A hero is often measured by the quality of his enemies, and few heroes have as varied and dangerous an array of foes in his or her rogues gallery than the Batman. Most were added to the roster in the Golden Age such as the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler and the Catwoman. These baddies and others bedeviled the Batman for decades, but in the early years of the Bronze Age of Comics a new name is added to the roster -- Ra's al Ghul, the Demon's Head.
We first hear of the Demon's Head in in Detective Comics #411 the story "Into the Den of the Death-Dealers" by Denny O'Neil and artist Bob Brown and Dick Giordano. In that tale the Batman pursues a villain named Dr. Darrk who is accompanied by a beautiful young woman named Talia. The chase takes Batman to Asia where finds his prey on a train. A battle goes poorly for Batman and he ends up in a dungeon with Talia tending to him and who has taken off his mask. Talia has been kidnapped by Darrk and the Batman must fight a deadly battle to rescue the two of them. Talia tells Batman who she is and who her father is. Like any great villain we hear about him before he enters the stage.
And then in a blockbuster titled "Daughter of the Demon" in Batman #232 we meet Ra's al Ghul for the first time in a story by O'Neil and artists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. (Giordano's inks are to a great extent the glue that holds this epic together visually.) Robin is kidnapped and Ra's al Ghul appears to tell Batman (he knows he's Bruce Wayne) that Talia too has been taken. He wants to join forces with the great detective to save them both. The trail is a wild and dangerous one and takes them across the globe until they end up in the Himalayas. But ultimately Robin is rescued. and Batman learns the truth about Ra's al Ghul's motives, as well as those of Talia. She wants him for a husband.
In the story "Swamp Sinister" in Batman #235 the Demon returns, this time seemingly having suffered a head wound when one of his scientists stole a chemical which if used improperly will cause a deadly plague. Talia is already in search of the scientist, but Ra's was unable to tell her all of the depth and complexity of the problem, so he comes to Batman with the additional information about the plague. O'Neil joins forces with Irv Novick and Dick Giordano to deliver this one. Adams and Giordano supply a great cover once again.
Neal Adams and Dick Giordano are also the artists for the cover of Batman #240. The story in this one titled "Vengeance for a Dead Man" by O'Neil, Novick and Giordano once again. In this story a dead body of a scientist appears with its brain gone. Batman's search to get to the bottom of the crime leads brings him into conflict with Talia and Ra's al Ghul who also seek the man. But finding the killer doesn't answer the question about the brain. Batman has to solve that grisly mystery as well.
Mike Kaluta is the artist for the cover of Batman #242. This kicks off a fantastic three-part tale that makes Ra's al Ghul an immortal...literally. The story in this one titled "Bruce Wayne - Rest in Peace" by writer O'Neil and artists Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. The story begins with news of Bruce Wayne's death in a plane wreck over a distant jungle. This frees Batman up to pursue Ra's al Ghul but not before he gathers a team to help him. He seeks a criminal named Matches Malone, a scientist named Doctor Harris Blaine, and Ling, a trained assassin who formerly worked for the Demon but becomes bound to Batman since the hero saved his life.
The battle against Ra's al Ghul comes to a head in the second part in Batman #243, written by O'Neil and drawn by the Adams and Giordano team. The story titled "The Lazarus Pit" with the Batman's "team" heading to the Himalayas to confront Ra's al Ghul where they are joined by professional skier Molly Post. This group invades the headquarters of the Demon in a terrific battle, but they arrive to find that Ra's al Ghul is dead. Taking Talia into custody they depart, but then we see the Demon's body enter the Lazarus Pit for the first time and he is revived in a spectacular series of comic book pages.
The story comes to its amazing conclusion in Batman #244 in the story "The Demon Lives Again". Ra's is super-powered when he confronts Batman and his squad and defeats them easily. Both Ling and Molly are injured. The Batman then alone follows the trail to the Arabian desert where he confronts Ra's al Ghul in a deadly swordfight. But nature and a scorpion intervene. And then love takes a hand. In one of the best climactic scenes, I've ever read, the Batman does prevail but at some cost. Of this entire run of stories, the only ones I happened to buy off the stands at the time was the very first issue of Detective Comics and this final issue of the confrontation with Ra's al Ghul. Even so this story's power was evident. Reading them through is as exciting for me as reading comic books gets.
We skip ahead in time to 1978 and the DC Special Series which sports a lovely cover by Walt Simonson. Inside we get art by Michael Golden for a story written by Denny O'Neil titled "I Now Pronounce You Batman and Wife". In this one Batman gets knocked out and taken aboard Ra's al Ghul's yacht which goes into international waters where he presides over a makeshift wedding between Batman and Talia. (The groom does not have to agree for it to be legal apparently.) Ra's al Ghul's larger scheme is to use strange technology to make the citizens of Gotham sluggish and sleepy and then used large equipment to rob various vaults.
Then Batman must get to the bottom of a tragic crime in Detective Comics issues #485, #489 and #490. That is the murder of Kathy Kane, the first Batwoman at the hands of the League of Assassins. Don Newton supplies the atmospheric artwork for these three stories which are featured on two of the three issues involved. It seems Ra's al Ghul is trying to get control of the League of Assassins and suggested to the Sensei that Kathy Kane was a threat to the League in some way. He then warns Batman of the threat to Kane's life, but Batman is too late. He then seeks to solve the underlying crime and survive multiple attacks by the members of the League. These stories are also notable in that they feature the debut of the Bronze Tiger, formerly known as Ben Turner in the pages of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter.
The original early 1970's stories have been collected and recollected over the years by DC. Beginning in 1977 with a handsome Limited Collectors' Edition C-51 featuring the stories with Neal Adams artwork.
Then the saga was collected again in 1988 in The Saga of Ra's al Ghul, a four-part prestige limited series which features new covers by Jerry Bingham and a brand-new cover by Neal Adams for the fourth installment. These comics also contain stories by Adams not connected to the Batman.
A trade collection lands in Batman Tales of the Demon from 1991. This one sports a handsome cover by Brian Stelfreeze.
In 2016 we get a Showcase Presents volume which offers up the stories on economical black and white.
In more recent years, facsimile editions of key stories in the series have been published including most recently a juicy reprint of the Limited Collectors' Edition. I'm sure I'm missing some, as this story is a hugely popular one and well worth the time of anyone who even once considered themselves a Batman fan. It's likely my favorite Batman story.
Rip Off
When I was about 16 (in 1982) somebody gave me a pile of Batman comics and as I'd been a Marvel fan since the age of 8 it was interesting to read some DC comics for a change. One of the Batman comics was set in Hong Kong and Batman tells Robin that Hong Kong is a British colony under a 99-year lease which will return to Chinese control in 1997. I'd been completely unaware of this fact previously so I always remember that it was a Batman comic that first informed me of Hong Kong's status pre-1997. Who says comics aren't educational!
ReplyDeleteI've learned so much from comics it's amazing. My love for myth was in part triggered by Thor, and my knowledge of
DeleteWWII is in no part from the works of Roy Thomas on The Invaders and The All-Star Squadron.
By chance I pulled the conclusion of the "Death of Batwoman" storyline out of a pile and read it. Very unsatisfying. It felt like O'Neil was recycling a more mundane tale, whether one actually written or just contemplated, into a Batman story. At the end Batman claims to have avenged Kathy Kane, but he doesn't even have that much reason to think the Sensei perished in your basic exploding building.
ReplyDeleteIMO the absolute best single story with Ra's Al Ghul is the origin story O'Neil scripted in the early nineties, BIRTH OF THE DEMON. Has anyone collected it?
I didn't know about that one. Norm Breyfogle is a dandy artist. It has been reprinted according to GCD in a collection from 2012.
Deletehttps://www.comics.org/issue/1657559/