'Gotham' Casting: Who's Playing Gordon, Alfred, the Penguin — and Are They a Good Fit?

After spending three years healing people on TNT’s “HawthoRNe,” Jada Pinkett Smith is ready to get back to hurting them. Smith has been cast in the new Fox/Warner Bros. series “Gotham,” a prequel of sorts to the Batman mythos, as “sadistic gangster boss” Fish Mooney.

If that name doesn’t sound familiar even to die-hard DC Comics fans, that’s because the character was created specifically for the show. However, her underlings include one Oswald Cobblepot aka Penguin, a name we do recognize. Given the nature of penguins and fish, Smith had better watch her back.

Possessed of “street smarts and almost extrasensory abilities to read people like an open book,” it’s very much in keeping with executive producer Bruno Heller’s current show “The Mentalist” — also about a person with “almost” superhuman abilities.

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Dark Horse Comics writer Korey Hunt thinks it will give the show legs without taking liberties with established comic history — something that often drives fans into a frenzy. “Gotham pre-Batman was a more traditional organized crime environment. It could be interesting to see the very beginnings of the gangsters versus freaks thing that plays out in ‘The Long Halloween,’ [the 13-issue comic book limited series that takes place during Batman’s early days of crime fighting].”

Fan response online has been muted, but positive. No one has seen Smith in a role like this, but her work in the “Matrix” films proves she can do, “Imposing and hotheaded […] not one to be crossed.”

A flurry of casting announcements for “Gotham” set fans quivering in the past week. Led by Benjamin McKenzie (“Southland,” “The O.C.”) as Det. James Gordon, the show will explore the origins of the eventual Commissioner Gordon as a fresh-faced cop facing a corrupt city as well as some villains before they meet the Dark Knight.

"Got some reading to do," tweeted McKenzie, lead in "Gotham." The tweet was by accompanied by a picture of a stack of Batman trade paperbacks. The 35-year-old actor was following the advice given to him by Gary Oldman, who has played the role of Commissioner Gordon for the last nine years on the silver screen.

Five more series regular roles have been cast, and more names are expected to surface soon. Twitter has been filled with fan reactions (we’ve culled some below), and the cast and crew will likely be responsive to their enthusiasm. The success of shows like “Arrow” have shown that the TV audience is hungry for an alternative to the flashy, effects-heavy superheroes that populate summer blockbusters.

McKenzie played rookie cop Ben Sherman on “Southland” for five seasons, so the transition to rookie Det. Gordon should be easy. Making it even easier, this is McKenzie’s second Batman-related endeavor: He was also the voice of Batman himself for the direct-to-DVD movie “Batman: Year One.”

Watch a clip of McKenzie as the voice of Batman:

McKenzie has some support from fans of his “O.C.” days:

But it’s his time on “Southland” that’s really generating excitement.

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Probably nobody is generating as much excitement, casting-wise, as Logue. People who notice character actors love him and comic fans recognize he’s a perfect fit for a pivotal role. Hunt tells us, “Donal Logue as Bullock? I’m on board now.”

There’s also a lot of approval online for Pertwee as Alfred. He’s made a career out of playing hardened military men, plus the “Doctor Who” connection doesn’t hurt in the nerd community.

Not everyone agrees.

Robin Lord Taylor, whom you may know as one of the two people Rick and Carol encountered in an abandoned house from the fourth episode of this season’s “The Walking Dead,” will play the pre-costume Penguin, Oswald Cobblepot. Warner Bros. calls the character “a low-level psychopath … who hides his sadistic lust for power behind an exquisitely polite demeanor.” He works for Fish Mooney, so his coolness should be a fun counterpoint to Smith’s hotheaded sadism.

Taylor is less well known than Smith, McKenzie, Logue, and Pertwee, though most seem to think he looks creepy enough to make a convincing Penguin. Hunt recalled him fondly from his turn as a “hapless survivor idiot” on “The Walking Dead.” “It doesn’t make me think ‘Penguin’ at all, but, you know, acting.”

Zabryna Guevara

, recently of “Burn Notice” (she played the sympathetic con Ayn in Season 6 of the show), will be Capt. Essen, Gordon’s boss in the Homicide Squad. Her role should be interesting: In the comics, she eventually marries Gordon. Whether they changed her role from co-worker to supervisor to exclude that possibility or complicate it, we don’t know.

Erin Richards

is probably the actor who is least recognizable to American audiences (though she was in the short-lived Christian Slater comedy “Breaking In”), but if you watch U.K. imports often, you will likely have seen her in “Misfits,” “Being Human,” or “Merlin.” She will play Gordon’s fiancée, Barbara Kean. Given her job as an ER doctor, his job as a cop, and their comic book history (Gordon divorces her to be with Essen), their relationship will probably be rocky from the start.

Hunt is worried that bringing in young versions of supervillains is a misstep. “It’s that Patton Oswalt bit about the ‘Star Wars’ prequels all over again. ‘Hey, you like Darth Vader? Well, you’re going to get to see him as a little kid!’” Casting a young Bruce Wayne will also be difficult; Hunt just hopes they’ll find someone who “isn’t going to Jake Lloyd all over the place” (another reference to the underwhelming “Star Wars” prequels) but thinks Jared Gilmore, who currently plays Henry Mills in “Once Upon a Time” (and also played Bobby Draper in the first two seasons of “Mad Men”), would be a strong choice.

What young actor would you like to see as a pre-Batman Bruce? Are there other characters you’re hoping to see teen versions of? How well do you think McKenzie will stand up to the legacy of Commissioner Gordons who have come before him?

Click on the image below to launch our gallery of previous Gordons and decide for yourself: