The first film in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, Batman Begins, features a cameo from the Gotham assassin and serial killer Victor Zsasz. Keeping a tally of all of his victims on his body, Zsasz’s kill count can briefly be viewed in the form of multiple scars on his neck and chest within the few short scenes in which he appears in Batman Begins. His brief appearance begs the question: just how many people has this iteration of Victor Zsasz killed?
Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which starts with Batman Begins (2005) and ends with The Dark Knight Rises (2012), follows the billionaire Bruce Wayne from his origins as the vigilante Batman to the end of his reign as the protector of Gotham over the course of three films. Portrayed by Tim Booth, the DC Comics character made his debut on the screen in Batman Begins and is a known thug for the mafia boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). To prove his worth as an assassin, Zsasz infamously began to keep count of each of his victims by adding a new mark onto his body with every new kill he commits for Falcone’s mob organization. While Victor Zsasz has a limited role in Nolan’s Batman trilogy, only appearing twice within the first film and never speaking any lines, the character plays an important role in establishing the level of corruption present within Gotham, as is shown during his court trial.
Within Batman Begins, Victor Zsasz is first introduced during the early scenes of the film involving his court trial, and while the charges against him are never divulged, the attorney Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) claims that he’s guilty of butchering people for the mob. Within the scene, Victor Zsasz sits quietly in the court room as Dr. Crane (Cillian Murphy) or “Scarecrow” testifies that Zsasz is a danger to himself and therefore would be more suited for rehabilitation at Arkham Asylum than to serve time in a jail cell, despite appearing sound in mind. If getting away with murder wasn’t enough of a mockery to the justice system of Gotham, the scars representing all of Zsasz’s kills seen on his chest and neck within the same scene add insult to injury.
While the clip revealing Zsasz’s scars is pretty short, eagle-eyed viewers will notice that there are two groups of tallies on the left side of his neck, each totaling up to five, suggesting that the number of his victims reaches into double digits. The second scene involving Zsasz, however, reveals a few more scars located on his neck alone. Towards the end of Batman Begins when the inmates of Arkham Asylum are set free by Ra’s al Ghul’s (Liam Neeson) League of Shadows, Zsasz is shown once more with four additional sets of tallies visible on the right side of his neck. Since these tallies only make up what can be visibly seen above Zsasz’s collar, thirty seems to be the minimum number of kills Zsasz has committed for the Falcone mob.
While Tim Booth was the first actor to portray the character onscreen, Chris Messina portrayed Victor Zsasz more recently in the DCEU film Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), while Anthony Carrigan played a younger version in the Fox television series Gotham. Out of all of the depictions of Zsasz, the portrayal within Nolan’s Batman trilogy appears to be the most threatening, despite only being present in the film for a couple of scenes. Part of the purpose, if any sane purpose exists, of Zsasz wearing the markings blatantly on his skin is to send a threatening message, and that message is only clear if the number of kills Zsasz has committed is instantly discernible. Unlike Carrigan and Messina’s scars in their respective DC Comics adaptations, Booth’s depiction is the only one in which the number of his victims can be instantly discerned, since his scars are ordered in tallies of five.
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