Black Mask
36 years ago - Roman Sionis born, the heir to the Sionis cosmetics fortune.
17 years ago - 19-year-old Roman is told his parents are rejecting him. He kills them both in a fire and inherets their company. based on their original will
14 years ago - 22-year-old Roman, in a last ditch effort to save his failing company, releases an untested cosmetic product. When it becomes evident that the cosmetic permanantly scars and disfigures people. Lucius Fox bails them out by having Wayne Enterprises buy the company, with the understanding that Sionis must step down completely. In his rage at the world, Roman breaks into his parents tomb and carves a mask from his father's coffin. He becomes the viscious mob inforcer, Black Mask, working for Sal Maroni.
11 years ago - 25-year-old Roman uses Tony Zucco to gather information on Sal Maroni while in prison. He makes a move to take over the Maroni families holdings when Sal attacks Harvey Dent, paying Julian Gregory Day to kill Maroni during his attempted prison escape, and has Zucco killed for betraying his boss. He becomes one of Gotham's most powerful crime lords. Drury Walker, having escaped with Day, joins his organization
.10 years ago - 26-year-old Roman, having his organization disrupted by the Joker, accepts a truce with Oswald Cobblepot to become the visible crime lord of Gotham while Oswald runis his organization behind the scenes.
9 years ago - 27-year-old Roman invites Catwoman to work for him. When she refuses, he has her tailed and photographed and releases the photos anonymously.
8 years ago - 27-year-old Roman Sionis' Sionis Chemicals is terrorized by Basil Karlo when he is mutated by tainted byproducts of their products. He is only stopped by Batman.
5 years ago - 31-year-old Roman focuses all his energy on ruining Selina Kyle's life when she discovered that he was the one who exposed her identity and begins targeting his operations. He orders the kidnapping of Slam Bradley and Holly Robinson. She eventually has no choice but to kill him.
The really cool thing about Black Mask is that he straddles the two seperate worlds that Batman's rogue's gallery occupies. Batman has always battled organized crime in Gotham. There are towering mafia figures like Carmine Falcone and Sal Maroni that have dominated that world, but even as Gotham slowly made the transition to a place populated my freaks and sociopaths, certain characters still played roles as crimelords rather than psycopaths like the Penguin or the Ventriloquist.
Black Mask is a psycopath, that much is very clear, but he's a psycopath that is clearly designed to be a leader ot organized crime. as long as he's existed, he's been used as the ideal example of what a crime boss in Gotham would have to be like, he's not just ruthless, he's downright viscious.
Black Mask is a psycopath, that much is very clear, but he's a psycopath that is clearly designed to be a leader ot organized crime. as long as he's existed, he's been used as the ideal example of what a crime boss in Gotham would have to be like, he's not just ruthless, he's downright viscious.
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Black Mask's Comic HistoryFirst appearing in 1985, Roman Sionis was actually a childhood acquaintance of Bruce Wayne. He had a more traditional evolution into his role as a Batman Villain originally, involving his hatred of his narcissistic parents and the 'masks' they wore his eventual downfall as a businessman, and an inciting moment in his parent's graveyard where he is struck by lightning and experiences a rebirth as Black Mask.
The disfiguring cosmetic that cost him his company continued to play a role in his villainous identity as well, serving as a method of tormenting people or as a weapon. He was the leader of a group called the "False Face Society", continuing his association with the idea of masks in much the same way Two-Face was continually associated with the number two. He continued to be a C+, B- teer villain, but in the late 90's you began to see him turn up again and again as a major player in Gotham's organized crime. He fit the role incredibly well, giving a face to an underutilized faction of Gotham's underworld. He played heavily in the War Games story arc where he was depicted torturing and killing Stephanie Brown, as well as in Jason Todd's return as Red Hood. Ultimately he was depicted as the central villain for Catwoman, a conflict that eventually ended when he gambled that she wouldn't kill him. It was one of those crystallizing moments in comics that feels undeniably correct... this is how this character's story ends. |
Our Black Mask StoryWe sanded off some of the rough edges of his backstory; we wanted to take him right into the world of organized crime without any mucking about as a mask-obsessed crazy person. Yes, the mask is an awesome visual, and he's clearly insane, but the character's real strength is as a mob boss and we want to make sure that happens as soon as we can get there. The evening, when Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face, is a massive transition for Gotham's underworld, featuring the death of both Falcone and Maroni, and that is the perfect moment for Sionis to seize power.
From there, he's a player on the organized crime stage of Gotham which can get pretty complex, but the most important part of his story is his antagonism of Catwoman. There is a time in her story when she ceases to be a Gotham socialite and returns to her roots in the East End, and we've made that entirely his doing, making it part of his larger campaign of harassment. There are several versions of Black Mask's story where his eventual death is part of a large story transition. In the Joker's coming out party in the game Arkham Origins, Sionis represents the old guard of criminals that the Joker is replacing (although I tend to prefer the idea that Black Mask is part of that new wave of criminals). Instead, his death as depicted at the hands of Catwoman is a huge shift in the dynamics of Gotham but also in the relationship between Selena and Bruce. The point of these characters is to serve the larger story, and this is absolutely the way to do it. |
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