Line #8 YMMV/GothamCentral


1	* CompleteMonster: [[ThrillSeeker Harlan Combs]], from the "Motive" arc, is a {{yuppie}} who bought the [[FireBreathingWeapon costume and equipment]] of C-list supervillain Firebug, hoping to attain the ultimate adrenaline rush. Using the Firebug costume, Combs set various buildings in Gotham aflame, including apartment complexes occupied by dozens of people and a baby, hoping to [[FameThroughInfamy make a name for himself]] through blood and ash. When his teenage babysitter found his suit, Combs beat her to death and staged it to look like a kidnapping, later trying to burn the girl's homeless friend alive to tie up loose ends. When caught, the [[SoreLoser spiteful Combs]] tries to set the arresting officers and entire GCPD building on fire to escape.
2	* FairForItsDay: Like so very many works focusing on homophobia and people's struggles with it, to modern readers (especially younger ones) some parts of ''Half a Life'' and the general homophobia Sawyer and Montoya contend with can seem absolutely shocking and perplexing. And, of course, to highlight just how quickly attitudes in America and elsewhere have changed, said storyline is not quite ''fifteen years old''. Even a few of the heroes can seem not really as openly supportive of Montoya or Sawyer as they should - which wouldn't fly today, but at the turn of the millennium it was simply how most men were expected to act and react to the situation at hand. For added context, after Montoya is outed, while only one of the MCU detectives, Tommy Burke, openly shows any homophobia, there's also only two who vocally support her: her partner Allen, and Detective Crowe.
3	* HilariousInHindsight:
4	** The characters all work for the '''M'''ajor '''C'''rimes '''U'''nit, an unremarkable acronym back in the mid-00s, but now reads as amusingly ironic in a DC comic in wake of the fame of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse.
5	** Renee Montoya once ranted out Maggie Sawyer when Maggie told her that she knew how she felt. A large part of her rant is her being latina in relation to her also being lesbian. Maggie's character in ''Series/{{Supergirl\|2015}}'' has been {{race lift}}ed as latina, and in fact she's [[CompositeCharacter quite a bit like Renee]].
6	* ItWasHisSled: Renee Montoya is gay, Two-Face stalked her and she begins to descend into violence and alcoholism as the series comes to a close. Her history is one of the basic premises of ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', a very successful and high-profile series that picked-up after ''Gotham Central'' ended, and ''Gotham Central'' itself received a lot of press and critical response (Including three awards) for this arc. To many comics readers the series is known as "the one where they outed that chick [[CanonImmigrant from]] [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries the cartoon]]."
7	* LesYay: In a storyline involving a dead teenager dressed as Robin, members of the Comicbook/TeenTitans are questioned by the police in order to confirm that Robin is alive, as they have no way of determining if the uniform is authentic or a costume. When Starfire arrives, ''every'' man smiles and stares, eliciting a disgusted "''[[AllMenArePerverts men]]''" from Detective Romy Chandler. Detective Joely Bartlett smirks and points at Maggie Sawyer and Renee Montoya, "[[AllWomenAreLustful You think?]]" Maggie even mentions that "You should see Franchise/WonderWoman."
8	* MoralEventHorizon: For a while Corrigan does not seem like ''too'' bad of a DirtyCop, no worse than the usual evidence-tampering scum of Gotham, but [[spoiler: when he starts [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing other cops]] and '''''kills''''' Crispus Allen, he stops being small-time petty evil and becomes somebody asking for a bullet. Or The Spectre.]]
9	* TearJerker: If you can get through this series without reaching for a tissue at least once, you are simply inhuman. Every character experiences loss, defeat and horror that no person should ever have to go through, and then they soldier on and keep going, slogging through ''more'' heartache until the end, because everybody knows "It's Gotham."

Context YMMV / GothamCentral