Black Mask (DC)
Black Mask is a male comic supervillain who features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Roman Sionis was the male human son of Charles Sionis and his wife with the boy's father being the owner of Janus Cosmetics that was a powerful business conglomerate that operated in Gotham City. (Batman v1 #386)
At this time, his parents met the Wayne family during a social event with them having their own son named Bruce Wayne who was a bit younger than Roman. During this time, Roman's parents pushed him to make friends with Bruce as they wanted to increase their social standing. However, he came to despise the 'friends' that were made during these events. When he was 12 years old, he joined his parents as they went to their summer vacation in the north woods. (Batman v1 #386)
On his 21st birthday, he was brought into his fathers company and given a position in the business. Within a month, he managed to rise through the ranks at a remarkable pace as he became Vice-President of Janus Cosmetics. During this time, he met a model named Circe who was interviewing for a job at the company. Roman became enchanted by her beauty and hired her where he gradually developed a relationship with her. This relationship was something that was not approved by his parents with his father intending to fire the woman the next day. During the night, Roman spent the night with Circe and later went out to start a fire at his family home which killed his parents. The fire was seen as an accident with no one finding out the true cause of the blaze. The death of his parents allowed Roman to inherit the Sionis fortune and he took formal charge of the company. (Batman v1 #386)
Forming the False Face Society, he gathered a large group of followers that wore masks and he used in his vendetta against the Wayne Foundation along with its head Bruce Wayne. (Detective Comics v1 #553)
Back on the streets, Black Mask continued to terrorize Gotham as its head of organized crime. He began actively recruiting supervillains to maintain his status, trying to hire Mister Freeze as an enforcer. (Batman v1 #635) Around this time, Black Mask's operations were targeted by a vicious, mysterious anti-hero calling himself the Red Hood. Though Sionis initially dismissed him, Red Hood really caught the crime lord's ire when he hijacked Black Mask's expensive shipment of Kryptonite. (Batman v1 #637) Black Mask sent Mr. Freeze to murder Red Hood, but the attack failed. (Batman v1 #638) For weeks, Red Hood continued to undermine Black Mask's operations, but Sionis decided to take a different approach. Instead of fighting the problem, he simply waited for Batman to eventually take out the problem for him. (Batman v1 #639) Continuing business as usual, Black Mask allied himself with the Mad Hatter to use his mind-control technology to brainwash Killer Croc as one of his grunts. (Detective Comics v1 #800)
Red Hood's attacks on Black Mask's empire started to damage his business enough that he was forced to take a more active approach. Soon, Red Hood located Black Mask's new hideout and used a rocket launcher to destroy the place. Angry and desperate, Black Mask accepted an offer from Deathstroke to join the new Secret Society for the resources to kill the Red Hood. (Batman v1 #646) Black Mask was disappointed when the Society's "help" turned out to be Captain Nazi, the Hyena, and Count Vertigo, none of whom were particularly infamous or powerful; his fears were quickly confirmed when the Red Hood, with Batman's help, defeated the trio. (Batman v1 #647) Trying bargaining instead, Black Mask struck a deal with the Red Hood. As per the agreement, Sionis gathered all his lieutenants into one room and killed them. Despite kneecapping his own operation to appease the man, Black Mask was double-crossed by the Red Hood anyway. Sionis stabbed the Red Hood in the chest, seemingly killing him. (Batman v1 #648) This was until Batman revealed the man Sionis killed was one of the Red Hood's decoys. Focusing his efforts of the Hood, Batman left Black Mask trapped in a minefield of miniature explosives for the police to apprehend. (Batman v1 #649)
After a new group of supervillains were chased out of the East End by Catwoman, Black Mask renewed his interest in terrorizing his old enemy. Black Mask kidnapped Catwoman's close ally Slam Bradley and subjected him to extreme physical torture. Bradley was rescued by his son, an undercover cop posing as a supervillain called Smart Bomb, and Black Mask surrendered his mutilated but alive captive without a fight. (Catwoman v3 #51) Black Mask's attack on Catwoman's allies couldn't have come at a worse time for her; she was in the middle of an identity crisis from the revelation that Zatanna had brainwashed her into becoming a crimefighter. Catwoman, furious with a new philosophy on crime, invaded Black Mask's penthouse and cornered the crimelord with a gun. Black Mask, not believing that Catwoman would actually shoot him, taunted her with the promise to become her "arch-nemesis" by killing all of her loved ones. However, Black Mask predicted wrong, and Catwoman shot him in the head at point blank, murdering him. (Catwoman v3 #52)
Afterwards, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham came to suffer from a psychotic breakdown from exposure to a variety of mind-altering chemicals from various Batman villains resulting in him claiming the identity of Black Mask for himself. (Batman v1 #697)
During the Blackest Night, Roman's body came to be reanimated by a black Power Ring turning him into a member of the Black Lantern Corps. Upon being revived, he began targeting Catwoman in order to show him why shooting him in the head was a bad idea. As part of his efforts to scare Catwoman, he began to target her sister Maggie once again. He was ultimately defeated when Poison Ivy managed to trap him inside a mutated pitcher plant where its digestive juices dissolved his body at a rate faster than his ring could regenerate. (Catwoman v3 #83)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. According to one account, Roman Sionis was the son of Richard Sionis who was a figure known as the Mask that founded the False Face Society. (Catwoman v4 #51)
When Richard was dying of old age, Roman snuck into the hospital disguised as a nurse and poisoned his father in order to gain complete control over the False Face Society. He came to leave leaves his father's signature mask on his corpse. (Catwoman v4 #51)
After his escape, Black Mask was able to hide any proof of this by making Jeremiah Arkham believe that he was still in his cell. Sionis send one of his agents, Mad Bull, to get the masks of the False Face Society, which were hidden as heads of a carousel's figures at an old amusement park. However, when Mad Bull, after a fight with Batman, arrived at the carousel, the masks were gone. Sionis then went to a circus were his former henchman Edgar Dempsey was hiding. Dempsey was supposed to hide the masks in case Black Mask got arrested, so Sionis believed that it was him who removed them. Sionis forced Dempsey to lead him and the circus' staff, which were all under his mind control except for a short statured clown, to the location of the masks. Dempsey led them to a museum, right before an exhibit featuring wax figures wearing tribal masks. Believing this to be a trick, Sionis attacked Dempsey, who claimed that those were indeed his masks and that "he" changed them via experimenting. As Edgar refused to tell Black Mask the stranger's identity, he tried to use his mind control on him to force Dempsey to eat his own tongue, but it didn't work as "he" was protecting Dempsey. Suddenly, the statues revealed themselves to be actual people as they attacked Black Mask and his minions, while Dempsey claimed that he needed protection after Black Mask went insane. Black Mask killed Dempsey as a punishment. At this moment, the clown revealed himself to be the Mad Hatter, who had offered his protection to Dempsey and was behind the theft and changing of the masks as he couldn't bear another criminal in Gotham with mind control powers, planning to use the masks of the False Face Society for himself. Just as Sionis surrendered his mask to Jarvis, Batman interfered. When the Mad Hatter tried to escape from the chaos, Sionis knocked him on the jaw, taking his mask back. The two started to have a telepathic fight, using their mind control against each other with none of them giving up until Batman punched Sionis, causing his mask to get a crack. This caused a white flash of light, after which Black Mask was unconscious with the mask lying on the floor before Batman took it to bring both the mask and Sionis to Arkham. Roman was brought back into his padding cell with Dr. Arkham being more careful about him this time, planning to make sure that Sionis stayed in his cell. (Detective Comics Annual v2 #1)
He came to join the Secret Society of Super-Villains during the Crime Syndicate of America's invasion of Earth. (Forever Evil v1 #1)
Sometime after his battle with the Outlaws, Roman recovered and was sent back to Arkham. After a short stay at the asylum Roman's lawyers were able to get him out of jail on a technicality. One day Black Mask was relaxing in the Gotham Bathhouse when he was visited by Robin. Robin shared grievances with Mask about a foreign family Roman had been extorting for money. Roman ignored Robin and told him that if he did not leave then he would have his men take care of the young boy. Robin coldly stated that he had taken all of Roman's men out, and then took him into captivity. (Teen Titans Special v1 #1) Instead of being taken to Arkham or Blackgate like usual, Roman was instead taken to the secret headquarters of the Teen Titans in New York City. Mask was locked in a dark dungeon at the bottom of the cellar alongside fellow villains Brother Blood and Onomatopoeia, where he was subjected to cruel and inhumane conditions by Batman's sidekick. (Teen Titans v6 #20)
Overview
Personality and attributes
After his birth, people had that there was something strange about his eyes that carried a certain dullness which never fully concealed his true nature. (Batman v1 #386)
The concept of masks was deeply embedded within the psyche of Roman with the first one he had seen was that of the doctor that delivered him. Growing up, he saw the masks his parents wore as they intermingled with guests during social events. (Batman v1 #386)
Donning the black mask was said to always recreate him and killed his former identity of Roman Sionis whilst giving birth to a new one. (Detective Comics v1 #553)
However, another account claimed that his father was Richard Sionis who was a masked crime boss that founded the False Face Society. (Catwoman v4 #51)
Powers and abilities
He was the inheritor of the Sionis fortune with his father having once been the owner of Janus Cosmetics that was worth millions. (Batman v1 #386)
Black Mask was the head of the False Face Society where he attracted many people into its ranks to become his soldiers. He invited those to wear masks as he believed that this would sublimate their personalities and let their inhibitions die so that the person's deeper drives along with primitive instincts rose to the surface. Sionis promised to make them rich but in return they had to serve him in other ways and operated as tools of vengeance for him. (Detective Comics v1 #553)
He came to be one of the three Gotham lord's of organized crime in the city alongside the Penguin and Great White Shark where they were known as the Black and Whites. (All-Star Batman v1 #2)
Notes
- Black Mask was created by Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake where he made his first appearance in Batman v1 #386 (August, 1985).
Alternate Versions
In other media
Television
- In The Batman, Black Mask appeared as an antagonist in the animated television series where he was voiced by actor James Remar.
- In Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Black Mask appeared in the animated television series where he was voiced by actor John DiMaggio.
- In Gotham, Roman's father Richard Sionis appeared in the setting of the live-action television series where he was portrayed by actor Todd Stashwick.
Films
- In Batman: Under the Red Hood, Black Mask appeared in the 2010 animated film where he was voiced by actor Wade Williams.
- In Batman: Bad Blood, Black Mask appeared as a secondary antagonist in the animated film where he was voiced by actor Steve Blum.
- In Birds of Prey, Roman Beauvais Sionis appeared in the 2020 live-action film where he was portrayed by actor Ewan McGregor. This version is a narcissistic, skull-masked crime lord and leader of the False Face Society who masquerades as the charismatic owner of the "Black Mask Club", a popular nightclub among Gotham's criminal element. Cut off from the family fortune after running their business into the ground, Roman seeks to become the most powerful kingpin in the city to outdo his father. While pursing this goal, he has the Bertinelli crime family murdered to obtain a diamond embedded with the account numbers to their fortune. When Cassandra Cain steals the diamond from him, Sionis places a bounty on her head, but is eventually confronted by Helena Bertinelli, Harley Quinn, Dinah Lance, and Renee Montoya. In the ensuing fight, he kidnaps Cain and is pursued by Quinn, but the former hides a grenade in his pocket before the latter knocks off the Amusement Mile pier, during which he is killed by the grenade before hitting the water.
- In Catwoman: Hunted, Black Mask appeared in the setting of the anime film where he was voiced by actor Jonathan Banks.
Video games
- In Batman: Dark Tomorrow, Black Mask appeared as a boss antagonist in the video game where he was voiced by actor Tom McKeon.
- In DC Universe Online, Black Mask appeared in the setting of the MMORPG video game.
- In Batman: Arkham City, Black Mask appeared in the setting of the video game sequel where he was voiced by actor Nolan North.
Appearances
- Batman v1: (1985)
- Detective Comics v2:
- Catwoman v3:
- Catwoman v4:
- Forever Evil v1:
- Teen Titans:
- Black Mask: Year of the Villain v1:
- Catwoman:
External Links
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