A fundamental flaw in the original Crisis was that we started with the heroes more or less as far along in their careers as they were in the Pre-Crisis Universe, so there wasn't much of a "ground floor" feeling to the exercise. You weren't there at the start of a new story. This story's been running just as long as the one it replaced. What happened to bring us to this point, however, your guess is as good as our's... Here's a flashback to a story that is very much like one we printed long ago, but we've fixed it so it isn't stupid anymore. And here's another. And another. Oops. We did that one already, and this new one doesn't match the other new one... Um. Ignore them both. We'll fix that too. Here's a new Hawkman. Brand new! Cancels out all that silly Pre-Crisis Hawkman stuff we used to do... And it cancels out the brand new Post-Crisis Hawkman stuff we've been doing up to this point... Um. Not to worry. We'll fix that, too! See, now there WAS a golden-age Hawkman too, along with the one we just gave you, so there were TWO Hawkmen, see? All fixed!

Except the Crisis nonsense was done so we WOULDN'T have two of everybody running around, wasn't it?

The Pre-Crisis Universe may not have been modern creators' cup of tea, but there were actual stories you could go back to and read to get to where we were today. Post-Crisis, everyone was just making up histories that never actually took place and torturously dragging the old stuff back in, only red-pencilled now into absolute idiocy. The Global Guardians got rebooted over here in Infinity Inc. And then some of them were done again over there in Justice League. So now there's two of those members as well... How many Crime Syndicate variants resulted from writers "fixing" them for Post-Crisis use? I think there were at least three. One of the first things done away with in Crisis was the Crime Syndicate. That should have signalled that the Crime Syndicate wasn't something they were going to fall back on anymore... But no. They're still here, just fixed. And then re-fixed. And re-fixed again. And here's the Post-Crisis Krypto. And Streaky. And ye gads, Comet the Super-Horse as a bi-pedal alien in a purple costume...

Everything old is new again! Yay, right?

No. Not yay. I thought the point was to come up with something new.

Silly me.

Regarding Damien's age, wasn't he a speed-grown clone like almost all clones are? Writers almost never allow clones to age at "normal" speeds. It's the norm for the tube to open up and there's Peter Parker, fully-grown from cell samples taken only a few short months ago...

I'm not the Nu52's biggest fan, Stephen, but they have gone about this a bit more cleanly than Crisis did. There are elements from Batman & Green Lantern's histories, especially those immediately preceding the reboot that have been preserved, but the new continuity has covered those, including them in the Nu timeline, so if you weren't reading them before, you aren't lost now. The 5 Robins scenario is asinine, but you don't need to know anything pre-Flashpoint to understand it (as much as it can be understood, anyway...)

Crisis was a complete cluster**** as to what was in, what was out, who remembered what and when they remembered it. Writers immediately began writing backwards rather than forwards, attempting to "fill in" as many of the "missing pieces" as humanly possible. With an almost pathological intensity, everyone rushed to make their Supergirl the One Supergirl We'd Have From Now On or rewrite Two-Face's origin so their's was the Only Two-Face We'd Have From On, not to mention the Only One There Has Ever Been... Tedious, retroactive nonsense ever month, all rapidly contradicting itself and making a "single, cohesive universe" the last possible result of the whole mess.

Nu52 carried a few things forward, but I haven't seen the same archivist mentality and rush to bring back every little thing. When characters are brought in, they by and large seem to be debuting now, and there isn't the agonizing need to rewrite Flash of Two Worlds and Crisis on Earth-1 and The Girl in Superman's Past and the Origin of the Justice League et al, ad infinitum the way it was after Crisis. Robotman is Nu, and the stories he's in aren't breaking their necks looking backwards, trying to rewrite the "RobotManiac" or "Death of the Doom Patrol" storylines the Way They Really Happened Now.

Aside from those elements in Batman & GL that carried over, the Nu52 seems to be pretty much Nu stuff, Nu stories, and Nu directions, without all of the "salvage" work and nit-picking fiddly-bits that upended the Post-Crisis DCU.

Instead, there are entirely different reasons to dislike it. :-)