BATMAN #240 & #242

"VENGEANCE FOR A DEAD MAN!" | "BRUCE WAYNE--REST IN PEACE!"
Story: Denny O'Neil | Art: Irv Novick & Dick Giordano | Editing: 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).

The Ra's al Ghul saga ramps up considerably in these latest installments from Denny O'Neil and Irv Novick. In our first tale, Batman is called by Commissioner Gordon to investigate the grisly murder of a scientist named Mason Sterling, who was found with his brain removed. The Caped Crusder's investigation brings him into contact with Talia, working on behalf of her father -- but when Talia "accidentally" erases the memory of Batman's only informant, he follows her to Ra's al Ghul's yacht to find Sterling's brain kept alive on life support as al Ghul interrogates it. Al Ghul and Talia escape, and the disembodied brain tricks Batman into killing it with a push of a button since it can't bear to continue living as it is.

This story, which on its surface feels like another one-off Batman vs. Ra's adventure, turns out to have more going for it by the final couple pages. It's here that Batman first witnesses the depths of al Ghul's depravity and madness. Our next story, printed three months later, picks up on that thread and begins the final act of O'Neil's Ra's al Ghul saga.

For the timeline inclined out there, it's a little over a year now since O'Neil introduced the League of Assassins in DETECTIVE COMICS 405 and 406, the November and December issues from 1970. Six months later, O'Neil debuted the mysterious Talia in May 1971's DETECTIVE 411, and Ra's al Ghul himself appeared the month after that in BATMAN 232 from June of that same year. Batman and Talia teamed up in September's BATMAN 235. Then Ra's and his daughter took another six months off until March of 1972 and "Vengeance for a Dead Man!"