Which issues or story arcs are the ones that must be read in order to understand the character.

Really? What makes you think he does? He seems more like an evening news sort of guy to me. Or bootleg DVD's.

For what i read, i kind of like him. The thing is i would like to read a comic in which he appears.

i think war games would be pretty useful

He's pretty great as a side character in under the red hood. Both the comic and the movie.

@np199: I'm not much of a fan of his later interpretations. A lot of people will suggest War Games and Under the Red Hood as great Black Mask stories, but truth be told I find him to be very generic in those. He just comes off as just a regular gangster character except one who has a black skull face for some unexplained reason. And any time they try to make him come off as psychotic or intimidating, it's often very forced and laughable. You honestly just could have replaced his role in those stories with the Penguin and they'd be much better, because in those stories, there's not much interesting going on with his character. Under the Red Hood is a decent read, but it's not good for Black Mask (and honestly War Games is really weak and sloppy)

I personally prefer the original interpretation of Black Mask. He wasn't the best character, but he had characteristics that made him unique as a Batman villain and for some reason the writers just completely abandon all this good stuff to make him into a generic crime lord character. He was forced to be friends with Bruce Wayne as a child by his parents, he hates his parents and kills them to inherit their company only to drive it into the ground and be bought out by Wanye Industries, he becomes Black Mask, a villain more motivated by his hatred for Bruce Wanye than his hatred for Batman, and starts a sort of crime cult that commits crimes against Wayne Industries. His first story arc is particularly good in Batman #386-387 and Detective #553