Reading Through 2021 47: Batman: Son of the Demon, by Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham

Batman: Son of the Demon, by Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham

1987

I bought this when it was new, at age 11 or 12, and at the time I didn't get it. I didn't hate it, but it was over my head, and I never read it again. I was surprised now to see it was from 1987. In 1988 and 89, I was dropping $$$ on the Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum, the Cult, Legends of the Dark Knight and so on, but this was probably my second or third Batman purchase. Twelve dollars (Canadian) was a lot to me at that time. Still I never read it a second time. Reading the Grant Morrison Batman run, which features Batman's son prominently, I wanted to give this a second read.

It's a painted cover, but almost looks computer colored

I liked this, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I don't know what I expected exactly, but I figured it would be very competent but unexciting. The story is probably best described as competent, but the art in this is beautiful, and elevates the whole thing. It's an exceptional looking book.

The back cover. What's missing? No writing, no blurb, just an image and a price. That is wonderful

At this point I've read enough of the O'Neil/Adams Batman run to know about Ra's al Ghul and Batman's romance with his daughter Talia. There's a 50/50 chance I had no idea who the characters were when I first read this. The Son of the Demon builds on their history: Ra's is a supervillain but not necessarily evil, his daughter is loyal to her father, and her and Batman are torn between their love and their ideals. That history is taken as a given in this story.

This is a graphic novel, and this is as "mature" as it chooses to get, flesh-wise. Lovely background wash on this page too

With that, the story begins with Batman stopping a terrorist attack and getting hooked up with Talia again. The story moves quickly, and soon he's eating dinner with Ra's and Talia, and they realize they have the same goal: taking down this terrorist mastermind Qayin (Cain, like in Cain and Abel). But the plot moves too fast. Batman says he'd like to work with Ra's, and Ra's replies that if he wants to, he has to marry Talia. Batman says yes. They start terrorist hunting as a team, and loving it. Soon though, Talia lets Bruce know she's pregnant, and Bruce cannot let his child suffer as he did so he decides to stop fighting. Talia immediately (like, during the same conversation, on the same page) fakes a miscarriage and Bruce can now stop the bad guy with a clear conscience. They split up and a final page reveal shows that an orphan child has been adopted.

Bingham doesn't use a grid, but his pages are sequentially readable

The story concepts are strong, the motivations are strong, but the pacing doesn't quite work. Fight scenes get six pages to tell their story, but character building scenes get one or two pages at a time. Barr was mainly a monthly comic writer at the time, so I can see he's branching out of his comfort zone. It's almost there. It works better in synopsis than it does on the page. He does a good job of seeding Bruce's childhood trauma throughout the book. The opening action scene highlights his compassion for a pregnant hostage.

Batman cares about kids

The art though, wow, I just didn't remember liking it much at the time. At that point, I was drooling over Art Adams and Todd McFarlane, and this art had more substance than I could handle. Bingham renders his lines like Neal Adams, with loose ink but controlled shapes. His storytelling reminded me of John Byrne: structurally sound with lots of full body shots. It is masterful work. And I don't even know another book he's done. I'm going to look him up after this, but I wanted to write this without any outside influence. My worry is that most of his career is doing standard superhero comics.

This scene reminded me of something from Robocop

He does the colors himself, lots of oranges and blues, and creates a consistent tone throughout the 80 page book.

And this really reminded me of something from Robocop. There is some of the 1980s in here

I don't know what the reputation of this book is among Batman readers. It hasn't gotten the DC Absolute treatment. Obviously the legacy of Batman's child is a very important one and Damian Wayne probably got a lot of people to go back to this to see where he came from. Being a graphic novel probably didn't help it stand out at the time though. With the Killing Joke or Arkham Asylum, and especially the Dark Knight Returns, DC was really thrusting Batman forward in narrative and style, while this was a a throwback to the 70's. It's not a life-changing comic, but it is a really good one.