Title Batman: Birth of the Demon Format graphic novel Binding hardcover Date 1992 Writer(s) Dennis O'Neil Artist(s) Norm Breyfogle Collects n/a Storyline Talia visited her ailing father to let her know that Batman had disrupted the sixth consecutive Lazarus Pit site. She personally goes to the seventh, where she meets the Detective. He told her how he'd foiled the recent attempts and of the book that detailed Ra's al Ghul's beginnings: The Demon's Head was once a physician who was treating a sultan's son. The son was beyond help, so a chemical pit was dug as an experiment by the young doctor. The pit was completed as the sultan's son took his last breath, but after time in the pit, he lived again. Madness raging through him, he killed the physician's son, though the doctor was sentenced for the crime. He was freed from his death sentence by a man who owed him a favor, and the two rode off into the desert. Later they met with a band of riders that the physician once belonged to. After rejoining the riders, the physician poisoned the sultan's son so that he may "heal" him again. This time the pit killed him, and the rest of the riders ambushed the sultan's men. After the defeat, they raided the sultan's city and destroyed it completely. Talia and Batman discussed more of his life, then their own. Bruce welcomed Ra's, who'd been listening to them for a while. Both men were ailing (Bruce due to a bath in toxic chemicals, Ra's due to natural causes), and they fought to the death. In the last moments of their fight, both fell into the Lazarus Pit.