and inheriting their fortune and business. Roman lacked his father's business acumen and eventually ruined Janus Cosmetics by funding a failed line of face-paint make-up. Desperate, Roman had the staff chemists create a product that was rushed to the market without proper testing, disfiguring several hundred women. Circe, now Roman's fiancée, then broke up with him in front of his entire staff. Bruce Wayne, now the head of Wayne Enterprises, offered to bail Janus Cosmetics out on the condition that Roman gave up control and allowed Wayne to appoint his own board of directors. Humiliated and furious, Roman broke into the cemetery where his parents were buried. Before he could unlock the Sionis crypt, a lightning bolt struck him, blasting the door open and hurling Roman head-first into a nearby stone. Roman took the incident as an omen of his "rebirth" and entered the crypt, smashing his father's ebony casket with the stone and using its shattered pieces to carve an ebony mask, resembling a scowling face, starting a new life as the crime lord Black Mask. Criminal career Within a month, Black Mask had assembled a group of dozens of criminals, leading to the creation of the Sionis Crime Family, better known as the False Face Society, using the Sionis crypt as their base of operations. Each member of the False Face Society wore a distinctive mask, and the gang's crime spree spread rapidly throughout Gotham, eventually attracting the attentions of the police and Bruce Wayne, now operating as the vigilante Batman. To settle old scores, Black Mask murdered three Wayne Foundation executives and kidnapped Circe, forcing her to don a mask laced with Janus Cosmetics' toxic makeup, sparing her life but permanently disfiguring her face. Black Mask then threatened Circe into rejoining him, giving her a "mannequin" mask intentionally designed to mock her former life. Batman eventually managed to deduce Black Mask's identity and correctly predicted that Bruce Wayne would be Sionis' next target. To set a trap for Black Mask, Bruce held a masquerade ball at Wayne Manor, and Sionis infiltrated the ball and lured Bruce to the mansion's conservatory to kill him. Bruce disarmed Sionis, forcing the latter to retreat to his hideout with Robin (Jason Todd) secretly following him. While Batman and Robin fought his underlings at the graveyard, Black Mask escaped through a false bottom installed in his father's coffin and headed to his