Robin: Son of Batman is a 2015 ongoing comic book series that's part of the DC You movement, showcasing the current Robin, Damian Wayne, on his own adventures separate from his father, Batman.
Before he became Robin and was still part of the League of Assassins, Damian was tasked to a test of character known as the Year of Blood. But now, after becoming Robin and literally experiencing death for some time, Damian is dead-set on becoming more worthy of his title as Robin and thus, goes on a worldwide trip to return the artifacts he had stolen during the Year of Blood.
Has little to do with the animated film this comic book shares a subtitle with apart from involving the offspring of Batman.
This comic book has examples of the following tropes:
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Talia immunized herself and Maya against the poison the Lu'un Darga uses, which ended up saving Maya's life later when she's shot by a poisoned arrow.
- Action Pet: Being a giant dragon-bat, Goliath is perfectly capable of fighting alongside Damian.
- Adipose Rex: Abush, the current king of Bialya, is a big fat slob.
- Anti-Villain: Talia, who allies herself with Damian and Batman to protect Damian from the Lu'un Darga.
- The Atoner: Damian is becoming this by returning the items he stole during the Year of Blood.
- Back from the Dead: Talia al Ghul has been resurrected, having stayed dead since the finale of Batman Incorportated
- Badass Family: The final arc has Damian teaming up with his parents Batman and Talia al Ghul in order to confront the Lu'un Darga family.
- Bat Family Crossover: The seventh issue of this title took part in the Robin War event while its eighth issue dealt with the aftermath.
- Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: King Abush Damian orders his maids to bathe Damian before he will speak to him further. Damian is having none of it, though, and just solves the situation with violence. But when he comes back later with Talia, and she takes over Abush's kingdom, she does have the maids bathe the unconscious Damian, and he's quite embarrassed when he wakes up in the middle of the bath, mostly due to thinking he's too old for his mom to see him naked.
- Big Bad: Den Darga, The Leader of the Lu'un Darga, an ancient family of immortals that serve as guardians of the Lazarus Pit, and want to cleanse all life on Earth to prevent humans from abusing the Pits.
- Breather Episode: Issue #8 can be considered one since it takes place after the events of Robin War and was basically Damian telling a story about one of his adventures to Alfred whilst in the middle of a haircut.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: In flashbacks Damian calls his mother "Talia" when he's feeling particularly smug, which upsets her. In the present, due to their relationship being ruined by the events of Batman (Grant Morrison), he keeps addressing her as Talia to piss her off.
- The Cartel: After Damian took down a village guardian during the Year of Blood, a cartel took over the helpless village. Damian (and Maya) fight them off when he comes back and restores the guardian.
- Catapult Nightmare: Damian wakes up from his Nightmare Sequence in this fashion.
- Central Theme: Forgiveness and Redemption.
- Damian is doing on a Redemption Quest to atone for all his Kick the Dog moments in Year of Blood.
- Maya struggles with her desire to avenge her father's death at the hands of Damian, even after seeing he's not a bad person and is trying to redeem himself.
- Talia is trying to repair her relationship with Damian after her actions in Batman (Grant Morrison).
- Ravi and Goliath both easily forgave and have Undying Loyalty to Damian, even though he did horrible things to them in the past (killed Goliath's family, didn't stop Ravi from being blinded), something that causes Damian great guilt.
- Continuity Nod:
- Damian sees his killer, The Heretic, murdering Bruce and Dick during a Nightmare Sequence.
- Maya Ducard, a.k.a Nobody II, is after Damian after he killed her father back in the first arc of Batman and Robin in the New 52.
- The first time we see Talia, she's still as she was in Robin Rises in the mountains of Nanda Parbat and still amnesiac, but now wearing the clothes of the man she attacked after waking up Naked on Revival.
- Talia and Damian's conflict comes from her In-Universe crossing the Moral Event Horizon in Batman (Grant Morrison) when she had Damian killed. When he questions why she did it, she explains she was afflicted by some kind of Sanity Slippage before and that she got cured of it when she came Back from the Dead, implying it was the Brainwashing she suffered under Nyssa's hand in Death and the Maidens, which caused her to have a Face–Heel Turn.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Maya performs CPR on Damian after he almost drowns in Issue #5, with no complications.
- Crimefighting with Cash: When Deathstroke goes after Maya due to a contract he had on her father, Damian resolves the situation by just paying him, and he gladly leaves them alone after being paid.
- Death Is Cheap: When Maya informs Damian about Batman's apparent death in Batman (Tom King), Damian just shrugs it of, saying even if it's true it likely won't last, pointing out he himself came Back from the Dead not long ago.
- Destructive Saviour: Damian and Goliath almost wreck the town they're trying to save, requiring the invisible Maya to actually interfere to rescue some of the endangered civilians.
- Driven by Envy: In addition to being mad at Robin for killing her father, Maya's also upset over the fact he took time to actually train Damian unlike her. Everything Maya learned from her father was done by watching him from afar.
- Fat Bastard: The first issue has a fat ass king named Abush who captured Goliath and tried to make Damian his adopted son.
- Friends Are Chosen, Family Aren't: Watching Batman and Talia argue over each others parenting style (again), Maya apologizes to Robin but he tells her not to worry about it. Damian knows they will eventually chill out, while in meantime he still has a family in Goliath and Maya.
- Future Me Scares Me: During one of the trials, Damian and Maya fight off future and evil versions of themselves.
- Giant Flyer: Goliath is a flying dragon-bat that is large enough to carry around a few people with him, and is the main form of transportation Damian uses in the story.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Maya Ducard, a.k.a. Nobody II, goes from hunting Damian in the name of revenge against him murdering her father, Nobody I, to joining him. She forgives him later on.
- Damian manages to convince Suren Darga to betray his father by pointing out how he's just using him. Ironically, Damian still knocks him out the moment he does it. As he tells Maya: "You can identify with someone and still have to crush them". He later still helps Damian and Maya during the final battle against Den Darga.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Sons of Batman (deformed bastardized humongoloid clones of Damian) give up their lives to save him, Maya, Talia, and Goliath in Issue #5.
- Invisibility Cloak: Maya inherited her father's cloaking device, allowing her to turn invisible in any environment.
- Last of His Kind: Goliath is the last of the dragon-bats, after Damian killed the rest of them in the Year of Blood to get the artifact they were guarding. Damian didn't have the heart to kill the baby Goliath and adopted him instead.
- Legacy Character: Maya takes up her father's mantle as Nobody II, and doubles as a Redeeming Replacement, since while she has a bone to pick with Damian about his actions, she's ultimately a good person and becomes his ally.
- Licked by the Dog: In a flashback to how Damian met Goliath, Damian breaks down to tears when the baby Goliath licks it, even after Damian has killed all the other man-bats.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Talia and Bruce constantly bicker even as they're in a Back-to-Back Badasses position fighting alongside each other.
- Living Dinosaurs: The last of the Artifacts from the Year of Blood is on the appropriately called Dinosaur Island, where real living dinosaurs still exist. Ironically, they don't really feature much and the heroes mostly fight the Lu'un Darga's forces in there.
- Mama Bear: Talia's entire motivation in the story is to keep Damian safe from the Lu'un Darga, to the point she even captures and restrains Maya when she suspects she's an agent of theirs.
- Morality Pet: Goliath for Damian and Maya, to they both stop fighting when they notice Goliath is hurt.
- Naked People Are Funny:
- Most of The Sons of Batman wander around Al Ghul Island au naturel, which is Played for Laughs when Maya finds them for the first time, and asks Damian to give them all pants.
- Damian's embarrassment at being bathed in front of his mother is played for humor.
- Nightmare Sequence: Damian has one in the first issue, with Bruce and Dick accusing him of belonging in hell, then the Heretic kills both and Talia shows up to drag Damian to hell, where a Satanic Ra's Al Ghul awaits.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Damian notices how Suren Darga was just raised as a puppet for his father Den Darga, the same way Damian himself was for Ra's al Ghul.Damian: Suren Darga, I am not so different from you!
- Overlord Jr.: Suren Darga, is a miniature copy of his Big Bad father Den Darga.
- Playing Possum: Maya plays dead after getting shot by a Lu'un Darga poisoned arrow. The poison should have killed her, but Talia immunized her when she captured her.
- Redemption Quest: The entire story is about Damian going on a worldwide trip to atone for the things he done in the Year of Blood.
- Right Behind Me: In a flashback, one of Damian's servants complains about him and Ra just as two League of Assassin Ninjas hid behind him. We only hear his screams, after.
- Rightful King Returns: Played With. Abbush is actually merely a prince of Bialya, posing a king, as the real ruler must be the one who comes back with the sacred relic, the scepter of kings, which just so happens to be one of the artifacts of the Year of Blood. Talia makes use of it to usurp Abush's throne and become Bialya's ruler, even though she had no claim to the throne other than possession of the scepter. It's implied people accept it because of how bad Abbush was as a ruler.
- Sealed Evilin A Can: The Lu'un Darga were sealed with the artifacts Damian gathered during the Year of Blood, and he unknowingly sets them free during his Redemption Quest.
- Sequel Series: To Gleason and Peter Tomasi's New 52 ''Batman and Robin', picking up Damian's storyline following their run's conclusion.
- Shout-Out: When encountering the Sons of Batman, Maya namedrops the Island of Misfit Toys.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Deathstroke contract to kill Nobody passes to Maya due to her father's death.
- Swallowed Whole: Many of the Sons of Batman get swallowed whole by the Lu'un Darga worm monsters during their Heroic Sacrifice.
- Teeth Flying:
- In Issue #1, Damian clobbers Abush, knocking most of his teeth out.
◊ - This gets repeated in Issue #6, this time with Talia clobbering Abush, knocking out his remaining teeth.
- Damian gets a case of this after Nobody II punches one of his teeth out. Turns out the tooth that she punched was a baby tooth.
- In Issue #1, Damian clobbers Abush, knocking most of his teeth out.
- Team Pet: Goliath is this to Damian and Maya during their adventure.
- Terrifying Rescuer: Some people get even more scared when they end up being rescued by Maya while she's completely invisible.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Talia is portrayed as a far kinder mother than she was during her Evil Matriarch depictions in Batman (Grant Morrison). Justified in the present, since she says when she got Back from the Dead, she was cured of the "madness" that was affecting her, hinting at the brainwashing she suffered at Nyssa's hands in Death and the Maidens. But even in flashbacks to Damian's childhood she's still portrayed as a demanding but loving mother, and not someone who just sees Damian as a weapon or asset.
- Visible Invisibility: Maya is invisible to the characters, but the viewers always gets to see where she is via her outline.
