"This is my city. I've come back — because I care what's happening to it … and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who cares."

So says James Gordon, the young detective who will one day become commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department. Gordon, played by Benjamin McKenzie of "The O.C." and "Southland," is the star of Fox's upcoming comic book adaptation "Gotham," the new series focused on Gotham City before Batman ever arrived on the scene — but not before Batman's worst enemies were already in circulation.

A new trailer focuses on the night Bruce Wayne's parents died. Gordon takes a long, brooding walk toward the scene of the crime, passing through yellow tape and eyeballing some of the shiftier characters in the general vicinity: Oswald Cobblepot (the lowlife thug who will one day become the Penguin) and his seductive boss Fish Mooney (played by Jada Pinkett-Smith); a forensic expert named Edward Nigma (before he was known as the Riddler); and a young thief from the streets named Selina Kyle (the eventual Catwoman).

"Someone needs to take a stand against it all," Gordon says in a monologue. "And that's where we come in."

"Gotham" premieres on September 22.