James Gordon, Jr., Damian Wayne, and Continuity

Okay, so here's the set-up. James Gordon, Jr. was a born during Batman: Year One. When he reappears in Batman: The Black Mirror, he's 19-21 years old, by a rough estimate. In the New 52, all of the DC Superheroes, including Batman, are said to have only been active for about five years. But James Jr. is still the same age as he was pre-Flashpoint. Continuity Snarl much?

And then there's Damian Wayne. He's 10-11 years old in the New 52, just as he was in the pre-Flashpoint era. This would mean that Bruce and Talia met and conceived Damian at least five years before Bruce became Batman. Does this work?

Anyhow, what are your guys' thoughts on this predicament, and do you have any ideas about how it could be resolved?

X

edited 22nd May '13 11:22:15 AM by XRay

The solution is not to pay too much attention to it. The 5 year timeline is astonishingly stupid so I just ignore it and most things fit a lot better.

Author's Saving Throw retcons often make things much more confusing.

edited 22nd May '13 11:43:07 AM by comicwriter

This. Oh dear God, this. Timelines for superhero comics will never make realistic sense.

Also Year One isn't Canon to the new 52.

Snyder said part of doing Zero Year was because he realised the reboot was invalidating much of Year One.

Overall Bat Continuity is a little bit messed up. My personal opinion is to treat Batman Inc as part of Post-Crisis (and an ending to the Batman of that universe) and to wait for Zero Year as a 'proper' Batman reboot.

edited 22nd May '13 10:07:47 PM by ShadowScythe

Pre-New 52, I had once worked out that Batman was approximately 39, Superman was 35, and Dick Grayson/ Nightwing was 21. I based this on a statement that Marv Wolfman had Dick Grayson make once, which was that he said he had been Robin for 9 years. Now, he became Nightwing at 19, so that means he was 10 when he bacame Robin. Batman had, at that point, had two Robins since then, for which I alotted 2 years. Batman Year One stated that Bruce Wayne was 25 when he became Batman, and DC later said that Batman took on Robin in his third year (see Batman: Year 3), which would make him, if Dick was 21, 39. I can't claim any credit for working out Superman's age as I read that one is a story shortly after the whole "Death of Superman" thing ( Pre-Crisis DC used to claim that Superman was eternally 29). There you have it. Incredibly geeky, I know, but there you are.

With Superman, IIRC, his chronological age and his biological age don't match- Thanks to his absortion of yellow sun radiation, he ages slower than humans once past puberty.

Yeah, I always saw Batman as eternally almost reaching 40. That keeps him young enough that you can buy him doing Batmanny things, but old enough that you can buy his world-weariness and experience, and old enough that the decades of continuity and quasi-fatherhood fit better as stuff that could have happened given a long enough time period. Then Flashpoint happened.

Well, it makes sense that once Superman reaches physical maturity he'd "age" slower than the rest of us; past maturity, aging is really just pattern degradation, and his cells, being from an alien "super-race" and being supercharged and all, I imagine reproduce better copies of themselves.

I think the 5 year timeline only covers how long they have been publicly active. Batman was probably fighting crime as an 'urban myth' long before that.

I think Batman is 26 now. 26-28. no wait looked it up. he was 8 when his parents died right? according to secret origins #2 that was 17 years ago, so he is 25.

Or in the Nu52 Bruce and Talia hooked up when Bruce was doing his world tour/training to be Batman thing.

It'd be interesting if Gotham had urban myths about giant, humanoid bats that date from before Bruce Wayne became Batman, and that he deliberately tapped into them when developing his persona. It could make it appear that he'd been around a lot longer than he had.