I'm quite genuinely bewildered by the criticisms flying about on this site about Matt Fraction's Batman run. I find most of them to be based on hearsay, false assumptions, and incoherent projections based on individual out-of-context panels - though I'm sure among the ones who actually read the comics monthly, there would be a chunk of people who have valid reasons for their disengagement.
But there IS something to be noted about how there is an underlying theme of Bruce's first rodeo with parenthood being with Damian.
Thing is, this is not a trend spearheaded by Fraction. In fact, DC has largely been leaning into making Damian the only focus of Bruce's parental attention ever since they decided to make him a permanent member of the Batman cast, thereby denying Grant Morrison's original outline of the character's fate and his symbolism. The trajectory of his character, and thereby the Bruce-Damian relationship has been something like this:
2006-2010: Unlikeable little shit to tragic plot device meant to be a metaphor for collateral in war. Damian being Bruce's son is not given much emotional weight here, because his heritage was meant to be more of a symbol.
2011-2018: Flashpoint gives DiDio his New 52 kingdom, and he gets the chance to make his "Batman and Superman's legacies continue in their BIOLOGICAL children" dream come true. Morrison's original ending is revoked (not that Morrison cared, he still went ahead and wrote the ending to his run the way he imagined and it was up to Tomasi to figure out how to fix it), and Damian is now an indelible, permanant member of the Batman cast. For all the ills of New 52, this is the period where Damian as a character had his actual character growth. In the expert hands of Tomasi and Gleason, and sometimes Snyder; Damian truly comes into his own. A rich, deeply reciprocal, and fiercely loving filial relationship between Bruce and Damian is slowly built up. Within a few years into this period, Damian is pretty much all Bruce is concerned about (apart from Gotham).
Nobody has been able to come close to the quality of these years. However, it cannot be denied that every other familial relationship was weakened and downgraded. Dick became more of a favoured apprentice and right-hand man, Barbara became unrecognisable, Jason continued to have no narrative impact, Tim basically disappeared, Cass and Steph ACTUALLY disappeared. Everytime Bruce used the word "son" - he meant only and only Damian.
Overlap 2016 - 2018: These couple of years are a little all over the place. Damian and Bruce don't appear often in each others' books in the first two Rebirth years, under the assumption that he is more occupied with the Teen Titans and with being half of the Super Sons. The two main Bat writers during this period, King and Tynion, rarely touched upon Damian, and as a result the Bruce-Damian relationship. To their credit, King wrote Bruce and Dick perfectly, as they are meant to be; and Tynion did a relatively good job with Bruce-Tim and Bruce-Cass, even though his Tim was an impostor. However, Snyder was writing the Metal and Death Metal books during this point as well and he kept highlighting the Bruce and Damian bond everywhere he could. Snyder genuinely writes one of the most fun and authentic father-son dynamic between two people with a similar demeanour.
2018 - 2020: Dramatically steep fall in quality. DiDio is still holding all the reigns, and his almost universally loathed 5G initiative is driving all plotlines. Under his vision, the Batman mantle has to be taken up by someone completely unrelated to the family for whatever reasons - and thus the two most likely successors to Bruce must be kept away from the mantle. With Dick this is done with the amnesiac Ric arc dragging on, and with Damian? It's by completely REMOVING every bit of character development and putting him back on the path of becoming a deadly villain. Complete with keeping criminals inhumanely locked up in secret bunkers, stealing from his father, and even murder. Again. Suffice to say their relationship is either never mentioned, or in dire straits. Damian's trauma from seeing Alfred killed in front of him is sometimes treated with empathy, and at other times as an excuse for his heel-turn and friction between father and son.
2020 - early 2023: DiDio's FINALLY gone. But even though 5G might be cancelled, most of the plotlines under process were under those guidelines. Reworking them from scratch would be almost impossible. As a result, you see plotlines and character directions which seem to just go round in circles in this time, with nothing really making an impact. This is house cleaning time. Bruce and Damian are also victim of this confusion even though Damian makes it out relatively better. Williamson turns him into a cookie-cutter YA action protagonist, complete with the no parental supervision and zany adventures and interesting girlfriend. While I dislike Williamson's storylines like the plague, he does do a good job of bringing the father and son relationship back on track. Still nothing remotely close to what Tomasi or even Snyder have done. However, the rest of the family are now back as actual family after Convergence and Infinite Frontier created the "everything you want is canon" timeline. So he is still the apple of Bruce's eye, but atleast he now again openly considers the others also as his kids.
Late 2023 onwards - DC has finally hit their stride and with the 2024 All-In era, their quality has been unimpeachable. They're putting out banger after banger. The Bruce and Damian relationship under PKJ finally gets the next level of focus and growth which we should have had after Tomasi. The dichotomy between Batman and Robin and father and son is as diffuse and intermixed as it ever was, but it's now a characteristic of their unique dynamic. All of Bruce's worry and concern is still tunnel-visioned on to Damian; though Tim does make star appearances every now and then.
Will add specific context and scans later.
dailybridgerton
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
germansingergirl
