Talia’s transformations - inevitable?

**Agent Z** · 04-13-2022, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by godisawesome

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.

This might just be me, but maybe the issue is Talia even being a villain in the first place?

If the only thing that makes her interesting as a villain is that she and Bruce had a relationship that resulted in a child, frankly she's better off as either a good guy or not existing at all. The Batman franchise already has too many female villains defined by a relationship with a man.

**godisawesome** · 04-14-2022, 08:01 AM

Originally Posted by Agent Z

This might just be me, but maybe the issue is Talia even being a villain in the first place?

If the only thing that makes her interesting as a villain is that she and Bruce had a relationship that resulted in a child, frankly she's better off as either a good guy or not existing at all. The Batman franchise already has too many female villains defined by a relationship with a man.

Eh, I'd say Talia is at her best when she's allowed to do some *good* soap opera stuff, with that being what should separate her more from her father or Bane. And part of her character package was always being a hanger-on to her father without ever going full rebel, so some elements of antagonism should also always be present.

I don't think she should ever be a good guy again, but she really should be the lesser of two evils compared to her father - while also running an organization comparable in scope to his.

**Mark Trail** · 04-14-2022, 09:37 AM

Talia's whole point of existence was to be Batman's Bond girl. She probably should have been killed off, ala Tracy at the end of OHMSS.

**Vishop** · 04-14-2022, 11:02 AM

Her transformation towards leading the Assassins was pretty inevitable but it's definitely not satisfying to deviate her to this degree where she kills his own son and pretty much become his own father which she wasn't fond of before. This was the low point of Morrison's run

**PowerPlay25** · 04-14-2022, 02:59 PM

I LOVE Talia as a villain written by everyone accept GM. She is a zealot raised from childhood to have a cult like reverence/fear of her father Ra's Al Ghul. I THINK Bruce see's that and it is what allows him to feel for her despite all the things she does, to say nothing of the fact that she is almost impossible to resist as said by Bruce, The Calculator and Felix Faust. I DO think the description that Talia is in love and in hate with Batman is accurate. Talia's creator said Talia would ultimately choose evil over good.

**Timothy Hunter** · 04-14-2022, 10:01 PM