Corporate Takeovers, Mutant Assassins and Raising the Dead Back to Life--Part 2

Cover art by Jim Aparo

When we left off last week, Batman, Robin, Catwoman (currently reformed at this point in Bronze Age continuity) and secret agent King Faraday are prisoners of the yet-to-be-identified Big Bad who had been trying to take over Wayne Enterprises and put Bruce Wayne on a slab in the morgue.

This is the point in the story where Batman #334 (April 1981) begins (though Robin and Catwoman make a brief escape before being recaptured). The unlucky quartet, though they had been working the case from separate directions, end up together on a remote volcanic island in the Indian Ocean. Batman is given the choice of joining the bad guy or joining the others as slaves in the mines. Naturally, he chooses the mines.

Which is just as well, because the four make a break for it together in record time., smashing their leg chains and fighting through the genetically engineered mutates who guard them.

In fact, this issue and the next are built around several escape attempts, which always yield the heroes more information before they are recaptured. It's a nifty way of constructing the story, giving us plenty of action (with Irv Novick continuing to provide us with great art), while gradually providing plot exposition in a way that keeps the readers hooked. Marv Wolfman is the writer and continues to demonstrate why he was considered one of the best in the business.




The escapees run across Talia, who apparently has the freedom of the villain's lair.  We learn that Bruce (despite Dick Grayson's concerns) did not blindly trust her, but suspected all along that she might still be working for her dad.

And her dad is indeed the main villain. This will catch very few readers be surprise today if they are reading the story for the first time. In 1981, Ra's al Ghul had been around for a decade and had appeared in a number of important stories, but I don't know if he yet stood out as the major member of Batman's Rogue's Gallery that he has since become. So his reveal might have had a bit more impact at that time.

Anyway, Talia really does have a thing for Bruce, but she is under Ra's al Ghul's control because she's actually 150 years old and kept young only through the rare drugs he provides her.

Batman #335 has Ra's making one last attempt to get Batman to switch sides. We also learn that Ra's had been engineering the corporate takeover most to get hold of this particular island without anyone noticing it was important. There is a Lazarus Pit located there--something Ra's both needs and prefers to keep a monopoly on.

Batman refuses to join him, so Ra's decides to convert the Caped Crusader into a mindless mutate. The other heroes pull off another escape and Talia switches sides again to also help Batman. In the confusion, one of Ra's al Ghul's henchmen shoots Talia.

This requires Ra's to multi-task. He has to angrily kill the henchman, use the Lazarus Pit to save Talia, then kill Batman. This leads to a wonderfully choreographed fight scene between Batman and Ra's that runs seven pages, with Ra's taking an unplanned dip in the Lazarus Pit himself and coming out super-strong, lava-hot and completely insane.

The fight ends with Ra's supposedly dead and the heroes getting away in the nick of time just before the island blows up. Talia leaves Bruce to experience growing old naturally on her own and Bruce and Dick make friends again. Thus ends a strong four-issue story arc with great action and a very well-constructed story.

Next week, we'll return to the Old West to share a comic book adventure with yet another B-movie cowboy.