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By Geoff Hoppe
April 21, 2007 - 18:50
Batman: Son of the Demon
DC Comics
Writer: Mike W. Barr
Illustrator: Jerry Bingham
Letterer: John Costanza
Why do villains in James Bond movies always insist on firing missiles at people they hate? It’s passé. Not only that, it implies a lot of uncomfortable Freudian things about them. I mean, I want to like evil geniuses—honest!--, but it’s hard to respect anyone with the style sense of a communist dictator who hides in a hovel underground and spends his life launching ICBMs to and fro through the stratosphere.
This impressive Andy Kubert cover is from the 2006 reprinting.
Batman: Son of the Demon made me cough up this revelation, because it’s an awful lot like a bad Timothy Dalton era Bond-flick. The gruesome tenor of the violence, the evil mastermind, the sexy-yet-evil love interest, the hordes of khaki-clad underlings there to provide decent cannon fodder—it’s all eerily reminiscent of Living Daylights or License to Kill (gag). This is not a good thing.
In Batman: Son of the Demon, Batman joins forces with Ra’s Al Ghul to fight Qayin, a terrorist mastermind from Al Ghul’s past. The principal item of interest in this story, however, is Bruce Wayne’s relationship with Talia Al Ghul, and the little bat-bun he puts in her oven. This story is interesting for its relation to the “Son of the Batman” arc Andy Kubert and Jim Morrison did a few months back, which builds on this story (after a fashion).
Writer Mike W. Barr trips and stumbles in this overly ambitious tale of love, family, and international intrigue. He already has one strike against him: Batman isn’t as interesting a character when you take him out of
There’s something unnerving about seeing Batman present the wifey with a gift. It’s just…wrong. You wouldn’t want to see the Punisher tending his spice garden, and you sure as heck don’t want to suffer the idea of Bruce Wayne jewelry shopping for his silver anniversary. The whole Batman-Talia relationship is poorly rendered, which is a shame: it has all the building blocks of greatness. Talia’s presence in this story is thematically fascinating (in theory, at least). She tempts Bruce Wayne to abandon the Batman persona and embrace intimacy. It’s an idea many writers have played with, though not always successfully.
When a strong, stoic hero finally gives in to lust/intimacy/whathaveyou, it should be impressive, tragic, and powerful. It should also express the psychological tension that is present in all intimate relationships. It’s an age-old trope, Lancelot and Guinevere being the most famous example of such a pairing in Western literature. Too bad Mike Barr’s too busy with the other, less interesting story elements, to focus on Batman’s forbidden love*. Compare this to the far more interesting relationship between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle in Batman:Hush, and you’ll drop to your knees and thank the lord for Jeph Loeb.
Illustrator Jerry Bingham’s art suffers from Barr’s problem: ambition gets in the way of skill. Bingham (and Barr, for that matter) are clearly talented individuals. Bingham’s strange, at-times distracting use of layout, however, makes it unclear what’s going on. The colors in B:SD are unimpressive. They’re clearly intended to mimic the watercolors Lynn Varley used to give The Dark Knight Returns its unique look. In this setting, however, they mute the action-movie effect Barr and Bingham want to create. It’s like watching Lethal Weapon in sepia tones.
Worth the money? Not this one.
*If I hear ANY Robin-is-gay-OMGLOL jokes made about that phrase, I’m turning this website around and taking you kids home.
