Demonology

Earlier this week, I posted about Spider-Man and how, for some reason, the character never seemed to click with me despite reading all of his adventures through the b/w UK weeklies. I can't say that there was any particular reason for this as far as I recall. It wasn't even the visual differences between Ditko's vision and that of Romita. As a child, I found the transition of the New Look Batman of the Sixties to the "dread Batman" of the Seventies a little jarring but maybe the very lack of regular British reprints preserved the mystique of the Caped Crusader.

Today's post is the last about the weighty DC Showcase Presents Batman volume 6 where the transition from one version of the Gotham Guardian to another was consolidating. So far, I've found the Frank Robbins stories in Detective Comics more engaging than Denny O'Neil's ongoing saga of Ra's al Ghul.  That storyline reaches its climax in the final third of this volume but first, O'Neil pays homage to Hitchcock in his usual lead-footed fashion. At Dawn Dies Mary McGuffin introduces spymaster Col. Sulphur, whom I first met in The Brave and the Bold.

In his first appearance, Sulphur is defeated by his own "fetish" for sunrise when it reflects dazzlingly from the blade concealed in his artificial hand.

The Most Dangerous 20 Miles in Gotham City is quite an interesting Robbins story about the "death-game " of trading spies. It also startlingly depicts the Batman using a sniper rifle.

Bruce Wayne- Rest In Peace! sets up the final act of the long-running Ra's al Ghul plot. Faking Bruce Wayne's death, Batman adopts his Matches Malone i.d. for the first time. He then recruits some operatives to aid him- his M.O. here resembling that of the Shadow, who will guest star a year later. It seems like Batman is not prepared to endanger Robin again after his kidnapping by Ra's. So where's the logic in exposing civilians to that selfsame danger - even if one is a former assassin? O'Neil could have used  Batgirl, Ollie,  Dinah or even Diana Prince, the de-powered Wonder Woman. It appears that editorial edict is taking the super out of the Super Friends.

The climax is postponed firstly by Double-Cross-Fire, a clichéd and dull Double Indemnity style murder mystery and then by The Scene Is Set For Murder, a threadbare Macbeth in Gotham Park story where the killer is enraged by modern dress Shakespeare productions.

The Lazarus Pit and its duel between Lo Ling and Batman anticipates the martial arts trend of 1973-74 and introduces the third of Batman's allies, skiing champion Molly Post. With its Swiss alps setting, this instalment reminds me of the film of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The Lazarus Pit becomes an overused device in Bat-mythology when it comes to reviving deceased characters. This comic and its sequel were among the very few I actually owned at the time; they were barely recognisable compared to the Batman of my early childhood.

I'm surprised Killer's Roulette got through the Comics Code at all. It's the second cover to feature Bats and a gun and is really quite shocking. Bats poses as a gambler in an homage to Robbins' body of work on the Johnny Hazard newspaper strip.

Finally, The Demon Lives Again is the celebrated conclusion of the Ra's al Ghul arc. Neal Adams' art is dynamic but the pacing is odd and rushed. Talia now has a distinctly mixed race appearance and of course, this is the first appearance of Batman as "hairy-chested love god", as Grant Morrison put it. This is a strangely objectified and hypermasculine Batman and it contributes to the faintly eroticised tone of the story. It seems almost like a fervid dream sequence.

 During the desert duel, why did Talia apply her anti- scorpion -venom lipstick? Is Ra's imprisoned? Is there a trial? In its attempts to be a proto-Mature Readers comic, logic and story-telling seem to have been jettisoned. In comparison with Marvel contemporaries like Spidey or  Captain America, there was little real sense of a continuing series in continuity, as yet.

I enjoyed reading these stories in the main for their variety and scope although they were often poorly realised. But for sheer entertainment value, this collection was eclipsed by Essential Marvel Team-Up. More of that some other time.

Of course, the Demon storyline was an integral part of the Christopher Nolan vision of Batman. That blockbuster, hyper-real vision of Batman has been subverted somewhat in recent years thanks to the rehabilitation of the Sixties tv version.

DC comics is bringing that movement to a close with the publication of Batman '66 Meets The Legion of Super-Heroes. Like the Allred Bug title, this is a joyful celebration of the eccentricity of DC comics, where Egghead teams up with Universo. It's made clear to Legion followers through the comments of Ferro Lad that continuity is completely up for grabs. In addition to LSH obscurities like Celebrand of the Wanderers ( and 50s spaceman Lyle of the Knights of the Galaxy), there are cameos by tv Bat-villains Clock King, Shame and Bookworm  Wistfully, I think I'd rather the LSH remains a period piece like this rather than return as another lacklustre Rebirth title.


Coming up : Crom's Mountain and the Ninth Doctor Chronicles


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