50. Basin City

First Appeared: Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special (April, 1991)
Founding Father: Frank Miller
Notable Residents: Marv, Dwight McCarthy, Nancy Callahan, the Roark Family

Somewhere in the American west lies Basin City, best known as Sin City. Like other American cities, Sin City has a number of neighborhoods—the Docks, the Projects—but unlike the city you're from, Frank Miller's creation boasts a neighborhood run by prostitutes. The police won't venture there as part of a shady agreement (the only kind possible in a place of high-contrast black and white, with occasional spurts of blood red and greasy yellow). Funny that this underbelly turned upwards only comes in b&w. In a pulpy world such as this one, everything is shades of gray, every man and woman a little bit of a coward, a hero, and a monster.