Ra’s al Ghul’s death ropes Batman into his umpteenth ninja war

polygon.com:

This week, writer Joshua Williamson kicked off the Shadow Warcrossover event (told in the pages of Deathstroke, Robin, and Batman) with the assassination of Ra’s al Ghul.

You see, Ra’s realized that he’d been poisoned by all of his Lazarus Pit use, and decided to turn himself in and share his vast alchemical knowledge for the world’s betterment. But in the speech where he announced this, someone dressed as Deathstroke put a bullet through Ra’s’ head and then vaporized his body with a grenade. Now, thanks to all this fishy business, Deathstroke’s on the run from every assassin Talia Head can muster. And she’s the head of the League of Shadows, so that’s a lot. It’s up to Batman to keep Deathstroke from dying and find the actual killer at the same time.

It’s a pretty typical beginning for a crossover, including a shocking death that you have a good feeling is all smokescreen — and yet, I can’t be mad at it, because Shadow War: Alpha was simply a fun read.

What else is happening in the pages of our favorite comics? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of the books that our comics editor enjoyed this past week. It’s part society pages of superhero lives, part reading recommendations, part “look at this cool art.” There may be some spoilers. There may not be enough context. But there will be great comics. (And if you missed the last edition, read this.)

Everybody knows that Batman’s family is dead, and that he’s built himself a new one of orphans and friends. And Shadow War: Alpha reminds us that Batman has another, problematic family of international terrorists, through his biological son, Damian, whose mother is Talia Head.

I’ve enjoyed Williamson’s recent work with Damian in Robin, which