On the one hand, Ra’s Al Ghul and Talia are great characters. Ra’s was used to great effect in “Batman Begins” and Talia was extremely compelling in “Son of the Demon”. They were the only noteworthy additions to Batman’s cast of the Bronze Age.

On the other hand, the “hairy-chested love god” stuff is not my favorite aspect of The Batman. I know that O’Neil and Adams were moving away from the camp of the TV series using the tools at hand. I also know that at the time “Gothic” meant “Hammer Horror”. It is just that I like Batman stories that draw from Film Noir, Kung Fu movies and older styles of horror much better.

Bats has also supported Jim Gordon for years because he is the personfication of the “protect and serve the public, not the State” cop

I suppose I’m saying I agree with ALL Of the previous posters – I think Bruce would both love and hate a police state, depending on how it operated
Then again, as Judge Dredd and V For Vendetta have shown us there is no such thing as a GOOD police state

Of course, the problem with a shared universe, is that Batman really should be calling the JLA every week. How many of the Joker’s or Two Face’s victims would have been saved if Batman called up all his old friends every time they escaped from Arkham?

I bet half the heroes he has met through Brave and the Bold spend most of their time sitting on their hands. If he organised them properly, Gotham could have a superhero on every street corner.

Y’know, I’ve read these stories a few times, and, yes, they are good. But each and every time I get up to this specific chapter, a voice in my head starts loudly asking “Why the hell doesn’t Batman just call in the Justice League?!?” I mean, yeah, a brilliant biochemist and a champion skier and a ninja who used to work for Ra’s Al Gul is pretty impressive. But why settle for those three when you could have Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Martian Manhunter lending you a hand in taking down Ra’s organization?

I don’t know, maybe all of Batman’s subterfuge & planning to assemble this group to take down Ra’s would have been more plausible of Denny O’Neil had just slipped in one short line of dialogue saying that the JLA were busy off in space fighting Despero, or something.

“SHIRTLESS FIGHTING!”

So is it the writer’s fault that “enemies” is misspelled at the bottom right corner of that last image? Or the letterer?

Neither; it’s the editor’s.