Batman, Inc. (spoilers)

[DIrishB]

Wait, Damien has an evil twin? I didn't know that. Did he actually die or did he get stabbed only to leave the plot open to him recovering?

 

[E]

Re: Batman, Inc.

Wait, Damien has an evil twin? I didn't know that. Did he actually die or did he get stabbed only to leave the plot open to him recovering?

He looks pretty dead. He was shot up with bullets and arrows before being stabbed. He's had his back broken before with Talia taking him in for very advanced spine replacement, but it doesn't look like she'll be helping him this time.

The issue actually ends with Bruce cradling Damien in his arms, crying.

And yeah, the evil twin is a clone that Talia showed Damien earlier. She aged him artificially.

 

[DIrishB]

He looks pretty dead. He was shot up with bullets and arrows before being stabbed. He's had his back broken before with Talia taking him in for very advanced spine replacement, but it doesn't look like she'll be helping him this time.

The issue actually ends with Bruce cradling Damien in his arms, crying.

And yeah, the evil twin is a clone that Talia showed Damien earlier. She aged him artificially.

Interesting. Still, even if Talia isn't willing to help him, I can see Bruce using his extensive resources to keep him alive, then maybe undertaking a mission to get him into the Lazarus Pit to heal him. Robins don't stay dead.

 

[E]

Re: Batman, Inc.

At the very least, even if this Damien is truly dead, it has been established that Talia has at least one clone. Stands to reason there would be (or could be) others.

I get the sense that this is designed to be pretty closed, though. A lot can happen in the final 4 issues of Batman Inc. but it feels like this was designed to be the end of Damien as Robin.

 

[DIrishB]

At the very least, even if this Damien is truly dead, it has been established that Talia has at least one clone. Stands to reason there would be (or could be) others.

I get the sense that this is designed to be pretty closed, though. A lot can happen in the final 4 issues of Batman Inc. but it feels like this was designed to be the end of Damien as Robin.

Could very well be the case. If that is the end of Damien, who do you think would take up the Robin persona? More importantly, how will this affect Batman in the long term? I could see this influencing Bats to not want another Robin, as while the (not so permanent death) of Jason Todd might have. After all, this was his son.

 

[E]

Re: Batman, Inc.

Could very well be the case. If that is the end of Damien, who do you think would take up the Robin persona? More importantly, how will this affect Batman in the long term? I could see this influencing Bats to not want another Robin, as while the (not so permanent death) of Jason Todd might have. After all, this was his son.

I'm not really up to speed on my Bat-history, but didn't he not allow himself to have a Robin after Jason Todd died? So maybe there won't be one because he will be too grief-stricken like you said.

 

[DIrishB]

Re: Batman, Inc.

I'm not really up to speed on my Bat-history, but didn't he not allow himself to have a Robin after Jason Todd died? So maybe there won't be one because he will be too grief-stricken like you said.

I believe so, and this is what I'm thinking. Might also lead him to dissuade the members of the Bat-family (Nightwing, Red Robin, etc) from continuing their superhero careers, a way of shaking up the status quo of the titles and leading to more of a loner Batman. That'd be interesting.

 

[Zombipanda]

Re: Batman, Inc.

Am I the only one thinking they really should have rebooted Batman with the new 52? I love Miller's Year One as much as the next guy, but we've had 25 years of different permutations of Miller's Batman. I think it's high time for something fresh.

Anyway, what are the odds Harper Row from Snyder's Batman run is going to take over as a new Robin? It would be an opportunity to do something new with Robin, say a girl in more of an Oracle type role rather than a little kid running around in speedos.

 

[E]

Re: Batman, Inc.

Anyway, what are the odds Harper Row from Snyder's Batman run is going to take over as a new Robin? It would be an opportunity to do something new with Robin, say a girl in more of an Oracle type role rather than a little kid running around in speedos.

Rich Johnston is suggesting that Grant Morrison might actually be setting up Ellie to be the new Robin.

 

[E]

Newsarama interview with Grant Morrison:

Morrison: I've always liked him, even when he was horrible! [Laughs.] So yeah, there were moments, you know? I could have written Batman and Robin a lot longer, and Damian could have had more of a life. I would have taken him up to the age of 14, where then he sells his soul to Dr. Hurt, or to the devil, and I'd play out that story. But you know... it just didn't play that way.

So yeah, he could have done a lot of different things. But ultimately, it had to come to this moment. And that's the moment he came to.

Nrama: With all the escape hatches inherent in any Batman character's death — like Lazarus Pits and cloning — how will you feel if Damian gets brought back in the future?

Morrison: That wouldn't bother me at all, if it was done well and if someone really had a good idea for it.

But I don't imagine that's going to happen for awhile.

It's certainly not going to happen in my story. So all the people that are hoping for a happy ending for Damian can forget it.

But other writers? That kind of thing is beyond my control and beyond the scope of my story. There are always possibilities.

We try to close down a lot of possibilities before I leave. So the idea of Lazarus Pits and things kind of gets raised in the next issue.

 

[E]

Grant Morrison on Why Damian Wayne Had to Die: Talking the death of Robin and Batman's impending "opera-like" ending.

IGN Comics: Was it always part of your larger plan on Batman to wind down your run with the death of Damian?

Grant Morrison: Yeah, always. I actually have my series pitch from April 13, 2011 and the death of Damian is right there. So even two years ago I was telling everyone this stuff was going to happen. It's amazing that no one leaked the news until a couple of weeks ago! But yeah, it was always going to happen; it was part of his destiny and the character arc he was put through. Initially I was going to do it in the first four issues, but I'm glad we didn't because we got to build him up to be a much bigger and stronger character.

It's weird to think of a huge revelation like Batman having a son with Talia being over in 4 issues.

IGN: Very quickly Damian became my favorite Robin; Batman's lost Robins before but Damian's death isn't quite the same. How do you think Damian's death challenges Bruce as a character?

Morrison: Well, what I don't want to do is the whole weepy Batman; the Batman in mourning thing. Over my run, we've seen a Batman who's basically a super Buddhist meditation addict who's going through one of the most hardcore rituals. This is a guy who works in a superhero universe who has seen friends die and come back to life. So what I wanted to do, and what you're going to see coming up, is a Batman who has a very different approach to death than what most of us do.

I think what makes this guy special is in the way that he relates to life and death; he's seen things the rest of us just couldn't deal with. He's not going to think the same way we do, he's not going to weep. He's just going to be working stuff out, and that's what I'm going to start to show. These last four issues are kind of the vengeance of Batman and the iron fist of the Dark Knight. [laughs]

Pete Tomasi did such great work with Damian in Batman and Robin right up to his death, and he made Damian more and more likable and lovable until the moment we snatched him away. [laughs]

Tomasi's Batman & Robin didn't really seem to be getting much love but I was really enjoying it. He picked up on the character of Damian better than anyone after Morrison.

For me, it was always to keep in mind that I had one Batman story to tell, and this is how it worked, and he was a story arc, and here's how it would play out. I always knew I was going to give Batman back kind of like, "This is the way I found the guy." He's got his cave, he's got his butler, he's got his Batmobile, he's got his allies, and that's it, you know? I didn't want to leave the kid for future writers who may not want to have to deal with that stuff. That's why Damian's death was always going to wind down my run, because I wanted to take away anything that could date Batman or trap Batman within a certain set of circumstances.

I tried to bring him up and give him an arc and then take him away within the context of my run. I don't want the other writers to be stuck with something I'd come up with and was intrinsic to what I was doing. So I kind of kept him to my stuff and there are a lot of other writers who have done great stuff with Damian, but the whole arc of who he was, what he became, and how he'd wind up, was hopefully contained in my Batman run.

I'd have preferred he would challenge lesser writers instead of allowing them to be mediocre and keep with the 50+ year status quo.

IGN: That sort of brings me to my next question, which is something I have to ask – Damian is an al Ghul, after all, so is there any chance of a Lazarus Pit in his future, or is that something you'll be leaving to other creators, should they want to carry that torch?

Morrison: We deal with the Lazarus Pit in the very next issue. That's in there. For the purposes of my story, Damian is dead. As I always say, who knows what the future brings? But no one is doing it as far as I know, and it's not a priority. Damian is dead in this story. And you see why he had to die; why he had to go.

I'm glad. I saw a lot of speculation that this would be the case and I'm glad it's being dealt with. I'm glad Grant Morrison is a better writer so as to not give us something some cynical nerd comes up with in the comments section of a nerdy website.

HE IS BETTER THAN YOU, NERDS.

IGN: Well now that he's gone, what do you hope is this lasting legacy of Damian Wayne? What do you hope people remember?

Morrison: Just all of those issues where you loved him. Where he jumped about kicking Professor Pyg and just jumped into every battle, even if he got his neck broken, he didn't care. Most of the Robins have been good boys. Dick Grayson was a circus kid and I really liked that he was kind of a working class kid. Tim Drake was more of a middle class kid; this little computer expert who could pretty much do anything. Hopefully what people remember is just Damian being the kind of Robin that the 21st century wanted. This little ninja-trained kid who could do anything and had a problem with all authority but a desire to do the right thing.

*sniff*

 

[Zombipanda]

I'd have preferred he would challenge lesser writers instead of allowing them to be mediocre and keep with the 50+ year status quo.

I'm not sure I agree. It's not really his job to challenge other writers. It's their job to challenge themselves. It's their job to look at the stories that came before and be inspired to hold themselves to that level of excellence. A middling writer who's just going to churn out stories is going to churn out mediocre stories whether Damian is there or not, and a good or great writer might be ham-stringed in tellling his or her stories by the presence of this kid. Damian's success came down to the quality of his writing and aspiring writers need to look at the quality of the stories as a benchmark rather than the detritus left behind by their predecessors.

I kind of wish they'd managed to wrap Morrison's story before the reboot. As it stands, he's overburdened with all manner of erratic bits and pieces of continuity and living in the shadow of the Miller era Batman. He's feeling a little long in the tooth, and Morrison's run would have been a fantastic send-off before giving us a more solid reboot.

I haven't been as thrilled with Morrison's superhero stuff as late and look forward to him focusing more on creator-owned works, but that last issue was just a fantastic send-off for Damian. The little exchanges between him and Dick were great.

Rich Johnston is suggesting that Grant Morrison might actually be setting up Ellie to be the new Robin.

I saw that, and it's an interesting premise. But I think there's a snowball's chance in hell of a barely mentioned character from Morrison's run taking over the mantle. Given we're going to be seeing an eleven-part(!) flashback story and the rumors of a concurrent Batman weekly, I'm guessing they'll be doing their best to just quietly forget the whole Batman Inc. thing and set up a new status quo that better fits the reboot.

I'd rather not see a new Robin for the foreseeable future, honestly.

 

[E]

I'm not sure I agree. It's not really his job to challenge other writers. It's their job to challenge themselves.

I can agree with this...I didn't really mean to suggest that it was his job. Here's an example of what I was thinking of: When Bendis left Daredevil he had him married, the new kingpin of Hell's Kitchen, and being carted off to jail and left it to the next guy to run with that, upsetting the status quo so we aren't just getting rehashes of the same old stories that have been around for 40 years.

What I meant is that I wish they had that new wrinkle in things in place, and I was glad it was a good writer with a good idea doing it.

I just don't like that we're looking at another great Grant Morrison story being done away with in order to get things back to normal rather than using it for some fresh new stories (i.e. New X-Men).

I haven't been as thrilled with Morrison's superhero stuff as late

See, I'm opposite. Aside from Action Comics (which I really think requires a complete readthrough on my part), his recent superhero stuff has been some of the best comics I've ever read.

Now, I'm measuring "recent" as about New X-Men and forward, because that's when I first started reading his work and have been less impressed with his superhero work before that (namely JLA). But All-Star Superman, Seven Soldiers, and this Batman run are incredible works.

I saw that, and it's an interesting premise. But I think there's a snowball's chance in hell of a barely mentioned character from Morrison's run taking over the mantle. Given we're going to be seeing an eleven-part(!) flashback story and the rumors of a concurrent Batman weekly, I'm guessing they'll be doing their best to just quietly forget the whole Batman Inc. thing and set up a new status quo that better fits the reboot.

I'd rather not see a new Robin for the foreseeable future, honestly.

I wouldn't have a problem with that. It would make sense from a characterization standpoint; Bruce Wayne probably doesn't want to risk another kid getting killed. He would only let so many kids bully him into allowing them to be his sidekicks.

Ellie has barely been mentioned, sure, but her growth has been noticeable. Maybe Rich Johnston is putting too much stock into the look on her face as Batman cradled Damian at the end of Batman Inc #8.

 

[Zombipanda]

I can agree with this...I didn't really mean to suggest that it was his job. Here's an example of what I was thinking of: When Bendis left Daredevil he had him married, the new kingpin of Hell's Kitchen, and being carted off to jail and left it to the next guy to run with that, upsetting the status quo so we aren't just getting rehashes of the same old stories that have been around for 40 years.

What I meant is that I wish they had that new wrinkle in things in place, and I was glad it was a good writer with a good idea doing it.

I just don't like that we're looking at another great Grant Morrison story being done away with in order to get things back to normal rather than using it for some fresh new stories (i.e. New X-Men).

I agree that leaving the character in a fresh situation can force writers to do creative new things but the double edged sword there is that it can also be limiting. Creators with grand visions could be passed by or have their ideas severely crippled by being boxed into circumstances.

As for Damian, I'm not sure he would have been the game changer that would really force a creator to innovate. He's an interesting character when he's written by Morrison or Tomasi but he's not the kind of game changer that would force other creators to think outside the box. The good ones would incorporate him if it fit their story and the bad ones would either just ignore him or write him badly. The more apt metaphor might be the premise of Batman Inc. itself, which, when not ignored, fundamentally changes the mode of storytelling and is rich with possibilities that Morrison hasn't had the opportunity to exploit. It's a grand concept with tons of potential.

But I'm of the mind that, given the tangled state of Batman continuity, and the attempt of a reboot, the better idea would have been to take a clever group of creators and let them go hog wild on the universe, rebuild it to their personal vision of the character. That's not something we've seen in the relaunch, and while I'm more or less impressed with Snyder's Batman, it's not exactly the bold reinvention the franchise needs, IMO.

See, I'm opposite. Aside from Action Comics (which I really think requires a complete readthrough on my part), his recent superhero stuff has been some of the best comics I've ever read.

Now, I'm measuring "recent" as about New X-Men and forward, because that's when I first started reading his work and have been less impressed with his superhero work before that (namely JLA). But All-Star Superman, Seven Soldiers, and this Batman run are incredible works.

I've been reading Action in spotty patches and may have to reevaluate it once I sit down and read the whole thing at once. I'm not saying it's not good, because it really is, but it just doesn't wow me in the way a lot of his older stuff did.

And I'm speaking a much shorter time frame as for his "recent" stuff: the reboot and to a lesser extent, the last leg of his prelaunch Inc. (I wasn't terribly fond of the Return of Bruce Wayne either) I love ASS, SS, and JLA. And I thought Final Crisis was a flawed but fascinating book that would have been much better without the constant change in artists and if they'd used it as the launch for a reboot, letting him really pull out the stops. I thought the premise of the Fourth World was a really clever idea.

I wouldn't have a problem with that. It would make sense from a characterization standpoint; Bruce Wayne probably doesn't want to risk another kid getting killed. He would only let so many kids bully him into allowing them to be his sidekicks.

RIght. Continuity is tangled enough as is, and from a character standpoint, the only reason he took Damian on was because the situation kind of demanded it and because Grayson had already groomed him.

Ellie has barely been mentioned, sure, but her growth has been noticeable. Maybe Rich Johnston is putting too much stock into the look on her face as Batman cradled Damian at the end of Batman Inc #8.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that Morrison didn't intend to seed the idea of Ellie as Robin (though if he had, I suspect we would have seen more of her, particularly in the flash forward Damian-as-Batman issues). And even if he didn't, I rather liked the arc. He took this character who appeared only in cameos and gave her a story that stretched his whole span on Batman where she grew from street rat to confident heroic woman due in equal parts to Bruce Wayne and Batman. I just don't think it's a move that DC would follow through on, or that the current writers would be eager to ride.

I do hope more writers utilize her, but I wouldn't hold out too much hope for it, or of her coming in as Robin.

 

[E]

So Who Is Writing Batman Inc #13 Then?

Looks like there is going to be a 13th issue that has something to do with either Burnham or Morrison as it will be collected in the second TPB volume, but no one is sure exactly what is going on with it.

 

[E]

There is a preview out for #10. Spoilers...

Batman is recruiting Michael Lane for something. It's not for Batman Inc because he says it has been liquidated.

I love how Grant Morrison brings his stories around like this. Michael Lane was the "Bat-Ghost" - the third of 3 Batmen enhanced by Simon Hurt for the military/GCPD who fought Batman early in Morrison's run. He's the one that shot Batman in the chest where he died for 4 minutes and remembered Thogal and some of the other experiments that Hurt was involved in.

What I didn't know because I never bothered reading Battle For The Cowl was that Lane was recruited as an Azreal. So I guess I need to read that.

 

[Ultimate Houde]

Yes it was.

 

[E]

Yes it was.

I don't know what this is in reference to...

I read #10 this morning and loved it. Batman and Bruce Wayne are both wanted, Damien's clone is getting restless, and Bruce took the Man-Bat serum to (I'm assuming) be able to wear an exoskeleton that Lucius had that no one could wear because it keeps injuring people. So he's a Man-Bat wearing an experimental exoskeleton flying straight at Talia. The last page of him flying at her is great.

 

[Zombipanda]

Hah.

I love how ridiculous this book has gotten.

 

[thee great one]

Lane has his own series as Azrael also. It started great. I really liked his design. He wore the Suit of Sorrows from the Resurrection of Ra Al Gul crossover.