A decade and a half after his debut in 2006’s Batman #655 by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert, it’s hard to imagine the Bat-Family without Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul and current Robin. Genetically enhanced by his mother and the League of Assassins and trained to become a hardened killer and one of the most formidable martial artists in the DC Universe, Damian is known for butting heads with his father and the rest of his Bat-Family.
And as Damian headlines his own comic book series, here’s a look back at a much different son of Bruce and Talia introduced in 1996’s Kingdom Come: Ibn al Xu’ffasch.
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Created by Mark Waid and Alex Ross for the acclaimed miniseries, Ibn al Xu’ffasch is Arabic for “son of the bat” serving as a clear nod to his superhero parentage. Ibn is a fully grown adult while Bruce is now an elderly man relying on an exosuit in order to move around after enduring decades of injuries defending Gotham City as Batman. At the beginning of the story, it appears the father-son relationship between Bruce and Ibn is strained, with Ibn serving as a prominent member of Lex Luthor’s Mankind Liberation Front and bringing his leadership of the League of Assassins to the table. This is eventually revealed to be a ruse, with Ibn secretly working with his father to infiltrate Luthor’s high table and learn what the aging supervillain has planned for the superhero community.
Ibn’s backstory is further elaborated in the 1999 comic book The Kingdom: Son of the Bat #1 by Mark Waid and Brian Apthorp as part of the Kingdom Come sequel The Kingdom. Revealed to have been raised directly by Ra’s al Ghul and trained to become his heir apparent in leading the League of Assassins, Ibn eventually rebelled against his grandfather and cut off his head to prevent further resurrections through the Lazarus Pit. Ibn was recruited by the time traveler Rip Hunter to prevent the events of Kingdom Come from befalling the main DCU. There he would fall in love with Nightwing and Starfire’s daughter, Nightstar, and have two children with her.
While a son between Batman and Talia had been teased before in the 1987 original graphic novel Batman: Son of the Demon by Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham, this child was secretly placed into an orphanage as an infant. Ibn is a figure that was always been firmly linked to the legacy of Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Assassins, usurping leadership of the secret society for his own ends before reconciling with his father to become a superhero in his own right. Ibn never took the route of becoming a Boy Wonder but would have his own valuable role to play within the Bat-Family.
Ibn al Xu’ffasch brought the notion of Batman and Talia sharing a son back into the DCU while bringing this son back into the fold with the League of Assassins rather than have him put up for adoption. Ibn’s violent upbringing would mirror Damian’s a decade later, with Ibn providing a vision of the man that Damian could become, complicated dynamic with his father and all, as he works towards using the League of Assassins for the good of the DCU and rejects the legacy of Ra’s al Ghul.
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