I wish I cared enough to be follow this arc, but...

[icon_uk]

credit where it's due, this is one of the creepiest things I've seen in a long time.



From Newsarama, where more pages are shown



Eeeeeewwww!

Comments

[fearoftheunknown]

I think one of the problems with the style of art, pretty though it is, is that it's not that hard to imagine that Batman's gone off the deep end and is cackling with mad laughter as he dares the world to face his army of engineered Robin babies.

Rather than, I guess, screaming skyward in anguish.

EDIT: Now that I've read the preview, any of the more Bat-history knowledgeable care to share how many times the police have destroyed (instead of recycling or just re-purposing into a normal spot light) the Bat signal? May be it's just the heavy handed symbolism, but I feel like that's got to be some kind of over done bit by now. Just my remembering The Dark Night Rises?

[darkknightjrk]

Maybe my Bat-fu isn't that strong, but I can't really think of other instances of that. I mean, the bat-symbol has been destroyed a few times, but mostly due to stuff like natural disasters (like No Man's Land) or a villain breaking it--Morrison actually had Michael Lane, who appears in the preview for this issue, slam Batman into the signal, creating a creepy "satanic" upside-down bat design in the sky early on in his run.

[mrstatham]

The signal got broken in TDK. Personally, I like that Nolan went to the lengths of showing it still broken and damaged like Bruce himself, and then fixed at the end of Rises.

[mrosa]

One day DC won't milk a tragedy to to the point of absurdity and emotional and intellectual exhaustion, and I'll be fucking surprised!

[rordulum]

You'll have to wait for them to go out of business before that day arrives.

Bats doesn't need to worry about dead Damian anyway. At some point, some fanboy writer will come along who loved the character and retcon him back to life in some absurd way.

[salad_barbarian]

It won't be absurd! It will involve a golem originally created by Benjamin Franklin that was remade to look like Damian by a secret cabal that has been controlling Gotham for 1,000 years.

The real Damian will be revealed to have been stashed away to a secret ninja village to train for years so that he comes back as a teen.

Also when he returns he will bring his boyfriend Naruto with him.

Now that's not absurd at all now is it?

[junipepper]

Sadly, it probably won't even make as much sense as that...

[auggie18]

Huh. So that's why all of the Robins look so similar.

[junipepper]

:D

[mommy]

I'm reminded of the time Tim tried to clone Superboy, except the Damiclones come complete with their own genetically engineered masks. Science!

[darkknightjrk]

I would think this comm would give the issue props in at least one respect--they brought back another former DCU character in the fold (and an African-American character at that), this time Michael Lane, who was Azrael until shortly before the New 52 started.

[chrisdv]

I think the overly gory death of a 10 year old lost it any goodwill here...

[icon_uk]

If I felt I had any awareness of who this Azrael was, except for vague memories of his involvement in the awful "Religious nutjob seeks a worthy person in Gotham, who can't be Dick thanks to insta-retconned in "Shitty thing I did as a seven year old" and who can't be Tim because, though otherwise a worthy person, is an aetheist" storyline, I might be there with you.

The fact they brought HIM in but not Cass or Steph, is just more of a headscratching "WTF?" than a "Huzzah! It's Azrael!" moment.

[chrisdv]

So... Bruce Wayne is Rusty Venture.

Who knew.

[onceaskrull]

I literally just about choked on my coffee.

[bardbrain]

It would be so awesome to see a Venture Bros. Super-Sons crossover.

Scrawny Batman. Beefy but bald Alfred with rat tails, talking about his special forces days with a Leslie Thompkins by way of Barbarella. Nightwing and Robin as two clone kids in footie pajamas.

Superman by way of Doctor Orpheus, raising Supergirl as a single dad in a rented corner of the Batcave while the Fortress of Solitude is fumigated or something.

And Joker and Two-Face who want revenge on Batman for something he did in college.

I really crack up when I imagine Bruce attending college as Batman, in full costume albeit with a sailor collar letterman, with Alfred as his non-trad student roommate.

Maybe go full tilt and make it part of a Batman: How I Met Your Mother story. So the college years and Year One are Venture Bros. but by his 30s, he's a crimefighter with a loft on the upper west side, rooming with Alfred (who has hair in the flashbacks) and Leslie Thompkins, with The Flash as Barney Stinson.

Heck, make every phase of his life a takeoff on a different sitcom or cartoon.

Total pop collage. C'mon, if DC can publish Batman: Odyssey and The Widening Gyre, they can do this.

[chrisdv]

We may have stumbled onto the building blocks to the best Elseworld ever.

To fill out the Bat Family, let's add Red Hood in the Dermott role & Spoiler/Batgirl (Either way, it's Steph) as the Trianna to Robin's Dean...

[crinos]

I see that Bruce is still taking Damien's death well.

Well, at least now we know where Tim got it when he tried to clone Conner OH WAIT THAT NEVER HAPPENED NOW.

DC Reboot: Will I ever not be bitter about it?

[pyynk]

BABIES EVERYWHERE!

[chrisdv]

Alfred must be thrilled about having to look after Bruce's army of clone babies...

[aeka]

I think at this point Bruce may want to think about getting his genes back from Talia...

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Liquidation, huh? And now Batman is no longer welcome in Gotham?

Did I miss the scans about how that went down?

[kurenai_tenka]

Oh. How....cute. o.O

[goggle_kid]

So do they put a mask on every little Damien clone or do they somehow clone him already masked?

[bardbrain]

That would be a great scene.

Batman with Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE, planting masks on tiny fetuses with surgical tools.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

Is it just me... or does it look like Batman is cackling in manic glee on that cover over his plan to create an army of Damians?

[icon_uk]

It's s_d, so it's NEVER just you.

On the other hand to me it looks like he's belting out a song, possibly a lullaby delivered loudly enough that all his little Robin's can hear him.

[cypherfdp]

Aw, they all have little Robin masks.