Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

Without the Dark Knight hanging around, chances are better you won't get punched in the face when pulling off a jewelry heist or ripping off some TVs in Gotham City.

While the new Fox TV series Gotham (Mondays, 8 p.m. ET/PT) focuses on a crime-ridden town without Batman, new DC Comics series and retooled existing books are similarly exploring the locale and expanding its mythology past its resident superhero, who is off lurking in his own books.

In the 75 years Batman's been protecting the place, Gotham has always captured our imaginations, says Gerry Duggan, writer of the Arkham Manor comic book series debuting in October.

And even when the superhero doesn't play a starring role, his presence permeates the gothic-noir town, adds Gotham Academy co-writer Becky Cloonan. "Everything about this city has an allure and a mysteriousness to it that is just tempting."

Here's the lowdown on five Batman-less comics exploring different parts and residents of his hometown:

Gotham Academy

"Imagine going to high school and then looking up at night and, oh, there's the Bat-signal when you're at band practice."

That's how Cloonan describes the youthful perspective of Gotham Academy (Oct. 1), co-written by Brenden Fletcher and illustrated by Karl Kerschl. With an old ghost-story feel and kid-friendly appeal, the series follows a group of teens at the prestigious prep school who get involved in mysteries that run deep into Gotham's lore and also Batman's own history.

The faculty is a weird crew — criminal chemist Professor Milo is a science teacher — and the student body includes mysterious demonology fangirl Pomeline Fritch, siblings Kyle and "Maps" Mizoguchi, and Olive Silverlock, a youngster with "a distinct connection" to both Bruce Wayne and his Dark Knight alter ego, says Cloonan.

"These kids could eventually be crime solvers in Gotham," Fletcher says, "but right now they're just exploring the mysteries of these old buildings on this really creepy campus."

Batgirl

Barbara Gordon is moving out of central Gotham and into nearby Burnside — a hip, Brooklyn sort of borough — in Batgirl No. 35 (Oct. 8).

Fletcher, co-writer Cameron Stewart and artist Babs Tarr take a lighter approach to a character whose life has been full of tragedies and give her a fresh start while also peppering in youth culture and social media.

The heroine gets a new supporting cast, including her roommate Frankie and Barbara's classmates at Burnside College, where she's working on her thesis in urban geography. Yet she can't escape supervillains, and Batgirl soon meets a pair of twin sword-swinging motorcycle assassins known as the Jawbreakers.

"She's taking her first tentative steps to experimenting with having a 'normal' life after being so involved with the crime fighting and all the darkness that's beset her," Stewart says. "It may not always work out the best for her, but she's trying."

Arkham Manor

Batman villains such as Mr. Freeze and the Scarecrow have made it a habit of breaking out of Arkham Asylum, but now Gotham's craziest inmates are being housed and treated at, ironically, Bruce Wayne's not-so-humble abode.

Duggan and artist Shawn Crystal'sArkham Manor (Oct. 22) brings murder mysteries and a horror/comedy balance into the lives of orderlies, patients and main man Dr. Arkham.

Some of the series' DNA goes back to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, especially in group-therapy scenes, says Duggan, and it's the next chapter in one of Gotham's greatest tragedies.

Arkham Asylum was an estate that was turned into a mental institution by Amadeus Arkham in the early 20th century, "and now it's happening again,'' the writer says. "Arkham converted his home and died in it. There is that thread and there is the thread of the sanity of the people who work there.''

Catwoman

Catwoman has long skulked in that gray area between criminal and Batman ally, yet writer Genevieve Valentine is taking alter ego Selina Kyle in a new direction: as Gotham's latest crime boss.

Drawn by Garry Brown, Catwoman No. 35 (Oct. 22) begins a story arc where she tries to use her power as head of the Calabrese family to fix the city and do as much good as possible. "But of course Gotham has other plans," says Valentine.

Catwoman is the odd woman out in the family, she's trying to woo other criminal kingpins into her syndicate, and there is one bad guy who's definitely out for blood.

"But coming into this, the biggest struggle was never going to be Selina vs. someone else," Valentine says. "It's Selina vs. what she's willing to do to keep hold of that power."

Gotham by Midnight

The city has always had a weird nightmare side to it, and that's where Gotham by Midnight (Nov. 26) comes in as "our unashamedly dark, freaky, weird book," says writer Ray Fawkes.

The series stars Gotham cop Jim Corrigan and his task force as they investigate strange supernatural cases — one of his guys is a forensic doctor who takes everything at face value, even a screaming three-headed beast with a talking tongue.

There's one other key part of the team:the Spectre, the spirit of vengeance who inhabits Corrigan's body.

Corrigan desperately tries to solve cases before this higher authority comes down and "fixes" the situation, and artist Ben Templesmith is using an artistic effect to show when the Spectre's bubbling up to the surface.

"He's not like a superhero who's going to come in and save the day under bright sunshine. He's like an Old Testament thing," Fawkes says of the Spectre. "If he comes out and they're handling a case, all of the witnesses around are actually in danger because at that moment, they will be judged."