“I am he who is called Ra’s al Ghul.”“The Demon’s Head. I thought you were only a legend.”
“I am quite real. And as I’m sure you realize by now, my reputation for resourcefulness is well-deserved.”
One rainy night at Gotham University, Robin is abducted from his dorm room by a masked figure. Batman looks for his apprentice but is instead found by Ra’s al Ghul (David Warner), who reveals that his daughter Talia (Helen Slater) has also been kidnapped – and moreover, that he has deduced Batman’s secret identity. Batman accompanies Ra’s al Ghul and his overzealous manservant Ubu to Calcutta on the trail of Robin’s captors, where Batman begins to learn of Ra’s al Ghul’s true designs for global extremism.
Back on “Off Balance,” I had teased that I have so very much to say about Ra’s al Ghul, and “The Demon’s Quest” is finally the place to have that conversation. I’ll make the claim that Ra’s al Ghul was the first great addition to the Batman canon in decades, introduced as he was in 1971, and I’ll go even further to say that even with that thirty-year handicap he still managed to become easily Batman’s second or third greatest adversary (depending, I grant you, on where you rank The Riddler). Ra’s poses both a physical and mental threat to Batman; Joker and Riddler require great cerebral effort of Batman – Riddler to outthink him, and Joker to wrap one’s head around thinking like him – but Ra’s can go toe to toe with Batman, as he does in the exceptional swordfighting scene, so iconic that Arrow poached it for its third season. The Demon’s Head is a criminal mastermind, with a vast network of perils, he’s more than a match for Batman both intellectually and physically, but he adds something new to the Bat-canon in that he doesn’t want to defeat Batman, not entirely – he wants Batman to be his heir, to marry his daughter Talia and embrace his vision of how to save the world. (And may we say, the ecoterrorism thing works better on Ra’s than it ever could on Catwoman.) Ra’s is, in fact, Batman’s complete opposite number – indescribably wealthy and influential, manically single-minded in his pursuit of his particular vision of justice, and unstoppable in every way; he even has a first-rate mask and cape to conceal his identity.
If Ra’s is the Professor Moriarty to Batman’s Sherlock Holmes, whose danger is concealed only by his immense dignity, Talia is the apex version of Catwoman, a woman hopelessly in love with Batman but equally impossible to reform, so obsessed is she with following her father’s vision. (I do wonder – when the comics revealed in 2000 that Catwoman was actually the daughter of mobster Carmine Falcone, were they trying to make her more similar to Talia?) In the comics, Talia would ultimately become the mother of Batman’s son Damian, but here she’s almost Tracy di Vicenzo from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the heiress to a criminal empire whose hand in marriage is the thing that brings father and lover together, in a conflict in which Talia is at one point quite literally a weapon, hurled at Batman. Though the original comics by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams leaned heavily into the James Bond vibe, especially with Ra’s and his snowbound ski chalet, this two-part episode (scripted by O’Neil and Len Wein, two veritable titans) replaces the espionage with a more classical swashbuckling attitude. We get major Lawrence of Arabia overtones from the score, and the journey through Calcutta really recalls the better moments of the Indiana Jones franchise. Even the kiss at sunrise, which closes out the episode, feels like a classic moment from the golden age of Hollywood.
Indeed, there’s an overall classical atmosphere that pervades the whole episode. David Warner is absolutely perfect as Ra’s al Ghul, his clipped British accent giving the character a dismissive aristocratic air that nevertheless suggests he’s a man of intense culture and sophistication. As the very first adaptation of Ra’s al Ghul, Warner sets the gold standard for the character; Liam Neeson is quite close in Batman Begins, but Warner’s influence can be heard to this day. You believe every word he says, too, from his deduction of Batman’s identity to the revelation of his plot against earth’s population; we even buy that he’s a capable swordsman as he taunts Batman with every parry and thrust (though the silhouetted swordfighting with the Errol Flynn score doesn’t hurt).
Here’s the thing – I could transcribe every amazing thing that happens in this episode. I could talk about the inventive use of a precredits scene to establish the plot and set this episode apart. We could talk about the pitch-perfect beat where Batman puts his mask on – his true face – to talk to Ra’s al Ghul, or the moment when he takes his shirt off to completely devastate the plans of the Demon’s Head. We could joke about how Robin isn’t quite useful in this episode or marvel at how lush Batman’s suit looks when a dark gray cast eliminates the blue accents from his cape and cowl. But all of it falls under the rubric of O’Neil and Wein doing a bang-up job with the script, adapting the original issues almost frame for frame and crafting a mystery story which features some excellent detective work by Batman but also remembers to allow the audience to follow along and maybe solve the mystery with the world’s greatest detective.
“The Demon’s Quest” is such a good episode that I keep checking to make sure Paul Dini didn’t write it – the highest compliment one can pay an episode of this show. It’s one of the show’s finest hours, doing potent work to introduce a rogue to an audience who hadn’t seen him adapted before without forgetting to present an illegal amount of fun, adventure, and excitement.
Writers: Dennis O’Neil and Len Wein
Director: Kevin Altieri
Villain: Ra’s al Ghul (David Warner)
Next episode: “His Silicon Soul,” in which a replicant returns.
🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇
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