I've read most of these before, but it's a great treat to have all of these Bronze Age Ra's al Ghul stories by O'Neil collected in one spot. Art by Don Newton, Neal Adams, and Irv Novick, so can't can't wrong there.

This was so much fun! I’ve always loved the al Ghul’s and started reading Batman: Birth of the Demon, but felt like I was missing too much, so I looked for a collected addition with the origin of Batman & the al Ghul’s & found this.As a fan of Batman: The Animated Series, it was interesting to see the original stories compared with the excellent adaptations. Most of these issues actually felt like I was reading episode scripts, they were fast, interesting, & kept me wanting more. It was interest...

Old and old-fashioned now (over 20 years separate these tales and those of the Batman and Damian Robin era!), but valuable background on an arch-foe-'friend', a daughter-lover-mother-foe, and the Batman himself. So-so art, some corny dialog, yet some decent storytelling. Probably should only be read by completists, collectors, and newbies.

The stories contained in this volume are really fun to read. However, the collection itself leaves much to be desired, as alot of the stories collected here are left without resolution, which makes for a very grating reading experience.The artwork is very much of its time, but it's aged suprisingly well. The artists deliver pretty good work. Very impressed with how it holds up even today.I would have prefered if they had collected all the issues pertainning to Batman's earlier clashes with the A...

Usually, I don't like reading older comics because they are filled with racist, chauvinistic, and/or jingoist language that gets really hard to ignore. But sometimes, my curiosity propels me enough that I finish reading one. Batman: Tales of the Demon was one of those. Recently I decided to start reading more DC comics since I've been giving almost my entire focus to Marvel comics. And to do that, I planned on going back to the old comics before Crisis on Infinite Earths and get a bit acquainted...

Dennis O'Neil's early Ra's Al Ghul stories are rich in cool concepts like the League of Assassins and the Lazarus Pits, but short on narrative sense. The issues illustrated by Neal Adams work best, because of how well his art style sells the High Drama of O'Neill's scripts. Don Newton's technically proficient pencils look great, but don't always match O'Neill's tone. When it comes to 70's Batman, I think I prefer the workmanlike approach and concise storytelling of Bob Haney/Jim Aparo to O'Neill...

This is a nice little collection of the first 10 or so stories introducing Ra's and Talia Al Ghul. Not all of them are dynamite, but they do set the foundation for everything that will happen with these characters for years to come. The creation of Ra's Al Ghul is a fantastic addition to the Batman mythos, as he is a villain who has such a level of respect for Batman. Ra's can't harm Batman because he believes Batman should/will be his successor and will marry his daughter Talia. The fact that T...

I've never been that crazy about Denny O'Neil. Honestly, I think most of his reputation rests on the fact that his work came out at a pretty dire time for Batman comics and must have been a breath of fresh air by comparison, and that he got paired with one of the all-time greats on pencils. His stories are nice in theory: they're street-level and gritty (in contrast to silver age Batman), they take place in exotic locales and they have mystery and thrills, but they fall apart on even the slighte...

Reviewing the 70's Denny O'Neil era as a whole here, not just this trade, since it has never really been collected fully. The era overall is pretty interesting, though quaint by today's standards. It returned Batman to his darker roots (more than a decade before Frank Miller), yet maintained some of the smiling, swashbuckling heroics of the Silver Age. It's a combo that works well tonally, and as many have pointed out, these Batman stories are quite akin to James Bond (the Ra's al Ghul saga in p...

Batman: Tales of the Demon collects Batman's earliest clashes with his greatest nemesis, Ra's Al Ghul, the Demon's Head!The cover of Limited Collectors' Edition #C-51 has been burned into my brain for decades so this collection caught my eye right away. I've never had the opportunity to read Denny O'Neil's Ra's Al Ghul stories until now...Batman: Tales of the Demon collects stories from Detective Comics #411, Batman #232, 235, 240, 242, 243, 244, DC Special Series #15, and Detective Comics #485,...

This was not as compelling as I thought it would be. The preface would have you believing this was a turning-point -- when Batman went dark. But I didn't get that, nor any real weight to these stories at all.They try to play up the relationship between Batman and Ra's as epic and super adversarial and the one between Batman and Talia as super dark and passionate, and I'm just like "Ok, if you say so." Because the book does say so. It's just not supported in what's actually there.So meh.

Goofy fun from an era of the character where I've not previously spent much time. It's hilarious the number of times this strip features Batman wearing the cowl in incongruous situations: stripped to the waist for a sword duel, in the hospital, while skiing, while climbing mountains, etc. Seeing Batman banter is deeply weird.

This is a collection of the earliest Ra's Al Ghul stories written by Dennis O'Neil. Ra's has never been my favorite villain and I find the father/daughter relationship between him and Talia to be disturbing. This compilation did nothing to change my mind. Also, I don't understand the relationship between Talia and Batman. I don't think that they are right for each other. In my mind, Batman only belongs with Catwoman and even then...never more than a nighttime dalliance that builds to a kiss. Tal...

A collection of early Ra's stories really does make remind me of Moriarty. Of course the whole Talia being in love with Bruce, even to the point of foiling her father's plan, takes that comparison off the rails. I was surprised to see that the romance began right away. I was also surprised the the original Lazarus Pit was technological. One last surprise was that Matches Malone was originally a real gangster who's identify Bruce yoinked. But in a segue to my next point, Matches accidentally shoo...

Way back in the ‘70s when I was a kid who rode his pet dinosaur to school I started reading and collecting comic books. One of my favorites was a super-sized Batman collection that featured his first encounter with Ra’s al Ghul, and I probably reread it at least a hundred times. Later, when I was in my 20s, a broken water pipe at my parent’s house soaked some stuff I had stored with them, and that comic was one of the things that was ruined. Oh, and that book which had sold for $2 originally now...

I guess this was never really going to live up to the hype but I still can't help feeling disappointed at how flat these stories felt to read. It's a transitional period for Batman who had gone through many iterations until he became supposedly "dark" in the 70s under the guidance of O'Neil. I get the sense that O'Neil had a direction but unlike Frank Miller who is probably really responsible for retooling Batman, among others, he just doesn't have the chops as a storyteller to make you stand up...

I really love Batman stories from the '70s. I started reading the comics at some point in the '80s, but the issues from the late '70s are probably the first Batman comics I ever saw when I was a pre-literate little kid in the supermarket who was fascinated by the covers.Unlike what a lot of people think, Batman was not the sunny, goofy do-gooder of the '60s TV show until Frank Miller came along and shook things up with The Dark Knight Returns in 1986. I've read random Batman stories from every d...

This collection introduces us to Talia and Ra’s al Ghul! It was so cool reading about their first interactions with Batman and even in this small assortment of issues, we see the foes relationship grow and change. There is one issue that I really love as it showed the detective side of the Batman and not just the great fighter Bats (as another issue did feature). The final issue was a little disappointing as this war between Ra’s and The Sensi is concluded in an unsatisfying way. However, the ma...

This out of print trade tells the story of some of the Bat-man's earliest meetings with Ra's al Ghul. It wouldn't be fair to say they were battles because half the time, Batman is on Ra's side or at least they didn't fight.Tale of the Demon makes you appreciate the features of many modern day trades. There are no issue numbers and no covers. If you just go by what's in the book, all you know about the stories is that they happened some time in the 1970s. The big surprise is that Talia al Ghul, R...

2.5 stars.