After 40 Years, Batman’s Most Underrated Villain May Be One of His Best

Batman is known for having possibly the greatest rogues gallery in all of comics, maybe all of fiction, and it’s very hard to dispute that. The Dark Knight regularly does battle with all-time classics like the Joker, Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, and the list only goes on and on. However, beyond just the well-known costumed villains, Batman has plenty of other incredible villains that are just as evil and entertaining, but have garnered a little less popularity over the years. One of Batman’s most underrated opponents is Black Mask, who is now celebrating forty years since his introduction. In honor of this special occasion, let’s take a look at what makes Black Mask such an awesome villain.

Who is Black Mask?

Real name Roman Sionis, Black Mask first appeared in Batman #386, which detailed the villain’s origins and was released on May 16, 1985. Roman was born to an affluent Gotham family and set to inherit the successful beauty corporation Janus Cosmetics. He was also dropped on his head as a newborn, so that might help the rest of this make more sense. Growing up, his family cared much more about looking good to their friends than they did about him, which gave the young boy a deep fascination with masks, both figurative and literal. He also harbored a deep hatred for his parents and their friends, including the Waynes. After falling in love with a company model that his parents threatened to fire, Roman set fire to his parents’ house and let them burn to death inside.

Now the head of the company, Roman focused all of their efforts on creating liquid masks-like cosmetics that were met with immediate rejection by the public. On the verge of bankruptcy, Roman approved an experimental makeup that wound up being extremely toxic to people, and Janus Cosmetics was buried in lawsuits. He was forced to take a buyout offer by the Wayne Foundation, with the condition that he step down as president. Seeing the writing on the wall, his love Circe left him too. With nothing left to live for, Roman turned to crime to seek revenge at those he viewed responsible for ruining his company and his life. He forged his iconic mask from the ebony of his father’s casket, which was later burned onto his face when he fell into open flames in a scuffle with Batman. Now that you know who he is, we can talk about what makes Black Mask so compelling.

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Black Mask is Perfectly Ruthless

From merely hearing about him, you might assume that Black Mask is just another mobster that Batman fights, interchangeable with Falcone or Maroni, but he is so much more. Black Mask is the perfect gang-leader villain for Batman in two very important ways. One is that he is insane enough to meet the atmosphere of Gotham. While Batman is a dark and brooding character, and his world is often depicted as such, the reason his villains work so well is because they are the exact opposite. They are brightly clothed, extravagant for fashion’s sake, and completely and utterly insane. Batman, despite the fact that he is a grown man who dresses like a bat, presents himself as a very serious character, so his wildly unserious villains who pose very serious challenges are the best people to bounce off of Batman. Black Mask is the perfect middle ground between serious gangster and insane concept, as he is a man who presents very real danger with armed goons and guns, while also having a gimmick and personality that elevates him to near-parody levels of over the top that can only work in Gotham.

The second point mixes well with the previous, as Black Mask’s personality is incredible. He is not a character defined by sympathetic tragedy, such as Mr. Freeze, or in Gotham only to battle Batman, like Bane or the Riddler. No, he is here for revenge and money exclusively, and he takes no quarter. Black Mask is insane in his ruthlessness in what feels like a very real way. He will throw away his men’s lives at the drop of a hat if he thinks it’ll save his own, and he is willing to go to utterly unimaginable lengths to cause pain to those he thinks have wronged him. His appearance in the first six issues of Absolute Batman capture this perfectly. While everyone else in that comic has their usual violence turned up by ten notches, for Black Mask that’s a normal Wednesday. If anything, he was going easy.

Black Mask is ruthless, hyper violent, and obsessed with money and revenge. And he is an incredible antagonist for Batman. I love all the rest of his villains, but Black Mask manages to scratch both the gang-boss and supervillain itches in a way no one else sans Scarface ever has. He is wildly underrated, and definitely deserves to be celebrated as one of Batman’s best rogues ever.