History SupermanStaysOutOfGotham / TheDCU

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Teen Titans|2003}}'':

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Young Justice|2010}}'':

!!Western Animation

!!Comic Books

** "ComicBook/SupermanAndSpiderMan": Defied. Doctor Doom leads Hulk to Metropolis, causing Superman to move to New York City as he figures out what Doom is planning. Meanwhile, Peter Parker, who had gone to Metropolis to take pictures of Hulk, finds himself working for Perry White for a while until he gets homesick and goes back to New York.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'': ''ComicBook/WonderWomanTheHiketeia'' {{avert|edTrope}}s this trope, only in this case it's Batman pursuing someone who's fled Gotham. Batman goes rather out of his way to chase down a rather low-level criminal, in comparison to who he's usually up against, well beyond the limits of Gotham City. [[CurbStompBattle Given how it ended up for him, it might also explain why he keeps to Gotham]].

!!Films

!!Live-Action TV

* ''Series/Titans2018'': {{Averted|Trope}} in season 3. During the third season, The Titans team moves into Gotham city to help out with the crisis, mainly because the Joker killed Jason Todd, and Batman killed the Joker in retaliation for Jason's death and left the city. Before Batman leaves, he hands the reins of Gotham over to his former sidekick Dick Grayson / Robin I / Nightwing when he accepts he can no longer protect Gotham for crossing such a line. Dick's team, the Titans, come with him to Gotham to help him restore order.

!!Video Games

* ''VideoGame/GothamKnights2022'': While the trope is enforced, it's not explained in any way[[note]]with a minor exception for Superman himself -- he ''is'' directly helping out... by covering for Nightwing in Blüdhaven[[/note]], despite the game taking place over several weeks. There are numerous references to the Justice League, Outsiders, and Titans, which makes the absence of these groups much more jarring.

*** In the three-part episode "World's Finest", when Superman and Batman first met, [[TeethClenchedTeamwork they clearly did not trust one another]] (the mutual discovery of each other's secret identity was implied to be the one thing preventing the other from turning them in). From the pilot episode, "The Last Son Of Krypton", a brief mention of the "nut from Gotham City" made it clear that Batman was not held in much high regard as a hero outside of Gotham.
*** In "Knight Time", this is averted to interesting effect when Superman DOES go into Gotham to investigate Batman's disappearance with Robin's help (and disguised as Batman). One priceless scene in the episode is "Batman" able to overcome the best efforts of Bane, Mad Hatter and Riddler with brute force.

*** Played straight with a justification in "Love is a Croc", in which one of the newspapers describing the duo's crime spree includes a [[FreezeFrameBonus side-story headline]] "Superman Has Hands Full".

*** In the first episode of ''Unlimited'', Green Arrow lampshades this trope, getting angry when Green Lantern takes down some criminals that he was fighting and calling him a big name hero who has now decided that fighting street crime is his thing.
*** While this was averted in the series finale and justified against Brainthor, the series premiere had a team of seven taking on a planetary invasion. At least with the Thanagarian invasion, future ''Unlimited'' league members like Vigilante were stated to be fighting offscreen or imprisoned because of it.
*** Lampshaded and justified in the episode "In Blackest Night", to explain why none of the Trinity are helping out today:

*** A subtle episode that was Flash-centric shows that Flash deals with ''his'' supervillains differently - some of them act like Flash is their ''counselor''. In short, only Flash can deal with the villains in Keystone.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003''

* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010''

** At one point Blue Beetle is in Metropolis dealing with Superman rogue Toyman, who even complains about Beetle operating in Superman's territory. Of course, Jaime is... [[PeoplePuppets not himself]].

* ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'': Averted literally, and then enforced literally, in "Devil's Snare": When the Legion of Doom creates an army of man-eating trees in a Gotham City park, the Justice League shows up. Shortly thereafter, the Queen of Fables traps the League in her story-book world, leaving the villains in control of the city for the next dozen episodes.

* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'': In ''ComicBook/GreenLantern2011'', later developments in the books more or less {{invoked|Trope}} this with respect to Earth: per the terms of a deal between the two, Guy Gardner and the Red Lanterns now patrol sector 2814 (which includes Earth), while Hal Jordan and the rest of the GL Corps are required to stay away. New Lantern Simon Baz is allowed to stay on Earth but isn't allowed to go anywhere else. The deal was dropped when Guy Gardner left the Red Lanterns and the entire Green Lantern Corps disappeared, leaving a vacuum that wasn't filled until ''ComicBook/GreenLanterns'', when the Sinestro Corps decided to take over and Hal Jordan, having been a renegade on the run during the period before, decided to come back and right that wrong, the other Corps members making their way back from where they disappeared off to.

* ''ComicBook/Hitman1993'' takes place in an area of Gotham known as the Cauldron, and is said to be so bad Batman stays out of it.
* {{Averted|Trope}} in ''ComicBook/SuperPowers'' -- the first issue begins with Batman mysteriously missing (he'd been captured by ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}), so Superman stays to fight the rampaging supervillains while Wonder Woman goes into space to rescue him.

* In John Ostrander's writing of ''ComicBook/TheSpectre'', his human host (Jim Corrigan) asks Father Cramer why the Spectre never responded to the [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman obliteration of Coast City]]. Father Cramer suggested that the Spectre was designed by God only to respond to certain cries for vengeance. Hell, the Spectre usually stays out of most cities populated with superheroes, because if he ''did'', most [[RoguesGallery Rogues Galleries]] would be swiftly depopulated, and ''then'' what would the writers do? He does occasionally show up to kill off villains who've lost their PlotArmor, but JokerImmunity still remains his worst enemy.
* Touched on during Stephanie Brown's book ''ComicBook/Batgirl2009'' which showcased both her friendship with ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}, and the fact that when she went up against a team of bad guys with PoweredArmor-induced superpowers, she had already pre-planned an intervention of Kara and her team of equally superpowered heroes.
* An egregious example with ComicBook/AdamStrange. The character's entire premise was that the Zeta Beam that takes him to the planet Rann will wear off, so he can only stay there for a limited time. There was no reason that he couldn't have asked ComicBook/GreenLantern or other space-travelling superheroes for a lift to permanently solve this problem. (This point was admittedly addressed in the 2020 ''ComicBook/{{Strange Adventures|2020}}'' series where Strange begs both Hal Jordan and Superman to fly him to Rann to no success.) To a degree, Strange has done it before: ComicBook/{{Hawkman}} and Hawkwoman helped him work up a way to teleport to Rann without the Zeta Beam.
* Later developments in the ComicBook/GreenLantern books more or less {{invoked|Trope}} this with respect to Earth: per the terms of a deal between the two, Guy Gardner and the Red Lanterns now patrol sector 2814 (which includes Earth), while Hal Jordan and the rest of the GL Corps are required to stay away. New Lantern Simon Baz is allowed to stay on Earth but isn't allowed to go anywhere else. The deal was dropped when Guy Gardner left the Red Lanterns and the entire Green Lantern Corps disappeared, leaving a vacuum that wasn't filled until ComicBook/DCRebirth, when the Sinestro Corps decided to take over and Hal Jordan, having been a renegade on the run during the period before, decided to come back and right that wrong, the other Corps members making their way back from where they disappeared off to.

** {{Double subver|sion}}ted in the first issue of his 2003 series, where he is exiled from Atlantis and left chained to a rock on a shore to die. The first thing he does is try to call the Justice League for help, only to find that the bad guys destroyed his communicator and are magically blocking his telepathic connection to ComicBook/MartianManhunter.
** Played straight, then subverted late into his ComicBook/New52 run. Thule, a DarkWorld counterpart of Atlantis is invading Earth, spreading poisonous waters and launching attacks on cities. Aquaman single-handedly fights off the invasion and rescues refugees from Thule while staying one step ahead of the forces of Atlantis under the command of his evil sister-in-law, without once calling any of his friends for help. Subverted when he bumps into the Justice League, who have noticed what's going on and showed up to help. He admits that trying to handle a trans-dimensional incursion by himself was dumb and accepts their aid.
** When Arthur is deposed (again), new king Corum Rath uses a mystic artefact to surround Atlantis in a magical force field, with Arthur trapped inside and Mera and Garth outside. Garth suggests asking the Titans and Justice League for help, but Mera points out that Rath rose to power off the back of an isolationist movement, and getting surface-born superheroes involved would only make things worse.
** [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]] at the end of Creator/KellySueDeConnick's run. When the Ocean Master attacks Atlantis with an army, Arthur calls in all his superhero friends to help. However, both forces just kind of stand around and watch the brothers fight one on one.
* Justified and even lampshaded in ''ComicBook/LazarusPlanet''. The Justice League has disbanded in the aftermath of ''ComicBook/DarkCrisis'', thus the superhero community is caught flatfooted and struggling to deal with the crisis caused by Lazarus Island's volcanic eruption.
* At the end of ''ComicBook/RWBYJusticeLeague'', [[spoiler:the young Justice League create their own space-bound Watchtower to protect Remnant from extraterrestrial invaders, thus are situated in a way that they can't interfere with the rest of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}''[='s=] canon]].

* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanTheHiketeia'' {{avert|edTrope}}s this trope, only in this case it's Batman pursuing someone who's fled Gotham. Batman goes rather out of his way to chase down a rather low-level criminal, in comparison to who he's usually up against, well beyond the limits of Gotham City. [[CurbStompBattle Given how it ended up for him, it might also explain why he keeps to Gotham]].