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05/17/2004: Mafia families in Gotham
Has anyone been able to make sense of all the mafia families that pop up in the Batman books? I mean, in Huntress' backstory it's made sound like the "Five Families" had divided Gotham among them. Those five families were the Bertinellis, the Berettis, the Galantes, the Inzerillos, and the Cassamentos. In the gang wars during the prohibition the Bertinellis came out on top. The Cassamentos had been their rivals, supported by the Inzerillos, but the latter changed sides. Anyway, later the Panessas arrived, but the Bertinellis didn't want to share with a sixth family, not even when Franco Bertinelli, Huntress' father married Maria Panessa. Then came the Palm Sunday massacre, orchestrated by the Cassamentos(?). In its aftermath the Galantes were on top, the Panessas were in, once again Five Families.
So how do the Falcones (from Year One and Long Halloween/Dark Victory) and the Maronis (Two-Face's origin, e.g. in Batman Annual #14, also Long Halloween/Dark Victory) fit in? Both of those play fairly important roles in the early career of the trio of Batman, Gordon, and Dent, so it's not like they could be discarded, and they don't just appear in LH/DV which could be disregarded as apocryphal in the details. And assuming Anthony Zucco (the one responsible for Dick's parents' death) was some kind of lower level mob, to which family did he belong?
Of course in addition to the Mafia there's some other organized crime in Gotham too (the Lucky Hand Triad, the Escabedo Cartel, the Odessa Mob, the Burnley Town Massive...), though some of that is confined to certain neighborhoods. But clearly the Maroni and the Falcone families are supposed to be mafia.
And how does Malfetti fit in? (in case you lost track that is the mob boss from the Nightwing/Huntress series) Do I even want to know if there are any more? Do we get diagrams at some point?
Sigh.
