Batman: Son of the Demon (2006) #1

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In every review of BSOTD I’ve read, this deception is understood as Talia’s way to protect Batman. “ Killed. He was almost killed… he may yet be… all because he is trying to protect me,” she thinks at one point. But that makes no sense—even if Talia loves Batman and doesn’t want him hurt, why would Ra’s agree to send Batman away? Ra’s has put his own child, his many wives, and countless followers in danger for centuries. He wouldn’t change his mind just because Batman is willing to die for his grandchild. Isn’t that exactly what all of the characters are doing in this book? Putting their lives at risk? Also, isn’t this why Talia & Ra’s brought Batman into the organization in the first place? To marry Talia? To father a child? And to become the Demon’s Head!

What connects Batman and the villain Ra’s al Ghul? Find out in this collection of tales of the Demon! They return to Wayne Manor, injured. Damian is severely injured, and is cared for by Alfred. When Alfred voices concern for Bruce's wounds, Bruce snaps at Alfred and demands he focus on Damian. In attempt to show Damian he cares, Bruce leaves recordings he made while searching for him. Damian listens to all of them. In another Elseworlds story, Kingdom Come (1996) by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, which functioned as a possible future to the canon of the time, this child of Batman and Talia is named Ibn al Xu'ffasch ( Arabic: ابن الخفّاش), literally "Son of the Bat", and is a member of Lex Luthor's inner circle. He works as a double agent for Batman in Luthor's organization, and thus aligned with his father instead of his maternal grandfather. [24] In the Elliot S! Maggin novelization of Kingdom Come, al Xu'ffasch tells Bruce that his mother Talia is still alive and working as a Mother Superior in Cairo, one of Mother Teresa's successors. al Xu'ffasch reappears in Waid's 1999 sequel The Kingdom. After Damian left the Teen Titans, they, along with members of the Bat family and Superboy, tried to find him, but Damian was able to evade their efforts. While helping the Teen Titans battle the super criminals Mammoth and Shimmer, Superboy discovers a note from Damian to him. It is not directly revealed what was in the note, but it makes Superboy realize that wherever Damian is, they won't find him. Damian also leaves a note for the Teen Titans, which contains a set of coordinates leading them into a meeting with Nightwing. Nightwing explains that Damian encouraged him to have the remaining members of the Titans and Teen Titans work together in spite of the Justice League's disapproval. This leads to a new version of the Titans forming, consisting of Nightwing, Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy, Troia, Crush, Roundhouse, Red Arrow, and Kid Flash. Talia is a badass assassin. She’s the Daughter of the Demon, and she will never be a bourgeois wife. She and Ra’s engineer the pretense of the miscarriage. It’s almost as if she’s embarrassed by what she wrought. She effectively dumps Batman, because he’s grown soft and overprotective. This is presented with sadness and lots of tears, but the tears were necessary to fool Batman. Ra’s and Talia want an heir to the Demon’s Head, not a suburban dad. Batman’s HappinessIn the aftermath, Batman and Talia al Ghul fight over Damian's body, with Talia stealing his remains from their resting spot alongside Bruce's parents. Through the course of Batman and Talia's conflict, Darkseid and the minions of Apokolips become involved, and Damian is resurrected by the power of an artifact called the Chaos Shard. Comics of the Event (What is the Event? Read the introduction.) can be mapped onto a fourfold structure of two intersecting axes. On the horizontal axis, we have the ‘art’ continuum, which ranges from experimental (or innovative) on one end, to traditional on the other. The vertical axis is ‘narrative,’ which has a similar range. Because comics are a unique melding of narrative and image, the intersections between these two continuums can result in unusual juxtapositions. Traditional narratives can be executed in experimental art styles, and experimental narratives might be assigned a traditional artist. These discrepancies were intensified during the Event, especially in commercial comics published by Marvel, DC, and other publishers where writer and artist are distinct figures. This incident has deeply hurt both Damian and his mother, Talia, who had to watch her father get murdered even though he finally made the right choice for the first time in his life and was willing to turn a new leaf for his family's sake. In her grief, she gathered all the members of the League of Assassins and put a hit on Deathstroke as well as all of his associates in revenge for killing her father. On the other hand, Damian has teamed-up with his father, who wasn't fully convinced that it was the real Deathstroke that killed Ra's al Ghul, to investigate the murder and find out who was really behind it. [99] Damian Wayne appears in films set in the DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU), voiced by Stuart Allan. This version is a member of the Teen Titans and in a relationship with Raven. [107] [108]

Damian Wayne appears in the Lego films Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Gotham City Breakout, Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Aquaman: Rage of Atlantis and Lego DC Batman: Family Matters, voiced by Scott Menville. Donal is tortured, and murdered, for information regarding the location of the Demon's Head. Qayin storms the Demons' Head. The Batman, and Talia, attempt to repel the first wave of Qayin's insurgents. The Batman pushes Talia out of the conflict, to protect their unborn baby. The Batman declares his intention to abandon the conflict with Qayin. The Batman's only concern is Talia's safety, and the safety of their child. Qayin makes a play for the Lazarus Pit, but Ra's Al Ghul destroys it. Qayin retreats with his forces. The weather controlling satellite reaches maximum orbit, allowing it to be put through a test run. After a successful test, Yossid, and Qayin, seize control of the satellite. Grant Morrison's story titled Batman and Son (2006) expands upon the Son of the Demon storyline as part of a remodeling of Batman's personality after the events of Infinite Crisis. In Morrison's version, the child Damian Wayne is the result of a tryst between Batman and Talia, during which the Dark Knight claims he was drugged when they were at the Tropic of Cancer, though Morrison later admitted the claim of drugging was a canonical error on their part. Since then however in issues of the Morrison penned Batman Incorporated, the drugging is reaffirmed and is once again part of Damian's origin. [25] However, Batman and Talia's tryst was later shown as consensual in Peter J. Tomasi's Batman and Robin, thus the circumstances of Damian's conception can vary depending on the writers. [26] [27]This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. ( August 2017) This one’s actually not a bad comic. The more I read of Mike Barr’s Batman, the more surprised I am that it’s not the absolute garbage I keep expecting. I think I just got off on the wrong foot with him by starting with one of the worst Batman books ever written, Year Poo Two! When Batman and Nightwing finally re-confront Heretic, they overpower him, and the clone suffers a brutal beating from both in retaliation for Damian's death. Batman, despite desiring to kill his son's murderer more than anything and Nightwing making no attempts of stopping his mentor, spares the villain's life after seeing his resemblance to Damian, realizing the clone is what is left of his son. However, Talia later kills the Heretic for his failure to kill Batman and challenges Batman to a duel to the death in the Batcave. [68] But Talia is killed following the duel by Kathy Webb, and it is later revealed that Damian's body was stolen from the Manor cemetery by the League of Assassins along with Talia's for plans against Batman in addition to making their resurrections. It has also been shown that Ra's al Ghul has begun to engineer more clones of Damian. [69] Road to Resurrection [ edit ] Assassins plan to take over Ra's' organization... led by a man who Father believes could be his successor, until my father became aware of you." —Talia al Ghul to Batman. Around fifteen minutes into the film. Spaulding, Ethan, director. Son of Batman Warner Bros. Animation, 2014.

In Teen Titans vol. 3 #18 (2006), when the Teen Titans were transported 10 years into the future, a graveyard full of deceased Batman allies and villains is depicted. One tombstone reads "Ibn al Xu'ffasch" which means "son of the bat" in the Arabic language. [103] BSOD is curious artifact. It struggles to bring adult themes and situations into a fantasy world created mostly for children. This tension created a lot of interesting subtext and unintended consequences. Damian possesses all the weakness of a normal human male (though he's been trained to resist them for longer than most pre-adult human males). Damian also has a killer instinct; though he can control it, it's still a great weakness. Standard caveat: This has yet to be solicited by DC Comics, so any number of things can change between now and the September publication date. DC’s books are often a moving target, getting solicited, cancelled, resolicited and whatnot. So keep your eyes peeled for updates. Batman fits into this surprisingly well. He’s already committed to acting outside of legal norms. He also has a history of flaunting international norms. In fact, Mike W. Barr, already showed us a Batman willing to quit the Justice League because it refused to act in a foreign country, Markovia. 6 When Ra’s installs Batman as the head of his organization, he relishes the opportunity. The relationship goes far beyond a temporary alliance to find the killer of a scientist in Gotham. This is an opportunity to bring his brand of justice beyond the narrow confines of Gotham, to the whole world. He immediately takes the reigns, and begins to re-make the organization in his own image, by training them in "non-lethal" combat.

The Story

The book was controversial too, since it showed Bruce Wayne and Talia consummate their relationship, which led to the birth of a son. With such a status-quo-busting move, there were questions over whether the story was canonical but ultimately it didn’t matter: Grant Morrison took the bundle of Bat-joy and ran with it, giving us Damian Wayne decades later. (The baby, fully grown, popped up with a different name in Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come, as well.) in DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection (Eaglemoss Publications, 2015 series) #42 - Batman - Die Geburt des Dämons 1 ([November] 2015) Ra’s Al-Ghul and the Ozone Layer - Barr barely attempts to connect the two into something resembling a plot but completely fails so forget that noise! Instead, here’s a bunch of unrelated boring rubbish to fill up space instead: a dull scientist and his brat, Ra’s and an actress (she’s the “bride” of the title - Ra’s wants her to give him an heir because I guess Talia’s not penis-y enough?), and Talia and Batman’s corny relationship. Faaaaaarrrrttt. And that’s Bride of the Demon.

After observing how happy both his daughter and grandson are while living a peaceful life without killing, the now reformed Ra's al Ghul decides that he wants to turn himself in to the authority to atone for all the crimes he committed as well as publicly share all the secrets he kept hidden over the centuries, this decision has sparked a huge interest in both the superhero community and the villain community due the amount of knowledge the immortal Demon's Head has about the world, so all eyes were on him during a press conference he held before his incarceration. However, as soon as the conference started, Ra's was immediately shot by a sniper wearing a Deathstroke-looking costume, who also threw a bomb that turned his body to ashes to insure that there would be nothing left of him that can be resurrected through the Lazarus Pit. [98] Of course BSOTD cannot be read in isolation. Prior to this story, Batman has had a long relationship with Talia in the Batman monthly comics. He’s encountered Ra’s al Ghul many times before. BSOTD is only a possible resolution of the many dangling relationships between those characters. It’s an apotheosis of a long term build-up. Still, the Batman depicted in BSOTD is hapless and a pawn. Classic Batman Azrael • Batgirl • Batman • Batman and Robin • Batman Beyond • Batman Confidential • Batman Incorporated • Batman: Dark Knight • Batman: Streets of Gotham • Birds of Prey • Justice League of America • Outsiders • Red Robin • Superman/Batman As of age 13, Damian was short for his age and had few other markers of impending puberty. In Super Sons, it was a running joke that he was frequently mistaken as younger than ten-year-old Jon Kent.In Injustice vs. Masters of the Universe, which is a continuation of Superman's ending in Injustice 2, an alternate, adult version of Damian takes the mask and mantle of Batman. He and Cyborg have realized that they have been fighting for the wrong side the entire time and then reform seeking the help of the Masters of the Universe in stopping Superman, who has since bonded with Brainiac's ship and has captured and brainwashed Batman into being a mindless slave. Damian attempts to free his father from Superman's control but is killed by Wonder Woman for his betrayal which triggers Batman's release from Superman's programming. Sands, Rich (January 18, 2016). "Roll Call: Meet the Cast of Justice League vs. Teen Titans". TVInsider.com . Retrieved January 18, 2016.