For the first time since Chris O’Donnell played a more grown-up version of the role for Joel Schumacher’s live-action Batman movies in the 1990s, the Dark Knight will join forces with his iconic sidekick, Robin, on the big screen in the upcoming Batman movie, The Brave and the Bold. However, this version of the Boy Wonder will not be Dick Grayson, or Jason Todd, or Tim Drake, or even Frank Miller’s creation, Carrie Kelley.
Aiding Batman (just not the one played by Robert Pattinson in the separate Reeves-verse, to be clear) in his first adventure as part of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DCU continuity will be Damian Wayne. If this marks the first time you've ever heard of the young hero created by writer Grant Morrison and artist Andy Hubert, then much like Damian himself, you have quite a bit to learn. As we wait for his upcoming DC movies debut, let’s go through all the essential facts you should know about him — starting with one you might have been able to guess already, based on his last name.
Damian Wayne Is Bruce Wayne’s Son
While every depiction of Robin has always been something of a surrogate child to Bruce Wayne, Damian is the first to be his real flesh and blood. The billionaire vigilante’s son — who made his official DC Comics debut in Batman #655 in September 2006, despite initially appearing as an infant in 1987’s Batman: Son of the Demon — was conceived when Talia Al Ghul drugged Batman and made him susceptible to her sexual advances. However, Damian was not actually born the natural way, but was developed in an artificial womb that was designed to ensure he could become a genetically “perfect” specimen up to the standards of his grandfather (and one of the most threatening members of the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery), Ra’s Al Ghul.
He Was Trained By The League Of Assassins
Typically, every one of Batman’s sidekicks earns the right to be called Robin after personally receiving training from the Caped Crusader himself, but Damian was already highly proficient in physical combat long before he met his father. Throughout his childhood, he was taught by his mother and grandfather in the deadly ways of the League of Assassins — a highly skilled and highly dangerous team that Bruce also trained with — all the while never knowing who his father was. Talia promised Damian that she would reveal everything he wanted to know about Bruce on the day he finally beat her in a duel — a day that came on his tenth birthday.
Damian Is The Fifth Robin In DC’s Main Canon
The DC Comics Universe (or, should I say, the DC multiverse) has been rebooted and reimagined countless times, but in the main continuity, five heroes have carried the Robin mantle, including Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown and, finally, Damian Wayne. Batman’s son made his first official appearance as the Boy Wonder in the first issue of Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin run in June 2009, which sees him team up with Grayson, who takes over as Batman after Bruce’s supposed death. Damian would eventually fight alongside his father when he was revealed to be alive, but in an earlier story, he tried to usurp the mantle from Tim by nearly killing him in an impromptu duel.
He Was Not Privy To Batman’s No-Killing Rule At First
While he has been known to break this rule in the movies from time to time, in the comics, Batman is very strictly against murdering even the worst criminals imaginable — something that took Damian some getting used to. With Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul as his mentors, imbuing him with the methods followed by the League of Assassins, he would become, arguably, the most violent person to assume the Robin mantle. His training during childhood robbed him of any human compassion or common sense, fueling deadly instincts that would drive a wedge between him and the father whose approval he genuinely desired.
Damian Once Had Superhuman Abilities
Damian can also claim to be one of the more diversely skilled Robins, but also could say he was as powerful as Superman at one time. After falling prey to his own evil adult clone (in just one of the more recent instances of a Robin dying, according to CBR), Ra’s stole Damian’s body and tried to resurrect him as his own apprentice, until Batman tried to retrieve him, only to lose him again to Glorious Godfrey (one of the New Gods) who took the corpse to Apokolips, where Batman then journeyed to while donning the Hellbat armor. After finding a chaos shard infused with Darkseid’s Omega Sanction inside Damian’s corpse, Batman was able to bring his son back to life, at which point Damian learned he was temporarily gifted with powers ranging from flight to laser-vision.
He Would Become The Teen Titans’ Leader
The Bat-Family is not only the vigilante collective that Damian has been a part of; he's also in the Teen Titans — a DC superhero team that deserves its own live-action movie someday. This was upon the recommendation of Dick Grayson (now Nightwing, who hopefully gets his own movie someday), who believed that his former crew could use another Robin, and the rest of the Bat-Family, who agreed that Damian would benefit from fighting crime with people closer to his age. By the time he was 13, he would follow in Grayson’s footsteps and was promoted to the team’s leader.
Damian Has Also Teamed Up With Superman’s Son
Speaking of fighting crime with people closer to his age, much like their fathers before them on many occasions, Damian has joined forces with Jonathan Kent — the son of Clark “Superman” Kent and Lois Lane. The partnership is detailed in DC Rebirth’s acclaimed revamp of the Super Sons title, which served as the inspiration for an animated movie released in 2022. It sees Robin and Superboy taking on enemies like Kid Amazo — a “super son” of the more villainous kind.
Damian Wayne was actually a recurring staple in some of the best animated DC movies in recent memory, including a few that I believe deserve a live-action reimagining at some point. It is delightful to see that he will, indeed, finally be portrayed in a live-action DC movie that we hope to one day call one of the best Batman movies yet after The Brave and the Bold comes out.
