Unbeatable Comics: Batman and Robin #10

writer: Peter J. Tomasi

artist: Patrick Gleason

"War of the Robins" would have been better than "Night of the Owls."  

Damian Wayne has been a little spitfire since his first appearance, and has successfully taken the Post-Crisis Jason Todd version of the Boy Wonder, the Robin readers actually voted to kill off, into the mainstream.  As a job description, Robin has been around for almost as long as Batman.  For most of this time, it was a role played by Dick Grayson, a character whose origin closely mirrored the tragedy of the Wayne family.  He was, however, introduced as a surrogate for the young readers comic books attracted, the original Spider-Man, a wisecracking adventurer who wore bright colors and didn't seem to notice anything dangerous about it.

Dick grew up with the rest of the comic book landscape, joining the Teen Titans and eventually becoming Nightwing.  He was replaced by Jason Todd, originally a surrogate for a surrogate, then modified into a daredevil who spit in the face of authority and paid the ultimate price, until several decades later, when someone figured out that his legacy could be more valuable as an active part of the mythos than if he stayed dead forever.  Then Tim Drake came along, and like the rest of comics at the time, seemed to have been born ready to accept the role, figuring out the secret identity of Batman and talking his way into the yellow cape.  Then he moved on, too, and was even momentarily replaced by Stephanie Brown, whose ambitions were greater than her experience.  

And then Batman had a son, and when they were reunited, Damian became the new Robin.  With all due apologies, no one will learn more from being Robin than Damian Wayne.  In Batman #666, he's portrayed as Bruce Wayne's truest successor, more fit for the grim responsibility of Gotham's protector than Dick Grayson proved in two separate cracks at the mantle.

All of this is important to this issue, because Damian has a chip on his shoulder the size of the Batcave.  He puts each of the previous Robins (aside from the near-apocryphal Stephanie Brown) on notice soon after Bruce has the bright idea to have a family portrait commissioned, out of costume, excluding Jason.  Yet there's trouble throughout the sitting (er, standing), and soon Damian gathers all the Robins, including Jason, and tells them he'll beat them at whatever they think they're best.  

That's the kind of hubris that defines the whole Dark Knight legacy.  The characters who don't behave this way are always learning how they're not truly a part of the family.  Nightwing has gone a long way to earning respect from his own publisher, for instance.  Tim Drake has only been welcomed back into the fold in the last few months.  This is the first time since 1993 that he does not have his own ongoing series.  Arguably, Batman and Robin is Damian's.  He's the common thread between the two incarnations of the series.  The first one featured Dick's Batman, after all.  Now, thanks to Tomasi and Gleason, we're seeing what Damian is like around his father.  Apparently not all that different.

This is yet another issue that makes this clear.