Batman: Dark Patterns #1-3

Batman: Dark Patterns #1-3

Originally released in 2024

Written by Dan Watters

Art by Hayden Sherman 

All I know about this series going into it is that it's a mystery that stars Batman.  Some early dialogue indicates that it's about three years into Batman's career, seemingly before Robin joins him. (It's probably for the best that Robin isn't involved, since some of this seems like it would be traumatizing for an eight year old)

Gotham has a new coroner, Dr. Sereika, who's meeting Batman for the first time.  In my experience, it feels like a new character who's introduced in a modern Batman story and given a moderately prominent role is going to turn out to be masterminding the events or at least working for the villain in spite of how friendly they are when they're introduced; Batman notices that Sereika shows signs of addiction to chemicals like formaldehyde, so I'm not sure if they're doing the opposite here by immediately setting him up as suspicious only for him to turn out to be okay.

The first two issues start with Batman reflecting on how there are some crimes that he has to overlook to deal with larger threats - he can't be everywhere at once, or run himself ragged to stop every single crime in Gotham.  However, the issues also have one of these crimes being a fire in Gotham, which Batman assumes is either insurance fraud or something started by bored teenagers.  I assume that the fires are going to come into play later - I might be reading too much into it, but with the title being "Dark Patterns", I'm keeping an eye out for any patterns.

The more immediate problem is someone who's been dubbed "The Wound Man".  Seemingly unable to feel pain, he has set out to free Gotham residents (men who are living alone after a tragedy took their families from them) from their pain... by fatally torturing them.  While I haven't seen the Hellraiser movies (I plan to watch the first one this October), he looks like something out of that, covered in screws, nails, and large spikes, with a deep-seated obsession with pain.  This presents an interesting problem for Batman, given his refusal to take a life - the sharp objects embedded in the Wound Man's skin are so close to vital parts that just punching him could kill him.

The Wound Man's first target was a lawyer who represented companies like Ace Chemicals and LexCorp before his guilty conscience caught up with him and he sought to work for free in order to do good.  The other targets were taken from the lawyer's files (ones who fit his profile) and are covered in alphabetical order, which makes it easier for Batman to track down the potential targets.

Batman tries to knock out the Wound Man with gas, but the dosage is too much and the hospital is on fire, forcing him to take the Wound Man to Dr. Sereika.  While Sereika seems to have a genuine desire to help, he has some sinister undertones, as he speaks to the Wound Man (rather than informing Gordon that the Wound Man is at his location) and convinces him to strike at the root of the problem that his targets are facing.

In Gotham, even the suburbs, far removed from the chaos of the city, are a hellhole, as Batman finds when he visits the community of Green Fields.  Buildings are run down, problems are overlooked, and there's a shrine to the Wound Man that's apparently been painted with blood.  It all seems to have to do with Ace Chemicals, which is currently run by a relative of the Black Mask.

Ace Chemicals made a nerve agent that seeped into the water supply of Green Fields, which the company sold to Gotham for cheap.  This is Gotham, where someone threatens to poison the city's water supply on what feels like a weekly basis (the Joker, the Scarecrow, probably Calendar Man if he could find a relevant holiday), but here, Ace Chemicals did it years ago and got away without even a slap on the wrist.

Despite all of this, many people in Green Fields want to stay there - they can't feel anything (broken legs, losing a finger or two, etc.), but even knowing the downsides, they still prefer it to the rest of Gotham.

As Batman is investigating this lead and learning about the Wound Man's past as a doctor who learned about Ace Chemicals' actions, tried to stop it, and lost his wife in the process, the Wound Man is kidnapped by the CEO of the company that owns Ace Chemicals, Christopher Sionis, the aforementioned relative of Black Mask.  He intends to tie up loose ends by killing the Wound Man, but the Wound Man breaks free.

The story ends rather suddenly, but it does a good job with creating an unsettling atmosphere and showing a more realistic side of Gotham's supervillainy. The idea of a corporation poisoning part of a city and getting away with it while only having to deal with legal fees seems terrifyingly plausible, and the Wound Man himself is a creepy concept.