Who is Barbatos?: A Quick History

In Dark Nights: Metal (Review) readers learn that part of the secret behind Metal is an evil creature named Barbatos and its attempts to invade the Multiverse. Today we’re taking a brief look at this character’s history and seeing how this history relates to the present.

(spoilers start here)

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

In the 1989 graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, readers get their first ever hints as to the existence of Barbatos. Throughout the book, there are rumors of a bat spirit who haunts Gotham City. Amadeus Arkham, the man who went on to create Arkham Asylum, was said to be haunted by the demon, driving him to insanity.

Nothing is definitively revealed though, and Batman is left wondering if this bat creature exists or if it is simply the ramblings of the insane.

Dark Knight, Dark City

Peter Milligan’s 1990 story arc, “Dark Night, Dark City,” would see Batman go head to head with the bat spirit itself. In a flashback to the 1700s, a group of men are gathered in what would later become Gotham city. There they perform a ritual designed to bind the bat spirit to a human host, thus giving them control over its power. Yet the ritual goes awry, leaving the sprit only partially summoned.

In the modern day, Barbatos manipulates the Riddler into performing a series of rituals on Batman. These rituals are to prepare Batman as the demon’s new host. When the Dark Knight finally confronts Barbatos, it identifies itself as the spirit of Gotham City and claims to have molded Bruce his entire life in preparation for this moment. Yet, before it is able to do anything, the house they are in is set on fire and Barbatos is apparently dispelled.

Batman concludes this arc pondering if this demon truly had as large a role in creating him as it claimed.

The Return of Bruce Wayne

In Final Crisis, Darkseid sends Batman back in time using his Omega Sanction. He then releases a being called the “Hyper-Adapter” to follow and torment him. This combination caused Batman to slowly return to the present, storing energy as he jumped through time. The end result would be a release of this energy upon his return to the modern day, thus destroying all of existence.

Batman stopped this by tricking the Hyper-Adapter into fighting the Justice League and then sending it backwards in an exploding time machine.

While very different from the Barbatos presented in Dark Knight, Dark City, the Hyper-Adapter in The Return of Bruce Wayne does not contradict its prior origin. Its appearance in Dark Knight, Dark City was simply a step in its journey through time.

Dark Nights: Metal

In Dark Nights: Metal (Review), readers learn that Barbatos’s origins stretch even further back than initially believed. He was created in the earliest days of the Multiverse and worked as the dragon of destruction in the Forge of Worlds, the location where every universe is created. There, his job was to destroy unstable universes and prevent them from entering the order of the Multiverse. However, his appetite for destruction grew so he decided to leave his post and kill his masters. This action left the Forge of Worlds unattended, allowing the unstable worlds to enter into existence as a new realm of nightmares, called the Dark Multiverse.

From this Dark Multiverse, Barbatos observed the world and saw Batman chased into pre-history by the Hyper-Adapter. While in the past, Batman inspired the creation of the Bat Tribe, an action that was also noticed by Barbatos. He corrupted this Bat Tribe and gave it a new goal, to summon Barbatos on Earth. Over thousands of years, the Bat Tribe evolved and eventually became the Court of Owls.

The Court of Owls then began to prepare Batman for Barbatos’s arrival. Each of their fights against the Dark Knight allowed them to anoint him with a different metal. After he was anointed with the final metal, the Court was able to use him as a portal to bring Barbatos into the world. Barbatos entered the world alongside evil versions of Batman that he gathered from across the Dark Multiverse.

After entering the Multiverse, Barbatos and his Dark Knights immediately begin working on a way to sink the entire Multiverse into the depths of the Dark Multiverse. However, their plan is foiled by Batman and the rest of Earth’s heroes, who find a way to save the Earth from destruction. In the end, Barbatos is chained up and left in the depths of the Dark Multiverse.

For now, this is the end of Barbatos’s story but who knows when or if he will return to the world of DC Comics. For more “Who is?” articles, make sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest .