She’s one of Batman’s worst enemies and the mother of his child. With the Dark Knight, things can get complicated… Your Major Spoilers Retro Review of Detective Comics #411 awaits!

DETECTIVE COMICS #411

Writer:  Denny O’Neil
Penciler: Bob Brown
Inker: Dick Giordano
Colorist: Uncredited
Letterer: Ben Oda
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Publisher: National Periodical Publications (DC Comics)
Cover Price: 15 Cents
Current Near-Mint Pricing: $600.00
Release Date: March 30, 1971

Previously in Detective Comics: Though we’ve already examined the first appearance of her pater familias and his big rubbery head, the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul actually appeared BEFORE her old man did. The League of Assassins (probably best known for the killing of Boston Brand, the ghost known as Deadman, a few years earlier) had popped up in Gotham City to execute a few shipping magnates. Batman was able to follow the trail of bodies to the mysterious Doctor Ebeneezer Darrk, the leader of the League. Though Darrk was able to shake the Darknight Detective a few issues earlier, this issue begins with him meeting a mysterious informant on the Statue of Freedom in Gotham Harbor. (She is a ringer for that other statue, as seen in ‘Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Ghostbusters II.’) Unfortunately, his informant isn’t as clever as he seems, as a few League members execute him, though not before he can give The Batman a key piece of information.

Thus, it is that The Batman is hiding amongst the passengers on the Soom Express as Doctor Darrk and a mysterious, beautiful companion take a train ride into the mountains… and then, the quick way off! Fortunately, the disguised Caped Crusader is able to follow suit. (As portrayals of Asian cultures in the comics of the early 1970s go, it’s… less offensive than some? But still filled with some stereotypes and unfortunate skin tones, including Batman’s disguise as an elderly woman in a woven straw hat.)

It’s unclear why Darrk’s companion is so horrified by Batman being swarmed by League of Assassins members, but she watches in horror as he is beaten down by the minions of Darrk. Sometime later, he awakens in a literal dungeon… minus his mask.

This issue’s pencils are by Bob Brown, an artist who drew Detective Comics for the better part of FIVE years without really getting a lot of credit. Something of an artistic chameleon, Brown had a thirty-year career in the business, penciling Daredevil, The Challengers of the Unknown, and more. His highest profile creation, other than the lovely Talia, is probably Space Ranger, one of DC’s science fiction heroes of the ’50s. Indeed, this issue bears more of the style of inker Dick Giordano than anything that I can identify as a Bob Brown joint, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a very modern-looking Batman, especially when it comes to his fight sequences, as when Darrk forces Batman to fight an angry bull to save the life of the “innocent” Talia, who is just a sweet young med student and not anything else at all, no sirree bob.

That panel of Batman kicking the Luger out of the villain’s hand is an important moment, as the use of that German handgun was shorthand for “pure evil” in the Bronze Age of Comics. Our hero then captures Doctor Darrk and ties him up, dragging him along as he and Talia try to catch the Soom Express back down the mountain to turn the head of the League in to the authorities. Darrk reveals that he had the owners of the cargo ships killed because they were shipping arms to South American rebels, but before Batman can take him in, he tricks the hero with a gas dispenser in his ascot. Doctor Darrk whips out a stiletto, prepared to kill the Gotham Guardian, forgetting all about his discarded (Chekov’s?) gun…

…which is now in the hands of Talia!

It might seem odd that a seasoned killer like Talia, raised by her evil father IN the League of Assassins, would be so overcome with a single murder, no matter how train-splattery. In retrospect, it’s clearly a long game that she’s playing to get into the Dark Knight’s head and make herself as sympathetic a figure as possible, drawing him into an emotional connection*, but in the real world, it’s because Denny O’Neil plotted the issue without thinking about who the character would be, much less who we know she will become in the ensuing fifty years. It makes Detective Comics #411 even more mind-scrambly than most 1970s comics, with unexpectedly well-done art and a perfectly wrapped tale of a villain hoisting on his own petard, earning 4 out of 5 stars overall.

*Those who read Grant Morrison’s Batman, Incorporated circa 2012 know this to be the canonical answer, even if it’s only ret-canon.

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