Taken from the HQ&GG thread...
Bruce already had children. By the time Damian was introduced he had legally adopted Dick Grayson*, Tim Drake, and Cassandra Cain. Introducing Damian ended up shoving Tim and Cassandra aside almost immediately. This is a terrible message, that the other three were less important compared to the genetic child (brewed in a lab) whom Bruce had just met.

Shoving Tim aside also led to ignoring years of character development around Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, who had grown as brothers ever since Tim's debut. Chuck Dixon in particular put a lot into showing the loving brotherhood between them. Damian's debut literally involved attacking Tim and taking his place. I've been borderline on dropping new otherwise solid new Nightwing series because it leans so heavily into that stolen role.

As I mentioned elsewhere, there have been some good stories involving Damian. I especially enjoyed his appearances in Batgirl, where Stephanie seemed like the only person to remember he really was just a kid.

But in general, introducing Damian took away more than it added. As a one-shot story it was one thing, but when they decided to keep him it was just too much.

-J

* Gotham Knights; it was kind of a "retroactive adoption" since Dick was an adult by the point, but still held symbolic value.

Copy and pasted from my wall of text on the main thread


My issues can be broken down like into 3 primary categories with reasons for each.

Current creation and backstory:
1. The character was forced in with multiple methods that were later retconned away. The current story is bruce just had relations with talia and it happened. Before that it was she took bruce's dna and engineered damian from that. before that talia drugged and raped bruce to make damian. I also hate talia from this also.

2. he just shows up. "hello. talia is my mom. you're my dad. I'm robin now" and everyone just goes with it over the span of 3 issues. Everything that had been built up for the robins are just suddenly thrown out the window to adapt for him. Tim is just dropped because of this and goes to be a seen once every 10 issues as a sub category and not even bruce who has had all this time with him even cares because now damian.


Batman with kids not biologically
1. Batman has found the bat family based on finding and helping kids that he relates to and understands. with the exception of tim who proved to batman that he was capable and wanted to be robin for both of their sakes. Even the brief time stephanie was robin was developed better than how damian was shoehorned in

2. batman has a large family. one that he chose to help and offer adoption to based on a shared desire to grow as a family. he took nightwing on as a ward instead of adoption to not take away the memory of his parents or to replace them. The others had no family, or were mistreated and bruce adopted them out of a shared bond. Once again, no development just "here is your son. you deal with him now"


Batman with kids biologically
1. Batman has had kids in different stories. the other most well known is helena wayne with catwoman. In the E2 stories he is a loving father that has raised his child. Its a far departure from the stereotypical character batman is typically portrayed as but it is developed organically.

2. even in the animated "brave and the bold" alfred writes a random fanfiction about how bruce and selina got together, had a kid, and retired. In this story, they had damian instead of helena. The development was short but it was well done. He was trained and taught by batman, the lanterns, superman, and so on. He rejected the training and wanted to be his own person until his own trauma made him choose. This damian is simply entitled and says he deserves to be robin and then batman "because he is."


Basic breakdown: damian as he is now serves far closer to being an after school special based on "don't have unprotected relations because you can be stuck with a kid that destroys your family that you are forced to deal with every day of your life." or "don't do drugs because it will lead to ^" if you go with one of the origin stories

flip side:

I will admit that i do hold bitterness against talia and by extends damian due to my belief that batman and catwoman should be together and those events throw that into difficulty. however watching damian cry like he did when he found out bruce is engaged to selina was the only time i enjoyed reading him.

I love Damian Wayne, but mostly because I liked the dynamic that he and Dick shared during their tenure as the Dynamic Duo. Lighthearted Batman and Surly Robin was a fun change from the usual personalities you get from the pair.

I like all of the Robins that DC has introduced over the years, but it's gotten hard to carve out roles for each of them now that the Batcave is so crowded. It sucks that Tim is the one who lost out the most in the latest shuffles.

Using kaiba6798's post to springboard...

(The following is an assessment peculiar to myself, having grown up with the Superfriends and encountering The Dark Knight Returns and Michael Keaton's Batman as an adult)

I've always given some side-eye to the comic creators that have insisted on shipping Batman/Catwoman while simultaneously pushing the infallibly godly Batman:

1) The infallible Batman was originally (IMO) an outcome of the (common, in my youth) question of "Why is Batman even in the Justice League, it's not like he has any powers!" filtered through the Batman '66 TV series that many people thought it made Batman look like a joke.

2) As near as I can tell, the Batman/Catwoman shipping only kicked into high gear because of the Batman '66 TV show (and movie). IIRC the Earth-2 relationship between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle wasn't even established until the late 1970s.

Anyway, I have nothing to contribute to the Damian Wayne discussion, except that I don't find his addition to the canon to be more radical than anything else that has happened to Batman.

I hate Damian, Catwoman, and Talia. For one thing, they are all murderers. Damian decapitated a villain, and Batman pretty much just gave him a stern talking to. Catwoman shot Black Mask in the face. Talia is a freaking terrorist. Batman shouldn't be ok with any of this stuff.

I would have found it way more interesting if Damian was a villainous Robin. Like, he shows up in Gotham and starts killing criminals while dressed as Robin, trying to prove himself to his father. Bruce has to struggle with what to do with not only a murderous child, but his son to boot, while Tim has to deal with the Robin identity being sullied.

^ slight fix on that.

New 52 took it back and selina never killed black mask (that entire plot never happened) so she isn't anymore. and she never killed the 100-whatever terrorists now so... not a killer anymore.

Yeah, but then wasn't there then a retcon saying the Nu52 was really the previous universe with Dr. Manhatten just screwing with people's minds? Either way, Bruce didn't exactly put up a fuss when it was canon.

very true about not when it was canon. no argument there.

I don't know actually what all is going to be happening with dr manhattan. i don't think they've actually fully explained everything yet.

Then you'll LOVE the moment Dick & Damian share at the end of Dark Knight Metal: The Resistance

Is that the actual name of the book, or is that a story arc? I'd definitely love to see more Dick/Damian moments.

I'll admit that I have never given Damian a chance, which is childish of me. But I love what Chuck Dixon did with both Nightwing and Tim Drake, and I did not appreciate seeing that architecture destroyed for little appreciable gain.

The name of the arc is Batman Metal: Gotham Resistance
The crossover will be a total of 3 chapters, and run through TEEN TITANS (Chapter 1), NIGHTWING (Chapter 2), and SUICIDE SQUAD (Chapter 3).

I love Damian and highly recommend you guys read Super Sons if you're not already....maybe my favorite DC book right now.

Besides which, the child was actually fathered by Jason Todd during his time with Talia when he was healing from the crowbar wounds.

And now Deathstroke may turn out to be Damian's father.