James Howell wrote: How can Batman justify continuing to be Batman after this? You can't show brutal murder of children, into a fantasy setting. It deconstructs the whole story of Batman. Bruce looks like the worst parent ever. It doesn't matter what kind of a person Damian Wayne was. Bruce cant protect or control his child, so he looks incompetent. This story has now made Batman into a criminal. ( child endangerment, child neglect) This kind of "storytelling" is just violence porn for people getting a kick out of seeing a 10 year old brutalized. It went too far, and it was just a cynical stunt to get a mainstream media pop.

   This is the same point back in 2004 where I finally had enough of the current crop of editorial staff and creators messing around with the basic themes that were set up for the X-Men at Marvel Comics.  In the "Decimation" story arc brought over to New X-Men: Academy X, right on the heels of the Planet M crossover, they had the new creative team have a recycled group of villains literally blow up a busload of de-powered mutant students right on the team's doorstep!  This sort of obsession with going over the top has been done for over 10 years now.

   It no longer really surprises me any more, as stories are simply recycled every few years now with no real thought to giving the characters some sort of integrity.  It's the whole "deconstruction" theme all over again, to where we get nothing but the destruction of characters.  Things worked out a little better when you had characters like Batman actually being used as a sounding board against which to throw new characters that represented social and cultural trends, not shoehorn them into the trends just to make them "hip".

The Batman comics have gotten ridiculously bloody since the New52. Why? Probably because the Morrison pre-52 Batman and Robin book was a best seller. It was the most gruesome of the bat books. So now, they all get dialed up to 11!

I've dropped all my DC books except World's Finest because of the pure darkness of the New 52. A Justice League that kills (even if they are Parademons and sea monsters), a Gotham where it seems hundreds of people die a day, Emo Superman...The stuff that I thought was pretty fun (OMAC and Justice League International) was cancelled. Legion of Superheroes is fine but I had a friend that wanted to start collecting it so I gave him my run. It just seems that since Dan Didio came aboard, the DCU has been just a scary place to live. Now we have another dead Robin which means that Psycho 90's Batman will probably be coming back.

This is the second Robin to have died (that Jason Todd is back doesn't factor in to this as far as I'm concerned - he died at the time).

At what point would the rest of the DC universe stop Batman from ever having a Robin again - which means DC has nowhere to go with a Robin from now on.

I hate this ultraviolence in comics now. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

And here I wouldn't let my 9 year old step son watch it

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Well, the movie was rated PG-13 for a reason....

there is plenty of reason for Batman to have a Robin.

Name one. And while you're at it, explain why Reed and Sue need children.

Batman...becomes an unbearable grumpy pants.

I hope you're kidding, but if not, realize that Batman only "becomes" what the writers dictate he becomes. He's a fictional character.