Talia’s transformations - inevitable?

[godisawesome]

I had this thought while thinking about another franchise and some dubious/revolting romantic decisions made therein (it was Star Wars and Reylo, if you’re curious), and thought it might be fun to get some feedback on why I think Talia had a somewhat schizophrenic first decade in the 21st century, and how I think it was the inevitable fallout of trying to treat her more seriously without “hurting” Bruce, because her original form was a bit too retro for serious consideration. And I think the argument and dispute over how Morrison wrote her character was also inevitable, because her position in the mythos forced hard choices if no one had patience for a slow burn retcon or the like.

Talia entered the 21st century estranged from her father and positioned in an initially ambiguous but eventually anti-heroic role as Lex’s replacement for running LexCorp, where she wound up backstabbing Luthor at Bruce’s request; she had lost her (ancillary) villainous function, not for the first time, but this time with an actual attempt to fit her somewhere else in the DCU in regards to morality…

…Then Greg Rucka, wanting her back as a villain, had her sister Nyssa kidnap her and brutally brainwash her, Cobra-in-GIJOE-style, to make it so she changed into a more straightforward and stereotypical villain; she was back as a baddie, and arguably presented as a more prominent antagonist in her own right given how few people wanted to do much with Nyssa, but they still wanted it clear she’d been a better person before hand, so the brainwashing was the excuse for the change while still making ti clear it *was* a change…

…Until Grant Morrison started their magnum opus run on the books, and simultaneously (if perplexingly) canonized her relationship with Bruce extending to having a kid alongside her having *always* been a villain in substance, with no ambiguity, no acknowledgment of previous ambiguity, and even going so far as to imply Bruce was her victim in sexual helped solidify her as a major villain without any boss, but also kind of burned down any complex emotions between her and Bruce in the attempt to solidify her heel status.

And I think all this happened because of one simple realization by more modern writers, one that kind of mirrored Catwoman’s growing much less lethal and villainous: Talia didn’t make sense as a romance option for a good person in Bruce Wayne if she was a passive participant in Ra’s’s genocidal schemes.

And while Catwoman could more easily slide further and further into being a classy cat burglar and sometimes vigilantewithout losing her prominence, and if anything, increasing in it as both a comic star and romance interest, Talia being Ra’s sidekick forced a harder break in her most likely “matured” form: either she becomes a secondary anti-hero who it makes sense could have had a relationship with Bruce, or she becomes a high profile villainous “update” to Ra’s and her own old role, even if that that doesn’t make sense for one of Bruce’s love interests.

She was an outdated concept for modern Batman, and trying to update her resulted in a strong villain with a contradictory history with Bruce.

[Restingvoice]

What's inevitable is some writer will have an idea and use her for something if they see untapped potential, or kill her off if they saw no use of her. Rucka happened to have an idea to make her evil, but other writers could have an idea to make her a full ally like Harley nowadays. Harley left Joker, Talia left Ra's... Harley hunts clowns, Talia can hunt assassin alongside Cass Cain... they can do it if they have that idea and wanna take it

[Agent Z]

Talia started out as a racists stereotype with some redeeming qualities and then Morrison doubled down on the racism.

[lilyrose]

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.

[godisawesome]

I think what she’s missing is some kind of pre-Leviathan repackaging; having her just be a nebulously evil Exotic Babymama as her backstory doesn’t really help with either the “Why did Bruce sleep with her?” question nor the “Uh, ain’t this kind of racist if we don’t give her some kind of story explaining why she’s evil?”

I mean, there’s a sweet spot of her being a dangerous, overarching villain and still being a human being Bruce could fall for somewhere… but until they find it, it’s always going to be a bit… trashy.

[Astralabius]

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 should be allowed to be an anti-hero because that's what she started out as. You're probably just writing this because you don't want Talia to interfere with batcat.

[marhawkman]

I hate Bat-Cat, sooo.... MOAR TALIA!

Talia's fun as a non-hero who... Batman genuinely cares about and... is willing to... interact with.

[godisawesome]

I actually *am* a BatCat fan (albeit one who finds King’s variation among the lamer, less interesting versions)…

…But I feel like Talia’s kind of restricted as both/either an anti-heroic character or as a villain because of the failure to properly deal with how her duel roles as a villain and a love interest come into conflict.

Catwoman’s big advantage, storyline-wise, is that they moved her over from Classic Villain With Death Traps to Classy Non-Lethal Master Thief; it allowed people who *do* want her to be an opponent for Batman without contradicting her role as a romantic interest to do so. It’s why people have no hesitation when pairing her with Bruce, while pairing Poison Ivy or even Harley with him tends to immediately get a few side-eyes. Bruce being conflicted about someone who’s bad, but not *too* bad, works.

Similarly, though in a different way, part of the reason why Andrea Beaumont also has less side-eye than other romantic options for Bruce (including Talia) is that her relationship with Bruce started before she became a killer. It makes their inability to be together now tragic, but it let’s both Andrea and Bruce work better than him and Talia.

It also lets both Selina and Andrea stand apart from him better than Talia, who is either just his Exotic Girlfriend #1 or just Ubiquitous Master Villain #5.

If they did something like… Bruce and Talia fell in love before she was an accessory to Ra’s’s Plans, or even opposed her father out of sanity before deciding she’d like to rule the world, she’d be both a better romance option and villain.

It’s like how Mr. Freeze is *just* a psycho without Nora, but with her, he’s a better villain even though he can also be an anti-hero.

[SiegePerilous02]

Talia started out as a racists stereotype with some redeeming qualities and then Morrison doubled down on the racism.

Even though the iconic factor and the all the history and Damian (now firmly established and popular) make it impossible, I can't help thinking the Bat-verse would be better off without the Ra's al Ghul family for this very reason.

Like...are we really missing anything by hypothetically lifting them out? Selina already has the "Bad Girl with a Soft Center" niche covered, and their whole setup is so far removed from the Gotham crowd that they don't really impact much. Echo terrorists also don't age well in fiction (see how they shift gears with Ivy), let alone ones with some racist stereotype trappings. Ra's is such a lunatic that making him heroic is a far bigger stretch than Ivy, and Talia has always been at least passively (if not actively) complicit in his shenanigans.

I say all this as someone who likes Morrison's more villainous Talia if we have to have her around, but I also wouldn't cry too hard if the whole thing was excised because it's all been a bit problematic since O'Neil.

[godisawesome]

Even though the iconic factor and the all the history and Damian (now firmly established and popular) make it impossible, I can't help thinking the Bat-verse would be better off without the Ra's al Ghul family for this very reason.

Like...are we really missing anything by hypothetically lifting them out? Selina already has the "Bad Girl with a Soft Center" niche covered, and their whole setup is so far removed from the Gotham crowd that they don't really impact much. Echo terrorists also don't age well in fiction (see how they shift gears with Ivy), let alone ones with some racist stereotype trappings. Ra's is such a lunatic that making him heroic is a far bigger stretch than Ivy, and Talia has always been at least passively (if not actively) complicit in his shenanigans.

I say all this as someone who likes Morrison's more villainous Talia if we have to have her around, but I also wouldn't cry too hard if the whole thing was excised because it's all been a bit problematic since O'Neil.

All those issues honestly make the Nolan version of the characters seem like an overall better use of the idea, even if still not perfected; Ra’s really does work significantly better if his MO is vigilantism taken to the extreme, and while there’s debatable elements to making the “real” Ra’s a white guy, it does side-step many of the problems.

I’ve been thinking the characters could use an overhaul in the comics for a while now. Some stuff feels like it could pretty easily massaged or changed - making Ra’s and his organization more outright secular (perhaps with their name and legendary status coming from their victims) and modern (ditching the overtly “foreign” outfit for something more like a coat-as-cape look). Other stuff is more intrinsic, but honestly, neither, Talia nor Ra’s use the eco-terorist thing that much anymore (or at all, for Talia); the vigilantism-applied-to-cities-and-countries idea *does* have some real merit, and could easily be updated. And Talia honestly could use something like Andrea Beaumont’s background with Bruce before she meets her dad; it’s not like Andrea’s using it much, since she’s barely made any other appearances.

[Gaius]

I never really cared for Talia if I'm being honest, mainly because I didn't really care her how relationship with Bruce worked where it seemed she was more a prop in between Ra's and Bruce than an actual character. I agree with others Selina already does what Talia does but fits better into Gotham's world, challenges how Bruce sees the world/criminals, and can also stand on her own as a character.

And like others said, I can't see Bruce just overlooking her willing participation in Ra's plans. It's the same faulty logic behind why apparently Joker's irredeemable but the "Clown Princess of Crime" Harley is apparently allowed to waltz free as far as most are concerned.

[John Venus]

Back in Talia's debut issue Detective Comics #411, she is forced to kill someone to save Batman and the moment leaves her traumatized.

This added a layer of complexity to her character, even if she had grown up in a cabal of assassins, she was still 'protected' and her upbringing can be compared to that of kids whose parents shelter them too much. It also explained why Bruce would watch out for her, trust her and maybe even be attracted to her given that she has redeeming qualities to her and is just figuring out how to question and break away from her fathers strong hold.

I think villain Talia was going to happen at some point since many creators over the decades have shown her increasingly proficient with a gun, being the one to carry out her father's mission and doing his dirty work. In other words, she became more and more like a Bond Girl over the years. The result being that her romance with Batman started losing its depth and became just another case of Batman being irresistible.

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.

[marhawkman]

Back in Talia's debut issue Detective Comics #411, she is forced to kill someone to save Batman and the moment leaves her traumatized.

This added a layer of complexity to her character, even if she had grown up in a cabal of assassins, she was still 'protected' and her upbringing can be compared to that of kids whose parents shelter them too much. It also explained why Bruce would watch out for her, trust her and maybe even be attracted to her given that she has redeeming qualities to her and is just figuring out how to question and break away from her fathers strong hold.

I think villain Talia was going to happen at some point since many creators over the decades have shown her increasingly proficient with a gun, being the one to carry out her father's mission and doing his dirty work. In other words, she became more and more like a Bond Girl over the years. The result being that her romance with Batman started losing its depth and became just another case of Batman being irresistible.

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.

Well, genuine affection doesn't mean doing what Batman wants though.

[exile001]

…Then Greg Rucka, wanting her back as a villain, had her sister Nyssa kidnap her and brutally brainwash her, Cobra-in-GIJOE-style, to make it so she changed into a more straightforward and stereotypical villain; she was back as a baddie, and arguably presented as a more prominent antagonist in her own right given how few people wanted to do much with Nyssa, but they still wanted it clear she’d been a better person before hand, so the brainwashing was the excuse for the change while still making ti clear it *was* a change…

I'm certain Rucka has stated that Death and the Maidens was originally intended to be non-canon but was made into main continuity well after writing had started. Regardless, it left Talia under the mentorship of Nyssa but I feel it left more than enough grey area to eventually have her go off in any number of directions as long as it was not the same holding pattern with Bruce.

Tower of Babel (for all its many, MANY faults), the superman books and DatM FINALLY broke the (post-Crisis) character loop Talia was stuck in and gave her a number of paths forward. Then Morrison made her as an unpleasant, one-note "psycho ex" character and that's the drain she's been circling to one degree or another (depending on the writer) ever since.

[sunofdarkchild]

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.