Batman: Dark Patterns #8 – Dan Watters, Writer; Hayden Sherman, Artist; Triona Farrell, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: The second part of Paradoilea takes us deeper and deeper into the strange world of the Rookery, the Gotham shantytown that makes up its darkest corners. Batman has been obsessed with the case of the dead woman he found in a dryer – only to run into dead end after dead end. He’s been tearing his way through the Rookery, beating up every shady figure he finds in search of answers about the killing and the Red Hood Gang, only to come up empty. It’s even making him paranoid and snappish towards Gordon and Dr. Sereika – the latter of whom isn’t finding any clues in the body. You know Batman’s unraveling when he shows up at the home of the gossip columnist who has been writing negative stories about him to intimidate him – and instead gets a disturbing story about the good doctor that hints that he had a twisted past before he came to Gotham.
From there, Batman doubles down on his mission to find the truth – and winds up catching the attention of two boys who hang out in the Rookery. He chases them and finds his way to a mysterious empty grave – only for it to be a trap, leaving him wounded and leading him right to the Rookery’s one remaining member of the Red Hood Gang. But it’s an old man, on his last legs – and he has absolutely nothing to lose. There’s no supernatural or horrific threat in this issue like there was in the first two arcs, but what there is is no less terrifying – a whole city within a city that has given up hope and with it mercy. This is a story about the depravity that happens when people are given up as less than human – and it ends with a young and less-trained Batman at the mercy of one of the darkest evils he’s ever encountered. Each arc of this series has been completely different from the last, but no less compelling.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
