Welcome to the First Issue Bin, where I — Ethan Kaye — randomly grab one of this week's comics that’s just starting up and giving you the details on whether it should get added to your collection … or remain on the comic shop shelf.
Batman: Dark Patterns #1
Writer: Dan Watters
Artist: Hayden Sherman
Colorist: Triona Farrell
Letterer: Frank Cvetkovic
Editors: Arianna Turturro and Rob Levin
As background, you should know that DC Comics launches a new Batman comic nearly every two weeks. We're in the middle of Batman, Detective Comics, Batman and Robin, Batman and Robin: Year One, Absolute Batman, Batman: Full Moon, Batman '89 Echoes, Batman/Superman: World's Finest, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween, Batman and Scooby-Doo Mysteries, and Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns, a series that is about 500 times better than you would expect from a Batman/Santa Claus team-up. DC is banking hard on Batman and I love it.
So as a new 12-issue title, Batman: Dark Patterns, really needs to bring the heat to stand out in this crowded comic shop shelf. And friends, it really does.
I feel like the story is one we've seen before in the Batman mythos: a string of murders, Batman investigates, finds connections, and susses out the villain, either old or newly introduced. Dark Patterns follows that, well, pattern. There are dead bodies piling up, one a day, and Batman finds the connection in a lawyer who was involved with all of them. By the end of the issue, he's run across the big bad, a creepy man punctured by nails and rebar.
So the gruesomeness ups the ante quite a bit from the typical comic fare.
Besides the new villain that is tentatively being called "Wound Man," we meet Gotham's newest Forensic Pathologist, a Dr. Sereika. He's a nervous man, probably high on mortuary chemicals, and immediately suspicious. I mean, who meets Batman and the first thing out of his mouth is, "I'm sure your bones and flesh hold a myriad of fascinating tales by now"?
Dan Watters is a dynamic writer, having penned some of my favorite books over the last few years, including Arkham City: The Order of the World and Lucifer. He's currently running Nightwing, so he's deep in the Bat-universe by this point. Here he's focused on all the things that make Batman great: his relationship to Gotham, his sometimes antagonistic relationship with the police, and his relationship with his butler Alfred. It's a good read, and since he's set up the already-familiar first domino, I really want to see where this series goes.
It's the art that absolutely stuns. I only know Hayden Sherman from his work on Knight Terrors: Harley Quinn, but that's more on me being a fool and less about the work. Hayden's philosophy for Dark Patterns seems to be Gotham = big, Batman = small.
The cityscapes are enormous and detailed, giving you vertigo just by gazing at the panels. Endless streets and towering buildings with tiny glimpses of characters emphasize that Batman is only one person in an expansive landscape of crime. But character moments are pulled in tight. Fights get a half splash at most, and the office battle between Batman and security guards is appropriately claustrophobic, told through creatively choreographed 5 and 6 panel breakdowns. The panel size and positioning reflect the environment in a way I can't remember ever seeing before. It's a brilliant style.
Despite relying on a tried-and-true opening issue plot, I imagine that with 11 more issues to come, this case is going to spiderweb into something much more complicated and menacing. If gore isn't your thing, maybe skip it, and even without the Black Label branding it's probably not for kids. But for those of us who like detective vigilante Batman interacting with other vicious creatures of the night, this is a great start.
Verdict: Even if you just read it for the art, it's worth picking up to pore over.
