Talia’s transformations - inevitable?

[godisawesome]

Morrison's biggest problem as a writer is this seeming need to take morally grey, complex villains and turn them into mustache-twirling megalomaniacs with no depth or nuance. Magneto had the same fate as Talia in Morrison's X-Men run, though the X-Men editors cared enough to retcon that to having never been Magneto in the first place. It's an astounding blind spot for a writer who is otherwise known for having stories with so much depth to remove all depth from the big villains.

I get why Morrison wants pitch-black villains for their story, and why they may even feel encouraged to do so because that counteracts "Draco In Leather Pants-ing" of villains - but it also means that the villains lack some punch as baddies, and with Talia arguably ramps up her worst archetypal traits as an Evil Exotic Baby Mama.

I still feel the best way to do it would be to let her be nuanced, give her a more sympathetic background, and then simply make sure she's still a pitch-black villain in the modern setting. Like a more ruthless Demona from Gargoyles.

[marhawkman]

I get why Morrison wants pitch-black villains for their story, and why they may even feel encouraged to do so because that counteracts "Draco In Leather Pants-ing" of villains - but it also means that the villains lack some punch as baddies, and with Talia arguably ramps up her worst archetypal traits as an Evil Exotic Baby Mama.

I still feel the best way to do it would be to let her be nuanced, give her a more sympathetic background, and then simply make sure she's still a pitch-black villain in the modern setting. Like a more ruthless Demona from Gargoyles.

even Demona had a good side though. In the end Goliath still was hoping to get her to be a nice person again.

[godisawesome]

even Demona had a good side though. In the end Goliath still was hoping to get her to be a nice person again.

And that's why I said "more ruthless" on Demona - Demona was effectively one of the multiple candidates for Big Bad the show had, even with her anti-villainous nature, complex goals, and sympathetic backstory. She could match being an ally one episode with randomly murdering dozens of people frozen as statues the next - ramp up that villainy a bit more, and you've got a counterpart to Leviathan Talia.

And it's the cool mix of heartbreak, pity, and disgust Goliath has towards Demona that I think is missing from Bruce and Talia; we need to feel Bruce's sense of loss at Talia no longer being someone he could be with and how that collides with her current form where he could never be with her again.

That's also how I think you differentiate her from Catwoman; Selina's someone who, even at her worst, is still by and large tolerable and useful to Batman in a strategic sense, so that colors their interactions all the time, and keeps her on the table as a romantic interest, and if Talia was once a "better" match for Bruce but is now someone he has to stop and can't even let influence Damian too much, that's an opposite extreme.

[marhawkman]

And that's why I said "more ruthless" on Demona - Demona was effectively one of the multiple candidates for Big Bad the show had, even with her anti-villainous nature, complex goals, and sympathetic backstory. She could match being an ally one episode with randomly murdering dozens of people frozen as statues the next - ramp up that villainy a bit more, and you've got a counterpart to Leviathan Talia.

And it's the cool mix of heartbreak, pity, and disgust Goliath has towards Demona that I think is missing from Bruce and Talia; we need to feel Bruce's sense of loss at Talia no longer being someone he could be with and how that collides with her current form where he could never be with her again.

That's also how I think you differentiate her from Catwoman; Selina's someone who, even at her worst, is still by and large tolerable and useful to Batman in a strategic sense, so that colors their interactions all the time, and keeps her on the table as a romantic interest, and if Talia was once a "better" match for Bruce but is now someone he has to stop and can't even let influence Damian too much, that's an opposite extreme.

Heh, by comparison, Demona seemingly forgot about Angela and didn't care about her existence.

[TheBatman]

I hope they leave her evil. They shouldn't turn ALL their female villains into antiheroes, like what's happened with Poison Ivy and Harley. Implies that women can't be all bad, they have to have some good in them.

Talia makes more sense as an anti hero than Poison Ivy and Harley do, IMO. If it were up to me, she'd be the only one who'd turn into more of an anti-heroine.

I always thought Arkham City Talia was a good evolution of the character. A lot of what they've done with the character in the past 15+ years just feels like sabotage in some ways.

[jetengine]

I kind of agree with OP.

If she's Bruces LI then she's presented as having no agency in Ra's organisation, little more then a docile, loving daughter with "exotic" sex appeal, straight out of the pulps from the 30s wherein such a social situation was the norm. Now though ? Utterly ludicrous. Unless Ra's intentionally pushes a much more Conservative and stilted structure on her, which I guess could be used for character development but its limiting and raises more questions

[Blue22]

IMO, Talia, like Selina, works best when she is in that morally gray territory of not being quite good but not being fully evil either. She buys into her fathers dream but doesn't always agree with his methods. However, her reasons for opposing him can be self serving as well. And her romance with Batman should always be genuine.

Pretty much this.

I like Talia A LOT more than I used to (Morrison damn near ruined the character for me). I think she's at her best when she's not good but also not totally evil. She's just out to do what she wants (be it good or bad) and to hell with anyone who gets in her way. A true neutral character.

As for Bruce, I definitely like the idea that she still has feelings for him and always will, but I think those two are both better off not exploring those feelings anymore.

[godisawesome]

I kind of agree with OP.

If she's Bruces LI then she's presented as having no agency in Ra's organisation, little more then a docile, loving daughter with "exotic" sex appeal, straight out of the pulps from the 30s wherein such a social situation was the norm. Now though ? Utterly ludicrous. Unless Ra's intentionally pushes a much more Conservative and stilted structure on her, which I guess could be used for character development but its limiting and raises more questions

Pretty much this.

I like Talia A LOT more than I used to (Morrison damn near ruined the character for me). I think she's at her best when she's not good but also not totally evil. She's just out to do what she wants (be it good or bad) and to hell with anyone who gets in her way. A true neutral character.

As for Bruce, I definitely like the idea that she still has feelings for him and always will, but I think those two are both better off not exploring those feelings anymore.

Maybe she'd work best if she were given treatment like Bane sometimes gets at his more anti-heroic.

Really make her backstory both explain why Bruce would have hope for her and maybe even grow enamored early on, but why she can't really make the full switch, and can still readily be a major villain. Bane's forever shaped by the brutal hierarchy and exploitation of his prison childhood; maybe Talia should forever be shaped by how her father tried to control her life as an asset for his gander schemes.

And just like how Bane had that brief period of being an anti-hero ally of Batman, Talia perhaps went full rebel daughter adn helped Bruce against her dad... and then, like how Ban slipped back into being a warlord himself, albeit one with a twisted code of honor, Talia can slip into being a underworld warlord.

[Alan2099]

The whole idea that she's torn between her father and Bruce suggests that sometimes she needs to sway more one direction than other. She can't be the perfectly neutral party. Her having a villainous mood from time to time seems to fit.

[HsssH]

Morrison's biggest problem as a writer is this seeming need to take morally grey, complex villains and turn them into mustache-twirling megalomaniacs with no depth or nuance. Magneto had the same fate as Talia in Morrison's X-Men run, though the X-Men editors cared enough to retcon that to having never been Magneto in the first place. It's an astounding blind spot for a writer who is otherwise known for having stories with so much depth to remove all depth from the big villains.

Maybe problem is not Morrison, but people who think that mass murderers are "complex" and "have a point".

[godisawesome]

Maybe problem is not Morrison, but people who think that mass murderers are "complex" and "have a point".

This is true, but peels off into different problems, issues, potential and fallibilities.

It's fine to decide "mass murder" =/= unsympathetic... but *if* you do that, then any romance option towards the mass murderer should be abandoned whole-heartedly. If Morrison ramped up Talia to a blunt, uncomplicated villain, than she really shouldn't be Bruce's ex, and Morrison themselves was skittish towards going completely "Batman got raped" and it would've screwed up the "divorce" allegory they wanted.

Yes, I know there are plenty of people shallow enough to want a mass murderer presented as a heroic figure, but that screws up the other character - see: Kylo Ren becoming the romantic lead to Rey in Star Wars, which immediately screwed her and the story over. Heroes shouldn't be mass murderer groupies, and usually, heroes should supersede the mass murderers and force them to upgrade rather than downgrade the hero.

At the same time, it *does* pay to make your fictional mass murderer more complex for dramatic purposes. Killmonger is maybe the best MCU villain because his complexity and depth actually flow well alongside his being an largely unrepentant force of destruction; Magneto at his best can do something similar, and people keep wanting to get something like that for Ra's (usually unsuccessfully) and Talia could theoretically get something similar.

I want Talia as an unrepentant villain in the present who only has a bit of a soft spot towards Damian... But I need her and Bruce having history to make sense so he's not just got a shallow taste in women that only applies to Talia.

[HsssH]

Morrison themselves was skittish towards going completely "Batman got raped" and it would've screwed up the "divorce" allegory they wanted.

If I'm not mistaken in one interview Morrison had explained that the idea was to bring Son of Batman into continuity, but when writing the script Morrison didn't have the book at hand and didn't remember the story that well. So I'd always wrote down that "Batman got raped" situation as Bruce being a bit of a dick and trying to act like there never was anything between them.

[godisawesome]

If I'm not mistaken in one interview Morrison had explained that the idea was to bring Son of Batman into continuity, but when writing the script Morrison didn't have the book at hand and didn't remember the story that well. So I'd always wrote down that "Batman got raped" situation as Bruce being a bit of a dick and trying to act like there never was anything between them.

Which kills the potential drama of the moment, and is one of the reason why as excellent as Morrison is, their Batman's personality isn't the strongest selling point and can turn some people cold.

If Bruce got bad-touched so Damian was born, than we *should* have him display some trauma and behavior for that. If it was consensual, then there should be some heartache and complexity between the two of them.

I can et Batman being a dick, but if its just lazy writing because that particular type of characterization nuance isn't what appeals about Batman to Morrison, than I'm not going to find it interesting. It's like how Damian became so much more interesting once Bryan Q. Miller juxtaposed his nature against Stephanie Brown's more down-to-earth personality and highlighted the absurdity and tragedy in a more human way.

It's also why I think Talia wasn't interesting at all in the movies they made trying to adapt some elements form Morrison's run; remove Morrison's madcap meta-textual flooding of the story with symbolism, references, and in-jokes, and what you're left with is a painfully banal, ubiquitous, and unimpressive Talia who'd be interchangeable from any dime-a-dozen mastermind if she hadn't popped out Damian, and even that fact doesn't get the drama pulled out of it.

If the idea is "Bruce slept with the devil and had a kid," there should be a lot more drama to that beyond what Morrison conjured up.

[sunofdarkchild]

Maybe problem is not Morrison, but people who think that mass murderers are "complex" and "have a point".

I never said 'have a point,' but if you want to argue that mass murdering villains should never be complex, then you must hate Darth Vader, Michael Corleone, Thanos, Syndrome, Lelouch vi Britannia, Bane, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Two Face, Killmonger, Loki, the evil teddy bear from Toy Story 3, the list is endless.

The problem with Morrison's writing is not that the stories have villains with little depth, it's that those characters were previously established with decades of history and depth which were thrown out to make them one-note. If Morrison had made new villains who were so one-note that would be completely fine. It was Morrison who said their goal at the end was to 'put the toys back in the box' when the run was over, but making a major character completely different from who they were before and having them go so far there's no way to get their characterization back to what it was before is the opposite of that. That's breaking the toy so no one can use it again.

Prior to Morrison's run, Talia was not Ra's, she wasn't Magneto. She was more like the Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver in that she worked for Ra's and sometimes betrayed him. She had gone over to the good guys completely and it took torturing her to the point of insanity to get her to switch back to being a villain. She's the person who told Bruce to go back to Gotham to fix it after the earthquake that caused No Man's Land when his spirit was broken. She's the one who helped bring down Luthor by selling all of Lexcorp's assets to Waynetech and leaking Luthor's dealings to Superman. It was Morrison's decision to have her go full Ra's and be the mass murderer while retconning her relationship with Bruce. What was left when Morrison was done was a hollow shell of the character who existed before and who had passed a moral event horizon which other writers wouldn't have had her approach, making it near impossible to fix her without something like the Parallax retcon explaining why it was ok that Hal Jordan murdered every person who ever existed and ever will exist in the entire universe.

[Blue22]

The problem with Morrison's writing is not that the stories have villains with little depth, it's that those characters were previously established with decades of history and depth which were thrown out to make them one-note. If Morrison had made new villains who were so one-note that would be completely fine. It was Morrison who said their goal at the end was to 'put the toys back in the box' when the run was over, but making a major character completely different from who they were before and having them go so far there's no way to get their characterization back to what it was before is the opposite of that. That's breaking the toy so no one can use it again.

Good God, that sounds WAY too much like modern Bendis -___-

Prior to Morrison's run, Talia was not Ra's, she wasn't Magneto. She was more like the Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver in that she worked for Ra's and sometimes betrayed him. She had gone over to the good guys completely and it took torturing her to the point of insanity to get her to switch back to being a villain. She's the person who told Bruce to go back to Gotham to fix it after the earthquake that caused No Man's Land when his spirit was broken. She's the one who helped bring down Luthor by selling all of Lexcorp's assets to Waynetech and leaking Luthor's dealings to Superman. It was Morrison's decision to have her go full Ra's and be the mass murderer while retconning her relationship with Bruce.

And see, THIS Talia was the one that I could have seen being endgame with Bruce eventually.

I'd say it's a shame that she's basically lost forever, but damn I'm such a fan of the Post-Morrison Talia that we have now.