Vast stockpiles of food rot, while people starve. Millions die from curable diseases, while drug companies rake in the billions. Our environment chokes on our waste, becoming so toxic that life fails. It's genocide by greed, apathy, and neglect. These are the real crimes. Something must change... The Society's plans are vast... they will succeed. I can't stop them. When the world gets a true taste of violent oppression, and their heroes lie dead and broken -- apathy will die. That's when you'll lead my league to sanction key society members. Leaving Talia and I to lead the revolution. A new world will be born, one of peace and equality. Millions of lives will be saved. 
- — Nyssa Raatko src
Nyssa Raatko is the daughter of Rā's al Ghūl. Much older than her more notable half-sister Talia, the hardships she suffered led her to take up arms against her father and become the new Demon's Head, the leader of the League of Assassins.
History
Early Life
Ra's al Ghul met Nyssa's mother, a Jewish peasant, while traveling Russia to visit Catherine the Great in 1773. He took her to St. Petersburg but left her behind the following year when he returned to Persia; Nyssa was born from this romantic tryst later that winter, in 1775. Enamored by the romantic stories that her mother told her about Ra's as a child, Nyssa set out to find Ra's after her mother died of tuberculosis in 1786 and eventually located him at his headquarters in North Africa in 1790, when she was fifteen. Impressed by her skills, Ra's took her in and promoted her to a position similar to the one her half-sister Talia would hold many years later. As his right-hand associate, Nyssa accompanied Ra's and his League of Assassins on many adventures to advance his quest to rid the world of humanity.[1] Four years later, when Nyssa was nineteen, she was killed in Sudan while helping her father raid a city to create a new Lazarus Pit; Ra's used the new Pit to resurrect her rather than rejuvenate himself.[2]
By 1809, Nyssa had become disenchanted with Ra's' genocidal plans to "cleanse the Earth" and informed him that she planned to leave the League and save the world using her own methods. Ra's reluctantly approved, believing that she would return to him and that she or her children would become his future heirs. To his disappointment, Nyssa refused to return or bring her family to him, causing him to officially disown her. He did, however, allow her to keep a Lazarus Pit for herself. Much to his surprise, she found a way to reuse it, allowing her to survive until modern times.[3]
After wandering the world for several decades Nyssa settled in Paris, where she estabslished a salon notable for its patronage of the arts. A few years later she moved to Kiev, where she married Aleksander Gurenko. During this time she had three chlidren, including a son named Daniel and a daughter named Hannah.[4][5] During World War II, Nyssa and her family were arrested during a pogrom. Her sons were killed while she and several other family members were sent to Nazi concentration camps, where the remainder of her family died and she was rendered infertile by gruesome Mengele-esque experiments. Her father refused to save her, claiming that while he cared nothing for Hitler or his goals, his methods eliminated millions of people that he would no longer have to deal with during his own efforts to wipe out humanity. Ra's considered Nyssa and her family to be acceptable casualties in service to that goal.[6][1] Nyssa's prior usage of the Lazarus Pits left her body stronger than most, and she survived until Russian forces liberated the camp in 1945.[7]
After the war, Nyssa stumbled upon Ra's in London. Broken by her horrifying experiences during the war and enraged that Ra's had left her and her family to die, she attempted to kill him. He tried to convince her to rejoin his cause, but Nyssa rejected him and swore to never become like him.[8]
Death and the Maidens
Sixty years after their meeting in London, Nyssa met her father in a cafe in Paris, where Ra's told her of Batman's efforts to destroy his Lazarus Pits and make him mortal. He asked to use hers, but Nyssa refused.[9] Six months later, Ra's stormed Nyssa's stronghold in a desperate attempt to take and use her Lazarus Pit anyway. She killed his bodyguard and confronted him, and he left in frustration without utilizing the Pit.[10]
Nyssa was finally motivated to act against Ra's when her great-grandson Vasily, her last living descendant, was killed.[9] After a year of planning, she befriended, kidnapped, and brainwashed her younger half-sister Talia, who was acting as CEO of LexCorp in Metropolis, by killing Talia and reviving her in her Lazarus Pit several times in quick succession.[10][3][2] She then convinced Talia to help her kill their father, framing it as a compassionate necessity to prevent the Pits from hurting him further, while also secretly planning to shatter what she saw as humanity's collective apathy and selfishness by assassinating Superman with kryptonite bullets stolen from the Batcave.[7]
While Bruce was able to prevent Superman's assassination, he was unable to stop Nyssa from taking Talia to one of the final active Lazarus Pits in Saudi Arabia, where a dying Ra's had managed to rejuvenate himself. In the ensuing fight, Nyssa killed Ra's and became the new Demon's Head.[8] This in turn was part of a larger plan by Ra's to ensure that his daughters, both initially dissatisfied with his plans, would realize that he was right and come to accept their destinies as his heirs. Now believing in his cause, Nyssa and Talia became co-heads of the League of Assassins. Talia disavowed her love for Bruce and both sisters declared Batman to be their enemy.[5]
Destruction's Daughter
During the Infinite Crisis, Nyssa and Talia used Talia's membership in Alexander Luthor's Secret Society of Super-Villains to plan a takeover of the planet. With Talia busy, Nyssa assumed full control of League operations and recruited Lady Shiva to be her new second-in-command and combat instructor.[11] Nyssa also tried to recruit Batgirl to stand by her side as the "One Who is All" when Cassandra broke in while attempting to confirm that Shiva was her mother, but Cassandra refused.[12] Cassandra convinced Mister Freeze, who was working with Nyssa on the promise of utilizing her Lazarus Pit to revive his wife Nora, to help her escape. Their escape destroyed Nyssa's stronghold and caused a massive setback to the Society's plans.[13]
Death
Main article: Robin: Boy Wanted
One year later, Nyssa was killed in a car bombing in North Africa on Cassandra's orders as part of her efforts to consolidate power and take over the League of Assassins.[14][15]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Decelerated Aging: Nyssa has extended her lifespan through the repeated use of Lazarus Pits. The Pits are also the reason she survived the Holocaust.
Abilities
Trivia
- Nyssa's birthday is in January.[5]
- Nyssa was held in Ravensbruck Women's Concentration Camp, north of Berlin, for four years during the Holocaust.[6]
- Nyssa sponsored meetings of William Lloyd Garrison's abolition movement in Boston in 1833.[5]
- Nyssa's son Daniel was born in Paris in 1923.[4]
Related
- 21 Appearances of Nyssa Raatko (New Earth)
- 5 Images featuring Nyssa Raatko (New Earth)
- 1 Quotations by or about Nyssa Raatko (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Nyssa Raatko (New Earth)
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Batman: Death and the Maidens #6
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Batman: Death and the Maidens #4
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Batman: Death and the Maidens #3
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Detective Comics #783
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Batman: Death and the Maidens #9
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Batman: Death and the Maidens #5
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Batman: Death and the Maidens #7
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Batman: Death and the Maidens #8
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Batman: Death and the Maidens #1
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Batman: Death and the Maidens #2
- ↑ Batgirl #67
- ↑ Batgirl #69
- ↑ Batgirl #70
- ↑ Robin (Volume 2) #148
- ↑ Robin (Volume 2) #150
  Batman Villain(s) |
 League of Assassins member |