These are exciting times for DC fans. This week, DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran announced their initial film and television slate, and it includes a new Batman film that is separate from Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II. According to Gunn and Safran, the new movie, The Brave and the Bold, will introduce the DCU’s new Batman, one who will co-exist alongside other familiar superheroes in the future, unlike the Robert Pattinson version. It will also mark the theatrical live-action debut of Damian Wayne, Bruce’s son, a notably violent incarnation of Robin.
But it won’t just be Batman and Robin in this story. Safran said that “this is going to feature other members of the extended Bat Family, just because we feel like they’ve been left out of the Batman stories in the theater for far too long.” He’s not kidding. The last time the Bat Family was on screen together in live-action in any capacity was in 1997’s Batman & Robin. And the Bat Family in the comics has gotten considerably bigger in the intervening decades.
The Brave and the Bold represents the first chance to truly bring Batman and his extended family to life. But to understand how it can do this, you first need to know your Robins.
So Many Robins…
Dick Grayson is the original Robin who made his debut in 1940’s Detective Comics #38 and the version most familiar to audiences outside the comics. Batman’s original creators, Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane, gave Robin an origin that echoed Bruce Wayne’s. When a mobster orchestrated the death of Dick’s circus performing parents, The Flying Graysons, Bruce took Dick into his home and eventually trained him to fight crime alongside him as Robin.
But over the decades, it was a challenge to keep Dick as a teenager forever. So in the ‘80s, Dick was allowed to grow up and become Nightwing. That’s where Jason Todd came in. Initially conceived as almost a carbon copy of Dick, Jason was eventually given his own origin. In the revised backstory, Batman caught an orphaned Jason as he was trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile. Instead of turning the kid in, Bruce tried to change his life by giving him a new purpose as Robin.
Unfortunately, Jason was just too headstrong to be Robin, and he constantly clashed with Batman. In the seminal tale, A Death in the Family, fans were given the option to vote whether Jason would survive the end of the storyline. They ultimately voted to kill him off, and Jason met his brutal end at the hands of the Joker. Decades later, subsequent writers revived Jason, and he took on a new persona as the Red Hood.
The third Robin was a kid named Tim Drake, who just so happened to be in the crowd on the night The Flying Graysons were killed. Because he had seen Dick perform as part of the act, he recognized his acrobatic moves as Robin and figured out the secret identities of both Batman and Robin. Tim also recognized that Batman needed a Robin, and he lobbied Dick to reclaim the role to help his mentor. Tim just didn’t realize that the perfect choice for the new Robin was himself, and that’s ultimately why Bruce and Dick accepted him in the role.
There was a fourth Robin, briefly, who was Tim Drake’s on-and-off-again girlfriend: Stephanie Brown. Stephanie already had a heroic persona of her own, Spoiler, when she began teaming up with Robin. During a time when Tim stepped away from the role, Stephanie became Batman’s new Robin and she had a difficult time living up to her predecessors. She was seemingly killed by Black Mask, only to resurface several years later because her death had been faked by Batman’s ally, Leslie Thompkins.
These are the surrogate children of Batman. But he only has one biological son.
Son of the Bat
The origins of Damian Wayne go back almost two decades before his official first appearance. Within the standalone graphic novel, Batman: Son of the Demon, Bruce Wayne entered into an uneasy alliance with his old foe, Ra’s al Ghul, as they faced a mutual enemy known as Qayin. During this time, Bruce and Ra’s’ daughter, Talia al Ghul, rekindled their romance and accepted their previous shotgun marriage as a genuine union. And Talia soon became pregnant with Bruce’s son.
Bruce and Talia really tried to make it work this time, but she realized that fatherhood was making him lose the edge he needed to stay alive in the battle against Qaylin. So she allowed Bruce to believe that she had miscarried their child before they parted. A few months later, Talia left their son to be adopted by strangers in a bid to protect him from their mutual enemies.
Batman and Son
In 2006, Grant Morrison and artist Andy Kubert revisited that lingering thread from Batman: Son of the Demon when they formally introduced readers to Damian Wayne. The key difference in this telling from what we knew before was that Damian was raised among the League of Assassins to become a potential heir to Ra’s al Ghul. Talia essentially dumped Damian on Bruce for reasons of her own, and their child decided that he had to claim the mantle of Robin… by killing his predecessor, Tim Drake.
This is why The Brave and the Bold movie would be well served by having previous Robins involved with the story. If Damian was the first and only Robin, it would remove the conflict and rivalry he feels with his surrogate brothers.
While announcing the film, Gunn said, “This is a story of Damian Wayne, who’s Batman’s actual son that he didn’t know existed for the first eight to ten years of his life. He was raised as a little murderer and assassin. He’s my favorite Robin. It’s based on the Grant Morrison comic run, which is one of my favorite Batman runs.”
The fact that Damian will be “eight to ten years” old when Bruce discovers his existence suggests that the DCU’s Batman will be in his prime, rather than at the beginning of his career like Pattison’s Dark Knight. Morrison’s story did cheat a bit by indicating that Damian was artificially aged, but it sounds like Gunn and company want that to be the period of time between Damian’s birth and his introduction to his father (and there can always be a time jump to a Damian who is now entering his teens, if they wished).
As Gunn referenced, despite his young age, Damian was incredibly proficient and dangerous as a fighter. He also had quite a bit of conflict with his dad, because Damian’s solution for criminals often meant beheading or maiming them. Bruce had a truly difficult time trying to shape Damian into a hero worthy of the mantle of the Bat. But he never gave up on his son.
Batman: Reborn
Here’s another reason why the earlier Robins should be a part of The Brave and the Bold. As part of Morrison’s run, there came a time when Bruce Wayne was believed to be dead. Rather than let the legend of Batman die, Dick Grayson assumed the mantle himself as the new Dark Knight. And Dick allowed Damian to remain by his side as Robin.
The sibling rivalry between Dick and Damian was played up in the story, as Robin was forced to gain a grudging respect for his new partner. That’s a dynamic we’ve never seen in a Batman movie before, and it was the natural next step in Damian’s evolution. Without these adventures with Dick, Damian wouldn’t have accepted the previous Robins as his brothers.
Legend of the Super Sons
More recently, DC took advantage of the fact that both Batman and Superman were fathers by teaming up Damian Wayne and Jonathan Kent as the new Super Sons. The original Super-Sons were created for some out of continuity tales about the children of DC’s greatest heroes. But this was the first time that the Super Sons were a team in the primary continuity.
James Gunn’s vision for a younger Man of Steel in Superman: Legacy suggests that there aren’t any immediate plans for Jonathan Kent’s Superboy/Superman to appear in the new DCU. But we can’t entirely rule out the possibility of a Damian and Jonathan team-up down the line. It’s just too enticing to ignore.
The Extended Bat-Family
While speaking with Variety about the canceled Batgirl movie, Peter Safran said “Batgirl’s a character that inevitably we will include in our story.” This suggests that she may not appear in The Brave and the Bold, but she will arrive at some point in the future.
Unlike the Robins, Barbara Gordon became Batgirl without the approval or guidance of Batman. Commissioner Gordon’s daughter was athletically gifted, and incredibly determined to be a heroine. That’s why Batman and Robin eventually accepted her into the fold. Within DC’s post-Crisis continuity, Barbara had already retired from being Batgirl when she was shot and crippled by the Joker. But she reinvented herself as a hacker heroine using the name Oracle. In DC’s more recent stories, Barbara recovered from Joker’s attack and reclaimed the mantle of Batgirl. But she is once again acting as Oracle and only occasionally going out as Batgirl.
The second modern Batgirl was actually Huntress in disguise, but it was such a short reign that it was largely forgotten in the midst of No Man’s Land. During a particularly dangerous period of Gotham City’s history, Cassandra Cain, the daughter of an assassin named David Cain, was chosen to be the new Batgirl. Cassandra was largely mute because her father refused to teach her language or even how to read written words. His goal was to turn Cassandra into the perfect killer who could read anyone’s body language to predict their actions. Fortunately, she embraced the Bat-family as her own and earned her place among them.
It should be noted that the Birds of Prey movie did introduce a version of Cassandra Cain who was very different from her comic book counterpart. This incarnation of Cassandra had no direct link to Batman, wasn’t mute, and she lacked the physical skills of her superhero incarnation. She also needed the protection of Harley and the other Birds of Prey. If Cassandra shows up in the DCU, we suspect that she will be much closer to the way her character was originally envisioned.
Following her years in exile, Stephanie Brown returned to Gotham City and became the next Batgirl when Cassandra vacated the role. Prior to DC’s New 52 reboot, Stephanie was a fan favorite as Batgirl, and she enthusiastically embraced her second chance to be a part of the Bat-family. Within the modern continuity, the role of Batgirl is shared between Cassandra and Stephanie, with Barbara also reserving the right to use the name when needed. So just as there are multiple Robins, there’s a trio of Batgirls just waiting to get back on the big screen.
Leviathan
In the excitement about Damian Wayne’s live-action debut, it’s been somewhat overlooked that his introduction suggests that Ra’s al Ghul may also return to the big screen for the first time since Batman Begins. Like it or not, Ra’s is a part of Damian’s family and heritage, and he’s basically the Bond villain among Batman’s rogue’s gallery. Christopher Nolan kept Ra’s’ plans relatively down to Earth in Batman Begins, so many casual fans have never seen Ra’s al Ghul operating on a truly global scale.
Damian’s introduction means that his mother, Talia, is also a strong contender to be one of the antagonists in the film. During this period in her history, Talia formed her own organization, Leviathan, and she struck at the Bat-family in terrifying ways. Even Talia’s son, Damian, was ultimately a victim of her reign of terror. But don’t worry folks, Damian was eventually resurrected from his premature demise. These are comic book stories, after all!
We can be fairly certain that Gunn and company won’t simply kill off Damian Wayne after a single appearance in The Brave and the Bold. And while the film doesn’t have a release date, a cast, a director, or even a script yet, it’s one of our most eagerly awaited movies from the new DCU.
