Oberon Sexton: An Unusual Suspect

I have, admittedly, tossed out a few ideas about who Sexton is and haven't locked in on any that convince me. I've been pressing harder to try to work out the Sexton / Domino Killer situation, and am not quite ready to write it all up yet, but I wanted to post another idea for people to run with. Like "Mangrove Pierce", the new suspect I have in mind is an extremely minor character. One who, if revealed, would not be a big "WOW" moment, but an "ah". And I think that's possible -- not all reveals are "WOW". Lately, I have been coming at this "bottom up", and asked: What has Oberon Sexton actually done? And what, therefore, is his motive? And the main thing he has done is come to Gotham and told Batman that there is someone killing the Black Glove members. We don't know if he's good or bad, honest or dishonest, but we do know that he's not 100% honest, because he didn't tell Batman about the phone call from El Penitente. So, if he's not all good, all honest, and he's telling Batman that someone is killing the Black Glove members, what is his motive? Possibly that he's one of them, and he wants Batman to save his (Sexton's) own skin. One of the newspapers in Batman and Robin #10 said, "Sir Anthony: The Mystery Deepens". An English (like Sexton) member of the Black Glove, possibly the one who identified himself in Batman #681 as having made his fortune in electronics. (He uses the phrases "nonsense" and "dear lord" in RIP; those may or may not be more likely from the mouth of an Englishman than an American.) In Batman and Robin #10, Sir Anthony is referred to as a "media guy". In the next panel, Sexton uses the word "media".

There is no compelling evidence that this man is Sexton. But the motive actually works. Suppose a rich, powerful man running a media empire notices that after Jezebel Jet's disappearance, at least two other Black Glove members are killed. That would make three dead out of the five who were still alive at the end of RIP. He'd obviously have a reason to fear that he might be killed soon himself. So he goes underground under another man's identity (perhaps killing the real Sexton and his wife). Now, he thinks he's temporarily safe, but still has an unknown force out to get him. So immediately after the public reappearance of Batman in Gotham City, he goes to Gotham and tells the world, and then Batman personally, that someone is out to get the Black Glove members. To further make sure that Batman is motivated to get the killer, he adds that Bruce Wayne is the next target. He possibly knows that the old Batman was Bruce Wayne and that the new one would be extra-motivated to save him. Of course, being English, covering the real Sexton's voice would be easier. If he's a famous media magnate, that could explain why Dick finds something familiar about him.

Note that this theory is agnostic as to whether or not the "domino" motif has actually been used to decorate the bodies of the victims. Maybe it's true. Maybe Sexton is lying to make it more compelling that there is one killer out there that Batman has to stop. But if he's lying, then there needs to be an explanation for how the lie is linked to the dominoes appearing in Gotham, which are - perhaps - another issue.

This evidence is not proof that Sexton is the incredibly low-profile character who was only named in the last issue. But this is the only theory I've seen that actually explains Sexton's actions without any additional tricky explanations. (I.e.: If he's Bruce, why is he withholding information from Dick? If he's the Joker, why is he investigating one murder, Malenkov's, that he himself commited?)

But I'll add: Sexton has arrived at the Wayne Cemetery with a shovel nearby, and this is utterly inexplicable. We don't know what he's going to do with it, but dig up a grave seems like a good bet. And then we don't know what or why. This could immediately disqualify Sir Anthony if Sexton's got some sort of exceptional (or cosmic) knowledge about the former dead Waynes. If that's true, then perhaps he is the black-tophat wearing Baron Samedi, a loa of the dead in voodoo, something that freedumbdclxvi suggested on the DC Message Boards.

But until we see him step outside the natural (or the Fourth Wall, in the case of another conjecture: that he is Grant Morrison), Sir Anthony remains a top possibility for Sexton.

Mangrove Pierce is a similar suspect, but less obviously has something to gain from telling Batman about someone killing the Black Glove members: He's not one of them, and an actor likely never was because he just wouldn't be rich enough. So for the moment, I think Sir Anthony is a slightly stronger suspect.

This was just a short post on the thinking I've been doing about Oberon Sexton and the Domino Killer. More to come!

Update: Two additional observations that add some support to Oberon Sexton being Sir Anthony.

1) It has been observed that El Penitente says "Your sins have found you out" to Sexton over the phone, and this is a line that Doctor Hurt used previously. Assuming that Sir Anthony was the "electronics" member of the Black Glove, then he was actually one of the ones to whom the line was originally addressed.

2) Sexton says that the members of the Black Glove have either been murdered or have vanished without a trace. This indicates that there are cases in each of those two categories. We know that three of the five (Malenkov, al-Khidr, and Maggi) have been murdered and did not vanish without a trace. It is possible that Jezebel was never found, so she may be one who vanished without a trace. We can't pick apart Sexton's syntax with a fine-toothed comb and get any further than a guess, but it seems possible that he would not list the two outcomes (murdered, vanished) and link them unless more than one person were in each category. In other words, it is at least plausible and perhaps likely that Sir Anthony is one who vanished (perhaps in addition to Jezebel, or perhaps the only one). And the headline "The Mystery Deepens" is compatible with a disappearance. Though, admittedly, such spare information is all compatible, also, with Sir Anthony being actually dead with a body left behind. My point here is that it's quite plausible that Sir Anthony is missing, with no body, which supports the idea that his body is somewhere else -- namely, in "Oberon Sexton"'s clothing.