Dark Patterns is making headlines.
It’s inarguably been one of the most exciting DC Comics publishing moments in recent years. A certain other entertainment news outlet even recently named the incomplete series as one of the best titles of this incomplete decade.
My praises of Dan Watters and Hayden Sherman’s Dark Patterns have been loud and consistent. As someone mired in the monthly output of the Batman office over at DC publishing, I have echoed this consensus of excitement and have championed the series for its strengths for its thrillingly moody atmospherics and its compelling, street-level detective plotting.
But this series does not have a legacy yet. It can’t, definitionally— it’s still going on. So this unrestrained lauding and superlative-izing is a trend I’m wary of. We’ve only got three months to wait before we can confidently examine this series’ legacy.
Let’s take a look at the kickoff issue of the final chapter of “Batman: Dark Patterns”.
A narrator, unidentified at first, tells us an abridged history of Gotham through its major fires. Before an impressionistic backdrop of the series’ previous cases, the narrator tells of the intrinsic connection between the phenomenon of ongoing fires and the city’s inhabitants. A Gothamites true nature is to embrace the fire, they tell us. We then transition to a quick but chilling two-page cold open of a couple witnessing a fire in a storefront, peering in to discover that there is something even more fearsome lurking in the flames.
Those “impressionistic backdrops” are then revealed to be the desperate fever dreams of a Batcave-bedridden Bruce. His mind is working overtime parsing out his recent casebook, analyzing and reconsidering its most outré elements and its most suspicious characters. Wracked by illness, Batman must catch up with Gordon, who is looking in on some of Gotham’s fire-based criminal elements. Gordon and Batman finally encounter a fire— as well as the fearsome figure who keeps popping up at these disasters.
Artistically, this series is firing on all cylinders. Hayden Sherman and Triona take images and figures we’ve all seen thousands of times— Batman crashing through a window, repelling down a highrise— and makes them fresh and exciting.
Extended dialogue, internal monologue, gratuitous “voice over”: these are intractable elements of noir. Some character, whether it’s the hero, the villain, or a bystander, almost always carries us along in their thought process, letting us peer through the fog of it all. I think that this reading experience is what defines this issue. There are no missteps here, but the reader is left bogged down a bit in a transitional phase. This issue is not without its gripping moments and continually stunning visuals, but the overall feeling is of reading a strictly necessary chapter of a great and larger story.
There is nothing whatsoever stopping this phenomenal series from wrapping up on its strongest chapter. There just is not as much this month to recommend the latest individual issue.
Recommend if…
- You like your hardboiled detective stories balanced with trippy dream sequences
- You’ve been waiting to see how certain “obvious” elements of this unfolding mysteries will be subverted
- You’re a genuine pyromaniach.
Overall: A narrative lowpoint for a narratively outstanding series is still going to be a more than serviceable comic book. It’s Dark Patterns— how bad can it really be? However, this issue suffers from a noticeable lack of focus and forward momentum which has propelled this series so successfully all throughout this year. There is no reason to skip this issue, but better things are coming. This is not a great issue— it’s a functional piece of a great story.
Score: 7/10
English (US) · 