JLA - Tower Of Babel: The Full Story

Occurring simultaneously with the attacks of the members of the Justice League, Ra’s al Ghul engaged a device that turned the written word into gibberish, or in his words, babble, the world over. Street signs no longer made sense. Computers were spouting unintelligible lines of letters and numbers and even money was affected. The world quickly fell into chaos.

Oracle was able to inform Superman about the ultrasonic signal that was causing the problem but being unable to understand and make use of her computers, Barbara wasn’t able to aid her teammates in doing much about the crisis. Superman retrieved a device from his Fortress of Solitude that he had confiscated from Brainiac to create a dome around Metropolis to block it from the device.

Not content with the chaos that the first stage of his plan had caused, Ra’s engaged another device that made the spoken word undecipherable as well. People go from fearful to terrified when they can’t even communicate with members of their own families. Talia believed that her father had gone too far and that he was doing this for his own enjoyment rather than any higher ideals.