Batman is a master of many disciplines, perhaps best known as a detective. Yet this aspect of his character is often ignored in favor of his martial arts mastery and urban legend status. However, a new miniseries, Batman: Dark Patterns, will explore some of the early cases that defined him as the Dark Knight Detective.
Batman: Dark Patterns will be a twelve-issue limited series. It will feature four cases, each detailed in a three-issue story arc. The stories will be scripted by incoming Nightwing writer Dan Watters, with art by Absolute Wonder Woman artist Hayden Sherman, and colorist Triona Farrell.
Batman: Dark Patterns a detective series first and foremost
I love the strangeness of Batman,” says Watters. “A man dressed as a huge, gothic bat, solving crimes in a hostile city of black magicians, mad scientists, and superstitious, cowardly criminals. I’ve always wanted to write a series of mystery stories that would home [sic] in on that aspect of the character. A dweller in the shadows of Gotham’s towering, delipidated spires.”
Set during the early years of the Dark Knight’s crusade, Dark Patterns will center on a series of strange mysteries. The focus will be on investigation, with attention to the process of deduction. Also, given this is an early Batman tale, he will work without the resources and connections so commonly depicted today. This presents the detective at his stripped-down core, as a man with few allies, relying on his wits.
“Each case is born from Gotham and its people adapting to the horrors they’ve been subjected to over recent and not so recent years,” adds Watters. “The criminals are superstitious and cowardly, but how could the whole city not be superstitious and afraid?” Watters says this ethos will establish Batman as “a wounded healer . . . who seeks to give hope to the hopeless.”
Batman: Dark Patterns #1 arrives in comic shops everywhere on December 11, 2024.
