History: (Batman #386, 387, Detective Comics #553)-Heir to the Janus Cosmetics fortune, Roman was a troubled soul since his birth, when a doctor dropped him on his head. His parents were friends with the socialite Wayne's of Gotham, and Bruce Wayne remembered Roman as a distant boy whose emotions were always masked. His only interests seemed to be setting fires and playing with small animals. As a young man he started a relationship with a cosmetic model named Circe. His parents disapproved, and soon after they died in a fire of suspicious origin. Now the owner of Janus Cosmetics, he bought a house with Circe and started an obsessive collection of masks, ranging from archaeological relics to plastic Halloween masks. He then announced a new line of foundation named "Facepaint." This new product functioned more as a mask than as makeup, and sales were dismal. A completely waterproof makeup was marketed to recover from the loss, but the product was not thoroughly tested first. Users were affected with scars, rashes, and worse. Lawsuits piled up, and bankruptcy was inevitable. Bruce Wayne bailed Roman out, buying the company but putting in new WayneCorp-appointed executives. Circe then left the destitute Roman, and he was now a man alone with his masks. Roman went to his family crypt, smashed his father's coffin, and carved a dark mask from a fragment of the lid. He declared Roman Sionis dead and reborn as the Black Mask. His first agenda was vengeance, and he gathered a small army of criminals as his False Face Society of Gotham. One by one, they executed WayneCorp executives of Janus Cosmetics, and their ultimate target was Bruce Wayne. This inevitably led to Batman II fighting Black Mask. They met at the Sionis family home, and it caught ablaze in the battle. Batman rescued Black Mask, but found that the image of the ebony mask was now burned into his face. Black Mask was then taken to Arkham Asylum.