Gotham City goes through so many different attacks because it is the only city in the DC Universe that can handle the trauma.

The following article contains spoilers from The Joker #14, on sale now.

After returning to Gotham City for the first time since the Joker War storyline, Jim Gordon took a moment to reflect on how resilient the city is. In The Joker #14 (by James Tynion IV, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, Arif Prianto, Tom Napolitano) he remarked about how he caught up on recent events, including Fear State and how the Magistrate almost took over the city. None of it surprised him though, as he saw it. These catastrophes were just another part of Gotham's history that was already receding into the city's deep memory.

Gotham isn't like other cities. More than any other place in the DC Universe, Gotham is prone to suffer recurring attacks, not just on the physical structures of the city, but on its very soul. Yet it presses on, suffering, but never falling. Perhaps Gotham is a magnet for disaster because it's the only place that could handle such trauma.

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In the past, several heroes have commented on how different Gotham is from other cities. Wally West even recently stated that patrolling Gotham scared him, a speedster of phenomenal power. As it stands, Gotham is something of its own world at times, being darker and more violent than most other cities. Places like Metropolis or Central City get monster attacks or even super crime, but it's localized, usually handled in a day or two by someone like Superman or the Flash.

Gotham is different. These attacks aren't focused, but widespread, often dragging its citizens into whatever nightmare has come for Batman and his allies this time around. Each time, the city reacts in its own way, sometimes poorly, other times in ways that are inspirational. When all is said and done though, things calm down and go back to normal, and Gotham waits for the next attack.

The people of the city just take what happened and accept it as a part of life in Gotham. At this point, the damage done to the city has become so recurrent that it's a part of the culture. While that sounds disturbing and tragic, it may also be a good thing.

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Gotham can handle what no other city can because its people have learned how to go through the trauma of it. If the same problems that afflicted Gotham today suddenly started happening in Metropolis, then the city would fall in an instant. Superman can punch aliens all the livelong day, but if an attack on his home targets the people and their mental or moral fortitude, there isn't a lot he can do to shield them from that.

So perhaps Gotham is the way it is because it has to be. It is a lightning rod for danger and darkness because no other place in the DC Universe can handle so much stress so frequently. Other characters often disparage Gotham or joke about how glad they don't have to live there, but really, Gotham is their silent savior, safeguarding them from the horrors that could be by containing them within itself.

Amer Sawan is a reader, writer, and gamer and lover of all things nerdy from Florida. He is a graduate from the University of Florida with a B.A. in English. He has spent the past year writing for CBR. In his free time Amer enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friends, both as a Dungeon Master and as a player. Follow him on twitter @AmerSawan3 and feel free to comment on article suggestions.