"Showdown" is the thirteenth episode of the second season of Batman: The Animated Series, and the seventy-eighth overall episode of the series. It originally aired on September 12, 1995 on Fox Kids.
Plot[]
Agents of the Society of Shadows infiltrate a retirement home and kidnap one of the elderly residents. They are interrupted by Batman & Robin, but manage to escape with their captive.
Investigating the captive's room, Batman finds a tape on a chair. They return to the Batmobile and determine where the kidnappers are heading. They play the tape and hear Ra's al Ghul telling them a story:
- In the year 1883, when a Transcontinental Railroad is about to be completed, elderly bounty hunter Jonah Hex visits the nearby town of Devil's Hole. Making the acquaintance of a local barmaid, he tells her he is hunting for a fugitive outlaw, Arkady Duvall. She recognizes him immediately and says he has been driven out of town after beating up some of the local women. She has no idea where he is now, but when Hex asks if there's been any strange activity in the area, she mentions strange sounds and lights coming from a local mountain, and rumors of a dragon.
- She leads him to the mountain, and then he sends her back. Sneaking inside the mountain, he finds an impromptu factory, and an enormous airship held up by zeppelins. He sees Duvall, acting as an overseer of the workmen. Duvall whips one of the men and is immediately reprimanded by Ra's, who is in command. Ra's gives a speech, saying that he will use the airship, christened "The Phoenix", to destroy the railroad, then move east to Washington and take over the United States government, halting its destruction of the Western environment.
- Hex is discovered and captured and brought before Duvall. Hex says he's there to collect the bounty and pay back an "insult to a lady" friend of Hex's back east. Duvall snorts and orders Hex executed, but Ra's appears and counteracts him again, ordering Hex locked up instead.
- As the airship departs, Hex escapes his cell and runs after it, managing to catch a trailing line and climb aboard. At the inauguration ceremony for the railroad, the governor is about to drive the final spike. Still, a volley of cannonballs from the Phoenix destroys the waiting locomotive and much of the town. As the people scatter, Ra's orders another volley.
- Hex reveals himself and pursues Duvall. As he climbs into the ship's rigging, the captain frantically tells his men to stop firing, as the zeppelins holding up the ship are full of hydrogen gas. Hex faces off with Duvall, with Duvall wielding a saber and Hex a bowie knife. Amid their furious duel, Hex points a howitzer up toward the zeppelins, and fires, igniting the hydrogen. The ship loses altitude and begins to burn. Ra's escapes the ship in a personal glider, telling the rest of the men to save themselves but to abandon Duvall.
- The ship crashes, throwing both Hex and Duvall off. Duvall begs for his life, but Hex tells him he has no interest in killing him – instead, he'll deliver him alive to the law. He finds his hat and remarks ruefully, "I'm gettin' too old for this".
In the present, Batman & Robin catch up with Ra's at the airport, where he reveals the identity of his elderly captive...Duvall.
Ra's explains that Duvall is his son, though Ra's realized early on that he was too cruel and unstable to be his heir. Exposure to the Lazarus Pit as a young man explains his longevity. He is now more than 100 years old, but his mind has been shattered by his long prison sentence, and he is now far too feeble for even the Pit to restore him. Ra's had lost track of him until recently and asks them to let him go, so he can do what he can for his son in the little time he has left. Batman agrees, knowing that they will meet again one day.
Cast[]
- Kevin Conroy as Batman
- Loren Lester as Robin
- Patrick Leahy as Governor
- Malcolm McDowell as Arcady Duvall
- David Warner as Ra's al Ghul
- Michael Bell as Airman Captain
- William Bryant as Sheriff
- Bill McKinney as Jonah Hex
- Elizabeth Montgomery as Barmaid