10 Things DC Comics Wants You To Forget About Ra's Al Ghul
4. He Stole A Man's Brain
This was another one of Ra's' plans that didn't exactly seem well thought out.
In Batman #240, the Dark Knight was called in by Commissioner Gordon to help solve the case of a scientist who had been murdered and had his brain removed. While on the killer's trail, he bumped into Talia who conveniently took him right to the culprit.
The man she took him to confessed to the crime, but didn't seem to know anything about the brain removal. Talia offered to help by injecting him with truth serum, but "accidentally" gave the man the wrong serum and killed him.
Batman wasn't fooled since he's the world's greatest detective and also not a five year-old. He tracked down Ra's and found him with the professor's brain hooked up to a machine that allowed it to talk.
It turned out this whole thing was so that Ra's could interrogate the professor about work he was doing for the U.S government. Somehow, Ra's thought this elaborate plan was easier than just kidnapping the man and asking him the questions.
Anyway, the story ended with Ra's and Talia fleeing and the brain tricking Batman into flipping a switch that killed it, causing Batman to break his rule against killing for only about the 70th time.