- 0 Talk
-
Damian Wayne
Contents |
STATS; 
Edit
Added by Fanfare
NAME: Damian Wayne (Ibn al Xu'ffasch)
AGE: 10
HEIGHT: 4'8"
WEIGHT: 82 lbs
HAIR: Black
EYES: Blue
OCCUPATION: Robin
ORIGIN: DC Universe
CANON POINT: Shortly before being paralyzed
ARRIVAL.: November 25th, 2009
LOSS: Swordsmanship skills.
ROOM: 801
JOURNAL: HEIRDOM
POSTS: entries | logs
MUN : Fanfare
ABOUT THE BOY; Edit
Deadman: This kid Damian... I presume he's your new Robin?
Dick: Yes.
Deadman: Saw ol' Damian's life story when I took over his body. Gotta say, good luck with this kid. You're sure as hell gonna need it.
Dick: Deadman. Enough.
Deadman: Looks to me like this kid's got a lot of issues.
Dick: Brand.Shut up.
The first thing you need to know about Damian Wayne is he's not your average kid.
The biological child of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul (Ra's daughter), Damian was perfected with science, grown in an artificial womb and raised by the League of Assassins. His upbringing has left a very telltale mark on his psyche: as immature or "childish" as he can be, Damian is not particularly childlike. He's skipped a normal childhood of playing in sandboxes, going to school and making friends to play at war, and while other boys his age were playing video games and watching cartoons, Damian was being trained in the art of combat and groomed to succeed Batman AND the League of Assassins. As a result, the boy is abrasive, self-important, and spoiled.
Damian has no qualms (or even hesitations) about dishing out violence and letting blood, when his opponent deserves it. While most children his age would just call names and hit, Damian will break your fingers. His high respect and admiration for his father, Batman, compels him to hold back from killing, but that does not mean he's learned his limits yet. He's still very comfortable stepping beyond them, and constantly needs to be held back and kept in line.
This life has also made him rather desensitized to pain; your average ten year old doesn't shrug off a bullet wound, or calmly talk his way through half a dozen of them, or walk out of surgery raring to go. Damian had had his body through a lot of abuse and training, and it certainly shows by how he handles himself when being struck down. He gets up, again and again.
He's an accomplished fighter and assassin, even for a ten year old. Damian can put up a damn good fight and has a lot of technical skills that surpass the average adult's. His age, size and still relatively babyish features give him a good advantage over people who expect him to be your average kid in a costume, and genetic tinkering has given him. When he has the element of surprise or mobility on his side, there's little Damian can't do.
That said, he's still a kid, and for what he has in training, he seriously lacks in experience. Since starting his tenure as Robin, he's taken a serious dose of reality and realized that he isn't as great as he believed himself to be –– he's got a lot to learn. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop him from going out and getting himself into trouble anyway; whether it's storming off to prove something and needing to be saved from a nasty end, being held at knifepoint for acting too hasty, or simply falling for an unexpected taser prod, Damian needs to be pulled out of trouble often.
He can also drive a Redbird motorbike, as well as the Batmobile, though the latter may be more because of the Batmobile's advanced technology. He also has a strong grasp on engineering, and can imitate voices well enough to fool voice recognition security.
PERSONALITY; Edit
Damian: It just started to make sense, all started to fit together like it was supposed to, like my mother said it would... that I finally knew who my father was–– that I could take my rightful place alongside him. Then boom, just like that, Bruce is gone –– just bones in the ground that I couldn't even ––
Dick: Damian.
Damian: Yes?
Dick: Do you live at Wayne Manor and work out of the new bunker under Wayne Tower?
Damian: Yes.
Dick: Are you wearing a red, yellow and green uniform?
Damian: Yes.
Dick: Are you sitting in the batmobile next to a guy wearing a batsuit?
Damian: Yes.
Dick: Then I think you're part of everything you wanted to be, so shut up already.
Damian has little to no interpersonal skills. He doesn't have much of a filter on his mouth, and he has no qualms with telling people what he thinks of them. When he doesn't like someone, he'll take digs at whatever weaknesses he can find.
He's very good at appearing "adult", for all purposes. When he speaks to authority figures he tends to slide into a much more polite, dignified tone, but it's largely just imitation and practice. When Damian thinks it's worthwhile to impress, he pulls all the stops, making him a good manipulator... but it never quite hides the fact that he's still playing pretend. He's very good at regurgitating information, as well, to make himself look smarter.
Since his father died and he started to live at the Wayne Manor full-time with Dick and Alfred, he's also slipped back quite a bit, showing a few more childish traits than he did before. His supposed fearlessness against death and danger has vanished, and in gritty, dangerous situations, he sometimes loses his head and runs on adrenaline alone.
He's also starting to discover girls –– more for the attention he gets than anything –– and is prone to rule-breaking. Dick is now, for all purposes, his guardian, and lectures and grounding aren't completely foreign to the kid. At times he's easily distracted, and when things aren't going his way, he's still prone to throwing outright temper tantrums. His short fuse and impatience has made even Batman lose his temper, and sometimes, yelling at Damian and scaring him is the only way to get him to back down.
However, with all those things put aside, at heart, Damian is a little boy who just wants his crazy parents to love him. Having been born into the middle of some of the most powerful human force on earth –– Batman, the League of Assassins, and Ra's Al Ghul –– it makes him a valuable pawn in the games of some very, very powerful people, and he has suffered more than once for it.
APPEARANCE; Edit
Outside of costume, he looks relatively normal. He's a cute little kid who hasn't quite grown into his head yet, with a short mop of black hair that sticks up in every direction. Like his father, he has blue eyes. He's skinny and on the tall side for his age, but he's still growing out of the baby fat in his face. He tends to wear hoodies a lot when out of uniform.
He's also quite adorable in a little suit.
In costume, Damian wears a grey survival suit with built-in kneepads, a kevlar-lined red tunic, and a short nylon para-cape in bright yellow, with an attached black hood. He also has flexible armored gloves and green lace-up combat boots, and a utility belt. His winged domino mask has lenses that make his eyes look solid white. The outfit looks fairly thin and simple, for mobility, but it's entirely waterproof and protective against hypothermia.
(Basically: go for the face.)
BONUS; Edit
TRIVIA; Edit
- What Damian wants, Damian GETS.
- He made his first HALO (high altitude low opening) jump at age seven.
- He grew up hearing stories and legends about his father, the Batman, and idolized him.
- For all his tough posing, he's really a kid trying to please his crazy parents.
- He was kept in a bio-tube until he was seven. It's implied that he was awake and breathing before he was let out. Mother of the year award definitely goes to Talia.
- He's an excellent shot; he's been taking target practice lessons with his mother since he was seven.
- In his own words: "I can field strip most anything from an M-16 to an AK-47, even fired a bunch of those L.A.W.S. rockets."
- Damian has had most of his internal organs replaced or repaired numerous times.
- He's fluent in Arabic, Cantonese and English.
- He likes playing with bouncy balls. Seriously.
- He hates pigs, cats and bats. Yes, bats.
- I'm kidding, he's tsundere for cats. But he still hates bats.
- His father's side is European, but his mother's side is mixed Arab/Asian.
- His mother has raised him to believe that his parents love each other very much, yet Damian also knows his father was drugged on the night of his conception. He believes this is a normal part of love. Again, mother of the year award goes to Talia.
- He claims that you shouldn't trust anyone over the age of thirty.
QUOTES ON DAMIAN; Edit
"All the scripts start with the question, "What would be fun to draw? What would be amazing or mad to see?" Like Robin getting a lap dance from Professor Pyg. How great was that? [laughs] It was just so wrong, but it was one of those kinds of things we've never seen before and might never want to see again. It seemed so perfect at the time."
-- Grant Morrison, nutcase.
"He's learning what it's like to be a hero in Batman's world. It's not like being a hero in Superman's world – it's grimy and dark and you have to figure things out in a different way."
-- Grant Morrison, awesome.
"Dick has his own problems to deal with. He's cool with the idea that Bruce might be coming back, but that leads to more friction between him and Damian, because underneath all the front, Damian takes his role all very seriously and actually really looks up to Grayson, even though he'd never say it."
-- Grant Morrison, speaking about a boy who attempts to behead Dick Grayson with a sword. He's right, though.
"Damian will stride across the 21st century like a new Alexander."
"Oh my god. And some people just want their kids to go to a college or something."
-- Talia al Ghul and some comic book reader
"So wait a sec... Tim hacked the Batcave and Barbara Gordon didn't notice it for two days?"
"She doesn't live in the damn cave, y'know. Babs DOES have other shit to do besides constantly check to make sure Damian didn't spill his apple juice on the Batcomputer."
-- posters on 4chan, re: Damian spilling apple juice on the Batcomputer.
"I can't stand Damian because he's the opposite of everything Robin should be."
"Which is the centre point of his personal conflict, and why Dick MADE him Robin –– in order to make Damian understand Batman's real mission, instead of the violent power fantasy that any ten year old would think it is, so that Damian can start to become the kind of person who can appreciate it! And slowly he has. This development is why I've come to love the character. "What happens when Bruce Wayne comes back? We don't get to be Batman and Robin?" is a GREAT line and totally encompasses how much he's grown and how much Batman MEANS to him now."
-- dude, not getting it, and me, getting it. (Oh, vanity! Jenn, you card!)
"Every single time that Damian tries to do something on his own, or he ignores Dick's advice, it ends in tragedy. The only time that it hasn't was when he was captured by Pyg. Even then, he wasn't able to save Scarlet and we all know how that turned out."
-- Friendly Neighbourhood English Major
"Bruce is good with kids but Dick is better with troubled youth. He was the leader of the Teen Titans so he got to deal with a lot of problems from super-powered and troubled teenagers. When Damian first arrived to Wayne Manor, Bruce dealt with him by letting him do whatever he wanted, and then when Damian started getting on his nerves he went and fucking screamed at him until Damian was cowering in a corner. Dick put up with him but gave him limits and rules but most of all he showed him affection, patience, and support which really worked on Damian since he's now far better from when we first saw him. Separating Damian and Dick will just undo all that progress and cause Damian some emotional abandonment."
-- Anonymous on /co/
"Damian's probably my favorite new character, and he has been since he was introduced. From day one you could tell that, under his exterior, there was a badly damaged kid that just wanted to be loved. He had no way to express that desire, and just did what he thought he needed to in order to get approval from a father that he'd never known and always admired.
As his character development went along, he slowly learned why his father should be admired, and it wasn't for the reasons that he'd always been told by his mother and her cronies. He's come to want to be like his father: respected, loved and admired because of his tenacity, his resolve and his bravery, rather than the fact that he can beat someone to a bloody pulp within ten seconds.
Through Batman and Robin, he's finally receiving the love, patience and tenderness that he's always wanted and always needed from Alfred and Dick. He's still a scared, hurt child, but he's taking the steps towards growing up, even if they are faltering.
This, beyond any other reason, is why I'm loving Batman and Robin as much as I am. Morrison is taking his time, and showing more than telling with his careful and gradual evolution of Damian. I really do think that, after a couple years, he'll be the greatest Robin out of all of them. Not because of his skills and abilities, but because of how far he's coming, and his dedication to leaving his mother and grandfather's ways behind him and coming around to the side of justice and true heroism.
Lets just hope that whoever takes over after Morrison has the amount of love and respect for the character as he does."
-- Friendly Neighbourhood English Major
RETCONS; Edit
The DCU sucks for continuity sometimes. Different writers have different interpretations of characters, and they tend to even have different versions of how events happened or how things went down. For general purposes, I've decided to keep track of what versions of events/interpretations I'm going with.
Damian's childhood Edit
In Batman and Robin #10, Damian recounts how he apparently grew up and was raised only hearing stories about his mother, and how they were formally introduced at his eighth birthday party... Damian likens this to "meeting a movie star" even though he was raised away from society and likely has little concept of what that even is. He also suggests that Talia has zero sway over him and never cared about him.
Not only does this confuse the idea that Damian grew up hearing stories of BATMAN with Talia, but this also completely contradicts previous canon. Firstly, in Batman: Blackest Night #2, Damian states that his mother let him out of his biotube when he was seven, and trained with him every morning since. Several times over Batman and Son and Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, Talia mentions having raised Damian herself under the League of Assassins, and now it's "Batman's turn."
It's also rather explicitly shown that she and Damian are close; he generally holds her hand whenever he's with her, and calls her "mama." Damian has bragged about his mother being doting, and has talked about the kind of presents he gets from her. Damian even genuinely smiles and jokes around with his mother in Resurrection, and he hasn't done it with anyone else since! He even screams for her in a moment of sheer terror, when Killer Croc is about to make him dinner. NONE of that jives with the "late appeal to his emotions" he accuses Talia of.
The only statement I can see that even vaguely supports the idea presented in Batman and Robin #10 is Damian saying that "my mother was never there for me; running a crime empire doesn't leave time for bonding" in Batman and Son.
I could understand Damian exaggerating how "little" his mother cares for him; he's a little boy! But I don't think there's anything to support Damian being uncared for by his mother. Every time we've seen Talia and Damian together, she is OBSESSING over Damian's state and fawning over her baby boy. When Damian is kidnapped in Resurrection, Tim Drake remarks that she wore the same look that his mother did when she was worried about him. When Ra's chains her up, she claims she was only doing what any mother would do for her child.
The idea that Talia had zero direct contact with her beloved, perfect child before the age of EIGHT also means I have to headcanon who, specifically, was raising him before she stepped in, which I feel is pretty counterproductive when there's other canon to use.
RELATIONSHIPS; Edit
GOTHAM Edit
Dick Grayson was the first to play the part of Robin, and is now the current Batman, as well as Damian's guardian, mentor and teacher. Damian didn't think too highly of him...until, of course, he gained the respect he's held for Dick since he saved the boy's life, even after how Damian treated him. Damian will take orders from him, but his obstinate streak means he'll sometimes try to do it his way instead of Dick's, no matter how much experience and wisdom Dick has in whatever the subject is. He trusts Dick, and while reluctant to talk about it or even admit it, he does think of Dick as a brother.
An alternate-universe version of his father, who is both Terry's father, and in his senior years. Damian refused to meet him in person for a while, largely because he didn't want to see his father old and weak, regardless of what universe he's from, but after being kidnapped by the Joker, Damian met his father... and was almost forced to kill him. Things are a bit tense, and Damian still feels awful about it.
Damian'smamamother. Beautiful, fierce, powerful, and crazy. Damian loves her very, very much. She's trained him most of his life, and has been the biggest influence in his life thus far. She protects him fiercely, despite having raised him in the League of Assassins.
His father's greatest enemy. Damian didn't take Joker seriously until a hostage situation went sour; Damian, in an attempt to stop Joker, ended up pushing him over the edge by pretending to be Batman and saying the wrong things. Joker killed the young girl he had taken hostage. Between that and a jab at Tim resulting in the Joker killing another town person, he's been taking the Joker very seriously. He fully intends on killing the clown, if he can.
The Joker's peppy sidekick. Damian thinks she's stupid as all hell, and a harlot at that.
The former (current?) Batgirl, as well as a kindred spirit. Cassandra is a child of the League of Assassins, too, and she and Damian shared many of the same teachers and masters, though by time Damian was a toddler, Cassandra had already fled from her father. Damian's heard many stories about her (and knows she lead the League of Assassins for a brief time) and thinks she's wonderful.
The current Batgirl, and a pain in Damian's neck. The two of them act like siblings, and are constantly at each others throats. Grudgingly, Damian will admit she's not THAT bad. Except she is. Isn't? Who knows, it's hot and cold.
The previous Robin; when Bruce died, Dick gave the Robin mantle to Damian, and as the two already had a very rough relationship, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Damian feels that Tim is worth less than he is because Tim was adopted, and never hesitates to point this out. The two have been trying to make each other miserable in Paradisa, and it's turning into a very vicious came of cat and... smaller cat.
An alternate-universe son of Bruce Wayne who has taken up the Batman mantle. Needless to say, Damian is ridiculously jealous and angry and does not like Terry in the slightest, but after confirmation from Bruce that he passed the cowl to Terry for a reason, Damian's attempting to rein in his anger.
THE DCU Edit
The Justice League's former clown. Saa-aaad. Also, really annoying and keeps bugging him about ponies and toys and his not-so-normal childhood. Telling Dick to wash his mouth out with soap doesn't get high scores, either.
Kind of okay. Dick's friend.
Yet another friend of Dick's. Damian doesn't think he's too bad, if not a bit patronizing, but he seems annoyingly concerned over how fit Damian is to be in the field and work alongside all these older and more experienced superheroes.
He originally thought she was a weird lady, but she plied him with cookies (and milk!) and oodles of compliments and he was quickly won over. Also, she's a very pretty lady, and she makes him want to show off and walk around with his chin in the air. Also, he gets to say he can boss Dick's friends around and get away with it.
ACQUAINTANCES Edit
A man who lives in London, has an old car and doesn't seem to know who Batman is. That's sacrilege. When Damian decided to go for a joyride, he hotwired and refueled the Bentley and took it for a spin. A spin that involved crashing through the gardens, taking out plenty of rosebushes, hedges, and statues. The car didn't fare much better, and Damian was forcibly dragged by Dick from the car and marched back to the castle by his ear. In retaliation for the car, Crowley sent a guy after Damian to hug him and call him an orphan, and in revenge, Damian's been out impersonating Crowley's voice on the journals. Good times, good times.
A weird eighteen year old who looks like a little boy. Harmless civilian?
An incompetent clinic worker. Apparently he let a patient walk out when he turned his back, and that does nothing to help Damian's first impression of Paradisa's medics. Given the fact that he is very prone to getting himself whacked around, burned, shot and electrocuted, and likes to be back in prime physical condition again in record time to keep doing his job, Damian thinks it's important to have good medical facilities.
A guy with three big dogs.
A robot looking for a criminal. Robin's in.
A baby with a journal. Has an annoying older brother.
Some annoying retard who tried to tell Damian that he wasn't born to inherit Batman's legacy and could make his own decisions. Damian was not pleased.
A weird teenage girl who talks a lot and has a weird name. Damian met her in person, only to be picked up, scolded for swearing, and invited to make snowmen. Having had little contact with normal teenage girls in his life, he had NO IDEA what to make of that, but apparently they're friends now. She takes him out for cake and generally just confuses him, but he's fascinated and really likes her. He does, however, still bully her; she's sensitive about things and it's just in Damian's nature to pick on people.
Uru'sboyfriend. Doesn't seem to understand girls any better than Damian does, but Damian doesn't think the guy's too bad.
A boy with an ugly dog dressed as a maid.
An ugly dog dressed as a maid.
Weird, but entertaining.
Damian from an alternate future.A bit of a kindred spirit, aside from the obvious differences in size and history. Apparently, he reminds Guts of a younger version of himself, and Damian just looks at the big guy as someone to keep an eye on.
A blonde girl who doesn't know anything. Damian was tempted to break her face in at dinner, just because she was kind of annoying, but he didn't really want to cause a scene at dinner. He's pretty sure the feeling's mutual, except not; who could possibly hate him? She has, however, met Batman.
A surprisingly normal little girl.
A masked vigilante. Research shows he's okay with punishing criminals with death, meaning he's probably not a good person for Damian to spend time with, as Damian's supposed to be learning why you CAN'T punish criminals with death.
An eleven year old girl with a weird name who told him that girls can know just as much as boys can about vehicles and mechanics. Damian wasn't so convinced, but he took her for a spin on the Redbird.
Some guy with a "bro" code. Damian didn't get it, and didn't really care.
A man in the library. Asked a lot of questions about Robin.
An alien "Time Lord" who has lived many centuries. A rather clever one, too.
Hate!
