Last Monday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Gotham executive producers John Stephens and Ken Woodruff confirmed that “a forerunner of Harley Quinn” and a proto-version of Killer Croc will be coming to the superhero prequel drama. However, the Suicide Squad members won’t be appearing until perhaps Season 4, as the upcoming third season will focus on Batman villains Mad Hatter and Solomon Grundy.
Asked whether any early incarnations of the villains in Suicide Squad will appear in Fox’s Gotham, Stephens admitted that their current big screen appearances make it difficult, but that he’s looking to introduce the younger versions of Harley Quinn and Killer Croc, with only the characteristics of the life-sentence-serving criminals they become.
“A lot of those [DC Comics] characters, because they’re in Suicide Squad, you’re not going to be seeing them this season,” said Stephens. “We’ll be seeing proto-versions of some of those characters. We’ll see a proto Killer Croc version. And we’ll be seeing a character, perhaps not this season but in times to come, who can be a forerunner of Harley Quinn, which will be fun.”
While we may not see Harley and Croc in TV’s Gotham City anytime soon, new Batman villains will be introduced in Season 3: Mad Hatter, a scientist who invents mind-control devices, and Solomon Grundy, a super-strong, virtually indestructible zombie. Stephens adds that Grundy’s origins will be tied to Hugo Strange’s experiments on Indian Hill, as well as the mysterious Court of Owls.
“In season three, you’re really going to see how villains have taken up residence inside the city,” said Stephens. “The villains have become more and more a part of the fabric of the city of Gotham. It’s less and less a police show like it was in season one. It’s a natural continuation of that in season three.”
As the show moves from Season 3 to 4, bigger hints of “the cult of the Joker” will start to appear. In the first two seasons, Gotham has laid down the foundation for Batman’s arch-nemesis with the introduction of the maniacal killer Jerome Valeska, whom many fans believe will become the Joker.
“We really imagined developing the myth of the Joker at the same time as we develop the myth of Batman,” said Stephens. “We really wanted to stretch that over multiple seasons. So in the course of this year, we're going to see how the cult of the Joker, started at the beginning of last year, is going to extend and deepen and change this year.”
Stephens is hopeful that the show’s continued success will allow them to bring these prominent Batman villains – the Joker, Harley Quinn, and Killer Croc – to the small screen. “We have these underground movements that have started to talk about Jerome and what he represented and how he’s going to come back, setting the stage for perhaps, if Fox gives us a season four, hopefully we’ll bring that back in a much bigger way and you’ll see these other versions of the Joker myth with Jerome and with other characters.”
Gotham’s Season 3 will premiere on September 19 on Fox.
