DETECTIVE COMICS #411 & BATMAN #232

"INTO THE DEN OF THE DEATH DEALERS!"
Story by: Denny O'Neil | Art by: Bob Brown & Dick Giordano

"DAUGHTER OF THE DEMON"
Story by: Denny O'Neil | Art by: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano | Edited by: Julius Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

I know I had read the name "Ra's al Ghul" before my first exposure to him as a character -- because I wondered for a few years how his name was pronounced. Then, one fateful day in 1994, BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES introduced me to the criminal mastermind called The Demon's Head, and told me the correct pronunciation -- which is, of course "Raysh al Gool". I don't know what the BATMAN BEGINS people were thinking when they had everyone calling him "Roz".

Of course, I still don't know the honest-to-goodness right way to say it; maybe the ANIMATED SERIES folks were wrong and Christopher Nolan got it right. But to me, for the rest of my life, I'll keep on saying "Raysh".

Anyway. Thanks to his sparse appearances on THE ANIMATED SERIES, specifically his debut in "The Demon's Quest" and his cameo in "Off Balance", which preceded it, Ra's al Ghul quickly became one of my favorite Batman villains. It's no surprise; I've always loved "mastermind" types more than any other sort of villain (see my love of Mister Sinister and the original Hobgoblin over at Marvel) -- plus, racist though it is, I've long been interested in the "Yellow Peril" trope. And, while Arabic by birth, al Ghul essentially is exactly that sort of character

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we meet the Demon's Head, we need an introduction to his beautiful daughter, Talia!