The CW network is far exceeding the industry's wildest expectations with their suite of superhero shows. Beginning with the debut of Constantine.
The League of Assassins has been a major player in the events of Arrow, with Ra's al Ghul being the main villain of season 3. While Nyssa has had many guest spots on the show, the more famous daughter, Talia al Ghul, has yet to make an appearance... Until now. Actress Lexa Doig has been cast as the Daughter of the Demon in season 5 of Arrow, and is set to make her debut in episode 10, entitled "Who Are You?" Still, some viewers may be asking, "Who is Talia?", and that's where Screen Rant comes in. Here's 15 Things You Need To Know About Talia Al Ghul.
15. She Has No Superpowers, Only Intense Training
Talia al Ghul is a key member of the League of Assassins, a particular tier of DC characters; she can't fly, change the course of mighty rivers, or bend steel in her bare hands. Rather, she has more in common with characters like Batman and Green Arrow, in that her power comes from discipline and years of practice. Her body has been honed to perfection, and her cat-like speed and reflexes are the end result of the intense training regimen of the shadowy clan of warriors from which she hails.
The League trains their to be remorseless and efficient killers, and none are more skilled or ruthless than Talia, who is the obvious successor to the League's infallible master, Ra's al Ghul. Other DC characters who have received the same extreme training include Batman himself, Deathstroke, and Merlyn, as well as lesser known folks like Empress Wu, Lady Shiva, and Mad Dog.
14. She's The Daughter of the Demon
The leader of the League of Assassins is Ra's al Ghul, "The Demon's Head" and father to Talia. Despite their familial relationship, Talia's training was just as extreme as the other of the ninja clan, and she was given no mercy or preferential treatment because of her heritage.
The League's mission is to ensure the moral standing of the world at large by putting an end to wayward civilizations so that better cultures can be built from the wreckage. The League's legend is so great that they are said to be the secret catalyst behind the fall of every major civilization for the last thousand years. Of course, they eventually set their sights on Gotham City. Despite the intervention of masked vigilantes like Batman and Robin, Gotham remains a hotbed of decadence and depravity. According to the laws of the League, it is a scourge on humanity which must be cleansed. Naturally, Batman objects. Ra's and the League are equally infuriated and fascinated by the Bat, and will do anything to get him to come over to their way of thinking...or remove him from the equation entirely.
13. Her Sister, Nyssa
In the comics, Talia was the only daughter whom Ra's considered to be worthy of a place in the league. However, in the 2003 story, Batman: Death and the Maidens, a second daughter was revealed: Nyssa. After being abandoned by her father, she and her whole family are captured by the Nazis. She's the last person standing in the end, but she's left traumatized by brutal Nazi science experiments and returns years later, with a vengeance...
Of course, the relationship between Ra's, Talia, and Nyssa varies wildly depending on the medium, and, in the comics, depending on the author. In the Arrowverse, Talia's relationship with her sister is something of a question mark, since Nyssa essentially fills the role generally held by Talia, though her romantic interests lay not with Batman (or his surrogate in this universe, Green Arrow), but with Sara Lance, the erstwhile Black Canary. Talia hasn't appeared on the show yet, nor had she ever even been mentioned before, though she did have an interesting cameo in an episode of Legends of Tomorrow (more on that in a bit). There must be some secret within the al Ghul family which Talia's resurgence will expose.
12. She's Batman's Baby Mama
Talia al Ghul may not be one of the most immediately recognizable faces in Batman's rogues gallery. As a villain, her father, the Demon's Head, is more prominent, and as a love interest, Catwoman is the most popular. Still, even the most casual of Bat-fanatics know that she is the mother of Bruce Wayne's child, Damian Wayne.
Talia's relationship with Batman is complicated, to say the least. Depending on the circumstance, she is either his one true romantic love and steadfast ally in crime-fighting, or she is his bitter enemy. Their ideological differences stemming from her willingness to murder her enemies means that they will never truly be together forever, but the heart wants what it wants, as they say. That being said, in Grant Morrison's 2006 Batman and Son storyline, it is revealed that Talia's idea of romance means drugging Batman and date-raping him in order to conceive a child.
11. Damian's True Purpose
In the original story, 1987's Batman: Son of the Demon, Batman and Talia have consensual sex which leads to the birth of a son. In Grant Morrison's aforementioned take on the courtship of Batman and Talia al Ghul, her motivations were changed to be much more sinister, going so far as to literally rape Batman, which was seen by the fandom as "seriously uncool."
Talia then has the fetus removed and grown in an artificial womb, and even subjected to genetic experiments to hone its innate combat ability. The resulting child, Damian Wayne, is trained in the ways of the League of Assassins, like his mother before him. Years later, when the boy is a petulant tween, his mother basically drops him in his father's lap in an effort to distract the Caped Crusader while she and the League enact one of their world-altering schemes. Damian proves to be a troubling ward for Batman and his allies, but eventually succeeds Tim Drake as the next Robin... Before being killed by a full-grown clone of himself created by Talia. Don't worry, though. It's a comic book, so of course Batman finds a way to bring the Boy Wonder back to life.
10. She Helped Create The Red Hood
Speaking of Robin, Talia al Ghul played a key role in the development of another of Batman's child soldiers, Jason Todd, the second Robin. In the aftermath of his death at the hands of The Joker, Jason Todd is subsequently revived when Superboy Prime punches through the walls of space and time and essentially rejiggers the very fabric of reality.
It's a bit esoteric, even for a wild comic book story, but the end result is that Jason is alive, but amnesiac. Talia discovers Jason and takes him in. In a show of empathy towards her beloved Bruce, she steals him away to the League's headquarters. Against her father's wishes, she restores his essence through use of the forbidden Lazarus Pit and sends him back to Gotham, where he takes up the mantle of Red Hood, a costumed vigilante who kills his targets with deadly efficiency. This, naturally, puts him in direct opposition with Batman and his self-righteously staunch refusal to take the lives of criminals.
9. She Helped Take Down LexCorp
As mentioned before, Talia's allegiances change all the time, from a brutal supervillain, to a woman who displayed moments of outright altruism. Arguably, her finest hour came after Lex Luthor became President of the United States of America, a seriously dark time for the nation. Despite Luthor's hatred of illegal aliens like Superman, it's a testament to the Justice League's respect for democracy that they didn't fight to prevent Luthor from taking office, and they didn't righteously depose him until he tried to frame Superman for an attempt to destroy the Earth with an asteroid.
At this point in her life, Talia was through with the League of Assassins and her father's world-altering schemes, and so she, using the (ittedly silly) alias Talia Head, becomes "head" of LexCorp in Luthor's stead. Unbeknownst to the villainous Lex, Talia is secretly working with Superman to undermine the corporation and Lex's sinister ambitions. By the time she leaves the company, she sets in motion a series of events which leads to the final liquidation of LexCorp, at which point most of its assets are purchased by, you guessed it, Wayne Enterprises.
8. The Secret Society Of Supervillains
Just a year after Talia's triumphant victory over Lex Luthor, she found herself in league with him as a fellow member of the Secret Society of Super Villains, a revival of the name of a classic cabal of villains, but larger and more ambitious than ever before. Okay, technically, it wasn't Lex himself, but actually Alexander Luthor Jr. in disguise, but the sentiment remains: Talia al Ghul's allegiances can change on a practically daily basis, and, for a trained assassin, she's surprisingly quick to forgive and forget.
Along with fellow heavy hitters The Calculator, Black Adam, Dr. Psycho, and Deathstroke, Talia and Lex led The Society's 500-plus in an effort to restore the multiverse which had been destroyed during the popular 1985 storyline, Crisis on Infinite Earths. After Luthor's plan inevitably fails (though not without numerous casualties on both sides), Talia returns to the League of Assassins, which she had abandoned just a couple of years earlier.
7. Talia's Ethnicity and Origins
Ra's al Ghul is an interesting fellow. In the early 1970s, when the character was first introduced, Ra's was closer to a misguided eco-terrorist than the genocidal maniac we know and fear today. Perhaps in an effort to harken back to that era, the story of Talia's mother centers around the legendary Woodstock music festival of 1969.
It's hard to imagine The Demon's Head smoking pot, dropping acid, and grooving to The Band and Joan Baez, but it apparently happened, and a flower-clad hippie woman stole his heart, at least for a little while. According to the 1990s story, Birth of the Demon, Ra's met a part-Chinese, part-Arab woman at Woodstock. She reminded him of his late wife, and a romance was ignited, leading to the birth of Talia. However, due to irresponsible drug use, the woman died of an overdose, and Ra's ultimately found her to be "unworthy" of revival in the Lazarus Pit.
While this origin may or may not apply to the numerous incarnations of the character over different mediums, Talia has never been played, in live action or otherwise, by any woman of either Arabic or Chinese descent. In comics, both Talia and Ra's have wildly varying skin tones and ethnic features, depending on the illustrator.
6. DC Animated Films
In addition to live-action efforts and animated television series, Batman and his rogues gallery have a series of direct-to-video animated movies, many of which are adaptations of notable comic runs. Talia al Ghul's first appearance in one of these movies was in 2010's emotionally powerful Batman: Under the Red Hood, although her role is drastically reduced from the original story. In the comic, she brings a living, but disoriented, Jason Todd to the League's headquarters, and dips him in the Lazarus Pit against her father's wishes. In the movie, Jason Todd is never revived by Superboy Prime's "retcon punch," and instead, his dead body is stolen by Ra's al Ghul, who seeks to atone to Batman for getting his young apprentice killed. Talia doesn't even have any lines in the film!
It's not until her next appearance, in 2014's Son of Batman (based on the Grant Morrison story), that Talia finally gets a speaking role. Played by Morena Baccarin, Talia is considerably less evil in this adaptation, with Deathstroke serving as the main villain in her stead. In general, Son of Batman is decidedly more of an "in name only" adaptation of the original comic, a decision which pleased many Talia fans who were dismayed by her characterization in the comic. Finally, Baccarin reprised her role in this year's Batman: Bad Blood, loosely based on the Battle For the Cowl story.