Ain’t No Dummies Here! — Reviewing ‘Batman: Dark Patterns’ #4

Batman has faced a lot of threats through his long, body-battering career. Some of them truly strange in nature. None more so than an entire tenement building and most of the residents within.

That’s definitely, probably, a new one. Congrats on a new (potential) first caped crusader!

The focus changes as Dan Watters, Hayden Sherman, Tríona Farrell, and Frank Cvetkovic continue their early career detecting with Batman: Dark Patterns #4.

Less is more sometimes, but I would read the hell out of a full ongoing series from this team. I don’t even care if they stay set in the past, are set in the present, or stood in their own out-of-continuity timeline. This crew knows how to tell damn good Batman stories and I want all that I can get from them.

Batman is a character that fits into various molds. Both from a storytelling genre perspective but also with artwork styling positions. There is almost nothing that doesn’t work to encompass the dark knight and his world. Some styles though are more fitting than others.

Sherman and Farrell have cracked a code here.

These visuals are beyond stunning. They are rough, textured, dense, creative, sprawling, emotive, and just about every descriptive word you can imagine. Something just screams epic any time Sherman’s artwork appears in a book. Even here, where the character is mostly contained in a multilevel really old apartment building. Angles chosen, presentation of subjects, and the overall darker toned moodiness makes everything feel larger than life.

Just look at the scene where Batman confronts Scarface and his new human puppet. Sherman makes a stairwell fight far grander than one might think from the concept on paper.

Even the most mundane encounters carry the overall energy. Faces really sell the emotions and mood, from terrified to excited to scared. All of it really grabs the audience and holds on tightly. There is an undercurrent of fear and terror at all times, confinement, despite how epic in scale it also feels, making something big and small at the same time, quite the talented feat.

Color wise, the palette that Farrell has settled on for this series just works. It features a lot of darker and heavier tones to really fit the crime and moody nature. While most of the other colors range from standardly vivid to off the charts. This gives the story a fantastical out-of-this-world feeling despite being so on the ground gritty.

At the same time, Farrell knows when to pull back, letting colors fall into this sort of washed-out or toned down space. This sometimes befits the lower light setting, but also gives things a starker and firmer punch. Again, this really plays into the ominous somewhat trapped feeling the story is meant to evoke.

They made Scarface actually kind of terrifying.

Not something I expected to ever say about that particular villain, but here we are.

Artistically, the ventriloquist dummy takes up a lot of proverbial space. Shadowy, dark, and powerful despite true circumstances. That’s not to forget the whole ‘taking over an entire building’ aspect of it all, leaving Batman in quite the lurch. Watters has this deep respect for the world that Batman comes from, finding ways to take what is known and expand to new heights.

Starting things off in the first arc with a newly created villain was a good move. It allows this second one to dip a bit more into the familiar, while making it completely unfamiliar.

There is nothing ‘nice’ about this case and situation. Batman is thrown into uncharted waters with this villain sequence, but also the amount of civilian participation. There’s a whole building full of people, some of them ‘criminals’ and others not, seemingly at the beck and call of Scarface. No matter how tough and strong Batman is, fighting that many people, will present a true challenge.

That challenge is not only to his strength, but to his cause and his conviction.

Ominous energy needs to bleed into all the words spoken here. Characters are frightening, and the situation is getting out of hand. Cvetkovic delivers that in every single letter that comes across the pages. He lets their bubbles and fonts loom over things, while finding ways to liven up or change some voices to be more unique. Scarface has a very blocky, almost wooden, bubble shape, and line delivery is a fantastic choice.

Batman: Dark Patterns #4 is now available from DC Comics.