“DEMON IN THE SKY”
Cover Art and Script by Ty Templeton.
Penciled by Bo Hampton
Inked by Rich Burchett and Terry Beatty
Colored by Lee Loughridge
Lettered by Tim Harkins
Associate Edited by Darren Vincenzo
Edited by Scott Peterson
Published by DC Comics/Time Warner in 1997, cover date December ‘97.
. . .
“Up until this moment, I was uncertain of the limits of this technology. Now I’m certain it has none.”
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
Batman gets abducted by a flying saucer.
Who’s piloting the flying saucer?
Ra’s Al Ghul.
How did Ra’s Al Ghul get a flying saucer?
Well, aliens abducted Ra’s Al Ghul.
Ra’s Al Ghul refused to be a prisoner.
Ra’s Al Ghul killed the gray aliens onboard, and hijacked the saucer for his own use.
And then Batman comes along in his Batplane.
That’s when Ra’s Al Ghul used his new extraterrestrial vehicle to abduct Batman in midair.
Impressive how Ra’s turned a stressful situation to his advantage, isn’t it?
Of course, Ra’s fucks it all up by monologueing to Batman about his new toy, and his new scheme to use an alien death ray to melt the polar ice cap to drown industrial civilization.
But Batman’s a skeptic who doesn’t believe in UFOs and alien abductions and crap like that, so he thinks Ra’s is bullshitting him. This is funny . . . because Batman’s a longtime friend and colleague of Green Lantern, Superman, and the Martian Manhunter-but maybe he’s never crossed paths with the probe-happy grays before?
Still, Batman’s obliged to chase Ra’s around the block yet again since it’s obvious the seemingly immortal evildoer is up to no good.
That’s Batman and Robin Adventures #25. It mixes 1990s Batman the Animated series shit (mainly the visuals) with The X-Files shit (alien abduction, MIBs, skeptic v. believer themes). It even has one of those ambiguous-but-not-really endings that The X-Files is notorious for-you know, where skeptical Scully is pretty much always wrong? This time around, Batman is Scully to Robin’s Mulder. It’s a trifle, but it’s fun.
The flying saucer is controlled by brain waves. Ra’s Al Ghul’s 700 years of martial arts and esoteric meditation practice enables him to easily assert his willpower over the dronelike mentality of the gray aliens. Ra’s is into an eco-terrorism trip of late, and so he monologues about using the flying saucer’s death ray to bring on the collapse of industrial civilization. Once all that capitalist bullshit’s properly scuttled, he’ll be able to enjoy fresh air and clean water just like in the old days. It’s a commendably ambitious plan. (FAN FICTIONAL DIGRESSION: I like to imagine that Ra’s got inspired by playing Final Fantasy VII on the original hardware. Ra’s seems kinda old to take up gaming, so I figure Talia Al Ghul-who doesn’t appear in this issue-hipped him to FFVII off panel. “Dad, I know you don’t like technology, but this game is totally your vibe!”)
You even get a scene where some John Keel-style Men In Black exhort Bruce Wayne to investigate Groom Lake. The implication is that the MIBs know that Bruce Wayne is also Batman. This is an amusing wrinkle in the Batman mythos. Maybe this thread could pay off in future “Extraterrestrial Hunter” adventures where Batman and Robin get tasked to interdict anal probes and cattle mutilations and the like.
My favorite panel depicts Ra’s as having bloodshot, unblinking eyes. It’s like Ra’s mindmeld with the flying saucer has turned him into even more of a sleepless power addict. No rest for the ambitious.
Batman and Robin Adventures #25 is a perfect dollar bin find. It’s a double-sized issue. It’s a quirky, self-contained episode in the endless Batman saga. It’s also on-trend with the escalating 1990s nostalgia wave of late. Read it once, read it twice-read it ‘til you get bored, and pass it on to someone else. Or keep on reading it ‘til it falls apart. Just don’t leave it entombed in a polybag with a piece of cardstock.
