So, with Birds of Prey
coming out next week, and all the hubbub about the recent reveal that two of
its villains will be portrayed as gay when they are canonically straight, I
figured I should do a write up on them. But, since I already did main villain
Roman Sionis aka Black Mask, I guess I’ll have to talk about his top henchmen
Victor Zsasz instead. We’ve hit 2020, can we please stop treating any attempt
at adding diversity to comic book adaptations like it’s an afront to the entire
medium? At least think about it, kay? Enough diversity talk, let’s talk about a
homicidal killer. Let’s get to it.
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| So each of those hashmarks represents a murder... that's horrifying. |
Victor Zsasz began life in Gotham
City, and was rather happily to begin with, for once. He had two loving
parents, a sizeable family fortune, and had built his own personal fortune all by
his early twenties. This ended, shockingly, tragically. Both of his parents
were killed in a boating accident when he was twenty-five, sending him into a
deep depression spiral. Officially making him the most relatable Batman villain
ever. What? I don’t care what Joker fans say, one bad day won’t make you
a homicidal maniac overnight. It can put you in a state of self-loathing and
misery that you might never recover from. Yes, I have a little personal
experience with that, but will spare you the details, other than it’s not me and if you know my family you probably know who I’m talking about. Victor found that the
only thing that gave him any feeling other that soul crushing despair was
gambling. Apparently, the thrill of cards, dice and/or slot machines
was enough to make him feel something, if only for a little while. The issue
was he wasn’t much of a gambler, and spent the next few years all but literally
throwing his money away into his habit. Things didn’t really nose dive, though,
until he found himself in the infamous Iceberg Lounge in Gotham. Said lounge
was owned and operated by Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin. Zsasz, who had been
on a hot streak that night, ended up playing against the Penguin, betted
everything he’d had left in the world, and lost it all. Big shock, we later find
out Penguin cheated.
Destitute and more depressed now
than ever, Zsasz decided to end it all and went to Gotham Bridge in jump to his
death. Not going to lie, this might be an instance were his death might have
been for the best. On the bridge, he was assaulted by an unstable homeless man
that had been infuriated to learn that Zsasz wasn’t going to give him any
money. Zsasz instinctively grabbed the knife and had a dark epiphany when he
looked into the horrified man’s eyes. He decided that life is meaningless and
nothing and nobody matters. As thanks for this insight, Zsasz stabbed the
homeless man to death. Zsasz decided that it was his mission in life to
liberate the zombies (how he now thinks of all living people) from mtheir pointless
existence. While he’ll kill anybody given the opportunity, he had a preference (like
a lot of killers) for young women, and developed a signature of slitting their
throats and leaving them in life like poses. Upon finishing his work, he’d cut
a tally mark into his skin. No surprise, when he was finally captured by the
Batman and police, he was diagnosed as insane and sentenced to life in Arkham
Asylum.
Dear Mayor of Gotham, maybe
consider sending your criminally insane literally anywhere else.
Like many inmates, Zsasz found his prison
sentence to be largely optional. He bribed a contractor to build a secret
passage from his cell to the outside, taking advantage of the Asylum’s reconstruction
under it’s new warden, Jeremiah Arkham. He’d inherited it from his elderly
uncle, Amadeus. It worked something like this, during the day, Zsasz would be
restrained and “treated” personally by Jeremiah, but at night when he was
supposedly locked in his cell, he’d use the passage to make his way back to
Gotham and commit murders. Oh, and he used his treatment time to slowly drive
Jeremiah insane as well, turning his captor into an unwitting henchman. Sort of
like what Joker did to Harley. This process went on for a short time, until his
modus operandi was noticed popping up again by police. Commissioner Gordon and
Batman faked Batman getting arrested and sent to Arkham to investigate. As he
was believed to be a cop killer, and obviously Jeremiah wasn’t on a need to
know basis, his stay at Arkham wasn’t fun. Zsasz, realizing that the jig was
probably up, killed the contractor and any other inmates that knew of his
little passageway and tried to make a break for it. He was captured by a team-up
of Batman and Nightwing and sent… back… to… Arkham. Oi, the stupidity.
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| Yep, he's mastered the crazy eye look. |
Zsasz would continue to escape Arkham
on a fairly regular basis, to strike at Gotham and its unwitting citizens just
when they’d about forgotten about the sociopath. His most damaging spree went
like so… Zsasz escaped from prison and went on a killing spree. Batman was hunting
him, but kept coming up on dead ends. As Bruce Wayne, he took the night off and
attended a charity function to cool his heels. Zsasz attacked at said function
and nearly fatally wounds… Alfred Pennyworth! Not wanting to let his beloved
butler and de-facto father die, Bruce rushed Alfred to the hospital and got him
treatment just in time. Deciding to make this attack mean something, Bruce held
a press conference to announce Alfred’s condition. Why? Because he knew Zsasz
would see it, and that his psychosis wouldn’t allow him to leave his foul deed
undone. He was right. Zsasz had already added Alfred to his Tally, and knowing that
the man was still alive made him feel like his skin was burning. He broke in to
the hospital to finish Alfred. This allowed Bruce as Batman to catch him off
guard and trounce Zsasz, sending him back to prison.
Zsasz killing sprees seem to only
ever be paused, not entirely stopped. A common problem Batman has with his most
heinous enemies. I think he’d rather taken on any number of Scarecrows and Mr.
Freezes if it meant never having to deal with an unstable killer like the Joker
or Zsasz again.
Zsasz is, like a lot of Batman’s
foes, a baseline human that just happens to have a natural skill for fighting. He
prefers to fight using knives and other bladed weapons, feeling that guns are
too unreliable. Though he will use a gun to coerce his victims. He’s
surprisingly strong and agile, being able to fight fist to fist with Batman and
giving the Dark Knight a run for his money. He’s also incredibly intelligent,
having used his incredible mind to plot multiple escapes from Arkham and elude even
Batman for weeks at a time. He’s also rather hard to track, as he pretty much
kills indiscriminately. Even if folks notice a lot of dead bodies that are,
say, sitting up in a chair or slumped against a building, it’s hard to pin that
specifically on Zsasz. Thankfully, Batman is always able to track him down eventually,
and rarely having to resort to use friends and allies as Bait, like with Alfred.
He also has the most underrated of gifts, a name that is a palindrome. What? It’s
a fun word to say so I use any excuse to bring it up. Palindrome.
Zsasz has been used a few times outside
of the comics. Given the fact that he’s a literal serial killer with a very
disturbing habit of slicing himself as often as his victims, I can see why a lot
of shows shied away from using him. Heck, I’d imagine even the moderately dark Batman
the Animated Series would have thought twice about using him, had he been a
more seasoned character during that shows run. And, I feel like pointing out,
he does follow that Decade rule I’ve mentioned in previous posts. He was
created back in 1992 with his earliest appearances outside of comics coming in
2003 (on a minor game I won’t be going into detail about called Batman: Dark
Tomorrow) and 05 (Cameo in Batman Begins).
He was a semi-regularly appearing
assassin in Gotham, portrayed by Anthony Carrigan. He’s
introduced in the seventh episode of the series “Penguin’s Umbrella” as crime
boss Carmine Falcone’s top man. He shifts to Penguin’s employ after Falcone
retires and flees from the city. Somewhat ironic a pairing, given the comic
book origin of the character.
He has a cameo appearance in Batman
Begins. He’s the mobster that is originally sentenced for Blackgate Prison,
before being deemed insane by corrupt psychiatrist Jonathan Crane and sent to
Arkham for a more lenient stay. Since I’m just now reading about this, I
imagine that only the most die hard of fans realized he was even in the damn
thing.
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| Wonder if he's saving the last tally for Batman for foiling him, or Penguin for general life ruining. |
He’s a minor character appearing,
or at least being mentioned in, three of the four Batman: Arkham
game series, voiced by Danny Jacobs. He makes a few small appearances in the
original Asylum as a boss character Batman has to ninja sneak around before
being knocked out. He’s the main villain in much longer side quest in Arkham
City, where Batman is forced to track Zsasz across the city to his various
crime scenes, always being prompt by Zsasz making calls to a payphone. It’s also
revealed in this continuity that he did get a small amount of revenge against
Penguin, being the man that jammed a broken bottle into the crime bosses face. The
bottle is permanently logged in Penguin’s face, looking like a gruesome monocle.
I have to imagine it’s painful for him. He only has a cameo appearance as a
criminal at large during the events of Arkham Knight.
He will appear as one of the antagonists
in the Birds of Prey movie, portrayed by Chris Messina. All I really
know at this point is that he’s Black Mask’s henchmen, and he and his boss are
both gay in this adaptation. Some people are rather upset about this change in
characteristic, but I really only seeing this affecting Zsasz choice in primary
target, so can’t really get myself worked up over, to be honest.
Victor Zsasz is a visually interesting
villain with a tragic backstory. The fact that he only became a serial killer
and murderer due to the death of his parents and some serious instances of bad
luck afterward does make me feel that he’s one of Batman’s more relatable
baddies. At least in his creation. Depression is a terrible mental disorder
that has hurt countless individuals over the course of human history is tragic
in and of itself, but to have it be the thing that turned a genuinely good
person into a hollowed eyed killer is rubbing salt in the wound. Hell, were
Zsasz a real person I might feel genuinely sorry for him. The tally marks on his
skin is a disturbing image, particularly when you see the sheer number of five
hash marks on his body. I wonder if he was the inspiration to Erik Killmongers scarification
dots in Black Panther? I haven’t seen confirmation or dismissal of that
idea, so if you know, let me know, kay? So yeah, overall a decent villain, and
hopefully he’ll be as good on the big screen as he was in the Arkham games.
Tall order, but hey, I’ve seen crazier things happen.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/33569797
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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