The Death of Robin

As many of you Bat fans know there was a seismic event in the pages of the Batman comics this past week.  That event was the death of the Damien Wayne Robin.  I had planned to write a few blog posts before this but with the reverberations of this tumultuous event still being felt everywhere across the Dark Knight universe so I thought I must comment on this event right away.

Many of the readers of Batman comics are also aware of the resolution of the "Death of the Family" story arc.  Perhaps "resolution" isn't the right word as The Joker remains at large and although Batman defeated the nefarious plans of the Joker the wounds suffered by the Batman family still are very raw and remain unreconciled.  These events stand far more important now.

The character of Damien Wayne had many detractors.  Some just couldn't bear to watch his puerile behavior and others thought him a drag on the main character of Batman.  After a fashion it became a sport to moan and groan about Damien and laugh off his contributions to the Batman universe.

I'd like to think that Damien revealed a different side to the Batman character.  Batman is infamous for relying on no one but him self.  Batman has a very dark side that is integral to his make up and how he is portrayed as a character.  Adding a real life biological son instead of a ward or partner, such as the Dick Grayson Robin, plumbed the depths of Batman's lone wolf psyche.

That psyche,already damaged from the death of Batman's parents, will be torn further asunder now that Damien has passed.

So let's take a closer look at the final moments of Damien's life.  If we take a look at the panel above taken from Batman Incorporated #8 we see Damien being run through with a sword by his "brother" The Heretic.  You'll note there was no detail given to Damien's face as he drew his final breath.  I'm not sure if the artist responsible for this panel was Chris Burnham or Jason Masters although I believe it was Masters.  But I think the lack of detail was to spare the readers the anguish of seeing a ten year old murdered.  Damien was many things, many them difficult, but he was still just a boy and seeing one die is never an easy thing.

Maybe Masters wanted to present a "masque of death" to us to accentuate the finality of this barbaric act.  Two eyes as golden embers before the light was extinguished from them.  The black visage as something cold and distant without the personality you either loved or hated.  I know as a reader I found Damien's final moments very difficult to bear witness to.

If the final moment of Damiens life was difficult enough to watch, the single page collection of panels that preceded it was even more painful.  Here we find Damien as everything we knew about him.  His feisty combativeness.  His arrogance and his stubborn courage and, yes, his tender age as he pleaded with his mother for all of this to end.

Seeing Damien throw a kick and yell, "Ha!" was of typical of him.   Spitting in the face of certain defeat was also commonplace.  Watching him yell, "Ow" as he was pierced by arrows was challenging to say the least and when he yelped, "NNAOW!" as bullets rained down upon him it was sobering and shocking.

Still, Damien called out his foes as "cowards" with his last gasp, staying true to the warrior we knew him as.  Hearing him command his mother in a whisper for the assault to stop was barely manageable by this reader.  It was sad and poignant.  For all the problems Damien had with his father, he eventually grew closer to him rather than his mother and the League of Assassins that were his forebears.

So what does this mean for Batman?

As the lifeless body of Damien Wayne lays cradled in his father's arms (see the illustration at the top) just below that heartbreaking tableau are a series of boxes that depict the anguished face of Batman as they descend into darkness from right to left.  I don't think this "descent" is just a clever device.  Not only does it represent the last thing Damien sees, it is revelatory of things to come.  Can Batman get any darker?  Will rage force Batman to cross that thin line of morality he set up for him self after his parents died?  Or will Batman fall to a place we haven't seen before and be consumed by the despondency of losing his own child.  Is Batman's spirit strong enough to overcome this tragedy?  If he retreats into sorrow will the already damaged members of his family from the "Death of a Family" storyline be able to tow the line or will they be consumed as well?

 

 Many readers of the Batman comics may be happy to see Damien go.  That is, if he is truly dead, in the comics anything is possible.  But I will mourn his passing as a character.  He certainly knew how to stir up trouble with his fellow and former Robins, constantly testing their patience and skills.  He also tested Batman and added a facet to his personality we don't often get to see.  I'll let the last page of panels taken from Batman #17 speak for themselves.

 My next blog post may seem a little out of order considering the events of Batman Inc. #8 but I believe the events that took place in Batman #17 are nearly as important and perhaps more so.  So, next up, Batman and post traumatic stress disorder.  See you then.