Once again, the death of a major comic book hero is announced to the world via a newspaper before the book is on sale in the shops. This time it’s DC that’s making the announcement. Yes… we live in a world where DC and Marvel seem to have dueling character deaths. details after a bit of paging down…
OK, that should be enough. The NY Post has the official announcement that Robin, or rather the current Damien incarnation of Robin, buys the farm in Batman, Incorporated #8.
Nothing like an unannounced death to sell out an under-ordered book to one-time shop visitors and Comixology will probably do banner business on Wednesday. While DC is hyping this for all it’s worth to the mainstream media (although I question the wisdom of announcing the book on a Monday when it can be bought until a Wednesday — that lessens the impulse buy factor and requires non-regulars to remember to go looking for the comic a couple days later), I’d like to offer a simpler explanation of what’s going on. DC is simply making a media event out of Morrison putting the toys back in the box like he found them. While Batman usually has a Robin (the recent films being more the exception), he doesn’t usually have an actual son. IIRC, Morrison didn’t originally plan to keep Damien around, either. We’re about to go back to the status quo. It also explains why Rob Liefeld said to look for a Red Robin solo book and not a Damien/Robin solo book as they announce more New 52 replacements. Eventually somebody will do a Damien revival, but it will probably be a few years down the road. Jason Todd came back. Bucky came back. It’s more a matter of when, than anything else. If you were reading Morrison’s Batman run, proceed as normal. If not, nothing to see. Keep moving. Batman will look a little more like what you remember from years past and maybe Tim Drake will be Robin, instead of Red Robin… that way we can stop confusing the character with a hamburger chain.
You know the killing, maiming, or torturing of Batman’s sidekicks just might be the single cheapest route to drama in all of fiction, second only to killing the hero’s significant other in order to have them go into a beserker rage on the villain responsible.
I’m not even the biggest fan of Damien Wayne but surely there is some more elegant way of writing him out than this tired road? It also just hands a huge lampshade on the parade of Robins there have been. I guess we should just be glad there’s no 1-800 number this time.
That stinks, I genuinely liked this Robin. Then again I also liked Post-Crisis Jason Todd Robin too. I guess DC and I just don’t see eye-to-eye on cool Robins.
Damien isn’t Bruce Wayne’s only son. He also formally adopted Dick Grayson, in devin Grayson’s run on GOTHAM KNIGHTS. Whether its still in continuity or not, it was a great story.
On top of that, Bruce also officially adopted Tim Drake. So 3 of his 4 male Robins are legally Bruce’s family.
For me, I liked the B&R of Dick & Damian. When Bruce was to return, I would have liked to see him as a grizzled older man-General akin to his role in Batman Beyond.
DC announced it is the latest character death? Had to happen sooner or later…
And they couldn’t even be bothered with a phone-in poll?
So… did the Post report the whole convoluted Damien Wayne backstory and clarify that he’s the fifth (sixth?) person to rock the Robin mantle? Or did they just sorta say “Robin’s dying! spend money on comicbooks!”
I don’t like what this could mean for Peter Tomasi — his Batman and Robin is a really good read. Hopefully it continues on with some combination of Dick/Jason/Tim. Or DC could throw a huge curveball and reintroduce Steph Brown as the new Robin. Whatever they do, I hope Tomasi continues writing these characters for a long time. He’s been involved with the Bat-books in some capacity for well over a decade.
Doesn’t seem like something Morrison would do, announcing the death on the cover unless there were more to the story. Plus haven’t we seen scenes of the future where Damian has taken over as Batman? I guess history would be changed by his death though…
This is a genuine question. If “toys are going to be put back on the shelf” why bother reading comics? This has literally driven me insane for years but new DC pushed me over the edge and I have been unable to read much of the big two for two years. I cannot get past the return to status quo. Why read “superhero” comics if nothing ever really changes or matters? On a side note I think this explains the phenomenon of Walking Dead, because there is actual danger people are enthralled. Characters die and do not come back and you know there is no status quo.
You put toys back on the shelf so they aren’t broken when the next creator or generation of readers comes along. However, these days by the time they are put back on the shelf the toys are so damn mangled it’s like if Sid from Toy Story had been playing with them.
We need less Sids and more Andy’s.
I’m really starting to wonder how much longer DC will be in the comic book business. They have crashed and burned, creatively, over the last two years.
I’m all for bashing DC when appropriate, but this is DC giving a big name creator freedom over their biggest commercially successful character for a period of 7 years and then finishing the story in a way that he wanted isn’t an example of them being creatively burnt out.
Now if we were talking about most rest of the New 52 being corporate driven rather than creator driven, anything to do with Before Watchmen etc, that’s a different story …
It’s SO sad that fictional character death is the ONLY way these comic companies know how to market themselves. It’s like they’re clinging on for dear life.
Perhaps if they worked on themselves in capturing new readers and had REAL news to cough up (like, for example (making this up), “Aquaman 17 sells its 1000,509th copy”; “Supergirl: a YA hit”) then maybe the rest of the world would really take an interest in what they’re doing. Promoting the death of a character in a comic inaccessible to anyone by a DC Comics fan just ain’t it.
DARN IT ALL. But Damien is adorable! It was so refreshing. How many portrayals of children in fiction DON’T go the “spunky-brat-now-love-him-remember-SPUNKY” route?! Nope, Damien just stared down the bad guys not by mouthing off wittily but rather fully confident that he could hand them their own gallbladders by count of five, stoically enduring any attempt by any of the other characters to engage him in fun, affection or normalcy. It was hilarious!
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