I miss Damian Wayne. The biological son of Bruce Wayne, Damian started off as a cocky, elitist and blood thirsty kid raised by ninjas until coming to Gotham to take over the title of Robin alongside his father. Despite being what I can only really describe as “a little shit,” there’s something endearing about the kid. The more he worked with other members under his father’s symbol, the more he saw the positives to his father’s idea of justice. Arguably the best moments of Damian in the comics come from his partnership with Dick Grayson once Dick became Batman, but I also love the family-friendly comic Li’l Gotham. Unfortunately, that comic ended in December and Damian was killed off over a year ago in the current comic canon. Personally I don’t think it was handled very well (Robin deaths rarely are) and it’s telling that there are already rumors of him being brought back to life one way or the other in the next year. Until then, we have his origin in Son of Batman, the newest Warner Bros. Animation feature.

Son of Batman starts off a bit fast. Actually, that’s an understatement. In the first scene, Ra’s al Ghul is giving his grandson Damian a Circle of Life-esque speech about how the League of Assassins is the legacy of their family and one day it will all be his. And immediately after, Damian’s uncle is shot out of nowhere. Less than three minutes into the movie and it’s just absolute bloodshed. It’s kind of abrupt. It probably doesn’t help that the bloodshed has some anime styling — lots of extreme blood spurts but no blood on the blade and little to no blood on the ground. And there’s a lot of violence. If you think because this movie focuses on a child character that it’s appropriate for kids, realize that we see a man burning alive and later got several shots of his charred body as he’s slowly dying. This is not a family-friendly Batman cartoon. Of course, the comic it was based on, Grant Morrison’s Batman and Son, isn’t family-friendly, either.

The animated feature plays loose with the comic’s story, particularly in changing the antagonist from Damian’s mother Talia to Deathstroke, who has killed Ra’s before we can even get to the title screen. With Deathstroke taking control of the League of Assassins’ assets, including a scientist working on a dangerous mutagen formula, Talia al Ghul must send her son stay with his father (three guesses who that is) while she figures out how to take back control. Talia is a character that I enjoyed immensely when I first saw her in Batman: The Animated Series as a woman who commands respect and feels deep loyalty for both Bruce and her father. The comic version of Talia (especially Morrison’s version of her) is not nearly so sympathetic, especially in Batman and Son. She’s still not the most ethical of characters — it’s still her League that commissioned the mutagen Deathstroke is pursuing after all, and the movie brings up the at best dubious consent issues that led to Damian being born. In fact, Talia’s relationship with Bruce is ten kinds of messed up and unfortunately the movie glosses over that to get to the plot. That being said, Morena Baccarin’s Talia manages to be a morally gray character that you can at least root for as she fights to take back what’s hers and her son’s. Some fans of Batman and Son won’t like the change, but I do.

The plot isn’t exactly captivating — it’s standard bad guy wants to use super science to create a super army — but the character interaction is a lot of fun. While Damian’s American accent is irritating and illogical considering where he grew up, he grew on me just in his commitment to superiority. This works best when he’s playing off other characters, like Bruce or Alfred. Alfred, voiced by David McCallum is so delightful in his sarcasm towards the elitism of Damian. His sarcasm might be the best part of this movie. I also enjoyed blue-suited Nightwing (Baccarin’s fellow Firefly alum Sean Mayer) dealing with Damian’s put downs and his skill with sharp objects. One of the best lines is when Alfred is stitching Dick up after his fight with the little devil and Dick complains about what a hypocrite Bruce was for giving him the riot act about safe sex during his teenage years. I actually paused the movie to laugh at that.

I’m still not sure how well Bruce works here, but I’m of the opinion that Batman always works better as a character when he has someone to work with. So here, Bruce’s best moments are when he’s trying to explain to Damian why revenge will hurt him ultimately more than it could hurt Deathstroke. It would have benefited from another scene of them working together.

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This weekend I made my yearly travel to the mysterious land of Toronto, Canada, to see quite a few of my Canadian friends and those international friends who could make the trip. And because many of these friends are superhero nerds, I made sure to bring JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time, the straight-to-DVD WB release only made available in the US as of last month. Sitting down and rewatching the kid-friendly adventure with my buddies, I got to appreciate just how good the movie is

I was worried about the superteens from the future Karate Kid and Dawnstar simply because they were the only characters I didn’t know much about going into the movie, but truth be told, I like them. Even when they were doing the “I’m from the future and don’t understand how taxis work” schtick, it was pretty charming. More than that, the story did a decent job of setting up their personal flaws as young heroes and how they had to deal with it. They’re also the ones to come up with solutions the two times things get really bad for the heroes. And they happen to be two non-white characters whose costumes are appropriate for their age (I looked up Dawnstar’s comic costume and this is a vast improvement, especially considering she’s a teenager here).

One of the smartest things JLA Adventures did was not specifically say which Flash this was — Barry Allen or Wally West. For fans of Wally West desperate to see him in more stories, it was very easy to see this Flash as Wally. Truth be told I would have loved a few more quips from him, but the Flash has a cute moment with Martha and John Kent that felt very Wally along with some good food jokes that work for the character. And as I mentioned in my original post about the DVD coming out, Young Justice’s Jason Spisak voiced him, so yes I’m calling him Wally.

But something else I noticed was that Robin was also only named Robin in the credits, which means there are four different Robins he could be (not including Stephanie Brown because this Robin wasn’t wearing eggplant purple … obviously this rules her out). This Robin is too belligerent to be Dick Grayson, too reckless to be Tim Drake and is too much of a normal kid to be Damian Wayne. I am absolutely convinced that the Robin in JLA Adventures is Jason Todd. That makes this only the second DC animated feature with Jason Todd and he didn’t die this time! So if you’re a fan of both goofy teenage Jason Todd and goofy teenage Jason Todd not getting beaten to death with a crowbar, do I have a DVD for you!

Besides the characters, the animation on the fight scenes in particular is gorgeous. Easily my favorite bit of animation was the two-on-one fight between Robin and the new kids. And sure, the dialogue was silly at times, but the tone of the whole movie fit that silliness because it’s aimed for kids. It is, however, still clever enough for adults who like these characters. The worst thing I can say about it is that at 52-minutes long, it’s very short. Expanding the villainous plot to include messing with the various Justice League members’ pasts (or at least Diana and Bruce as the big trio) would have given the story the depth it needed to feel like a full movie. As it is, JLA Adventures works much better if you think of it as a one hour TV pilot … which just makes me wish we were getting a JLA Adventures TV show. Why aren’t we getting a JLA Adventures TV show?

When I picked it up, it was $12.99 at Target (it’s being sold exclusively at Target as of now). I really don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want to get this if you at all a fan of these characters.

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