The City (Transmetropolitan)

The City is a fictional megacity which forms the main setting for the Vertigo comic "Transmetropolitan" by Warren Ellis. Located somewhere in the United States, the City is the largest metropolitan area in the futuristic world of the series (an exact date is never given), and the center of political and social culture.

The City plays a key role in the U.S. Presidential elections described in the series, due to its unusual voting patterns in the past, as Transmetropolitan's main protagonist Spider Jerusalem explains:

"They say the city goes the way the country does. But that's not quite right. It chooses and punishes presidents. It's got a weird pattern of voting against second-term presidents ... and it's a rule of thumb that if the city goes against a president going for his second term, the fucker'll get in anyway". (Transmetropolitan #49, page 18)"

Little systematic history is given on the City throughout the Transmetropolitan series. Various incidents in its history are described by Spider Jerusalem as the story progresses, but there is no unified narrative that explains its origins in detail.

The City features numerous 'culture reservations' in which particular traditional cultures - including those of China and Japan - can be experienced and lived in permanently, as well as a holographic pre-industrial reservation. The Angels 8 district of the City is also home to a group known as 'transients', humans who have used genome-altering technology to permanently take on alien characteristics.

The fact that the City features a statue resembling the Statue of Liberty leads many to believe it is in fact New York, or a massive conurbation including several other East Coast cities like BosWash. The fact that the former Great Lakes are now known as the "Western Lakes" on the City's outer reaches lends further credence to the latter notion.

The City is also a slang term used to refer to San Francisco, there is a view of the Golden Gate Bridge in Transmet. San Francisco along with the rest of California is also pivotal in United States presidential elections due to their high population and resulting votes in the electoral college. Also the reservations are very similar to San Francisco's various districts home to strong concentrations of certain nationalities such as China Town.

If this were the case this would make the city similar in area to Mega-City One in the Judge Dredd comic strip.