Dick!Bats and Damian!Robin
Set after Battle for the Cowl, Grant Morrison's pre-flashpoint Batman and Robin series followed Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne as they attempted to keep Gotham in one piece after Bruce's apparent death.From the first arc, the story begins building up the Batman and Robin Must Die arc, which does not culminate until volume three. In between, the new dynamic duo have to deal with Jason Todd and his new sidekick Scarlet, a zombie Batman, and Damian's mess of a relationship with his mother, Talia al Ghul.
The series ran from 2009 to 2011, ending due to the start of the New 52. The New 52 series reset the status quo somewhat, returning the mantle of the Batman to Bruce Wayne, with Dick Grayson returning to his former role as Nightwing.
Batman and Robin (2009) provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: When Talia has Damian's spine fixed, she has a device implanted in it that allows her to control him.
- Badass and Child Duo: As usual, Batman and Robin. Downplayed with Red Hood and Scarlet. He refers to her as being from a different generation to him, but the age difference between them can't be that great as she's a teenager and he's only in his early twenties.
- Be Yourself: Dick's first outing as Batman doesn't go great, especially when he still feels he's under Bruce's shadow. Alfred encourages him to see Batman as just a role to play not unlike James Bond or any Shakespearean protagonist; freely use the foundations of the role but build upon it using his own strengths.
- Big Brother Instinct: Dick is NOT happy when Talia takes control of Damian.
- Big Brother Mentor: Dick to Damian. As the Batman to Damian's Robin, Dick takes an active role in guiding Damian from an assassin to a hero, training him in detective work and crime fighting.
- Character Development: This is the series that really starts to turn Damian from a bratty little assassin into a hero.
- Continuity Nod: Gordon remarks that he hates Pyg's hideout. It's because it's implied to be the same amusement park where the Joker kidnapped him and tried to torture him in The Killing Joke.
- Corrupted Character Copy: The Metaleks seems to be the cast of Bob the Builder if the cast of Bob the Builder were not construction workers, their sapient tools and talking vehicles but hostile terraformers with an inexplicable hatred of the British Isles. However, when Superman is ambushed by a planet destroying fifth dimensional imp while on a Mission To Mars, The Metaleks come to his aide, as they hate planet destroying in general and only started "xenoforming" after this particular imp destroyed their origin world.
- Distaff Counterpart: Red Hood's sidekick Scarlet is essentially a female counterpart to Robin.
- Headbutting Heroes: Dick and Damian in the first arc. They eventually bond enough for Damian to genuinely worry about no longer being partners with Dick when a chance to bring back Bruce Wayne is discovered.
- Hidden Depths: Whilst Damian is certainly not a pleasant person in the first arc, he is determined to save Sasha and heartbroken when he fails.
- Expecting Someone Taller: Bruce apparently towered over Dick, since some cops remark that Dick as Batman seems shorter.
- Kid Hero All Grown-Up: Gotham's police find themselves weirdly quick to trust Dick, not entirely realizing that it's because it's Robin having taken over the mantle and a lot of the cops have known him since childhood.
- Leeroy Jenkins: In the first arc, Damian rushes in alone against Professor Pyg.
- Legacy Character: Dick is the third Batman and Damian is the fifth Robin.
- Mad Artist: The Man Who Laughs, the Joker's French equivalent, is both the son of one and one himself. His father was inspired by Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs to carve a smile on his son's face, with the son later mutilating his father and keeping his dismembered parts alive as one of his creations in addition to getting a bunch of people killed for the sake of his art.
- Nurture over Nature: Damian fits this trope to a T. Whilst Talia raised him to kill, living with Dick and Alfred slowly turns him into a more compassionate person. His determination to save Sasha early on implies that he is naturally heroic, but he was raised to be a villain.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the first arc, Dick shocks Comissioner Gordon by dragging a villain through the streets to get him to tell him where Damian has been taken. It clues the reader in as to how worried he is about him.
- The Perfectionist: Talia claims that this is the reason why she can't accept Damian choosing his own path.
- Practically Joker: The final issue has Batman, Robin and Nightunner confronting the Man Who Laughs, who for all intents and purposes is a French analogue to the Joker.
- Swapped Roles: A big difference between this Batman and Robin and previous incarnations is the introduction of a friendlier, more light-hearted Batman who is paired up with a serious but otherwise smug Robin.
- Promotion to Parent: Dick serves as a paternal figure to Damian in Bruce's absence.
- The Reveal: Oberon Sexton is The Joker.
- Revenge: Scarlet sees letting Flamingo shoot Damian's spine to pieces as this.
- The Rival: Red Hood and Scarlet butt heads with Batman and Robin over whether it's better to use lethal force on the villains..
