Batman: Son of the Demon Review

Batman: Son of the Demon

Once thought to be out of continuity Batman: Son of the Demon was thrown back into the mix when Grant Morrison followed up the events in his 4-issue story Batman and Son in 2006; which would kick start his run on Batman. Not everything in Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham’s story carried over, but certainly the title itself is enough to take note of what did and did not stand the test of time, the “Son” being Talia and Bruce’s child and the “Demon” being Ra’s al Ghul. Reading through it again though definitely convinces me more that it was properly considered an Elseworlds story first; and if not for Damien’s predominate role in the Batman universe now, I would suggest it as nothing more than an interesting Batman story.

It’s not that this is a bad story, I enjoyed reading it…twice, but the further along the story gets the less characteristic Batman gets, eventually reaching a point where I lost a lot of interest because of how far out of character Batman was acting. Yes, this was meant to be an Elseworlds story so I have to leave behind all the traits of classic Batman, but even in a world where Batman essentially accepts the role of heir to Ra’s ah Ghul he has to keep being Batman right? If not you might as well call it John Doe: Son of the Demon and not star Batman at all (Warning: Minor Spoilers ahead). The main story plot (the murder of a Gotham scientist and terrorist activity) is really just a device in place to set up the inclusion of Ra’s and Talia al Ghul. Talia meets him in the cave and they quickly meet Ra’s in his secret moutain hideout. Batman is harsh and cold to Ra’s hospitality; quickly accuses him of having something to do with the murder, as you would expect from Batman, and within a short 2-page story of how Ra’s wife died (which reveals a connection to the antagonist terrorist, Qayin) Batman accepts Ra’s offer, “Perhaps it is time I took an ally to defeat him — you, Detective.” (which also includes Talia’s hand in marriage). What? Up to this point we’ve seen a very harsh Batman; in the beginning of the story he causes acid to melt a guy’s face off (literally), causes the explosion of a helicopter with two men inside, and beats up a Ra’s guard for nothing more than walking around with a gun. I don’t mind this Batman, I actually prefer it, but is this really the same guy who after hearing a sob story from one of his greatest foe’s decides to partner up? Really?

It’s soon after this agreement that Bruce and Talia’s love story reaches it’s peak. Essentially married by now they “spend the night” together. Talia isn’t my favorite of Bruce’s two major ladies (cut to Selina Kyle) but we can see here that she does in fact love Bruce. Something that stuck out was how gentle she is to Bruce in all their scenes together. Think about it, no one is really “gentle” to him. Even Selina, who I believe loves him too, is always wanting a chase or some kind of spandex and leather twisted foreplay before giving in. Even Alfred, the person who probably cares for Bruce more than anyone else, although cares for him certainly can’t be “gentle” in the way Talia is here. As much as I didn’t like some of this story I did enjoy seeing Bruce happy and being taken care of, made me a little happy for him.

The ridiculousness continues after this. Long story short, Batman trains Ra’s army of assassins to fight with non-lethal tactics and then goes off to stop the terrorists (I won’t spoil it for you by saying if he was successful or not…). For the “months” that Batman spends training Ra’s army they never attack anything (they do get attacked though), Ra’s presents Batman as his heir to his legacy, and when breaking into a military base Batman quotes, “I’m not used to breaking into my own country’s facilities” Really Batman? Cause you didn’t seem to mind breaking into that warehouse in the beginning and you don’t seem bothered by breaking into every freaking building in Gotham. See what I’m talking about the ridiculousness? That isn’t to say this story is terrible though; just moments here-and-there that seem completely out of character for Bruce. Out of all those eye rolling moments though there are some good ones; including almost all the dialogue between Bruce and Tailia, especially when he finds out he’s going to be a father. And there is a chess game between Ra’s and Bruce, that despite leaving me asking “So you guys have an army to train and terrorists to fight but you sit down to play chess?” is very well done and if nothing more gives us an interesting scene we probablly would never see otherwise.

The redeeming factor about this book though, and why I decided to read it twice, was the art and paneling. Not only were the pencils, ink, and coloring absolutely gorgeous (and because of when it was written holds that nostalgic 80’s look and feel) but it’s not often I notice the paneling, here though it stuck out in spades and is maybe some of the best layouts I’ve ever seen. Jerry Bingham draws an entire 80-page story full of action, love, and death with many pages that featured 6 or more panels, characters in and out of panels, designs that flowed from page to page, and zero (that’s right, zero) splash pages. Some of the mountain scenes or wideshot pages were worthy of being framed and hung. It’s no suprise that he won Golden Apple Award for his art on this book.

All in all this is worth the time and money. Sure half the crap Batman does in this book is completely off target but it was built as an Elseworlds story, never intended for conitnuity (and for the most part still exsists outside of it). The art is definetlly worth it (it’s basically a class on comic book paneling), the story does have some cool moments, and since it was written as a graphic novel reads wonderfully as one big story without needing to play catch up or recap as some monthly series-turned-trade paperback can sometimes do. And given the role Damien is playing in the DC Universe now this acts as the starting point for his origin. Although it’s worth noting that Grant Morrison is only using the element of Talia and Batman having a child from this book; the rest of the story has pretty much been entirely being dropped. Speaking of Damien, here is the last panels of the book, showing us our first glimpse of the little guy (I’ve shrunk the photo as to not spoil it, also, it’s in Spanish. Sorry, it’s all I could find. Here’s your SPOILER WARNING).

I say get the book. It’s not the best ever but worth the addition. Plus you can get it pretty cheap ($5.99 at my local shop).