After Dark

The Nu52 and following reboots obviously overhauled Lazarus Lore so completely they're functionally a different thing, so I'm not talking about them. Today, instead, we're talking about post-crisis/pre-Flashpoint Lazarus Pits, their contradictions, and what we can make of them.

The Lazarus Pits have been around nearly as long as Ra's and Talia have been, and even before they appeared, it was clear that Ra's had some method of extending his life.

Batman (1940-2011) #235

The first Lazarus Pit itself seems to be in a chalet in Switzerland, and it's very different than what we will later associate it as. It is instead, a mortuary slab that lowers itself into a pit of "bubbling liquid"

Batman (1940-2011) #243

In these early versions, the Lazarus Pit is portrayed as a medical invention that Ra's has used to extend his life.

It is shown to have consequences, which fandom has, of course, latched onto.

Batman (1940-2011) #244

Here, we see the Lazarus Madness described as including "the strength of ten men", and he is able to be able to resist nearly all attacks from Batman and Lo Ling.

In addition, Ra's claims that he has used the pit too often, which is shown to be the driving force behind his interest in Bruce and his legacy.

Batman (1940-2011) #244

Later appearances of Ra's and the pit throughout this era add a few more interesting tidbits.

He claims that only he can use the Lazarus Pit... but puts Talia in it in that same issue, claiming that it's okay if it's just a quick dip.

Batman (1940-2011) #335

Is Ra's lying about no one else being able to use the pit? Almost certainly. He will start putting anyone he wants into the pit soon enough.

Those with a keen eye might notice that the Lazarus Pit is already going through some aesthetic changes: we're still seeing a slab being lowered into a small pit, but now the liquid within is orange! This will come up a lot!

Next up we have the storyline Grant Morrison refused to read: Son of the Demon.

In Son of the Demon, Ra's claims that there was an earlier version of the Pit, before the final version Bruce has already encountered. In this version, he claims that Mellisande, Talia's mother, was pushed into this proto-pit, and it killed her.

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)

Denny O'Neil will later retcon this in 1993, claiming that Talia's mother died of a drug overdose, and Ra's refused to bring her back.

But it is consistent in early versions of the story that Lazarus Pits, if not entered with proper care and with the right preparations, can be dangerous.

Bride of the Demon is the next storyline, and Ra's BRINGS the Lazarus Pits in this one. Ra's finds himself a hot MILF girlfriend and puts her in the Pit to make her younger so she can give him kids.

Batman: Bride of the Demon (1990)

This Lazarus Pit is shown to be more experimental than past versions, with Ra's and Dr. Weltmann attempting to prevent the Lazarus Madness factor.

Ra's later puts a child in the pit as a bribe to his father, but the kid had possibly been dead too long, and it was hinted there were going to be long-term consequences for the actions... which were dropped. As was the wife, who was supposedly pregnant at the end of this story. Comics!

This is the first time that limits on the Lazarus Pit are presented, but it is certainly not the last. This idea that there's an upper limit on how long someone can be dead for before a Lazarus Pit doesn't do anything will come back again.

Batman: Birth of the Demon finally brings in a more mystical aspect to the Lazarus Pits, which so far have been vaguely scientific. In this story, we are introduced to the fact that Lazarus Pits are located on the convergence points of leylines (which in-universe have something to do with the electro-magnetic field). Ra's's approximate age is revealed, and it is shown that Bruce and Ra's have been fighting a real-estate battle over sites where Lazarus Pits can be built.

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)

In flashbacks, we learn that Ra's figured out how to build a Lazarus Pit, and was not actually the first person to use it. Instead, it was for the son of the Sultan Ra's worked for as a physician.

After the Sultan's son went mad, killed Sora, and blamed Ra's for it, Ra's had his vengeance... by putting the son in a false Lazarus Pit.

This pit was sabotaged by not being built on a Leyline. So uh... be careful with those, I guess!

So in short: by the end of this era of Denny O'Neil/Mike Barr Lazarus Lore, we know that anyone can use a Lazarus Pit, but Ra's controls them with his knowledge of how to create them. Bruce can find where they should be by tracking leylines, and will pass this knowledge on to others over time.

We then enter a new era! The Chuck Dixon era, to be specific.

Chuck Dixon has surprisingly few retcons for us. We first really encounter his take on Lazarus Lore in his mini series Bane of the Demon, where Bane works with Ra's and co.

We get a brief recap of the lore here:

Batman: Bane of the Demon #3 (1998)

We are now introduced to an interesting new layer: the Lazarus Pits can be predicted, not just detected. Ra's has headquarters set up all over the world, in places where Lazarus Pits not only are, but will be. Some pit locations appear to remain the same throughout the years (Ra's has built numerous pits on the location of the first site: at least three that we know of), but generally, Lazarus Pits seem to be a one-time deal.

Ra's clearly has dedicated most of his life to these pits; to acquiring their locations, to predicting where they will be, experimenting with how to make them better... so obviously, he guards the formula for how to make them extremely closely, right?

Well. Not according to Chuck.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (1989-2007) #145

And if you've noticed that head of green hair on the ground there, that's right folks! BRUCE WAYNE PUT A DEAD JOKER IN A LAZARUS PIT HE MADE HIMSELF.

Bruce justifies it by telling Alfred that if he does this, it means Ra's can't use it later. However, it does not change the fact that Bruce put the Joker in a Lazarus Pit. No I'm not going to be over this ever. Jason might have a point, actually.

Ra's decides, after this, that he wants another wife. And he picks Dinah Lance! But whoops, as it happens, Dinah was tortured and can't have kids (also lost her Canary Cry), way back in Green Arrow, before Ollie died! So Ra's decides to throw her in a Lazarus Pit. It... doesn't go well. Lazarus Madness + Restored Canary Cry = one destroyed building.

Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #33

Oh look! We've got locations! And of course every other Lazarus Pit we've seen or will see except Birth of the Demon is nowhere near any of these convergence points!

So! To recap the current state of the lore: Lazarus Pits are a combination of science and magic. They are an alchemical creation, built on leyline nodes. Generally, they are one-use only, or at least they require centuries to be re-usable. They can resurrect the newly-dead, but but Ra's is very cautious about letting other people use them, probably because he's a control freak, and he doesn't have too many of them left.

We depart the Dixon era and enter... the Nyssa Raatko era.

Nyssa is introduced in Death and the Maidens, with Greg Rucka, who is a huge fan of Denny O'Neil, still sticking pretty close to the original lore.

Here, we see that Bruce has still been on his kick of preventing Ra's from building more Lazarus Pits by buying up real estate where they could be. This forced Ra's to try to reconcile with his daughter Nyssa, who he gave a Lazarus Pit to sometime in the 1700s.

Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #1

"But hey!" I can hear you say. "Isn't part of the thing that you mentioned earlier is that they're one-use?"

Well they are! For Ra's.

Nyssa, however, is a smart lady.

Nyssa, at some point in her life, figured out how to make a Lazarus Pit reusable. So she's been getting a lot of mileage out of this baby, and has been since the 1700s.

This story also presents an explanation for why the Lazarus Pit is sometimes green and sometimes orange: Nyssa's is orange and Ra's has green ones. I guess maybe the earlier orange pits that Ra's had were him trying to make them reusable like Nyssa? Hmm.

Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #4

When questioned about it, Nyssa tells Talia that there used to be more pits, so he was less protective of them when he gave her this one.

Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #6

At the end of this storyline, Ra's is dead, Nyssa is the new Ra's al Ghul, and according to Bruce, she has the only Lazarus Pit left.

Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #9

Nyssa pops up again in Batgirl, facing off against Cass, and brags about her special pit again. Cass and Shiva both get dips in it. Fun times!

Batgirl (2000-2006) #69

Yes, the torture hooks are a reoccurring feature of Nyssa's pit. I don't know why.

But wait! A brief interlude!

Jason Todd came back to comics in a storyline: Under the Hood, in 2005, which wrapped up in 2006. We weren't told how Jason came back in the story itself, but a few months after Under the Hood ended, we get Batman Annual #25, which shows Talia shoving Jason into a Lazarus Pit while Ra's was using it.

Batman Annual #25 (2006)

There's no discussion about if this is a weird dip. He's got brain activity again though!

This is revisited again in Red Hood: The Lost Days, but it doesn't really add anything from the point of Lazarus Lore, except that Ra's posits that Jason, having already been resurrected, could have suffered some long-term consequences, unlike literally anyone else who had a dip.

Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #2

Anyways, enough Jason! Nyssa gets killed off-page in OYL, so she's gone now, Talia's running the show and oh fuck it's Morrison-era. And Morrison never bothered to read any other Ra's or Talia story because it wasn't Silver Age or something. So... retcon time!

The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul attempts to retell Birth of the Demon, but with a few retcons. The pits were discovered, not made, being the official point in which the Lazarus Pits become purely magical phenomena, rather than a work of alchemy.

Batman Annual #26 (2007)

Bruce also mentions that the Pits are connected to actual waterways, which is a massive difference from the shallow pits from earlier eras.

This era does however confirm the concept that older bodies, further along in the decay process, probably shouldn't be dipped in the Lazarus Pit. At least, Dick convinced Tim of this fact after a little while.

(Also White Ghost wants a perfectly healthy, alive Tim to bathe in the Lazarus Pit, and this is never explained. Maybe it was a distraction?)

Nightwing (1996-2009) #139

In this era, and the Batman: Reborn era following it, the Lazarus Pits are pretty absent, but the few references we do get from this point forward (including in Red Hood: The Lost Days, which are published in 2010-2011), tend to use the Morrison-era canon that the pits are natural. And also we're back to having a lot of them, instead of just Nyssa's singular one in the Balkans, and, since Ra's has a new young(er) body, there's no sense of urgency to buy up/prevent him from making new pits. Potentially, Dusan/White Ghost took advantage of the fact that the Bats thought Ra's was dead to buy back the real-estate and make new pits, but that's using the pre-Morrison lore. I guess in Morrison era, the Bats just... don't know where Pits are until they find one, and then they blow it up.

We also no longer see any one-time-use limitations. One could assume that Talia figured out the formula Nyssa used to keep the pits reusable and told Ra's, if we're trying to merge the canons.

And that's not even counting whatever is happening in the post-Flashpoint era. Lazarus Planet gives me a headache. Let's not talk about it just now.