The Obeah Man was a criminal who murdered Janet Drake and crippled Jack Drake.
Character History[]
The Obeah Man was a mighty Haitian criminal and alleged black magician ("obeah" is a voodoo word meaning, approximately, "black magic") who kidnapped the parents of Tim Drake (a.k.a. Robin III) and demanded a ransom from their company,posing as the front man for the ‘Caribbean Economic Front’. The Obeah Man demands a ransom from Drake Industries for the couple’s safe return. He then brutally murders one of the Drake’s friends with a knife on tape to prove he means business. Batman soon got a call from Commissioner James Gordon. Together, they reviewed the execution tape mailed in by the Obeah Man. Gordon allowed Batman to take the original tape to the Batcave for further study, and the Dark Knight enhances the recording. He spots a jar with a giant carnivorous centipede in the background of the graphic scene, and determined to research the arthropod to establish its natural habitat (and, therefore, the location of the Drakes). Batman concluded that the centipedes in question were kept often by voodoo cult leaders, thus correctly deducing that the person holding the Drakes was involved somehow in a cult. Gordon called, telling Batman that the ransom call had arrived. Batman traveled quickly to Haiti and intervened in a horrifying fire-walking voodoo ritual known as the Fire Ceremony (Held on a full moon to sacrifice the Drakes) but arrived too late. Even though Drake Industries paid the ransom in cash, the Obeah Man was still bent on killing Jack and Janet Drake, offering them as sacrifices to the spirits of Baron Samedi and Papa Legbra. Tim's mother was killed by the Obeah Man's poison, which contained a powerful nerve toxin made from a Jimson root extract. Jack survived, but was left a cripple for years.
Overcome with grief and failure, Batman captured the Obeah Man, engaged in a furious hand-to-hand battle, and administered a savage beating. Batman later informed Tim Drake that the Obeah Man would spend the rest of his life in a prison hospital.
It is later revealed that the Obeah Man was released from prison after "greasing the right palms" and bribing some corrupt Haitian officials to look the other way. Tim Drake, now as Robin, later travels to Haiti, intent on bringing the villain to justice. The Obeah Man is subsequently captured and taken back to America to stand trial.
Powers and Abilities[]
The Obeah Man is a voodoo expert and black magician, formidable abilities when combined with his skill as an expert manipulator.
He has also expertly trained himself in the Leidenfrost effect, which allows the Obeah Man to form a barrier of perspiration between his feet and hot coals during fire-walking voodoo rituals. He has also displayed an incredible sense of balance and stamina (Batman once remaked that the "creep's got no glass jaw.").
Obeah Man never uses a firearm, but relies on a sacrificial dagger which he wields with great experience and utilizes in slitting the throats of his victims. For years afterward, Tim Drake would be haunted in his nightmares by images of the Obeah Man and his knife killing his parents, although in fact Jack and Janet were poisoned and never had a chance to be cut by the blade.