Gotham

Henry “Hank” Clover Jr. grows up in Gotham City with his sister Claire. After Batman saves their family from a mugger in Crime Alley, Henry and Claire become obsessed with helping the city the way Batman does. They train themselves, study crimefighting, and eventually obtain metahuman powers at a severe cost: every use burns away part of their remaining lifespan. Henry takes the name Gotham, while Claire becomes Gotham Girl, and together they present themselves as new protectors of the city.

Gotham and Gotham Girl first draw Batman’s attention when they help him save a passenger plane from a Kobra Cult attack. Batman recognizes that they are powerful but inexperienced, so he begins guiding them while they assist him in the city, including a fight against Solomon Grundy.

Appearance: Gotham has pale skin. He has solid white colored mask lenses. He has a slender, muscular build with defined chest muscles, abdominal muscles, and leg muscles. His short brown hair is styled upward and slightly to the right side. He wears a bright blue mask that covers his forehead, cheeks, and nose, featuring pointed edges that extend upward at the sides of his head while leaving his mouth, chin, and jawline exposed.

He wears a bright blue and grey bodysuit costume. The outfit features a bright blue tunic-style center section that runs down his torso, bordered on the sides by dark grey fabric covering his shoulders and arms. The blue center panel is adorned with two parallel vertical columns of three gold circular buttons on each side of his chest. A small yellow diamond-shaped emblem featuring a black stylized letter "G" is located in the middle of his upper chest. A long, bright blue cape is attached to his shoulders by two rectangular gold clasps.

A thin black belt with a circular gold buckle is fastened tightly around his waist. He wears flared black gauntlet gloves on his hands that extend halfway up his forearms. On his lower legs, he wears calf-high black boots.

Personality: Henry Clover is earnest, idealistic, and desperate to prove that Gotham can have protectors with the power to do what Batman cannot. He and Claire build their whole mission around the moment Batman saves their family in Crime Alley, so Henry’s heroism begins as admiration rather than ego. He wants to be worthy of the city’s trust, but he is inexperienced, and the power he buys comes with a cost he does not fully understand until he is already using it. When Psycho-Pirate’s influence twists him with overwhelming rage, that same desire to protect Gotham becomes unstable and violent.

Claire is his closest relationship, fighting beside him as Gotham Girl and sharing the same origin, power source, and dream of helping the city. Batman becomes the mentor figure Henry wants to impress, especially after Henry and Claire help save a passenger plane and assist in fights against threats like Kobra and Solomon Grundy. Hugo Strange and Psycho-Pirate become the forces that corrupt his path, using Henry’s emotions against him and turning a new hero’s ambition into a crisis Batman has to stop.

Gotham’s powers are built around a dangerous exchange: he can raise his strength, speed, durability, flight, and vision-based attacks by burning through his own lifespan. At lower levels, he can move like a high-powered metahuman and survive heavy impacts, but when he pushes harder, his power rises dramatically while the cost to his remaining life rises with it. He and Claire are described as being able to live for years at a Superman-like level of power, or only hours if they spend their life force at a godlike level.

In combat, Henry is a flying powerhouse rather than a trained detective or martial artist. He can hit with enormous force, move at extreme speed, withstand major punishment, and use heat vision, but his biggest weakness is the same thing that makes him dangerous. Every use of his abilities shortens his life, so a prolonged fight or emotional loss of control can turn his own power into the thing destroying him.