Batman: Death and the Maidens

[ratcreature]

I've just read Batman: Death and the Maidens #9 (written by Greg Rucka, art by Klaus Janson) and right now I'm not all that pleased with the series. Maybe it is because I haven't (re-)read all parts in one setting, as I suspected all along while reading, that it was better suited to be read as graphic novel than as monthly, but I don't quite get it.

For one, should R'as' death turn out to be permanent, and it looks like that from his corpse being burned, I don't like that. More importantly, why is Nyssa now heading his organization? I mean, I get why the brain-washed cultists now follow her, but as I understood it, she now follows in R'as al Ghul's footsteps and I have no idea why she would want to do that. We just have Nyssa and Talia as a kind of incestuous sisterly couple heading the genocidal eco-terrorist cult, and everything else is the same. Or am I missing something?

I liked Nyssa better as a challenger to R'as power and Talia as a somewhat independent player. *grumble*

Comments

[thete1.livejournal.com]

I just read the whole thing in a go and... yeah. It works for me. It *really* works. I'm not crazy about killing off epic villains, but... I think the Nyssa-Talia connection could really be interesting. What confused *me* was the very ending. What on earth is Bruce smiling about?

Anyway, yes. I'm... cautiously optimistic about a R'as-free universe. Because Rucka sold me on Nyssa, and... yeah. Wow, that was ludicrously fucked up.

Talia needs SO MUCH THERAPY.

[fripple.livejournal.com]

Hi, you don't know me, followed a te link.

Why would they kill R'as? Did no one tell Rucka he makes appearances in the Legion books? It seems like a hell of an anticlimactic death to kill off a character who's already been confirmed alive in some fashion (albeit a somewhat ambiguous one) a thousand years later.

Al Ghul

[killalla]

Well, I have to agree with you about being disappointed in Death and the Maidens. For one, I like Ra's Al Ghul as a villain, and I was incredibly disappointed with the way he was portrayed and the anticlimax that was his death. (The one good thing? Reinforcing the concept of the Demon's Head as a title - sort of a "The King is Dead, Long Live the King...")

I also have to say that I wasn't convinced by the new character at all, Nyssa just kind of popped out of nowhere, and moreover her very existence undermines Talia as a character. From the beginning, there were just all kinds of ways in which the author sought to weaken Talia so as to make the new girl look cool, which I just found completely out of character. Also, torture notwithstanding, I still can't see Talia transferring her allegiance so easily - devotion to her father is one of the tenets of her existence. Basically, it felt to me like the author decided he couldn't be bothered to develop the *existing* characters of Ra's and Talia, and thought he'd throw in a new "edgy" psychopathic Al Ghul daughter instead.

Canon and crossover problems aside, I'm hoping that this whole series gets retconned or ditched from continuity. (And quite frankly, I wish I hadn't spent the money on it....:(

[buggery.livejournal.com]

My general reaction to the mini -- I read 1-6 or 1-7 all in a bunch, and then the last couple (arrrgh delayed) issues as they came out -- is that it's rather cool that they managed to "reboot" Ra's al Ghul as a -- to me -- more interesting and female character without going back and retconning all of his previous appearances. I also like the end being put to the interminable Bruce/Talia dance.

I somehow missed any billing of the storyline as a "last Ra's story!" so the end left me nicely stunned.

I'll probably reread the whole thing, and be able to do some more analytical reviewing afterward. I remember being glad I'd saved up and waited to read that first bunch of issues all together -- something I do with certain kinds of storylines anyway, particularly when spoilers are easily avoidable or I don't care about being spoiled.

Did you read the prologue that ran as a back-up in Detective? I liked the way it introduced Nyssa, and I didn't realise until I got Te's realtime responses to the miniseries how much of a difference it would make to one's perspective on the story.

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

Eeee! Look! Batman fan!

*friends you*