Batman: Dark Patterns written by Dan Watters and illustrated by Hayden Sherman is set three years into Batman’s career, and focuses more on the detective aspect of the character. This book has recently finished its first storyline, “We Are the Wounded”, which took place throughout its first three issues. I’ve previously read one of Watters’s other Batman related comics, Arkham City: The Order of the World, which I thought was excellent. If Dark Patterns’ first storyline is anything to go by, Watters seems to be keeping up this trend.
“We Are the Wounded” is nothing groundbreaking, but it doesn’t have to be. A lot of recent Batman stories, particularly the ones in the main book, all try to have high stakes and make big changes to the characters, but I feel that nearly everytime that these recent stories attempt this, they fall flat. “We Are the Wounded”, on the other hand, understands that it can have smaller stakes, and doesn’t need to attempt to make a big, long lasting impact to be a good story. The main example of how the story understands this is the new villain that it introduces, the Wound Man. Unlike other newly introduced villains, the Wound Man isn’t a major challenge to Batman mentally or physically, and while he likely lives on after issue #3, he probably isn’t intended to have any large roles in later stories. Because he isn’t supposed to be the next big recurring villain, the Wound Man can be used in a way that is beneficial to telling a short and simply entertaining story. His main trait of not feeling pain, while also being impaled by tons of pieces of metal, made for enjoyable encounters where Batman had to figure out how to carefully subdue him nonlethally. The revelation that he was choosing who to kill next based off of an alphabetical list wasn’t a particularly complex twist, but it was an engaging advancement in the mystery nonetheless. This villain doesn’t have the staying power of a character like the Joker or Two-Face, but he managed to be perfectly tailored for making this story enjoyable and feel new.
One of the things that Dark Patterns excels at is making Gotham City feel like a real place. This is done in a small way through Batman’s narration, where he comments on the crimes happening throughout the city. One of these moments that stood out to me was in issue #3, which was a brief allusion to the Ten Eyed Man, one of the characters from The Order of the World. The main reason why Gotham feels so real is not just because of these brief mentions, however, but because of how these smaller details tie into the actual story. A specific example of this that I enjoyed was how it was initially explained that the upcoming victim of the Wound Man had troubles with the mob. While this at first seems like superfluous information, it ends up being critical when the man intervenes with a shotgun in the fight between Batman and the Wound Man, which he was ready with due to his paranoia of the mob coming after him. The fact that these small details can have a real impact on the story helps set “We Are the Wounded” apart from more basic narratives where the plot is entirely determined by the actions of the central characters.
The art in this book is pretty good by itself, but where it stands out is how the panels are laid out on the page. Nearly every page has something interesting going on with how things are arranged, and the panels are never simply placed side by side in the normal way. In other comics, panels being arranged in a more stylized way usually leave me puzzled as to how the dialogue should be read, but I never had that issue when reading Dark Patterns. While I normally prefer it when the panels are laid out more simply, I did enjoy the change of pace with this book’s full commitment to unusual layouts.
Of the ongoing comics that I am keeping up with, I think that Dark Patterns might just be my favorite, and it thrills me the most with where it may go from here. This book feels like a departure from recent comics, and feels more in line with Batman comics of the 80s and 90s. While this would otherwise excite me more, it isn’t as special considering that Batman: The Last Halloween is also currently ongoing and accomplishing something similar. Still, “We Are the Wounded” was worth the read and I can’t wait to start reading the next storyline, “The Voice of the Tower”.
