Talia Al Ghul Appreciation

[batalia]

Neal Adams

[darkseidpwns]

I wish there was a writer who loved her at DC. She needs someone to advocate for her and her fans. I get the feeling that DC doesn't give **** about her. Otherwise, they wouldn't have let Morrison ruin her. I don't take they would let Catwoman be written like that because they value that character for example.
That rape stuff was the most unnecessary nonsensical thing ever. They just need to stop.

I should mention that DC is taking a similar route with Catwoman,Batman Eternal,Batman 28,Catwoman Futures End tie inn. They are building her up to be a major criminal,Snyder keeps calling her the Wilson Fisk of Gotham,yeah I know subtlety is lost when it comes to him.

[batalia]

My issue with Morrison wasn't that he made her a villain. In fact, I wanted a story where Talia finally says f u to Batman and her father and take charge. Is the fact that there was no complexity to her and she was portrayed as a caricature. Is the fact that her history wasn't respected.

I somehow don't think that Catwoman will go through the same. I think that she will be handled well and get to keep some complexity.

[Black Angel]

i still love talia but dang she is an awful mom poor damian, she even referred to her grief when he died as a moment of weakness my god man thats cold.

[oasis1313]

Talia is kinda hot, but she's one crazy ex.

[John Venus]

I don't really get the argument that she is supposed to be good or at least a sympathetic antagonist. Sure she has a sympathetic side to her but she has no problem with Ras destroying the world and wiping out humanity so long as the people she likes such as Batman is alive afterwards. She gets a lot of pass in fandom but she is really not any better than Ras.

I remember an issue of The Batman Adventures where Ras had gone missing and Talia was planning to destroy the world in his name. There was also the Batman/Spiderman cross over by J.M DeMattis, she is sympathetic to Venessa Fisk and ultimately helps her at the end but at the same time, she is shown to fully believe Ra's ideology. Then in Bane of the Demon, she orders several of her men to commit suicide just to set an example for Bane.

When you consider that, Morrison's Talia isn't that far off.

[batalia]

[batalia]

How to win child custody, a guide by Batman

source

[Ghost-Type]

Yeah Talia is awesome... and may one day be truly important... I hope

[godisawesome]

I don't really get the argument that she is supposed to be good or at least a sympathetic antagonist. Sure she has a sympathetic side to her but she has no problem with Ras destroying the world and wiping out humanity so long as the people she likes such as Batman is alive afterwards. She gets a lot of pass in fandom but she is really not any better than Ras.

I remember an issue of The Batman Adventures where Ras had gone missing and Talia was planning to destroy the world in his name. There was also the Batman/Spiderman cross over by J.M DeMattis, she is sympathetic to Venessa Fisk and ultimately helps her at the end but at the same time, she is shown to fully believe Ra's ideology. Then in Bane of the Demon, she orders several of her men to commit suicide just to set an example for Bane.

When you consider that, Morrison's Talia isn't that far off.

I think it's part a matter of the scale of her villainy plus a dissatisfaction with making her a stereotypical baby mama supervillain. Occasionally, Morrison has the habit of writing villains in very one dimensional and even parodic ways. His Talia was written almost as a satire of Bond movie badguys, with a very nebulous and even pointless desire to rule the world, and with no real depth, or illusions of depth for that matter, kind of like how Magneto dropped all his human traits in X-Men. The end result in both cases was less a character and more of a walking conflict that kicked the dog or drowned puppies on a whim. We had no real reason to understand or make a connection with either villain in the majority of their work. If the character is supposed to be fanatic, we're supposed to understand and see how the fanaticism could develop, which makes the character scarier and yet also sympathetic. But Morrison's Talia wasn't a fanatic, she was a banal evil doer 'cause lolz.

Ra's and Talia may not always be three dimensional characters with sympathetic traits, but they need at least the illusion of those things to be compelling since a huge part of the fun with them is the pseudo-familial relationship they have with Batman. If Ra's actually feels like a sympathetic father figure who has a point about saving the Earth, then his appeal to Batman as an heir has an emotional punch to it. Similarly, if Talia has genuine and sincere feelings for Batman while still believing in he rfather's goal if not his methods, it makes sense for him to reciprocate and an element of tragedy is given to the conflict. Those details define a great story for the characters and prevent them from just being also-ran eugenics villains.

Plus, there was a period in the 1990s and 2000s where she was portrayed very much as a strong, powerful, but morally ambiguous woman on her own, and with a guiding principle for her being that she was a woman who could have captured the Dark Knight's respect and heart. No Man's Land has a wonderful and quiet character moment where she whips Batman's fighting spirit back into shape and explicitly acknowledges his character as the great attractor between them. Public Enemies featured her finally pulling a betrayal on Lex Luthor, and it worked. Yet she was still antagonistic and a wild card. This Talia seems exactly like the type of character who who Batman could have a child with but who could still commit horrible crimes while being sympathetic. This Talia was cool.

Then she got brainwashed in Death and the Maidens as part of DC's attempt to overhaul villains into more traditional and cartoony characterization. But it was still a brainwashing. So we still had some reason to pity her a bit, and we knew it was a recent development. And she immediately became a dull as dishwater. And even after Damian appeared, she remained dull as dishwater. Her scenes could be engaging, but she was just a second-rate Ra's Al Ghul with breasts.

And there's nothing cool about Batman being date-raped and the author expecting us to just ignore that and role with it. That idea can go get buried alive while Gene Simmons pees on its tombstone.

You want to engage the audience with Talia? You want her to be memorable and awesome on her own?

1) Make her dangerous. Morrison, Dini, Dixon, Nolan, and everybody else has that part down.

2) Make her human and thus relatable. Morrison did not get that, and Nolan only barely works.

3) if she and Batman are a thing, give her actual chemistry that justifies the romance. Morrison utterly failed at that.

[t hedge coke]

If Magneto dropped all of his human traits, in NXM, why is he feeling frustrated, tired, old? Why does he get in arguments, lie, get mad at himself, feel self-doubt, cry, yell, want people to admit he was right, crave attention, vent frustration murderously, as well as sweat, fart, and get burnt out sometimes? Are vanity, exhaustion, sadness not human traits? Is addiction not a human trait? Is the dawning realization you'd made a horrible mistake for petty reasons not a human trait? Mags was a great teacher in that comic, good listener, good fighter, but he was also a petty, cruel, and very vain old man.

More to the point of Talia: She's been a gigantic supervillain for quite some time, and she was always complicit in, and benefitting from horrible bloody crimes like murder and human trafficking and chemical weapons. Always. She never once walked away from the money and privilege a life of crime and horror brought her. Even when she walked away from her father she never really gave up crime and its fortunes.

I don't even like Rises much, but Talia was probably the best part of it. She didn't get an out. There's no weepy, weak-handed, "yes,but she's someone's daughter, so not really evil boohoo." She continues her father's work, for her own benefit.

And, Morrison went to great lengths, I thought, to show why Bruce would be attracted to Talia, the kind of women who attract him, the kind of blind spots he has and prejudices he has with women that encourage him to foster an ongoing off/on/off thing with a woman like Talia or Catwoman.

As far as just being R'as with breasts, well... she certainly outdid R'as in everything. She went a lot further than him, she had much greater immediate success than him, and aside from both dealing in chemicals and slaves, they didn't have really the same MO much at all. R'as mostly is seen either working to further his own immortality, on the occasional preservation kick, or dealing chemical weapons while allowing his massive crime empire to work for him. Talia much more actively sought to temporarily conquer many cities across the world simultaneously, and to actively raise a gigantic army of mostly children.

It may not have worked for you, but it worked for me and, judging from sales, it and Rises both worked for a lot of people.

What it seems like, is you want her "sympathetic" features back, and for Morrison they aren't the primary features. For Nolan, they aren't the primary features. Luckily for me, they're not what I consider primary either. She's not that sympathetic and she never was. In the 70s Batman and the talent tended to cut her a huge amount of slack because she was a woman and someone's daughter. THat story where she's hiding in a politician's mansion so she can murder him and steal some stuff... Batman finds out, and he just shrugs his shoulders and lets her go. He'd never do that for a male villain. "Oh, you were going to murder someone? Oh well."

There's very very little sympathetic about Talia. We shouldn't feel sorry for her. She's a brilliant, rich woman with an incredible education, talented in multiple fields, and what she's done with her entire life is to profit from murder, slavery, drug deals, war profiteering, graft and extortion. That's her contribution to the world: Kissing Batman and facilitating death.

[brucekent12]

I agree with godisawesome, in that 90s and 2000 Talia was great, siding with Daddy on his latest effort to take over the world (sounds like Pinky and the Brain) until Bats got involved, and she would help him end the plot, leaving her to deal with Ras's rage. At DC, it appears the head writer of the Batman books is the most popular writer of the books, before it was Morrison, who allowed himself to screw up Talia's storyline, making her an all out villain,and giving her a child with Bruce. With Morrison leaving, Scott Snyder has taken over the position, and he says Bruce doesn't have a woman in his life, Gotham is his mistress. So, with Snyder behind the wheel Selina will go back to being a villain, probably because of Falcone capturing her in Eternal, and assuming Damian and Talia will return in B&R, who knows what kind Of Talia we will get. I just know I miss the old Talia. Sad face!

[batalia]

I think it's part a matter of the scale of her villainy plus a dissatisfaction with making her a stereotypical baby mama supervillain. Occasionally, Morrison has the habit of writing villains in very one dimensional and even parodic ways. His Talia was written almost as a satire of Bond movie badguys, with a very nebulous and even pointless desire to rule the world, and with no real depth, or illusions of depth for that matter, kind of like how Magneto dropped all his human traits in X-Men. The end result in both cases was less a character and more of a walking conflict that kicked the dog or drowned puppies on a whim. We had no real reason to understand or make a connection with either villain in the majority of their work. If the character is supposed to be fanatic, we're supposed to understand and see how the fanaticism could develop, which makes the character scarier and yet also sympathetic. But Morrison's Talia wasn't a fanatic, she was a banal evil doer 'cause lolz.

Ra's and Talia may not always be three dimensional characters with sympathetic traits, but they need at least the illusion of those things to be compelling since a huge part of the fun with them is the pseudo-familial relationship they have with Batman. If Ra's actually feels like a sympathetic father figure who has a point about saving the Earth, then his appeal to Batman as an heir has an emotional punch to it. Similarly, if Talia has genuine and sincere feelings for Batman while still believing in he rfather's goal if not his methods, it makes sense for him to reciprocate and an element of tragedy is given to the conflict. Those details define a great story for the characters and prevent them from just being also-ran eugenics villains.

Plus, there was a period in the 1990s and 2000s where she was portrayed very much as a strong, powerful, but morally ambiguous woman on her own, and with a guiding principle for her being that she was a woman who could have captured the Dark Knight's respect and heart. No Man's Land has a wonderful and quiet character moment where she whips Batman's fighting spirit back into shape and explicitly acknowledges his character as the great attractor between them. Public Enemies featured her finally pulling a betrayal on Lex Luthor, and it worked. Yet she was still antagonistic and a wild card. This Talia seems exactly like the type of character who who Batman could have a child with but who could still commit horrible crimes while being sympathetic. This Talia was cool.

Then she got brainwashed in Death and the Maidens as part of DC's attempt to overhaul villains into more traditional and cartoony characterization. But it was still a brainwashing. So we still had some reason to pity her a bit, and we knew it was a recent development. And she immediately became a dull as dishwater. And even after Damian appeared, she remained dull as dishwater. Her scenes could be engaging, but she was just a second-rate Ra's Al Ghul with breasts.

And there's nothing cool about Batman being date-raped and the author expecting us to just ignore that and role with it. That idea can go get buried alive while Gene Simmons pees on its tombstone.

You want to engage the audience with Talia? You want her to be memorable and awesome on her own?

1) Make her dangerous. Morrison, Dini, Dixon, Nolan, and everybody else has that part down.

2) Make her human and thus relatable. Morrison did not get that, and Nolan only barely works.

3) if she and Batman are a thing, give her actual chemistry that justifies the romance. Morrison utterly failed at that.

Agree 100 percent. Couldn't say it better.
All we can hope for now is that she is brought back to life and some of the nonsensical things get recont. For those of us who want three dimensional well rounded Talia, who do you think best gets her?
Who do you want to see write her?
Also, we know that Damian will be back soon but do you think that Talia will come along with him or do you think they will let her stay dead?
I get the feeling that DC has no use for her and she doesn't have the popularity that Damian does to save her.

[cgh]

For me, Talia only got interesting with Batman Inc. I never liked the whole dramatic "torn between my Detective and my father" setup - it made her seem kind of weak to me.

Like during "The Lazarus Effect", a four-part Batman story from the '80s, when in the end she rapidly ages because she needs to go into the Pit to restore her youth. She covers her face because she doesn't want Batman to "see her like this". Come on, you are about to die of old age and you're worried that Batman, of all people, will get all grossed out and run away? Lame.

As for the "date-rape" thing, why does this bug people? It's a plot point.

Anyway, in Inc., when she puts on that crazy skull mask, then you know she means business. She's like DC's Madame Hydra, only more so. I sure miss that series.

[godisawesome]

I can get people arguing that she was always a villain, and I actually agree with that. I even love the whole Leviathan angle and her assumption of Ra's Al Ghul's place in the mythos. I just don't like the way Morrison wrote her, which I can subjectively understand and appreciate, but leaves me feeling like he neglected the more emotional beats of the story while portraying the mental aspects in a needlessly kooky manner. The tone of the Talia appearances was too banal in my opinion and too self-aware of its own clichés. She was a perfected archetype, I will argue that myself, probably the best fusion of the Madman's Beautiful Daughter archetype with the World Conqueror archetype.

But she's not a truly unique character like she was in the 90s and 2000s, and she isn't at her potential that way. Morrison has the chops to present a multi-faceted villain who would still have all the traits he used and exploited. But he chose to go for a bombastic tale on the story, and Talia wound up being kind of predictable and bland because of it.