Gotham City. It is the fictional DC Comics city that is protected by The Dark Knight, otherwise known as Batman.

Depicted as a sprawling metropolitan city with several high-rise buildings, skyscrapers, and enigmatic criminals, Gotham City has been the fictional epicenter for Batman for nearly 80 years. There have been many different theories as to where Gotham City was in relation to present-day maps.

The new “Joker” movie, scheduled to be released in October, was filmed in Newark and for a short time, the city was transformed into Gotham with its very own police department and television station.

However, there is evidence the metropolitan area isn’t modeled off Newark or even New York City, but rather an unlikely location in South Jersey: Bridgeton.

According to the book Atlas of the DC Universe, released in 1990 by Mayfair Games to accompany its DC Heroes role-playing game, Gotham is located in the southern part of the state, down in Cumberland County.

A comic strip panel in "The World’s Greatest Heroes" shows Gotham is found in area near Bridgeton

The second piece of evidence is from a newspaper comic strip called the World’s Greatest Heroes released in 1978. In it, Gotham can be found in the area near Bridgeton.

For those who wanted to get away from Gotham and head over to Metropolis, the home of Superman, the map shows it is only a drive across the Delaware River on the Metro Narrows Bridge. Granted, the comic panel shows Philadelphia somehow is in New Jersey and Wilmington, Delaware was shifted to Pennsylvania, it helps to point out that New York City is far away from Gotham.

Bridgeton has taken pride in its literary connection to the Dark Night’s home. It used to celebrate Gotham Month in October, when Batman and other related characters could be found visiting different parts of the city, handing out raffle tickets. Batman-related events were also held at the city’s library on East Commerce Street.

“It makes us proud that Bridgeton is unique in that regard,” Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly told NJ Advance Media during an interview in 2016. “No other town or no other city in the country can say that.”

To see if there were similarities between the two towns, we went to some of the more famous locations in Batman lore to see how the areas compared with one another.

The Bridgeton Fire Department hosts the third annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb at the Bridgeton high-rise, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014. Many participants climbed up to the top of the ten-story building 11 times in a fundraiser that proceeds the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. (Lori M. Nichols | South Jersey Times) SJNSJN

In the comics, one of the tallest buildings is Wayne Tower, a structure owned by Bruce Wayne himself. Instead, in Bridgeton, the highest building is the Bridgeton Housing Authority’s Senior High Rise, an 11-story building close to the Bridgeton City Hall.

Bridgeton City Hall Annex Sept. 6, 2019.

If you were a fan of the 1960s Batman television show, you’d recall there were several times Batman and his sidekick Robin would run into the city hall building to speak with Commissioner Gordon to find out who the latest villain was that was troubling Gotham. There, Bridgeton City Hall Annex does bear a similar resemblance.

Unfortunately, unlike the comic rendering, there is nothing even remotely close to a vast, Los Angeles-type city across the river that could resemble Metropolis — not to mention a bridge connecting Cumberland County to Delaware. The Delaware Memorial Bridge or taking the Cape May-Lewes Ferry would be the closest ways to get there.

And so far, no one has seen any maniacal clowns or guys telling riddles robbing banks around to cause trouble.

This article is part of “Unknown New Jersey,” an ongoing series that highlights interesting and little-known stories about our past, present, and future -- all the unusual things that make our great state what is it. Got a story to pitch? Email it to local@njadvancemedia.com.

Read More Unknown New Jersey stories like this:

Chris Franklin can be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cfranklinnews or on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.