Batman #386 – “Black Mask: Losing Face” – Doug Moench/Tom Mandrake
This issue introduces a new Batman villain, Black Mask. Pretty much the entire issue is dedicated to his origin story, showing how Roman Sionis (heir to a cosmetics company) became criminal mastermind Black Mask. Moench really goes all out on this one; maybe DC had started giving creators a piece of the characters they invented and Moench was trying to come up with the next Joker. It didn’t quite work out that way, but Black Mask has lasted a long time and been used in other media, so maybe Moench and Mandrake did make some money off him. I won’t get into the minutiae of Black Mask’s origin, but basically he’s Roman Sionis, heir to the Janus Cosmetics fortune (incidentally, the Sionises were friends with Thomas and Martha Wayne). Roman was
dropped by the doctor who delivered him, which might explain some of his later excesses. As a child, Roman got used to hiding his true feelings about things behind a “mask” of politeness. (Masks will be a recurring theme with him.) At twelve, he was bitten by a rabid raccoon and had some pretty wild fever dreams. After joining his father’s company, he became Vice-President, but fell for a model named Circe. His parents didn’t want him consorting with a “common model”, but they conveniently died in a fire (for which Circe gave Roman an alibi) and he took over Janus Cosmetics. Roman started collecting masks 
and decided makeup should be more overt, so he brought out a line of “face-paint” cosmetics. It was a disaster and he moved on to have his researchers create makeup that was completely waterproof. But Roman rushed it into production before testing for side-effects and women who wore it started getting bad rashes on their faces, sometimes with their skin peeling right off. Lawsuits followed, almost ruining the company. Circe left him and Roman had to be bailed out by Wayne Enterprises but was no longer allowed to run things. He went to his parents’ mausoleum and almost got hit by lightning. He smashed his father’s coffin and took a piece of the lid (in ebony), carving a mask from it. Roman Sionis disappeared, taking his masks, a load of cash, a gun, and the
formula for the defective makeup that got him sued. Not long after, Black Mask recruited his first two underworld minions, giving them masks and telling them their old identities were now over. Batman caught another of Black Mask’s punks and realized there was a new crime boss in town. Meanwhile, Black Mask uses a poisoned mask to kill the CEO of Janus Cosmetics, which tips Batman off to his identity. Black Mask tells his minions it’s time they set their sights on Bruce Wayne.
Detective #553 – “The False Face Society of Gotham” – Doug Moench/Klaus Janson
This one continues from the above story, with Black Mask recruiting numerous criminals to his new False Face Society, giving them all masks from his collection. When another Janus board member is killed with a poisoned mask, Batman is certain Roman Sionis is Black Mask and tells Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Bullock. Later, Bruce Wayne gets a call from Lucius Fox telling him that Janus stock is dropping fast and it might drag the rest of Wayne Enterprises down with it. Commissioner Gordon and Bullock meet with the acting mayor (Skowcroft),
who threatens to fire both of them. Gordon points out how crooked the last mayor was and that Skowcroft would look like he was crooked too if he suddenly fired two cops the public trusts. Gordon says Skowcroft will have to earn the people’s respect if he wants to be elected in his own right. That night, Bruce Wayne takes Julia Pennyworth to a fancy fund-raiser and we see two of Black Mask’s men watching him from across the street. Bruce notices them and isn’t too surprised, since Black Mask has been targeting Wayne executives. Black Mask is across town, kidnapping his ex-girlfriend Circe and affixing a mask to her face that’ll leave her scarred for life. After the fundraiser, Bruce calls Jason 
Todd and they lead the two goons into the subway where Batman and Robin are waiting to confront them. The Dynamic Duo pound the thugs, but it turns out they were recruited to follow Bruce Wayne by a couple of other Black Mask minions, so there’s no way to find Black Mask himself. Across town, the newly-scarred Circe is given a choice: join the False Face Society s Black Mask’s “queen”, or have one of the poisoned masks put on her face. She chooses to join and is given a mask made of plastic, since that’s how Black Mask sees her.
Green Arrow – “Crazy From the Heat” – Joey Cavalieri/Jerome K. Moore/Bruce Patterson
This one starts with Green Arrow and Black Canary rescuing a woman and her baby from a burning (and supposedly-abandoned) building. Black Canary runs into the arsonist, a woman called Bonfire, and almost dies in
the blaze after freezing up during the fight. Arrow rescues her and when the firefighters show up, Arrow gives the Fire Chief shit, saying that the buildings are full of squatters and someone’s trying to scare them off with the fires so the buildings can be bought by developers. As she recovers, Black Canary tells Green Arrow about freezing up in the fire and says it’s almost like she’d been through that exact situation before. After Arrow leaves, Canary thinks about her mother (the first Black Canary) and starts looking through her old scrapbook, where she sees something that freaks her out. We’ll have to wait until next issue to see what it is.
Batman & the Outsiders #24 – “I Went to the Animal Fair …” – Mike W. Barr/Alan Davis
This one starts with Halo (who’s back to using the name Gabrielle Doe) running into some punks at the bus station. (Gaby decided to leave the Outsiders last issue to figure out who she is and what she wants to do.) A hippie-looking dude named David helps Gaby and invites her to his commune upstate. She jumps right into his hippie bus and goes with him … that’s gonna be trouble. Meanwhile, the rest of the Outsiders are at the Gotham Zoo (in their civilian identities), where Bruce Wayne is donating a Komodo dragon to the zoo. Rex (Metamorpho) Mason and his
fiancée (Sapphire Stagg) are there for another reason … meeting up with Sapphire’s father (Simon) who hates Rex and has even tried to kill him several times. Things are pretty tense until Sapphire gives Rex and her father shit, telling them if they both love her they’ll settle their differences. The other Outsiders wander around and Tatsu (Katana) Yamashiro is still depressed because Gaby left. A bunch of urban commandos calling themselves the Liberators come in with guns to take over the Zoo in protest over animals being pampered while humans are starving to death … or something. Katana, Black Lightning, and Geo-Force take out some of the gunmen and get the other civilians to safety before 
changing to their costumed identities. They take out some more Liberators, Black Lightning in the primate cages, Geo-Force in the elephant sanctuary, and Katana in the reptile house (where she saves a kid from the Komodo dragon). Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne pretends to hide in an office so he can change to Batman and uses his patented brand of intimidation to figure out why the Liberators are really there. Some Liberators try to waste Sapphire and her father but Metamorpho stops them and Batman reveals that Simon’s business manager set the whole thing up, hoping to kill Simon and his heir (“accidentally” caught in the crossfire during the Liberators’ attack) so he
could take over Simon’s empire. Simon thanks Metamorpho for saving his ass and it looks like he isn’t going o complain about the wedding too much. We’ll find out in the 1985 Annual, which I’ll be reviewing after I finish all the regular issues. There’s an epilogue with Gaby arriving at the commune upstate, which is full of hippies, led by a guy called Brother Abraham and a woman named Sister Eve. Yeah, Gaby’s joined a cult. We’ll see what happens with that next issue.
Firestorm #38 – “Night of the Weasel” – Gerry Conway/Rafael Kayanan/Ian Akin, Brian Garvey
This one starts with Professor Martin Stein arriving at Vandemeer University in Pittsburgh to start his new job. The place is pretty deserted and Stein soon finds out why when the Dean (Emily Rice) comes by to give him a ride. Emily tells him there have been a series of horrific murders on campus lately, so everyone’s afraid to walk around alone. Emily tells Martin about the victims, who don’t seem to have anything in common other than the way they were eviscerated and dismembered. Emily’s petty freaked out and tells Martin it’s okay if he wants to change his mind about working there. Martin decides to stay, thinking maybe Firestorm can figure out who’s behind the killings. Of course, we already
know it’s the Weasel because we’ve seen him over the last issues … and now we see Weasel watching Professor Stein from across the street. Back in New York, Ronnie Raymond and Doreen Day are out at a club having fun. They seem pretty cozy since their talk back in issue 34 … Ronnie even tells Doreen he loves her (with no mention whatsoever of Firehawk/Lorraine Reilly). Cliff Carmichael is at the club and he’s still an asshole, accusing Ronnie of cheating because he did so well on his science exams. Ronnie tells Doreen he didn’t cheat, but he’s really not sure how he did so well on the exams. Downtown, 
Ronnie’s dad (Ed) is still going out with Felicity Smoak, who’s ready to file her big lawsuit against Firestorm. Ed and Felicity must be getting serious because he’s ready to introduce her to Ronnie. In Pittsburgh, Professor Stein is attacked in his hotel room by Weasel, who says Stein is the “last one” and now Weasel will be safe. Stein tries to fight back and then escape, but apparently he can’t see anything without his glasses so he ends up getting thrown out the window. He tries to concentrate so he can trigger the Firestorm transformation and just barely manages it before splattering on the sidewalk. (Conveniently, Ronnie had just dropped Doreen off, so she doesn’t see him disappear into thin air.) Firestorm goes back to the hotel room but doesn’t see the Weasel, so he
splits into Ronnie and Stein again. Unfortunately, Weasel is still there and knocks both of them out. When they wake up, they’re tied up in an old steel smelting plant. Weasel rants on about how much pressure he’s under and how hard it is to be an academic and get tenure, so it sounds like he’s probably another prof at Vandemeer. Weasel has reactivated the smelters and threatens to pour molten steel all over his captives; we’ll see how that turns out next issue.
Vigilante #20 – “A Dream that Just Won’t Die” – Marv Wolfman (plot), Paul Kupperberg/Tod Smith/Rick Magyar
This one starts with Adrian Chase having a nightmare about wasting a bunch of gang members as Vigilante. Ever since Chase decided to give up being Vigilante (last issue) after being made a judge, the nightmares have been happening more frequently and getting more intense. Adrian really gets a shock when he sees a news report about Vigilante slaughtering some gang members last night. Adrian wonders if he really went out and unconsciously killed those guys or if he’s just losing his mind … he seems to be leaning toward the latter. Later, Adrian’s girlfriend Marcia finds him half
out of it in his judge’s chambers. He tells her he’s fighting something dark inside himself and she urges him not to give in to it. Adrian pulls himself together and makes it through his first day as a judge, although he feels like a fraud dispensing justice and passing judgment on who’s innocent or guilty after all the stuff he did—and might still be doing—as Vigilante. He and Marcia bang that night but the nightmares return and he dreams about being Vigilante again. This time, the cops show up right after Vigilante kills someone and he ends up shooting a cop. Marcia wakes up alone and finds Adrian on the balcony, freaked out by his dreams. He leaves and later we see Vigilante blowing 
away some mobster. But this time someone else shows up to catch him … Nightwing. Nightwing knows who Vigilante really is and figures it’s his responsibility to stop him since he’s turned a blind eye to Vigilante’s activities so far. They fight and Vigilante tries to shoot Nightwing before taking off. Nightwing catches him on a bridge and Vigilante throws Nightwing off, almost killing him. Later, Adrian is at home, afraid to go to sleep, when Nightwing shows up for round two … and he ain’t happy. I’m assuming this is all a big fake-out and there’s another Vigilante running around out there killing people, although I’m not sure how that ties in with Adrian’s nightmares; I guess we’ll find out soon.