Who is Damian Wayne?

I have been (not so) patiently waiting for May 6th to arrive – because it brings the latest DC animated movie “Son of Batman“. It’s no secret that i’m a huge Batman nerd, but also, I really liked Damian Wayne! And as frequently as I would drone on about how cool I thought Grant Morrison made this character, there were equal number of people telling me to shut it, as there were people asking “Who is Damian Wayne?”. The TL;DR answer is, a character that was long time coming, and yet short lived (as of this article’s publication – in the world of comics, who knows)!

I guess this is 30 some odd year old spoiler alert territory, so… pick up some comics I suppose!

Getting into comic books is super intimidating and I’m not terribly surprised when people are confused about there being someone other than Bruce with the last name of Wayne. When most of their experience comes from watching Batman the Animated Series, or Batman Beyond (to be fair, both legitimately badass shows), they are missing a lot of good content from the DC Batman universe. They know that Bruce Wayne is Batman, and that he has had one or two kids at his side fill the role of Robin. How many kids, they’re not quite so sure of. Who all the Robin’s have been in detail, we’ll save for another week!

Damian isn’t the original boy wonder that Dick Grayson was; he isn’t the very angry and unstable Jason Todd as Robin; Nor is he as smart as Stephanie Brown or Tim Drake (though the strange retcon of Stephanie Brown leaves her history with the Bat family in several spots in question). Damian takes much of the best of all these characters, but not their high points, and add a big ole splash of entitled teenager angst.

The long history of Damian Wayne started in ’87 with Batman: Son of the Demon – An Elseworld’s comic which in it’s own right is a pretty awesome storytelling about Ra’s al Ghul. It starts the story of Batman and Talia ah Ghul giving birth to a son. The cannon of that story is debated, but that’s the premise – Batman has a son with the daughter of the most wicked villain in the Batman universe. whooops…

Fast forward to 1996 when Grant Morrison is given reigns to Batman, and he starts the series “Batman and Son” – where i’m assuming most of the plot will come for the movie coming out next month! There are some shenanigans in the background but the important takeaway from this story line is that Talia tells Batman that he is the father of her son, Damian – who has been raised until that point by the League of Assassins. A good quote that gives you a hint of the kids attitude “Father. I imagined you taller”.  Talia is now is ready for Batman to be more than baby daddy, and take the boy under his mantle. Figuratively. In more ways than one.

At this point in time Jason Todd has come and gone as Robin, and is running about as Red Hood, Tim Drake has been formally adopted by Bruce Wayne and is the acting sidekick Robin, and Dick Grayson has left to be a super hero in his own right – Night Wing. Batman brings Damian back to Gotham and upon introduction to Tim Drake, they hit it off smashingly. And by smashingly, I mean I think Damian tried to smash things over Tim’s head. Damian has high stamina and strength, and rolled kinda meh on common sense; Damian thinks Tim Drake should just book it, since he is the real son of Bruce Wayne, which means he should be Robin. Some pretty epic angry teenager fights take place, Damian hunts down a street thug and proceeds to chop off his head, and plant an explosive in his mouth. Little dude likes to do the overkill thing. In yet another fight with Tim Drake, this time he more than stuns him, and takes Jason Todd’s Robin suit and leaves a broken Tim Drake behind. After treating Tim for his injuries, Bruce agrees to take Damian with him to face his mother – especially once he had worked out that she left Damian with him just to pretty much screw with him. And the mother of the year award goes to… just about anyone else. Big battle ensues, and Talia sweeps Damian away after he is hurt badly.

There are several story lines that include Damian, but the ones that are really worth checking out to follow the petulant teenager are Battle for the Cowl and Batman Reborn. If you don’t know who Damian is, you might not know that Batman was missing for a time, and that most of the Bat family duked it out on who got to be the next Batman. Tim tried, Jason tried (by beating the pulp out of Tim), and Dick ultimately took up the mantle with Damian at his side. (Battle for the cowl is a pretty rad story arc if you’ve read Final Crisis).  In time Bruce Wayne finally picks up as Batman again, and Damian follows along with him in the Batman Inc. story lines where we are introduced to Batcow – my favorite Bat-related joke ever.

So that is the meat of Damain Wayne. When you look at what his parents do for a living, it’s no surprised that he is a bit on the unbalanced side – his genes don’t exactly set him up for normalcy. I’m going to end this short of how Grant Morrison left this character – because shocking, it isn’t a happy ending. Long story short, check out Battle for the Cowl and Batman Reborn, some really great stories, and look for me gushing about Son of Batman after May 6th!