Ben McKenzie 'Gotham' character has gotten a lot of attention at the Gotham panel during the 2014 Television Critics Association on Sunday afternoon, July 20, in Beverly Hills, California.

Ben, 35, was joined by co-stars Jada Pinkett Smith and Donal Logue for the panel.

The Batman prequel coming to Fox is built around Ben McKenzie's young, not-yet-in-charge Detective James Gordon. Batman is present in the show in the person of a very young Bruce Wayne. Gotham is simply the origin stories of Batman.

"Gordon is the moral linchpin of the show ... He's the man who creates Batman, or gives Batman the permission to exist in this world," Producer Bruno Heller, who created The Mentalist, says at the Television Critics Association panel on the new series.

McKenzie plays Jim Gordon, a detective for now investigating the murder of Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz)'s parents. The show lays down the back history of the eventual villains in the Batman universe, including Oswald Cobblepot, Edward Nygma, Selina Kyle, Ivy Pepper and new character Fish Mooney.

"It's noir," Ben said about the atmosphere of the show. "The structure that exists around [Gordon] is so daunting and challenging that no single man can overcome it."

"Well, as [series creator] Bruno [Heller] has been saying, over the 75 years that Batman has been around, this mythology has been interpreted and reinterpreted over and over and over again by countless artists, writers, illustrators, actors on screen. So I think we're adding our twist on the mythology but we are just a part of it. We just sort of become subsumed by the greater Batman mythology as it exists already," Ben added.

"I think oftentimes what drives a woman in all our stories is very different than what we're used to seeing," Jada said about her character Fish Mooney. "It's unlike anything I've done before."