Detective Comics #839

DC Comics

Writer: Paul Dini

Pencils: Ryan Benjamin and Don Kramer

Inkers: Saleem Crawford and Wayne Faucher

In The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul, Part 7, Ra’s transfers his soul into yet another subordinate’s body. This makes four body switches, thus far, in the story. The frequency is borderline comic, and it’s hard not to imagine the Benny Hill theme song playing as Ra’s defies corporeal mortality yet again.

The Resurrection of Ra’s concludes in Detective Comics #839, and it’s been sadly underwhelming. It has the dark mysticism and wry wit that makes Grant Morrison’s other stories good, but these usually enticing elements fail to combine successfully here. Though Resurrection of Ra’s started with Grant Morrison, it ends in Detective #839 under the guidance of Paul Dini, longtime head writer for the old Batman: The Animated Series.

Back in 1993, Dini included Ra’s Al Ghul in a few episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. Those episodes were some of the series’ finest, which combined a 1930s, movie-serial adventurousness with a convincing turn by David Warner in the role of Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe’s performance in Batman Begins is comparatively dull). In Detective #839, though, Dini is constrained by the broader storyline he must adapt to. Sad, given the high quality of the rest of his work in Detective Comics.

Ryan Benjamin joins usual Dini collaborator Don Kramer in penciling duties for #839. Benjamin injects a necessary dose of energy into Kramer’s normally static images. Still, the battle sequences fail to impress. They shouldn’t. Batman is fighting a bunch of ninjas. This should be pants-wettingly cool. This should inspire me to curl up in the fetal position and hum Danny Elfman’s Batman theme to myself in a bizarre instance of nerdy sublimity. Yet, here I stand, pants dry, totally disappointed.

Worth the money? Only if you’re really into the storyline.