Black Mask (Arkhamverse)

"No one arrests Black Mask. No one!"

- Black Mask to TYGER Guards

One of the first crime lords to seize complete control of Gotham City, Roman Sionis was born into a wealthy family, but was nonetheless raised by abusive, selfish, and neglectful parents. Finally reaching his breaking point, Roman set fire to his family mansion, completely burning it to the ground and murdering his parents at the same time. Left with their massive fortune, Sionis embezzled his inheritance money and started numerous lucrative business ventures, which he eventually used as a front for illegal operations.

Carving a mask from the black wood of his father's coffin, Sionis became known to the criminal underworld as Black Mask, a sadistic and vicious mass murderer and crime boss, using the mask as inspiration to create and recruit a massive gang known as the False Facers. However, over the years, Black Mask's power and control was diminished a great deal as other villains of the criminal underworld took over pieces of his fallen empire for their own designs, starting with the Joker.

During one of his earlier plans to regain his power, which were eventually foiled by Batman, a massive explosion and fire resulted in his mask being violently grafted onto his face permanently, or at least extremely difficult to remove without sufficient force. Still intent to regain his lost power over the entire city, Black Mask, from within Arkham City, a massive prison built right in the heart of Gotham, takes advantage of the gang wars to build up his own forces and make plans to escape from the prison to resume his criminal activities in Gotham and beyond.

After Joker's death and the subsequent failure in the plans of his remaining rivals nine months later, Roman becomes the ruling elite once again within Gotham's rapidly diminishing criminal underworld, dealing out weapons, drugs, and other illicit materials. While he slowly began to regain his power, Black Mask's operations were put to an end once and for all, along with his life, when the new vigilante, Red Hood, slaughtered his men, shut down his bases, and kicked Roman out a window in his hideout, plunging him to his early demise.

Batman: Arkham Origins

 * See: Black Mask (Batman: Arkham Origins)

Road to Arkham
According to Oracle in the Road to Arkham prequel oneshot, Black Mask was involved in a gang war and retreated to Bludhaven, home of Nightwing.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
While Black Mask does not appear in Batman: Arkham Asylum, his original wooden mask is mounted on the wall of Dr. Young’s office in the old Arkham Mansion. Scan the mask will unlock his bio. A newspaper clipping about Roman Sionis before he became Black Mask also appears on a bathroom cabinet in the Patient Observation room of Arkham Asylum's Medical Facility. Black Mask is referenced in the game in many of the Penitentiary cells, for example, in the cells is a drawing about a little boy and a house on fire, and then the devil rises up and takes the remains, and the boy is happy.

After Arkham
Black Mask was one of the final criminals to be incarcerated to the prison, attempting to stay on the run and leave Gotham until the flames died down. Unfortunately, his family's steel mill was seized by Joker's forces, much to Roman's anger, and was later driven out of his own land by Quinn and her hyenas. Black Mask also briefly appeared as a juror member in Two-Face's trial against Joker, where, in his anger for stealing his land, voted guilty.

Later, Penguin's crew forced him to blow the steel mill sky-high to kill the clown prince, but instead decided to use the explosives given to him by Penguin to blow a hole in the perimeter wall and escape. While operating outside of the prison, Sionis reunited his old gang, including Firefly as his right-hand man, and plotted a raid on all of TYGER's military weapons and to hop a train out of the city as he originally planned. After Lynns disappeared, Roman and his crew were apprehended by Robin and Nightwing and escorted back to Arkham City, now rigged with sentry guns to kill anyone who approached the wall.

Batman: Arkham City
As Bruce Wayne was being admitted to Arkham City, Black Mask was seen as one of the criminals being transferred into the cell block, having finally been recaptured by Tyger Forces. Sionis was busy fending off the TYGER forces with a chair; however, he was eventually detained. Using this to his advantage, the Joker was able to capture Sionis Industries and it was quickly modified into Joker's Funland, Joker's base of operations in Arkham City.

With the growing violence in Arkham City, as the three primary gangs (Joker's, Penguin's and Two-Face's gangs) fighting for control over the city, Black Mask secretly allied himself with the Riddler and slowly built up his forces for his plans to retake Arkham City in the confusion, although he was eventually stopped by Robin. Because of his earlier detainment, parts of his Skull mask were broken off, revealing brown hair underneath.

Challenge Maps
As the Dark Knight was preoccupied with his investigation into Protocol 10, Robin infiltrated Arkham City to investigate Black Mask's activities. After some work, Robin was able to determine the location of Black Mask's hideout and set out to take down Sionis. Robin fought against Black Mask's forces giving him time to escape from Robin aboard a freight train. While in pursuit of him, Robin was forced to fight his way through stray thugs belonging to the various gangs and Mister Hammer of the Abramovici Twins.

In time Robin was able to locate Black Mask and took him into custody.

Batman: Arkham Knight
In the Red Hood DLC, Black Mask appears as the main antagonist and primary objective to target and neutralize. Red Hood, the new alias of the now-redeemed Jason Todd, goes on a hunt for Black Mask, having become the dominant crime lord within Gotham City once again with the Joker dead and the Penguin behind bars, to seek retribution for his crimes. Jason targets various weapon storage units and takes out nearly all of Sionis' henchmen, saved for one whom he interrogates, demanding the location of Black Mask, who is revealed to be currently situated in his downtown hideout.

Red Hood arrives and easily dispatches the remains of Sionis' men before brutally defeating the crime lord. After his defeat, Black Mask begs Red Hood to spare him and promises that he will leave Gotham and never return, even suggesting that Red Hood tell him where to go. However, Red Hood sarcastically asks him "How about you go to Hell?" before pushing Sionis out of a window, causing him to fall to his death. Before departing, Todd sarcastically states, "Say hi to Joker for me", in an ironic reference to the former crime lord's rivalry and Todd's immense hatred with the long-deceased Clown Prince of Crime.

Psychological Profile (by Dr. Young)
Black Mask

Real Name: Roman Sionis

CANDIDATE FOR ADVANCE RESEARCH?

Psychological Profile: A mild psychopath, Sionis has narcissistic tendencies but the main malady he suffers from is resentful obsession with, of all people, billionaire Bruce Wayne. Sionis is fixated on Wayne possibly due to childhood traumas that he has projected onto the idle playboy. It is difficult to say whether the two actually knew each other as children, or if this is Sionis's invention. However, it is Sionis's criminal activities, and the role playing that resulted in the black skull-like mask accidentally burnt into his skin, that resulted in his committal to Arkham.

Additional Notes

I'd question whether Sionis is actually insane, if not for the choice of his obsession; I can't imagine being interested in (much less stalking) such a pointless personage as Bruce Wayne.

Trivia

 * When Bruce Wayne sees Black Mask when entering Arkham City, it is likely that this is Black Mask's second time entering Arkham City, as Black Mask was the first and only inmate to ever escape, as revealed by a riddle that unlocks an Arkham City Story. Therefore, the Robin DLC is most likely a second escape attempt.
 * The Penguin may have Sionis's first mask or a replica in his Iceberg Lounge, indicating that Black Mask may at one point have been his main rival.
 * Black Mask's forces are oddly absent during the events of Batman: Arkham City, likely because Sionis was re-entering Arkham City during the game and had no thugs under his control.
 * The small part of his mask that is broken shows an undamaged forehead and some hair, suggesting that either his face had healed at some point or his mask is actually removable.
 * Black Mask being the main villain of the Red Hood story DLC was presumably a reference to Red Hood antagonizing Black Mask frequently in the comic arc Batman: Under the Hood and the animated adaptation Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Game Over Lines

 * "First you fall, then Gotham."
 * "What? Did you think you could beat me? Me?!"
 * "No one goes up against the Black Mask and lives."