Batman: Dark Patterns #12: The Great Fire of Gotham Burns Bright

“There is another fire tonight in Gotham City.”

This stunning conclusion to “The Child of Fire” arc – the last of four seemingly disparate cases which make up the quietly mythic, defiantly humane 12-issue maxi-series that is Batman: Dark Patterns – connects the rash of fires that have plagued Gotham City since the series began, closing on a unifying note which beautifully distills Watters and Co.’s vision. 

The City of Gotham is front-and-center throughout the whole of Dark Patterns. Gotham as an idea. Gotham as a place with a long and storied history of tragedy and loss, but also one of resilience, an undying spark of hope for the future. Gotham as a living, breathing place filled with real people who are, for the most part, just doing what they can to get by. Even the criminals and monsters featured in this series aren’t evil for evil’s sake – they are, in most cases, tragic figures, pushed to the brink of desperation by social and economic factors outside of their control. Their ends are often understandable – admirable, even – but the means by which they go about achieving them frequently do more damage than good. Because of this, more than ever, we understand what The Bat-Man of Gotham is fighting for, which is something these books often posture at, but seldom center in the way that this one does, and rarely – if ever – as effectively. 

Hayden Sherman’s (one of the great, rising talents in the medium, between this, and their ongoing work on Absolute Wonder-Woman) incredible layouts, design work, and in-panel world-building goes a long way toward this depiction of Gotham City as a living, breathing place filled with real people, as well, so detailed and vividly-rendered that the reader – or, this reader, at least – is completely immersed and enveloped, transported to a place that is completely distinct from our world (leaning into the city’s gothic retro-futurist aesthetics in very satisfying ways), yet all too familiar. 

Triona Farrell’s colors are equally wonderful and vivid, utilizing an intense, vibrant palette, injecting a liveliness and warmth that speaks to the humanist heart at the center of “Dark Patterns” crime-horror exterior. Farrell’s Gotham is beautifully textured, with sumptuous hot pinks, blues, and deep purples, providing a Nicolas Winding Refn-esque, neon-noir look, using specific color patterns intentionally to create a sense of visual dynamism and thematic resonance.

Nothing is as simple as it seems in the Gotham City of “Dark Patterns.” Behind every fresh horror, there is deep sadness. Behind every grotesque monster, a tragic victim. But not everything can be justified or made sense of. The World’s Greatest Detective’s greatest lesson as this series comes to a close is that some things just… are. As Dr. Sereika posits in the series’ final moments, “explaining” how The Great Fire of Gotham was miraculously extinguished, “Fire does often live and die by its own terms. We hope for a predictable pattern, but there are thousands of factors. […] We hope to understand after the fact, but it’s rare we truly do.” 

The flames can be fanned and stoked, but rarely – if ever – can they be controlled or understood. Nicky Harris’ Child of Fire tries, but gets snuffed out by Firefly in the process. Batman must learn to live with this uncertainty – and we, the reader, alongside him. No easy answers are offered. No pat, oversimplistic resolutions. He must come to terms with the fact that not everything can be “solved” and tied up in a neat bow. 

“There will be a fire tonight in Gotham City. There always has been.”