[RR:Damian Wayne] N52 Week 1: Born to Kill [Jan. 10-23]

Hello @RenegadeRobins and welcome to a new year here at RR: Damian Wayne. I have a lot of exciting things planned for the year including the Robin Rises Event in the spring and a club crossover set of sessions between both Renegade Robins clubs where we will be reading and discussing Jiro Kawata’s Batmanga.

Right now though we are about to embark on Damian’s adventures in the newly minted N52 DCU and to start us off we will be taking a look at the first several issues of Batman and Robin Vol. 2. Can Damian manage to pass Bruce’s exacting standards for his Robins or will the two be in constant conflict over idealogies? Let’s find out.

To Read

* Batman and Robin (2011) #0-5

Discussion Questions

    1. What do you think of these issues compared to the first several of B&R Vol. 1?
    1. The first thing that struck me about these issues was the shift in the dynamic between the characters. What differences did you see here?
    1. Damain’s attitude seems to have shifted as well. Do you think he feels unsure about his new partnership and like he needs to prove himself all over again to his father?
    1. One of the complaints people had about Damian at the start of the N52 was that they felt he had been ‘reset’ to an earlier version of himself thereby erasing all his previous progress as a character. What are your thoughts on this?

And that’s all I have for this week.folks. See you next time here @RenegadeRobins

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Next Time on RR:RH: More Dark Trinity
Next Time on RR:DW : The Real Me

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Yes! I own the Omnibus for this!

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Hmm. Is it mere coincidence that the one Batman series I like from the start of the New 52 is the one that pretty much ignores the reboot altogether? :stuck_out_tongue: Yeah, I can see why people would say that the story rolls back Damian’s characterization a bit, but I don’t think it’s any more drastic than it was when other writers in the pre-Flashpoint days would take on Damian and not quite live up to Morrison’s version of the character.

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It has it’s fair share of retcons, though!

I think it’s understandable – he’s interacted with Dick a lot and become friends, having a good dynamic together, but he’s never really had that with Bruce and he’s having to start over fresh. Couple that with Bruce subconsciously looking at Damian like something broken, a regret, and is it any wonder that Damian regresses and acts up?

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Damian never does well when he finds himself out of his comfort zone does he? He also does have a tendency toward acting out when he’s uncomfortable. There are plenty of examples of this throughout various books. It’s also when his smug superiority starts manifesting itself. Kid’s a real mess.

I would also like to throw in that he is probably also angry at Bruce for a whole lot of thing, including that he and Dick are no longer partners and maybe also at Dick for abandoning him.

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I love it when that happens. :joy:

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Me too. I know others get annoyed with it but it’s really a defense mechanism for Damian. He feels uncomfortable in a situation and so he feels the need to ‘prove’ himself capable by talking about how capable he is.

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  • What do you think of these issues compared to the first several of B&R Vol. 1?

It’s certainly a darker, more somber story – with the Dick Era of B&R (I’ll let you get the giggles out the way…okay), I think while in terms of violence it’s probably about the same, Morrison and other creators (even Tomasi during this time) focus on more bombastic villains, an overall larger mystery, and Dick just naturally being a brighter, more optimistic lead allowed Damian’s darkness to be more…surface level, I suppose?

However, with Tomasi and Bruce as a lead, it becomes a little slower, more cerebral. Also, I think the fact that we go from a tight, breezy three-issue arc structure to a slower-paced basically eight-issue storyline helps in actually focusing on what Damian is really struggling through.

  • The first thing that struck me about these issues was the shift in the dynamic between the characters. What differences did you see here?
  • Damain’s attitude seems to have shifted as well. Do you think he feels unsure about his new partnership and like he needs to prove himself all over again to his father?

It’s funny, I think the differences I see are basically what you ask in the next question. However, I think there’s a deeper part of it – I think at this point in the story, Damian feels like he needs to repress himself in order to have his father’s love, which he desperately wants but is too proud and honestly, too young and emotionally immature to really properly express it.

  • One of the complaints people had about Damian at the start of the N52 was that they felt he had been ‘reset’ to an earlier version of himself thereby erasing all his previous progress as a character. What are your thoughts on this?

There’s definitely some truth to it, though like I think I said earlier, it’s rather understandable. Someone’s growth and path isn’t a constant upward trend. When new situations pop up, sometimes people stumble, they fall back to old habits. Moreover, I think at this point there was just a lot of things that Damian was struggling with, probably even when he was with Dick, that just came to a head at that point.

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I would say Damian is struggling with the same issue in both cases and that perhaps Tomasi is expanding on what Morrison set up before. A slower-paced storyline would certainly help with that.

I would agree with that. He barely knows his father so he has no idea what the expectations are here. He also knows his father’s number one rule is not to kill. Makes for quite the conundrum for Damian. Add to that that he is his father’s son and has the same trouble expressing himself emotionally with words and things become even more of an issue. Poor kid.

Damian certainly does fall back into old habits a lot when he’s faced with a new situation. We see this time and time again in various books he’s in. Moving from being Dick’s partner to Bruce’s would certainly qualify as one of these as would living with his father back at the Manor.

A sort of ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ situation for sure.

  • Damian leaves the only home he’s ever know with the LOA to come to Gotham to live with his father who he’s never met.

  • He then suddenly loses his father who he hadn’t really got to know leaving his situation up in the air.

  • He moves out of his new home to live at the penthouse with Dick as his guardian while also becoming the Robin to Dick’s Batman.

  • He makes the decision to side with his father’s teachings rather than Talia and Ra’s. For that his mother disowns him and declares him an enemy.

  • His father suddenly returns and he’s also lost his partnership with Dick as a result.

  • Now he’s living with his father and is partnering up with his version of Batman in the field.

Taken all together it’s no wonder he’s acting this way.

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