The Designer is a villain introduced during DC Rebirth. A criminal mastermind who designed and pulled off perfect crimes, he is infamously renowned within the criminal underworld. Around the beginning of Batman's operations, the Designer travelled to Gotham City with plans for its criminals.
History
Origins
In his youth, the Designer fought a vigilante detective who he became obsessed with defeating, in-turn making him a genius criminal from the experience. However regardless of his genius and skill, the detective foiled his plots at every turn. Driven to near madness, the Designer locked himself in a room for a year to come up with a genius plan that didn't work by the detective's rules.
Following the conception of this plan, the Designer reemerged and was able to defeat and break his hated foe. Going on to design bigger crimes, the Designer became an urban-legend among criminals, supposedly being responsible for the greatest crimes never heard of. The urban legend was something as a joke, in an example said by Catwoman, if someone suggested stealing the crown-jewels than you'd joke that he already had.
Batman
Early in Batman's career, the Designer went to Gotham City and studied the criminal careers of Joker, Penguin, Riddler and Catwoman. He invited them all of them to a meeting at his water-house, offering each a scheme that met their greatest ambitions. In return for pulling them off, the Designer wished to turn them into a United Underworld and become his branch in Gotham, with half of their profits from the crimes.
Designer gave Catwoman a scheme to steal all of the money from Wayne Enterprises, particularly the off-shore accounts funding it and Bruce Wayne's forturne. For Penguin, he planned to give him a legitimate mayoral campaign, allowing him to take over Gotham legitimately, but to take out his competition with a legion of assassins. For the Riddler, the two made plans to trap the GCPD in their own precincts, turning the cops on their own in order to survive. All three accepted these plans.
For the Joker, the Designer planned to create a scheme that would kill Batman and Robin without arousing their suspicions. However, Joker called him out for his real schemes and revealed he wasn't interesting in killing the Dynamic Duo, but the entire world. Horrified and realizing he had underestimated Gotham, the Designer ordered the execution of the four supervillains, only to be immediately shot by the Joker in the back of the head. Realizing that their plans were worthless without his financial backing, the villains agreed burned down the Designer's house and return to the mainland. They all agreed never to speak of the incident again,
Years later, the Designer apparently returned to Gotham for revenge against the villains, all while enacting their old scrapped plans. In reality, it was a scheme created by the Joker to distract Batman, allowing him to take over the Wayne fortune and cripple his operations.
Powers and Abilities
- Genius-Level Intellect:
- Expert Swordsman: