Sometimes Dead Is Better: Damian Wayne

It's the end of October and that usually means dressing up, begging for candy, partying down or for the purposes of this article.  Resurrecting the dead.  It wasn't too long ago that Peter J. Tomasi dropped a bombshell on us by showing us the cover to Batman and Robin #38, revealing a very alive Damian Wayne and even more surprising, a very alive Damian Wayne who appears to have super powers.  His reasoning behind this decision is that the reveal would have been spoiled by the solicits anyway and why not be the person to present it when he's the one being all Dr. Frankenstein about it.  Now I'm fine with his decision to spoil the spoil, but is this really where we want the story to be going?

After Damian's death, it was a dark time to be a Batman and Robin fan or hell even a DC Comics fan in general because we'd lost another Robin and to make it even worse we lost a little boy, who for me personally had stolen a piece of my heart in the realm of superhero comics.  When Damian first became Robin, I wasn't reading comics.  It was due to being poor for one thing and for another, I just didn't want to be jumping in when I was so behind from where I left off.  It doesn't really matter, the point I'm trying to make is even though I didn't read comics regularly, I had a friend who owned a shop and who kept me informed on all the goings on in DC Comics and when I learned about a tiny killer becoming the new Robin, who also happened to be the heir to the Wayne fortune, well I was a little pissed.  Okay I was a lot pissed.  I'd grown up with Tim Drake and for me, it couldn't get much better than him sporting the red and green........ and that bit of yellow.  Eventually the New 52 would happen and I found a perfect opportunity to jump back into my first passion and when I did, I was properly introduced to Damian Wayne and even with all his faults, he was getting better and we started to see the hero he could become and someone who we personally could see Bruce Wayne loving.  Maybe it was just me, but for the most part I always thought of Bruce thinking that Damian was a mistake and who was capable of becoming something he would normally fight against.  But Damian fought through the darkness and when he scoured the sewers to find his grandmother's pearl to present to his father....... Well, he's been my little pumpkin headed boy ever since.

On February 27, 2013 Batman Incorporated #8 hit the shelves and my little pumpkin headed boy was taken away.  This might seem a little over dramatic, but I'm serious when I say that the death of this very young Boy Wonder hit me hard.  I remember when I found out about it, it was a little before the release of the book and I was riding with my girlfriend in the car when she asked me what was wrong.  I responded by saying "Damian's Dead", which in retrospect wasn't the brightest thing to do because we have a close friend named Damian and she literally slammed on the brakes in the middle of an intersection.  Once I explained........ Well I believe she really hasn't taken me seriously since, but that doesn't matter.  We all felt the hurt of Damian's death and we all sat with bated breath as his eulogy was presented to us in the form of the Requiem issues........... Well all except the Catwoman one, that was just bullshit.

We traversed the grieving process with Batman as he went though all the stages of grief.  Denial, Rage, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance as the Batman and Robin title went though all the Bat Family becoming what most of us called Batman and.  Eventually somewhere along the way........ I finally started accepting Damian's loss, unlike Batman it would appear.  We're now going through the Robin Rises story and I personally thought that the story would conclude with Batman finally accepting the fact that his son and protege was gone and the story would close with Batman bringing his son's body home and we'd all end this chapter of Batman with a touching reburial.  As per usual, I was wrong and it looks like Damian will return and will be playing with Titus, Alfred the cat and Batcow in the near future.  But is that really what we want?

Like I've said throughout this, I really loved that little kid and I had a hard time accepting that he was really gone...... Especially considering the medium.  But like things that happen outside of fiction, life goes on and at this point I'm okay with the fact that Damian died.  The idea of bringing him back now sounds a little hurtful.  Did we go through his death for nothing?  Was it a chance to see what Batman would do if he went a little crazy?  I just don't see how bringing Damian back now helps the Batman mythos.  If anything, the idea of Batman losing a son and him overcoming it, well it's just powerful.  He's the most popular superhero without powers and even with his lack of powers he's able to overcome so much more than your Supermans and your Green Lanterns.  Now I don't want you to think that I'm a heartless bastard, I'm not for children being murdered or the hell that their family's go through because of it.  I just think that for this........... Sometimes Dead Is Better.