Comic Genius

The mission is this: hunt down and find the exact reason why a Latina cop in Gotham City who is partnered with Crispus Allen in the Gotham Knight DVD is NOT named Renee Montoya, but Det. Anna Ramirez.

Here’s what I have so far. Greg Rucka, who can do no wrong in my eyes, wrote one of the vignettes for the Gotham Knight DVD, which includes some interaction between Batman and the team of Allen and Ramirez. According to this video, when Rucka was asked to write the piece, he was asked to do a piece with Allen and Montoya,not Allen and Ramirez.

Fast forward to Wizard World Chicago, where there was a special screening of the Gotham Knight movie. Afterwards, a panel was held so viewers could ask questions of the people involved with the production and writing of the movie. Greg Rucka was on that panel, which you can read about here. A person in the audience asked the panel why the Latina cop’s name was Ramirez and not Montoya, and Greg Rucka mentioned that you need to see The Dark Knight to understand why.

This got me thinking. Is Montoya going to be introduced in Dark Knight, creating a need for her to be held out of the Gotham Knight movie so that she could be introduced in the live-action flick instead? Out of curiosity, I went and checked the Internet Movie Database. Turns out that Anna Ramirez is a character in that movie as well, and the credits have no mention of Renee Montoya.

Why would DC and Warner Brothers create a new character and completely ignore the one they already have? Including the Montoya character would create sooo many possibilities when it comes to the DC movie franchises. I asked this question on the Newsarama message boards, and some people seemed to think that it had something to do with money. Create a new character, and the big-wigs don’t have to split the revenues. Use an existing one, and the money has to be split even more.

My only other option so far is that the Anna Ramirez character is going to be killed somehow in Dark Knight, opening a spot for Montoya to be introduced in the future, possibly the next movie. I wouldn’t normally have a problem with that, but if that’s the case, her introduction will look more like stereotyping instead of ground-breaking characterization.

So this is my quest–to find the real reason why the Renee Montoya character has been slighted for a new character who resembles Montoya in many ways. Hopefully there is a definitive answer out there. I’ll update the situation when I get more information.

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