DC’s Best Batman Book Reveals the Hero’s Real Impact on Gotham

Batman: Dark Patterns is easily one of the best Batman books going on right now. It’s probably the best, and a huge part of that is because it perfectly understands how Batman ticks. The series is centered around three-part mysteries set early on in Batman’s career, and focuses primarily on the Dark Knight’s famed skill as the World’s Greatest Detective. The most recent storyline, titled “Paraeidolia,” focuses on Batman as he battles with a resurfaced Red Hood Gang deep in one of Gotham’s poorest neighborhoods, the Rookery. The last issue ended with Batman being captured by the old man running the scheme, and issue #9 concludes this tale. Beyond being an incredibly engaging mystery with a heartwrenching ending, this issue also beautifully shows us the impact that Batman has on Gotham City.

The Truth Behind the Red Hood Gang

This adventure started with Batman recalling how many fires there’d been in Gotham recently, and trying to convince himself he was seeing patterns that weren’t there. Then another fire started at an old laundromat in the Rookery, and inside the burning washing machine was a dead woman. The killing resembled the old Red Hood Gang who terrorized Gotham over seventy years ago and inspired the Joker’s iteration, the victim’s face burnt off with bleach. Batman attempted to get answers from the Rookery, but nobody came forward to supply answers. Instead, the Dark Knight continuously patrolled around the neighborhood for days, until the old man got the drop on him. He woke up, hands and arms tied behind his back, with the old man in a wheelchair and two young boys with red hoodies pulled up.

Batman immediately realized how stupid he’d been, lost in some magical or evil explanation for a very simple reality. The Red Hood Gang wasn’t back, the old man just wanted everyone to think they were. The reason nobody snitched on them is because they had no idea who did it, and the woman in the dryer was someone murdered by the actual gang and buried beside the laundromat decades ago. The old man and his two grandsons dug the woman up and left her in the dryer to inspire fear, but when nobody noticed they set it on fire, and even then, the only person who cared enough to pay attention was Batman. The old man wanted to make it seem like the gang was back to try and enforce some order in the Rookery through fear, scare them into treating each other better. But in modern Gotham they were just another fire in a city full of arsonists. Based on the fact that they didn’t even take off his cowl, Batman deduced that they never killed anyone before and were terrified to do so.

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The old man had never even been a member of the Red Hood Gang. He was just a kid who watched the woman be buried. They sent the younger boy, Jake, outside so they could kill Batman, but Bruce intimidated them by breaking down how it would look to watch his face melt and taunting the old man. The other boy, Sam, tried to take the bucket of bleach to kill Bats, but the old man fought him because he wanted to do it, and in the struggle the gun went off, killing Sam. The old man had a heart attack, his final words being that all he wanted to do was improve his neighborhood. It took the exhausted Batman another twelve minutes to escape his ties, and by then it was far too late.

Batman’s True Impact

Batman left, telling Jake not to go back inside until the police arrived. He told Alfred how he accomplished nothing by patrolling the Rookery, how all he brought was pain. But back with Jake, several men approached, poised to attack him, until they saw a shadow on the roof. Paraeidolia is seeing faces or patterns where there are none, and these would-be assailants saw the Dark Knight in a chimney and rags. They took off running, saving Jake. While Batman doubted his own importance, saying that he couldn’t do anything to really help the Rookery, he was unaware that he already had. Those nights he spent relentlessly patrolling one of Gotham’s most overlooked parts left its mark, and the people within felt his presence even when he wasn’t there. He had done exactly what he always wanted; become a symbol of fear to scare criminals into not hurting anybody.

Where the old man thought he could dredge up someone else’s crime to inspire fear, Batman did so himself. Batman can’t be everywhere at once, but nobody ever knows where he is, so the idea that he could come from any shadow and beat you to a pulp terrifies the cowardly lot of criminals. His unending crusade to protect Gotham and solve this crime left a positive impact, even if he couldn’t see it. While Batman the person is the one who deals with crimes and emergencies that are actively happening, Batman the legend prevents countless other crimes from starting up in the first place. It’s easy to forget, especially for the Dark Knight, but he does have an impact, and it is protecting Gotham even when he fails to believe in it.

Batman: Dark Patterns #9 is on sale now!