along to his descendants. (Note that The Chalice incorrectly refers to Solomon as Bruce’s grandfather.)

–REFERENCE from the second feature to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27 (“Handcarts and Hellholes: A Brief History of Gotham City”) and The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Judge Solomon Wayne dies at the age of 104. Alan Wayne inherits the family business and fortune.

–1870s. FLASHBACK from Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #3-4. Alan Wayne has become depressed and is intending to commit suicide by jumping into the river. However, on this same night, he is passed by a melee (involving Vandal Savage, Jonah Hex, Thomas Wayne aka the future Simon Hurt, and others). Alan rushes into the fray, saving the life of a woman named Catherine “Katie” Van Derm. (Katie is the granddaughter of Jerome Van Derm. She also has an unnamed brother.) Not long after, the two get married and move back into Wayne Manor. Tragically, Katie dies while giving birth to her and Alan’s son, Kenneth Wayne. 

–1870s. REFERENCE from Batman #568. The Gotham Botanical Gardens are established courtesy of a grant from CL Wayne (possibly made in the name of Catherine Wayne). 

–1870s. REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1, The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City, and The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Alan Wayne forms Wayne Shipping, which provides oceanic transport in addition to transcontinental railway shipping. Shortly thereafter, Alan Wayne forms Wayne Manufacturing and Wayne Chemical aka Wayne Chemicals. According to The Essential Batman Encyclopedia, Wayne Shipping, Wayne Manufacturing, and Wayne Chemical were born out of the Industrial Revolution and the Reconstruction Era, which helps us place this item here. Wayne Chemical’s focus is, aptly, on chemicals and chemical compounds.

–1870s. REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1, and the second feature to Batman: Gotham Knights #42, and The Batman Files. Gotham’s skyline, heavily influenced by the designs of the deceased Cyrus Pinkney, begins to grow from the ground up. The first of the Pinkney-designed buildings is built in what will later be Gotham’s Financial District on South Gotham Island. Gargoyles will be a prominent feature of the city’s buildings for well over a century to follow, drawing visitors and inspiring artists, including the famous poet, Lincoln Killavey. 

–REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1. Alan Wayne spearheads the development of the Gotham Railworks and the building of Robinson Central Terminal. Using the power of the locomotive, Wayne Shipping, which carries scores of European goods to the developing American interior, fosters the growth of the Wayne Corporation (WayneCorp). Alan names his son Kenneth as the sole heir to the Wayne fortune and businesses.

–REFERENCE from Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood #1 and Detective Comics #843-844 (and gleaned from several other titles). The Sabatinos begin to lose their mob influence in Gotham City as the “Five Families” structure emerges.

–1877. FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #2. Architect Nicholas Anders and his stepbrother, Bradley Gate, are approached by Alan Wayne, who wants the two men to design and build a large suspension bridge to provide access to Center Gotham Island from the west. Alan has been wanting to expand his family business, which includes the railroad, since 1871.

–REFERENCE from Gotham Underground #9. Having gained his fortune in the steel industry, Theodore Cobblepot is on his way to becoming Gotham City’s longest-running mayor. Unfortunately, the Cobblepot family fortune will later be squandered away by his son and then grandson on an unsuccessful hotel. 

–1881. FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #1. By this point, Wayne Railroad and Transportation Company has been established. Alan Wayne introduces Nicholas Anders to newspaper tycoon Edward Elliot (owner of the Gotham Herald) and Mayor Theodore Cobblepot. Upon completion of the New Trigate Bridge, Nicholas and his stepbrother, Bradley, are commissioned by the city to build two additional bridges, one connecting to the North Gotham Island and one connecting to the South Gotham Island. 

–1880s. REFERENCE from Detective Comics #629 and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. Blackgate Prison starts and finishes construction on Blackgate Isle, a small island in Gotham Bay.

–FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #2-3—and references from Batman #474, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27, and Detective Comics #641. Nicholas Anders and Bradley Gate meet with the founding families. Six months after this meeting, the first Wayne Tower (also known as the Corolla Building, later to be known as Old Wayne Tower) begins construction in the Old Gotham part of South Gotham Island. Shortly after Wayne Tower’s construction is completed, Nicholas takes his stepbrother’s surname, Gate, and the two become known as “The Gates of Gotham.” Within a few months, Nicholas also gets married and has a daughter. (Note that, according to Batman: The Ultimate Guide to the Dark Knight, while Wayne Tower is indeed completed, it technically won’t be fully topped out—likely with an addition or modification—until 1939.)

–FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #3. Nicholas Anders finishes construction on Theodore Cobblepot’s new club, the Iceberg Lounge. Alan Wayne proposes that Nicholas and his stepbrother build a retaining wall along the eastern shoreline of Gotham City to provide additional land and a foundation for an even larger bridge connecting the main city to one of the outer counties. 

–1890. REFERENCE from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Amadeus Arkham is born, presumably in Gotham County. He also has a brother, though little is known about him. His family home, which will later be renovated into Arkham Asylum, is in Sommerset Township. At a young age, he will watch his mother struggle with mental issues, which will eventually inspire him to move to Metropolis, Delaware to become a psychiatrist. 

–Summer 1892. FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #3. Nicholas meets with the founding families, including Cameron Kane. Kane is helping finance the new bridge with the assurance that it will connect to Kane County, the land just north of Gotham City. However, the group is split between Kane County and the large plot of land owned by Alan Wayne. The decision is left to Nicholas, who decides to connect the bridge to Wayne’s land. The Essential Batman Encyclopedia states that Gotham City is located in Kane County, with the county’s name serving as an informal nickname due to the city’s disproportionate size relative to the county’s boundaries. Some comics, including Gotham Central #20, show that at least some Gotham City addresses are in Kane County, which would seemingly give credence to this idea. The simplest explanation is that a city the size of Gotham, like every major US city, exists across multiple counties. Notably, in Gates of Gotham #3, Wayne’s land is described as being east of Gotham City. However, according to the most commonly referenced Modern Age map of Gotham City (created by Elliot R Brown in 1998), there is no major landmass directly east of Gotham City, as the city is adjacent to Great Bay, just north of Brigantine and Atlantic City, NJ. As such, there is only water directly east of Gotham City. Additionally, on the Brown map, the mainland north of Gotham City is Kane County, so Bristol Township (home to Wayne Manor) is within it. Now, it could either be the case that Kane County was later annexed or absorbed by Gotham County (most sources say that Bristol Township is within Gotham County) or that “Kane County” was just an informal name for the mainland north of the city but still within Gotham County, as most of the property there is owned by the Kane family. In either case, Gotham City is the county seat and the largest city in whichever county it is located in. Matthew Manning’s The Batman Files also mentions Bristol County. This could be an error, and he meant to say Bristol Township, or Bristol Township may be in Bristol County, which will later be annexed into Gotham or Kane County. It’s also possible that Bristol Township and Bristol County are different places. Again, ultimately (and most importantly), Gotham City is the county seat of either Gotham or Kane County.

–1892-1893. FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #3. Bradley and Nicholas work for several months to construct the colossal bridge, but they are ultimately met with disaster. Bradley is working on the bridge’s foundation below the waterline in his underwater protection suit when the bridge suddenly comes crashing down on him. Nicholas only finds Bradley’s helmet among the wreckage.

–1893. FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #4. A funeral is held for Bradley Gate. Alan Wayne, Edward Elliot, Theodore Cobblepot, and Cameron Kane are in attendance. Nicholas is blamed for the accident that caused his stepbrother’s demise, and the bridge is adjusted to lead to Kane County (north of the city) instead. Nicholas spends the next month searching the wreckage in his underwater protection suit to find proof that Cameron Kane sabotaged the bridge. Desperate, Nicholas approaches Alan Wayne at his home, claiming Kane caused the disaster to raise the value of his land as Gotham City’s new gateway. Alan tells Nicholas that he and the other founding family heads won’t help him investigate Kane, as they intend to keep this a secret, as “secrets are influence.”   

–FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #4. Nicholas Gate, wearing his underwater protection suit, breaks into the Bristol Township home of Cameron Kane and is shot at by Cameron’s son, Robert Kane. Angered, Nicholas strangles Robert to death. Police arrive and take Nicholas away. 

–REFERENCE from Batman: Gates of Gotham. Cameron Kane oversees the construction of the Robert H Kane Memorial Bridge, named in honor of his murdered son. The bridge connects Gotham City, specifically Gotham’s East End (on North Gotham Island), to the land north of Gotham. The construction of the bridge significantly increases the Kane family’s wealth.

–FLASHBACK from Batman: Gates of Gotham #5. Alan Wayne delivers a journal to Nicholas Gate, who has been committed to an asylum, saying it will help with his recovery. Outside the asylum, Alan asks Cameron Kane if he had anything to do with sabotaging the bridge and killing Bradley Gate. Kane denies any involvement. (It’s worth noting that this item is explicitly dated as 1889; however, that date is a continuity error that conflicts with other items in the very same story. For example, Nicholas’s killing of Robert Kane—the reason for his incarceration—could not have occurred any earlier than 1892. Also, the asylum shown in this item is specifically Arkham Asylum, which is also another continuity error. As per Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Arkham Asylum won’t open until 1921.)  

–1895. REFERENCE from Batman: Shadow of the Bat  #39 and The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. (The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City gives the incorrect date of 1894.) After having an affair with a sex worker, unscrupulous banker Cyrus Gold refuses to yield to blackmail when she tries to extort him for money after becoming pregnant with his child. This leads to her pimp bludgeoning Gold with a shovel, stealing a hundred dollars from him, and tossing his body into Slaughter Swamp. As he drowns, he curses them.

–1899. The main Gotham City Police (GCPD aka GPD) Headquarters Building is constructed in the Old Gotham section of South Gotham Island. It will become vacant sometime in the early 20th century when the GCPD moves to a new HQ.

–1899. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. Twelve-year-old Giuseppe Bertinelli arrives in Gotham City via the Dixon Docks. His family has come from Ciminna, Sicily.  

–REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1. Alan Wayne dies at age sixty-three, making Kenneth the new owner/head of WayneCorp. Under Kenneth’s guidance, both Wayne Chemical and Wayne Manufacturing significantly grow. However, Kenneth dies at a relatively young age from alcohol poisoning, leaving the Wayne fortune to his wife, Laura Elizabeth Wayne, age 37 at the time of her husband’s death. Their son, Patrick “Jack” Morgan Wayne (named Patrick Alan Morgan Wayne according to The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City), is only an infant at the time of Kenneth’s death. Laura, in addition to managing the company, becomes a staunch prohibitionist, pushing for legislation to enact the alcohol ban. During this campaign, Laura becomes acquainted with prohibition leader, Jenny Atticus. Notably, Patrick also has a younger brother named Silas, with whom he is (and will remain) very close. (Although not much is known about them, Benjamin and Abigail Wayne may be contemporaries of this generation of Waynes. Their gravestones are depicted in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #45).  

–1900. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. The Gotham Expo begins the century by unveiling an experimental underground railway tunnel connecting South Gotham Island with the mainland near Blüdhaven. Like the rest of the Gotham Expo, the subway experiment is decorated in an “Alice in Wonderland” theme and will continue to operate until 1920, when its parent company, the Greater Gotham Underground Railway, collapses in a stock-bubble scam.

–Mid-1910s. REFERENCE from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Amadeus Arkham, having earned a residency at Metropolis State Psychiatric Hospital, leaves the greater Gotham City area for Metropolis. 

–1918. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. Just after World War I, Gotham City begins its process of annexing Glendale, Manchester-Lyntown, and Burnley-Bryanttown—three sister cities scattered across the Core Islands.

–REFERENCE from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #115. Patrick Wayne has a daughter named Agatha Wayne.

–REFERENCE from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #133. Patrick Wayne has a son named Thomas Wayne.

–1920. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. The Greater Gotham Underground Railway goes out of business after its involvement in a stock-bubble scam. As such, the main train transit route between Gotham City and Blüdhaven—which has been in constant operation for the past two decades—is shut down.

–1920. FLASHBACK from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Following the death of his father, Amadeus Arkham temporarily returns to his old home in Sommerset Township to care for his mentally ill, elderly, bedridden mother, Elizabeth, who has visions of a giant bat-like entity. One day, Amadeus takes a pearl-handled straight razor and cuts his mother’s throat with it to end her suffering. He then blocks out the memory, and her death is attributed to suicide.

—Spring 1920. FLASHBACK from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and Batman: The Man Who Laughs. Shortly after his mother’s funeral, Amadeus Arkham becomes the sole owner of his ancestral home in Sommerset Township. The next day, he returns to his family in Metropolis. Amadeus continues working at the Metropolis State Psychiatric Hospital for a bit. Not long after, Amadeus begins having the mansion he inherited in Gotham City remodeled into a psychiatric hospital, hoping to help the criminally insane. The architect who designs and oversees the transformation of Amadeus’ home into an asylum goes mad, hacking construction workers to death with an axe. He is sentenced to serve the rest of his life incarcerated in the asylum upon its completion. Despite being off to a terrible start, Amadeus, along with his wife, Constance, and daughter, Harriet, moves into the house/asylum.  

—1920. FLASHBACK from Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood #1—and referenced in The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. The Bertinellis hold a firm leadership grip over Gotham City’s Italian-American mafia. (The Bertinellis will be the top family for decades to come.) The Five Families consist of the Bertinellis (the number one family), Berrettis (also spelled Beretti), Cassamentos, Galantes, and Inzerillos. Prohibition is enacted, and Giuseppe Bertinelli, head of the Bertinelli Family, recruits the Berettis and Galantes to flood the streets with alcohol. At the same time, the Cassamentos and the Inzerillos are trying to do the same thing, which leads to war. The war between the Bertinelli-Beretti-Galante alliance and the Cassamento-Inzerillo alliance will continue until the end of Prohibition, and it will take the lives of three of Giuseppe’s sons.

–April 1, 1921. FLASHBACK from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Horribly, Amadeus Arkham returns home to find his wife, Constance, and daughter, Harriet, raped and murdered by Martin “Mad Dog” Hawkins.  

–November 1921. FLASHBACK from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane opens its doors in Sommerset Township, located on the mainland west of Gotham City. (Notably, this item is contradicted by a scene in Batman: Gates of Gotham #5, which depicts Arkham Asylum as already existing in 1889.)

–April 1, 1922. FLASHBACK from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. On the first anniversary of his family’s murder, Amadeus Arkham kills “Mad Dog” Hawkins by overdosing him on electroshock therapy. The death is ruled as an accident.  

–Mid 1920s. FLASHBACK from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #133. With his mother (Laura Wayne) stepping back a bit in her old age, Patrick Wayne shares responsibilities as a co-head of WayneCorp, heading up various construction projects all over Gotham. Soon after, Patrick meets a rough-and-tumble street kid named Brass. Taking a liking to the spunky kid, Patrick brokers his release from police custody (specifically from Detective Loeb). Patrick employs young Brass to work security at a brand new “slum development” construction site. Brass also meets and gets to know Patrick’s bookish son, Thomas. Patrick will come to think of Brass as somewhat of a second son as the years wear on.

–REFERENCE from Batman Annual #13 Part 2, second feature to Detective Comics #806-807, and Batman #675. A British man named Beagle takes over as the head butler of Wayne Manor.

–1928. REFERENCE from the second feature to Batman: Gotham Knights #42. Architect Leonard Oldman designs metal gargoyles that are installed atop several of Gotham’s skyscrapers.

–1929. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. The stock market crashes, throwing the United States into the Great Depression. Gotham City’s mayor is Archibald Brewster at this time.

–1929. REFERENCE from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. In the wake of the stock market crash, Amadeus Arkham is locked away in his own asylum after trying to kill his stockbroker. He will remain incarcerated there until his death in 1963.

–Early 1930s. REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1. When his mother, Laura, dies, Patrick Wayne inherits the family fortune and expands the WayneCorp portfolio, officially founding Wayne Technologies (WayneTech). Batman Secret Files and Origins #1 says that Patrick starts WayneCorp “out of the ashes of the Great Depression,” but, to be specific, this expansion occurs during the Depression, despite all odds. Also, Patrick doesn’t start WayneCorp; he specifically starts the Wayne Technologies division of Wayne Corp.

–1931. FLASHBACK from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #133. Due to the Depression, WayneCorp struggles financially. Despite this, Patrick’s slum development project comes to a close (thanks in part to the tenacity of Brass). Noticing that a WayneCorp employee named Smitty has been skimming off the top, Brass reports it to Patrick Wayne. Impressed, Patrick’s relationship to Brass continues to grow stronger, sometimes even eclipsing the love he shows for his son Thomas.

–FLASHBACK from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #133-134. The placement of this item is tough. Because we see Brass smuggling hooch, it’s been placed here in the 1930s. However, LOTDK #135 is said (by Brass himself) to occur only ten years later, yet it seems to occur in the 1950s. We’ll have to assume that Brass’ “ten years ago” line is incorrect. Onto a synopsis! Brass continues to rise in the ranks of WayneCorp, earning an office job alongside Patrick Wayne. Despite having been promoted to the office, Brass still handles hands-on security for the company. (Patrick shows Brass a model of Wayne Manor, calling it an unrealized project that he wants to build. Of course, thanks to retcons and other stories, Wayne Manor has already long been built. It was actually finished in the mid-19th century. As such, the reference to an unfinished Wayne Manor here must be ignored, or it must be regarded as Patrick wanting to update the property.) Soon afterward, Thomas enrolls in a new private school. Meanwhile, Brass begins conducting illegal deals with various mobsters. When vengeful ex-employee Smitty attacks Patrick (via a vehicular hit-and-run), Thomas applies first aid to his father and gets him to the hospital. This act causes Patrick to appreciate his son, finally seeing him as more than just a bookworm. While Patrick recovers in the hospital, Brass violently shakes down his boss’ rivals. When Patrick returns to the office, he gets into a heated argument with Brass, who wants ownership of the Wayne Manor property as part of a lucrative (but shady) land development deal he’s made with a local gangster. (Again, please ignore any references or images here to Wayne Manor being under construction, or reimagine them as a renovation.) Patrick calls Brass a crook and severs their relationship, both as co-workers and friends. Brass will have bad blood with the Waynes forevermore. Notably, the Waynes will keep tabs on Brass, moving forward, getting detailed reports about his actions.

–Early 1933. FLASHBACK from Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood #1—and referenced in The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. As Prohibition ends, the thirteen-year-long mob war between the Bertinelli-Beretti-Galante alliance and the Cassamento-Inzerillo alliance is finally decided. In the end, the Inzerillos sell out the Cassamentos, and Giuseppe Bertinelli serves as a partial mediator, attempting to foster unity among the factions, yet underlying tensions persist. Giuseppe is named capo di tutti capi, which roughly translates to “boss of bosses.” The Five Families of Gotham City’s Italian-American mafia continue to comprise the Bertinellis (still the number one family), Berettis, Cassamentos, Galantes, and Inzerillos. (The Bertinellis will continue to be the top family for decades to come.) 

–1939. REFERENCE from Azrael: Agent of the Bat #70. Leslie Thompkins (full name Leslie Maurin Thompkins) is born.

–1939. REFERENCE from Batman: The Ultimate Guide to the Dark Knight. Wayne Tower is topped out (likely with an addition or modification) at 78 stories (1,207 feet). 

–Late 1930s to 1940. REFERENCE from Batman #611, the second feature to Batman: Gotham Knights #10, and The Batman Files. Alan Scott, formerly of Metropolis and Capitol City, debuts as the superhero Green Lantern, becoming the protector of Gotham City. Scott goes on various adventures in Gotham City, gaining semi-immortality in the process. One of Scott’s biggest rivals is Solomon Grundy, the former Cyrus Gold, now an undead super-villain based out of Gotham City’s Slaughter Swamp. Starting in 1940, Scott joins the Justice Society of America and begins fighting in World War II (both as Green Lantern and as a US Army soldier).

–REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #135. Under Patrick Wayne, WayneCorp commits itself to ecological responsibility and responsible industrialism. Part of this move is due to Brass having attached a negative stigma to the Wayne business name, and Patrick wants to shed this image. Patrick will spend the next decade trying to be more ethical.

–1941-1945. REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1. Patrick Wayne gets involved in the war effort. Wayne Technologies (WayneTech) aircraft plants in Somerset and shipyards in Neville fuel the American war effort during the Pacific War (1942-1945). Notably, Green Lantern Alan Scott splits time between defending Gotham City and fighting overseas in the war.

–Mid 1940s. REFERENCE from Batman #611, the second feature to Batman: Gotham Knights #10, and The Batman Files. Following the end of World War II, the Justice Society of America moves its headquarters into a Gotham City brownstone. Alan Scott will continue adventuring in Gotham City for years to come.

–REFERENCE from Batman Annual #13 Part 2, Batman Secret Files and Origins #1, second feature to Detective Comics #806-807, and Batman #675. English-born Jarvis Beagle moves to Gotham (from the UK) and becomes the Wayne family’s butler, taking over for his father (the previous butler). Jarvis lives on the Wayne Manor property with his unnamed stage-actress wife and son, Alfred Thaddeus Crane Beagle. Notably, Alfred’s father is never named in the Modern Age, but in previous continuity, he was Jarvis, so it is likely still Jarvis. Also, according to Batman Secret Files and Origins #1, Alfred and his mother do not move to Gotham along with his father. Instead, Alfred and his mom stay in England but will make periodic trips to visit Jarvis. In this scenario, Jarvis will visit Essex to go on summer hunting trips with his son. It’s up to your own headcanon on whether Alfred and his mom are Gotham residents or simply frequent Gotham visitors.

–1948. REFERENCE from Detective Comics #784-786. A string of brutal serial killings, conducted by The Made of Wood Killer, an Irish immigrant named Samuel Sullivan, occurs in Gotham City. Sullivan murders the Mayor Thorndike and is incarcerated at Arkham Asylum in December of 1948. The case is wrapped up, but some loose ends remain unresolved.

–1949. FLASHBACK from Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood #1. Giuseppe Bertinelli dies, and his only surviving son, Alfredo, takes over the family mob.

–1949. REFERENCE from The Daily Planet Guide to Gotham City. The Mafia’s Gotham Commission is founded. It is designed to mediate disputes between the Five Families within the greater Gotham City area. The Gotham Commission will, however, be answerable to La Commissione in New York, just as the other Mafia networks in America are. 

–1951. REFERENCE from Azrael: Agent of the Bat #70. Leslie Thompkins’ brother, Jeremiah “Jerry” Thompkins is born.

–1950s. REFERENCE from Secret Origins Special #1 aka Secret Origins Vol. 2 Special #1. Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot is born. His family runs a bird shop.

–1950s. REFERENCE from Batman #611, the second feature to Batman: Gotham Knights #10, and The Batman Files. The Justice Society of America members—including Scott—are forced into retirement thanks to a government blacklist associated with McCarthyism and the Red Scare.

–1950s. REFERENCE in Batman: Family. The Rossetti (aka Rosetti) family, a smaller Italian-American criminal outfit, rises to prominence by working for the Bertinellis. The Rossetti Mob—run by patriarch Cesare Rossetti and his son Enzo Rossetti—controls the trucking unions for the Five Families. When a mob war erupts, the Rossetti Mob begins moving liquor and guns for a smaller family, the Tarantellas.

–1950s. REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1 and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #58. Thomas Wayne goes to college. After graduating, Thomas is encouraged by his semi-retired father, Patrick (mistakenly referred to as “Alan” in Batman Secret Files and Origins #1), to enter the world of Gotham’s Midtown financial district to prepare him for inheriting WayneCorp. Instead, Thomas leaves Gotham City, traveling to some impoverished islands in the Caribbean to help administer humanitarian aid with a missionary group. His time in the Caribbean is brief. Thomas escapes communist Cuban forces and makes his way back to Gotham. Upon his return, Thomas attends Gotham University’s Medical School (presumably a four-year program). Upon graduation, Thomas becomes a surgeon, primarily working at Gotham General Hospital.

–1950s. REFERENCE from Detective Comics #575-578. Successful businessman Judson Caspian, his wife Mary Rachel Caspian, and his young daughter Rachel Caspian interrupt a burglar looting their Gotham City home. Judson jumps in to stop the burglar, only to be shot down. He lies there helplessly watching the burglar murder his wife before fleeing. Judson angrily vows to avenge his wife’s murder and will spend the next few years training his body to become a vigilante. Notably, other sources refer to Judson as a physician and list this item as occurring in the late 1940s. However, to keep Rachel from being much older than Bruce, it makes way more sense for this item to occur in the 1950s.

–1957. REFERENCE from Batman Annual #13 Part 2, Batman Secret Files and Origins #1, second feature to Detective Comics #806-807, and Batman #675. According to Batman Annual #13 Part 2, by the time Alfred Beagle is around 18-years-old, he and his mother move back to England, while his father (Jarvis) stays behind in Gotham to continue working at Wayne Manor. (In the UK, Alfred will perform in the theater, preferring supporting roles.) Again, it’s possible that Alfred and his mom never lived in Gotham, instead merely making frequent visits, meaning this item would be null and void. Either way, Alfred won’t be in Gotham for quite some time from here on out. This is because he will join the British military (either His or Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, depending on exactly when he joins) as a field medic, then become an actor and lend his services to MI5 (and other MI groups) as a teacher, instructing agents on how to go undercover.

–Late 1950s. REFERENCE from Secret Origins Special #1. A boy named Sharkey bullies young Oswald Cobblepot, giving him the nickname “Penguin,” which Oswald hates. Oswald vows to get revenge against Sharkey. 

–1959. REFERENCE from Batman: Streets of Gotham #14, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5, and The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Roger Elliot, the patriarch of the wealthy Elliot family and owner of Elliott Pharmaceuticals, marries Marla (last name unknown). (Marla comes from a humble background, but has now married into Roger’s money.) Roger and Marla Elliot run Elliot Pharmaceuticals together. The Elliots are close friends with the Wayne and Kane families. Marla is particularly close friends with Martha Kane, the sole heir to the Kane Chemical fortune. (Martha, along with her parents, Roderick Kane—patriarch of the Kane family and head of Kane Chemical—and Elizabeth “Betsy” Kane, live at the Crest Hill Estate in Bristol Township. The Kanes and Waynes are neighbors. Martha also has at least two brothers—one named Nathan and the other or others unnamed. She also has a distant relative—possibly a cousin or even second cousin—named Jacob “Jake” Kane. These relatives will soon become estranged from Martha, at which point she won’t ever really see them again.) When Roderick Kane blunders into a foolish investment deal with con-man Judson Pierce (a friend of the Elliots), Kane Chemical more or less goes bankrupt. Pierce makes a fortune while Roderick gets screwed. Following this event, the superficial Marla stops being close friends with Martha. Shortly thereafter, a stressed-out Roderick suffers an illness. (Batman: Streets of Gotham #14 erroneously claims that Roderick dies now, but, thanks to Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, we know Roderick survives for a few more decades.) Not long afterward, famous stage magician John Zatara becomes close friends with some of Gotham’s elites, including the Elliots (Roger and Marla), Martha Kane, and Thomas Wayne.

–1960. FLASHBACK from Batman: Family. This item is said to occur one year before Thomas Wayne and Martha Kane get married. Narration in Batman: Family also claims this item occurs forty years before the main action of the Batman: Family series, but it actually must occur exactly forty-six years before to jibe with everything else. Celia Kazantkakis works as a secretary at the Copper Street Orphanage, where she was raised following her mother’s death when she was just a child. When a crooked developer named Stanford Whittaker (also known as Sandhurst Whittaker) tries to shut down the orphanage, activist Martha Kane fights to prevent it. Eventually, Martha gets the city to grant the building protected status as a historical landmark. Shortly thereafter, the orphanage is burned to the ground, and Whittaker goes to jail for arson. (In actuality, Celia burned down the orphanage to cover the fact that she had been embezzling funds.) Martha begins helping Celia find new homes for all the orphans. In the process, Martha and Celia become friends, frequenting various mob-run clubs together. Martha briefly dates Denholm “Denny” Sinclair, a gangster with ties to the Rossetti Mob. Meanwhile, Celia begins secretly dating (possibly even secretly marries) Enzo Rossetti. When Celia discovers that Sinclair is stealing from the Rossettis, she blackmails Sinclair but still tells Martha. Upon hearing the news, Martha breaks up with Sinclair. When Martha learns that Celia burned down the orphanage, she ends their friendship, too. Shortly thereafter, at the start of summer, Enzo (with Celia’s help) steals nearly half a million dollars from the Bertinellis and Cassamentos. When Enzo is exposed, he flees to Greece. Celia, having inherited her birth-father’s business and fortune, joins him, but not before burning down Sinclair’s club. Wanting to preserve order in Gotham, Cesare puts a hit out on his own son. This leads to Enzo’s assassination by Franco Bertinelli, Sinclair, and Charlie Zamboni.

–1960. REFERENCE from Batman: It’s Joker Time! #2, The Brave and The Bold Vol. 3 #31, and Batman: Streets of Gotham #17. In The Brave and The Bold Vol. 3 #31, the Atom goes into Joker’s brain and sees a memory from the latter’s childhood, which shows the boy, around this era, fighting bullies, killing animals, and eventually killing his biological parents via arson fire. In It’s Joker Time! #2, Joker tells the public a story about his childhood, which, if true, would have also taken place around this point on our timeline. In Joker’s tale from It’s Joker Time! #2, the boy’s father, a police officer, is killed in the line of duty, after which his mother begins dating (or marries) a TV clown named Kafka. Following a series of abuses at the hands of Kafka, the boy kills him (although the death is ruled accidental). In Batman: Streets of Gotham #17, the boy (nicknamed Sonny) is shown to have burns, and he claims that an arson fire killed his foster parents. It’s safe to say that the details of the It’s Joker Time! #2 story would expose Joker’s secret identity, so the tale is likely (at least partially) untrue. And Joker’s brain isn’t the type to hold concrete memories, so even the tale from The Brave and The Bold Vol. 3 #31 might be suspect. However, since Batman: It’s Joker Time! #2, The Brave and The Bold Vol. 3 #31, and Batman: Streets of Gotham #17 all seem to share a little connective tissue; it is likely that some combined version of these events happened, meaning the boy who will one day become Joker is a violent, disturbed youth who may or may not have killed people and gotten away with it. Also, there’s no location given for these flashbacks, so we’re assuming they occur in Gotham. In the end, here’s what we can glean as the most likely version of events: An unnamed boy’s stepfather dies under mysterious circumstances (i.e. a version of It’s Joker Time! #2), after which the boy is placed with foster parents who die in a mysterious arson fire (i.e. a version of The Brave and The Bold Vol. 3 #31), after which the boy (now going by the nickname Sonny) begins living on the streets (as referenced in Batman: Streets of Gotham #17 ).

–1960. FLASHBACK from Batman: Streets of Gotham #14-18—and referenced in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #136 and Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5. Nearly a year after the collapse of Kane Chemical, Martha Kane begins working with Dr. Leslie Thompkins at her free clinic on Park Row. (Leslie’s clinic is also known as the Gotham Free Clinic, Thompkins Community Center, Thompkins Free Clinic, and Park Row Community Clinic.) Martha and Leslie begin caring for a boy nicknamed Sonny, who has lost his foster parents in a mysterious arson fire. Thomas Wayne is now regarded as a top surgeon but also as a bit of a drunk playboy. After a John Zatara magic show, John Zatara and Thomas Wayne attend a dinner with the Elliots and Martha. Martha wants funding for the clinic from the Elliots, but the Elliots aren’t interested. They are more interested in Wayne money. At the dinner, a drunk Thomas meets Martha for the very first time, throwing up on her shoes! Soon after, Judson Pierce meets with Martha, threatening to have her drop the Leslie Thompkins partnership because he wants the property on which the clinic is built. Martha tells him to piss off. Pierce phones gangster Salvator “Sallie” Guzzo to put a hit on her. A few days later, Thomas visits Leslie’s clinic to apologize to Martha. (Via flashback from Batman: Streets of Gotham #17, Alfred Beagle is shown as Thomas Wayne’s valet, but this is incorrect. The valet should be Alfred’s father, Jarvis. Although I guess it’s possible that Alfred was there briefly to spend time with and work with his father. If you don’t want to ignore Alfred’s presence in the flashbacks completely, then this is the only fanwank that works.) Guzzo’s men attack the clinic, but Thomas’ buff valet fights them off. Leslie takes a bullet but survives. The incident at the clinic inspires Thomas to sober up and found the charitable Wayne Foundation. Via the Wayne Foundation, Thomas starts a trust fund to support Leslie’s clinic (along with schools, orphanages, soup kitchens, and other clinics across the city). While Leslie recovers from her injury, Thomas begins working with Martha at Leslie’s clinic. Thomas and Martha fall in love and start dating.

–1960. REFERENCE from Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood #1. The Panessa family mafia strongly challenges Bertinelli leadership over the organized crime world in Gotham City, hoping to usurp the Bertinellis’ top spot or initiate a “Six Families” system. The Panessas will war with the Five Families for nearly a decade before ultimately being suppressed for good.

–1960. REFERENCE from Batman #471. Gotham City planners begin construction of an underground highway that will link with the subway. The project will prove too expensive and will remain unfinished beneath the city’s streets.

–1960. FLASHBACK from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #135. Brass, now a veteran of various wars, returns to Gotham and crashes a party at Wayne Manor. In attendance are Patrick, Thomas, Martha, and Elizabeth “Betsy” Kane (Martha’s mother). (Someone named Freddy Kane is also present. This is presumably meant to be Martha’s father, but, of course, Martha’s father is named Roderick and, by this juncture, he probably would be too ill to be partying. As such, Freddy must be a different Kane relative. We are also told that Thomas has not yet graduated from medical school, but this is a continuity error. As per Batman: Streets of Gotham, Thomas is already a surgeon before meeting Martha. Furthermore, it is mentioned that Thomas and Martha have been dating for a long time, but they’ve only been together for less than a year at this point.) In a back room at the party, Brass butts heads with Patrick and Thomas. (As noted above, Brass says he was last in Gotham ten years ago, but this isn’t true. He’s been gone since the 1930s, meaning he’d been gone for about thirty years.) During the argument, Patrick suffers a heart attack and dies. Brass immediately leaves town once again. With his father dead, Thomas inherits WayneCorp and his family’s fortune. Thomas becomes either WayneCorp’s CEO, president, or chairman of the board. (We never learn his exact title.) Soon after, Thomas and Martha become engaged to be married.

–FLASHBACK from Batman #548—and referenced in Secret Origins Special #1. Young Oswald Cobblepot’s father dies from pneumonia after getting caught in a downpour without an umbrella. Oswald’s mother becomes neurotic after her husband’s death and starts forcing Oswald to carry an umbrella everywhere he goes in case it rains. Oswald spends his time caring for and playing with birds in a bird shop, presumably one owned by his family. Technically, Oswald’s parents aren’t named in any Modern Age texts. However, in the Silver/Bronze Age, Oswald’s primary maternal figure was bird shop owner Miranda Cobblepot, who was sometimes depicted as his aunt (on his father’s side) and at other times as his mother. In the film Batman Returns (1992), Oswald’s parents were named Esther and Tucker. Later continuities adopted the names Esther and Tucker, so we can probably assume that, in the Modern Age, Miranda is Oswald’s aunt, with his parents being Esther and the dearly departed Tucker. 

–REFERENCE from Detective Comics #575-578. In Gotham City, Judson Caspian finishes his training and debuts as a shrouded vigilante/super-villain called The Reaper. In this guise, Caspian wears a silver skeletal helmet, studded red cuir bouilli (boiled leather) armor, a black cape, a black hood, and two large scythes with spiked-globe grips covering his hands. The Reaper brutally and mercilessly slays hoodlums and criminals (mostly juvenile delinquents) with his scythes. The Reaper’s continued murderous actions prompt Green Lantern Alan Scott to briefly (and illegally) come out of retirement. After a confrontation with Green Lantern, the Reaper—along with his daughter Rachel—flees to Europe and retires the persona. Ironically, the Reaper’s absence, coupled with ever-increasing police corruption, will actually cause Gotham’s crime rate to soar to epidemic proportions over the course of the next couple of decades. Notably, some sources place the Reaper’s vigilantism in the late 1950s, but since we’ve shifted earlier parts of the narrative later, it also makes sense for his crusade to occur in the early 1960s rather than the late 1950s. (The Reaper’s crusade functions better immediately before Batman: Streets of Gotham #19-21 anyway, as it gives us a fanwank for why Alan Scott is temporarily back in costume.)

–1961. FLASHBACK from Batman: Streets of Gotham #19-21—and referenced in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5. John Zatara leaves Gotham, telling Thomas Wayne and Martha Kane he’s received an offer to join a re-hash of the Justice Society of America, which includes Hippolyta, Flash (Jay Garrick), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Starman (Ted Knight), Hawkman (Carter Hall), and Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson). (Of course, the JSA isn’t currently active at the moment, nor will it become a legitimate thing right now, so this must be a temporary reunion tour. It’s possible—and likely—that Green Lantern’s recent action against the Reaper has inspired him to get the old band back together. Suffice to say, these heroes will soon go right back into retirement.) Meanwhile, Sallie Guzzo and Judson Pierce hire crooked Elliot Pharmaceuticals chemist Karl Hellfern to strike at Thomas and Martha. Hellfern injects a plague-like virus into one of Leslie Thompkins’ clinic patients (Sonny), but Thomas and his team of WayneCorp scientists create a cure and save the day. An angry Guzzo, Pierce, and Hellfern then firebomb the clinic, but the temporary reunion superhero group (Doctor Fate, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hippolyta, and Zatara) saves the day. Roger Elliot also stands up against the villains, but he gets shot by Pierce for his trouble. (Roger survives and will forever hate Pierce.) The villains flee the scene. (It’s very important to note that Hippolyta has only previously chronologically appeared before now as a time-traveler, having taken up her daughter’s mantle of Wonder Woman in the early 2000s and time-traveled to the 1940s to join the JSA. Therefore, Hippolyta’s appearance here in 1961 is technically her first chronological appearance not involving time-travel, hence why she is drawn in her regular Amazonian robes—as opposed to a Wonder Woman costume. However, a newspaper article in Streets of Gotham shows her wearing the Wonder Woman costume. If this is meant to be an image of the team’s battle versus Guzzo, Pierce, and Hellfern, then this is an out-and-out artistic error. However, it makes more sense if the newspaper has opted to use a stock image of the 1940s team. It’s also entirely possible that we should completely ignore Hippolyta in this item. After all, Dini’s Streets of Gotham is quite a mess, and her presence here—frankly, along with all the 1940s heroes—only complicates things.) Later, Guzzo betrays Pierce to the cops. We are told that Pierce is sentenced to (and will serve) 37 years in jail, but that doesn’t jibe with any version of the Modern Age timeline. There are probably some fanwanks one could put into play here, but the only sentence that really makes sense (and that we must go with) is 50 years. With Pierce behind bars, his criminal activity connected to the fall of Kane Chemical is also exposed. This results in the Kane family regaining control of their business empire and personal fortune. Meanwhile, Guzzo abducts the badly injured Sonny, turning him into his personal slave, which includes the torture of daily sexual abuse. Guzzo will abuse Sonny for years. (As stated above, Sonny will eventually grow up to be none other than the Joker!)

–1961. REFERENCE from Batman Secret Files and Origins #1. Thomas Wayne weds Martha Kane. (Thomas and Martha’s marriage will last a decade, and Bruce was eight-years-old at the time of their deaths, so that places their marriage two years before his birth.) From this point on, Thomas and Martha will be estranged from the Kane side of the family (Martha’s side).

–1961. REFERENCE from The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Now that they are married, Thomas and Martha Wayne split the Wayne Foundation into separate branches under its holding-company umbrella—the Martha Wayne Foundation and the Thomas Wayne Foundation. The Thomas side focuses on medicine, clinics, and related awards and grants. The Martha side focuses on the arts, education, orphanages, soup kitchens, and nonprofits such as Family Finders Inc. Notably, this item comes entirely from Robert Greenberger’s Essential Batman Encyclopedia (2008), which is comprehensive but not necessarily canon. After all, Greenberger, in his very same encyclopedia entry for the Wayne Foundation, gets crucial details about Leslie Thompkins’ clinic wrong (saying that her clinic is different from the one that will later be known as the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic, which is just plain wrong). Therefore, it’s up to you whether or not you want to split up the Wayne Foundation in your own personal headcanon. Suffice to say, the Wayne Foundation, split or not, covers all the charitable items listed above.

–1961. FLASHBACK from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #204—and REFERENCE from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #206. According to LOTDK #204, this item supposedly occurs in 1951, but this obviously cannot be correct. Ten years later works better. Thomas Wayne becomes the acting chairman of the think tank known as “Madmen of Gotham.” Fellow members include: Mayor Aubrey James, Gotham Power and Electric CEO Roger Turfs, CIA Medical Research Director Theodore “Ted” Gavlin, and Police Chief Hendrik Petersen. At a Madmen meeting, Gavlin proposes putting mood-regulating drugs in the water supply as a means of reducing crime in the city. The group is vehemently opposed to the idea, shooting it down. However, in secret, Gavlin begins dumping drugs, including the experimental Neurotrol, into Gotham Reservoir. This is one of the reasons Gotham will develop into a supervillain hotbed in the decades to come.

–1961. REFERENCE: In Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #136. At a Wayne Manor costume gala, Thomas Wayne wears (for the first time) a bat costume. Seeking revenge, Brass and a few henchmen attempt to rob the gala. Brass tries to kill Thomas, but Thomas takes him down, forcing him to flee the country.

–REFERENCE: In Batman: The Long Halloween and Catwoman: When in Rome. The Five Families start to be overshadowed by their mainland Italian rivals, mobs controlled by Don Verinni and led by Vincent Falcone and Luigi “Big Lou” Maroni. Under Don Verinni’s guidance, the Falcones and Maronis have begun to make big waves in Gotham City, although remotely/through visits to America. For now, as per Don Verinni’s wishes, the Falcones and Maronis will keep their home base in Rome. However, by 1969 or 1970, the Falcones and Maronis will have moved to Gotham, becoming the undisputed kings of the city’s organized criminal underworld.

–1961.REFERENCE from “Hush.” Thomas “Tommy” Elliot is born to Roger and Marla Elliot in Gotham City. At this point, Roger has become an alcoholic who is abusive towards his wife and son. The Elliot family is still very successful in the media/news business and the pharmaceutical industry.

–1962. REFERENCE from Batman #386. Roman Sionis is born to Charles Sionis and an unnamed mother, becoming the sole heir to the Sionis family fortune of $500 million. Charles owns Janus Cosmetics, an international makeup firm.

–1962. REFERENCE from Batman #386. Thomas and Martha Wayne go on a trip abroad. When they return to Gotham, the couple publicly announces they are expecting a child. 

–REFERENCE from Batman #474, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #27, and Detective Comics #641. The Waynes sell Wayne Tower (aka the Corolla Building) and have a new Wayne Tower (aka WayneCorp Tower) constructed.

–Late 1962. REFERENCE from Batman: Jekyll and Hyde. Harvey Dent is born to Christopher Dent and an unnamed mother. Christopher is an abusive alcoholic and gambling addict. Depending on whether parts of Batman: Jekyll and Hyde are canon in your timeline, Harvey had an older brother named Murray, who was troubled and liked to start fires. An accident happened, leading to Murray’s death, and shortly thereafter, the suicide of his mother. Notably, the Two-Face part of Secret Origins Special #1 contains a lot of young Harvey Dent information, including details about his family. Still, this part of the issue is not canon, so please treat it with caution (or ignore it altogether).

–Late 1962 to early 1963. REFERENCE from Batman: Gotham Knights #34. With Martha Wayne pregnant in Gotham, Thomas Wayne makes a humanitarian aid visit to the isle of Santa Prisca in the northeastern Caribbean. As he did before in a prior stint in the Caribbean, Thomas gets involved in the fight against communists. Alfred will later describe this as Thomas’ final trip to Santa Prisca.