Stories of Ra's Al Ghul, Where it began, etc.

[JayC]

Can someone give me a list of the trades where Ra's Al Gul begins and ends? Or is he everywhere throughout the entire Bat-Universe? He seems pretty cool and I'd like to read more.

[Rattlehead]

http://batmanytb.com/comics/oneshots/batman/a_e/batmanbirthofthedemonhc.jpg

http://www.hillcity-comics.com/graphic_novels/bat/tales_of_the_demon.jpg

These are good places to start. There really is no end to his story, and he just popped up last year in a Bat-book crossover. It was called "The Ressurection of Ra's Al Ghul" but it wasn't all that great. It was too long, and very uneven.

[Choppa]

There's also these. Didn't really like Year One, but Maidens is okay. If you're looking for an "end" (really how can there be one in a serialized book?) then check out Maidens.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5191M3Q8NBL._SS500_.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VZXT8BHJL._SS500_.jpg

[marshal99]

Or you can try

Brotherhood of the bat one shot where it's set 50 years in the future and batman is dead
http://batmanytb.com/comics/oneshots/batman/a_e/batmanbrotherhoodofthebat.jpg

[earl]

Tales of the Demon reprints the early appearances of Ra's Al Ghul by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams. Those are some of the most famous issues of the book.

The Bane of the Demon mini series and the Legacy storyline from the Bat books, both of which might have been compiled into trade paperbacks deal with Ra's Al Ghul. The Contagion trade paperback storyline also ties into these stories.

The JLA trade paperback Tower of Babel has Ra's Al Ghul has the main villain and I think it is a really good read.

Ra's Al Ghul: Year One has some nice artwork, but the story is not very good.

I liked Death of the Maidens, but some had a problem with how Talia is used in that storyline. Either way, the Bat editors and writers seem to have left off using the other daughter much since. I read it as a trade and thought it was all right and Klaus Jansen's artwork was quite good.

[the-wolf]

I found Death of the Maidens very boring and way too long. I also found Talia way out of character.

Year One is entertaining, but nothing spectacular.

Son of the Demon, Bride of the Demon and Birth of the Demon are all excellent.

[Lorendiac]

Can someone give me a list of the trades where Ra's Al Gul begins and ends? Or is he everywhere throughout the entire Bat-Universe? He seems pretty cool and I'd like to read more.

Other people have done a good job of listing various graphic novels and TPB collections that could show you interesting things that different writers have done with Ra's al Ghul over the last few decades. As long as the subject of learning more about him has come up, though, I feel compelled to point out that a couple of years ago I wrote and posted:

The Ra's al Ghul FAQ (2nd Draft) (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=125176)

In that one, I wasn't trying to compile an orderly list of all the stories he's ever been in (and even if I had, several of them have never been collected in TPB, unfortunately), but I did try to read as many of those stories as I could easily get my hands on, and then organize as much information as I could so that other fans would get a pretty good overview of who he is, what his agenda (usually) is, what we know about his family tree, what we know about the strengths and weaknesses of his mysterious Lazarus Pits, et cetera.

I have not yet updated that FAQ to reflect new events from the recent "Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul" story arc and the whole Grant Morrison run on "Batman," but I intend to do that very soon. In the meantime, however, reading the FAQ could help bring you up to speed on what we thought we knew about Ra's and his daughters and his Lazarus Pits as of May of 2006, and one of these days I'll be posting a "Third Draft" to reflect two years' worth of more recent events and retcons and so forth! :)

[Kirayoshi]

Sometime before Death and the Maidens(which was an interesting 'Last Ra's Al Ghul Story', but reduced Talia to a standard female villainess), there was a cool JLA arc by Mark Waid called "Tower of Babel", where Ra's used Batman's own protocols against the JLA, which led to the team turning their backs on Batman for awhile. A great arc with lots of tension.

Don't think it's been collected in a TPB but if you can find it in the dollar bins, glom onto Batman #400. Ra's staged a mass break-out of Blackgate Prison and Arkham(years before Bane pulled a similar stunt) and recruited an army of Batman's worst villains to take Batman on once and for all. Good story, art was all over the place, literally; it was an artist's jam story, with pages by everyone from George Perez, Art Adams and Joe Kubert to Bill Sienkewicz and Brian Bolland, and appearances by literally every Bat-villain that ever existed up to that point.

[Brack360]

I highly recommend Death and the Maidens. I also recommend Batman: Evolution, which collects the first issues of Greg Rucka's Detective Comics run. I should point out that it also includes a few issues that are unrelated to Ra's al Ghul, though good nonetheless.

[Theophilus]

The final story in "Tales of the Demon" functions not only as an "end" to Ra's al Ghul, but Denny O'Neill saw it as how he would want to give closure to the Batman mythos assuming he could. You can read it as an Elseworlds story, in a way.

[Constantine Drakon]

Birth of the Demon, Birth of the Demon, Birth of the Demon. I'm recommending it three times, because it's downright shameful that it's only been recommended once in this thread so far. One of the best origins any of the Batman villains have ever been given.

[earl]

"Birth of the Demon"

DC should reprint all three of those Ra's Al Ghul graphic novels as one trade paperback. I got "Son of the Demon" when they reprinted in a while back, but the other two adding on "Bride of the Demon", which I remember being pretty good are long out of print.