Gillian B. Loeb

Gillian B. Loeb
Gillian B. Loeb as seen in Batman #405 (March 1987). Art by David Mazzucchelli.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Batman #404 (February 1987)
Created by	Frank Miller (writer) David Mazzucchelli (artist)
In-story information
Species	Human
Team affiliations	Gotham City Police Department

Gillian B. Loeb is a fictional character in the DC Universe who serves as an enemy to Batman's ally James "Jim" Gordon in DC Comics publications.

The character was portrayed by Colin McFarlane in The Dark Knight trilogy and Peter Scolari in the television series Gotham.

Publication history[edit]

Loeb first appeared in Batman #404, as part of the Batman: Year One story arc. He along with his successor Jack Grogan, are predecessors and foils of James Gordon.

Fictional character biography[edit]

Post-Crisis[edit]

Loeb is introduced in Batman: Year One as the commissioner of Gotham City's Police Department at about the time Batman first appears in the city. He is in mob boss Carmine Falcone's pocket and immediately considers then-Lieutenant James Gordon's honesty a threat. Loeb does not immediately share Falcone's concerns about Batman, since the masked vigilante is targeting only low-level criminals and distracts the public from their activities. One night however, Batman breaks into Falcone's mansion during a dinner party, the guests at which include Loeb and several other Gotham elites, and publicly announces that he intends to bring them down as well.

Enraged, Loeb assigns Gordon to lead a task force with the sole purpose of arresting Batman. The vigilante proves frustratingly elusive, until the GCPD finally manages to corner him in an abandoned building following an impromptu rescue on the street. Loeb fakes a demolition order to have a bomb dropped on the building before sending in a heavily armed SWAT team to search for a body. Batman manages to escape, though not before humiliating Loeb further by easily overcoming his pursuers.

When Gordon (alongside assistant district attorney Harvey Dent) begins surreptitiously helping Batman, Loeb blackmails him with evidence of his extramarital affair with Sgt. Sarah Essen. Gordon is able to thwart Loeb's plan by confessing his indiscretion to his wife Barbara.

Eventually, Batman, Gordon, and Dent expose Loeb's ties to the Falcone mob and he is forced to resign. According to Gordon, Loeb's replacement, Jack Grogan, is just as corrupt. Gordon becomes the department's commissioner a few years later.

In Batman: Dark Victory, Loeb returns, hoping to use the Hangman killings as an excuse to try to get the city council to remove Gordon from his position as commissioner. His overall goal is to regain his former position, arguing that his "experience" makes him more qualified. Before his plans can be fulfilled, he becomes a victim of the Hangman Killer himself.

A younger Loeb appears as a captain in flashbacks in "Wrath Child" (Batman Confidential #13-16), where he arranges Gordon's transfer to Chicago for fifteen years after Gordon shot a corrupt cop and his wife in self-defense. Loeb fears the news could bring him and other corrupt cops down and threatens Gordon with the death of the cop's son to force him to accept the transfer.

Loeb is referred to in DC Comics' Hitman series. Moe Dubelz, one of Gotham City's most powerful mob bosses, says that Loeb helped his criminal empire to flourish by keeping the police at bay, in return for generous payments. Dubelz remembers Loeb's term as commissioner as the "good times" for his organization.^[1]

Loeb appears in Matt Wagner's limited-series comic Batman and the Monster Men (2005–2006) under the name "Joseph Loeb", a likely reference to writer Jeph Loeb.

The New 52[edit]

In 2011, The New 52 rebooted the DC universe. Loeb is once again the corrupt commissioner of the GCPD. In Detective Comics (vol. 2) #25, Loeb assigns Gordon to partner with a crooked detective, Henshaw, who means to give Gordon to Black Mask's henchmen. Batman saves Gordon. Many of the corrupt police officers under Loeb's command known to be associated with the False Face gang perish, leading Batman and Gordon to theorize that Loeb has suffered some manner of emotional collapse.^[2]

Later during the Zero Year storyline, Riddler attacks GCPD blimps, while taking over the city's power grid and allowing the city to be flooded by a hurricane, causing many to crash; Loeb is among those killed as a result.^[3] After the crisis is resolved and the Riddler is captured thanks to the efforts of Batman, Gordon, and Lucius Fox, Gordon is appointed the department's new commissioner a month later.^[4]

In other media[edit]

Television[edit]

• Loeb appears in the Fox Network series Gotham, portrayed by Peter Scolari. Loeb is the police commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department and is secretly allied with mob boss Carmine Falcone. In "What The Little Bird Told Him" after Jim Gordon captures Jack Gruber during an attack on the GCPD headquarters, Loeb reinstates Gordon as a detective.^[5] In "Everyone Has a Cobblepot", Loeb blackmails Gordon's partner Harvey Bullock into exonerating Arnold Flass of the murder of Leon Winkler, which led to Flass being reinstated, and has incriminating files on every cop in the department. With help from Oswald Cobblepot, Gordon and Bullock discover Loeb's secret: 20 years earlier, his mentally ill daughter Miriam caused his wife's death in a fit of jealousy (her singing during her daughters' home performance) and he covered it up. Using this information, Gordon blackmails Loeb into nominating him for head of the police union as well as giving him Bullock's file.^[6] In "Beasts of Prey", Loeb arranged Gordon for the Ogre case as revenge, as the titular killer is known for going after the loved ones of the police officers who investigate him.^[7][8] In the season finale, "All Happy Families are Alike", Loeb switches his loyalty to Falcone's rival Sal Maroni and arrives at the hospital where Falcone is being held hostage by Maroni's men just as Gordon and Bullock arrive. Loeb lets Maroni's men attack Gordon as he leaves, though they fail to kill him.^[9] In "Rise of the Villains: Damned If You Do....", Loeb has demoted Gordon to traffic duty, hoping it would make Gordon quit. After Gordon defuses a dangerous situation, Loeb sees that he cannot make Gordon quit willingly and has him fired. Cobblepot and Victor Zsasz later break into Loeb's house and force him at gunpoint to reinstate Gordon and resign. Following Loeb's resignation, Sarah Essen is sworn in as the new police commissioner.
• Loeb was mentioned in the Batwoman season finale episode "O, Mouse". A news report compared the feud between Batwoman and Jacob Kane with the feud between Batman and Loeb.

Film[edit]

• In Darren Aronofsky's script for a planned Batman: Year One film, Loeb was the master of organized crime in addition to being commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department.^[10]
• Loeb appears in Batman Begins, portrayed by Colin McFarlane. Loeb is African-American and there is no indication that he is corrupt. The film shows him as a good-hearted person and a policeman willing to do his duty. At the film's beginning, he informs a young Bruce Wayne that they have caught Joe Chill shortly after the mugger killed Bruce's parents. When Bruce takes up the mantle of Batman and takes Carmine Falcone down, Loeb, having since been promoted to commissioner, still voices his disapproval of vigilantism in Gotham, but Batman being hailed as a public hero after saving Gotham from Ra's al Ghul implies that Loeb has changed his mind about Batman.
• McFarlane reprised his role in The Dark Knight, where the Joker assassinates him with poisoned whiskey. Lieutenant James Gordon arrests Joker later in the film and is appointed the new Police Commissioner of Gotham after Loeb's death.
• Loeb appears in the animated adaptation of Batman: Year One, voiced by Jon Polito.

Video games[edit]

• Loeb appears in Batman: Arkham Origins, voiced by JB Blanc. At the start of the game, Loeb is taken hostage by the Joker, who is impersonating Black Mask, at Blackgate Prison in retaliation for keeping his men behind bars, even though he was under Black Mask's payroll. "Black Mask" tells Loeb that his organization is moving in a direction that Loeb simply isn't part of before forcing Loeb into a gas chamber and killing him. He reappears in a hallucination caused by Copperhead's poisons, saying that Batman could have saved him if he arrived sooner. Loeb also is the subject of three extortion tapes by Enigma. The first is him conversing with Black Mask on how to deal with James Gordon regarding his strong moral compass. The second is him telling Harvey Bullock to work with Gordon in an attempt to dig up any potential blackmail material to force him to bend to their will. The last one has him telling SWAT leader Howard Branden to hunt down Batman after the latter managed to intimidate most of the SWAT team into taking sick days before taking a call from Martin Joseph. The truth about Loeb's connection with Black Mask later caused protests enough that in the "Cold, Cold Heart" DLC, Mayor Hamilton Hill announced his resignation.

Novel[edit]

• In the novelization of The Dark Knight, Loeb's first name is given as Perry rather than Gillian. In The Dark Knight viral campaign however, he is referred to as Gillian B. Loeb as in the comics.
• In Batman: Fear Itself, Loeb is mentioned as wanting to transfer Two-Face to Blackgate Prison.

See also[edit]

• List of Batman Family enemies

References[edit]