Robin Rises: Omega #1

Issue Details

Synopsis

RED DAWN OMEGA Years ago, Batman had faced a test for the love of Talia al Ghul, and for the role of successor to The Demon's Head. That role would have required him to eradicate most of the human population for the planet's sake. He had refused, but thanks to Talia's love, he lived to teach her father a lesson and to share her bed that night. He had thought it was an act of love, but in fact it was a calculated truce on her part; a plan to merge her blood line with his. She raised his son on a private island, training him to be a killer and a leader for the League of Assassins.   When he finally met that son, he worked from that point forward to break him away from the indoctrination that his mother had instilled in him, hoping that nurture would win out against nature. There hadn't been enough time, though. Just as they began to get close to one another, the Batman was thought killed, and Dick Grayson took his place. Bruce, meanwhile, had actually been sent back in time, and fought his way back to the present to face the confused and angry boy who felt he had something to prove by trying to bring down NoBody alone. The result of that attempt saw Damian kill NoBody, crossing the line, and eroding Bruce's hope for him.   Bruce tried to rebuild his family, then, and rededicated them to keeping Gotham City safe. Still, Bruce wasn't sure that Damian was capable of caring for anyone but himself. He proved his father wrong, though, having secretly spent months searching the sewers beneath Park Row for a single pearl from Martha Wayne's necklace that snapped when she and Bruce's father were murdered. This brought Bruce and Damian together, until the Joker returned to tear Bruce's family apart.   The distance between them, then, was compounded by Talia's return. Bruce had ordered Damian to stay home - and safe - while he dealt with the Heretic and the Meta-Bomb. Damian had stayed true to his nature and ignored the warning, hoping to save the city and the people he had grown to love, whatever the cost. The cost was his life, and Bruce could do nothing to save him. When Bruce continued through his loss to bring an end to Talia's attack, someone else decided to shoot her dead. Bruce had thought he'd failed his son, and fell into a grief spiral that saw him alienating his family further by dragging them into his five stages of grief.   Upon finally reaching acceptance, Bruce's comfort was taken away when Ra's al Ghul returned to steal both Damian and Talia's corpses from the plot outside Wayne Manor. This led Bruce to follow him to Nanda Parbat, where now he, Frankenstein and Ra's al Ghul himself are facing Glorious Godfrey, who has arrived from Apocalypse to claim a Chaos Shard that he believes Batman holds in his possession.   Batman denies having heard or seen of such a thing, but aside, Ra's admits to him that he has secreted it within Damian's sarcophagus. Godfrey notes that he is well aware that the shard is within one of the sarcophagi, and he will collect it by force. Though they are mortal enemies, Ra's and Batman ally with one another to defend the corpses. This leads to a battle between the League of Assassins and the Parademons of Apokolips. In the melee, the sarcophagi are lifted into the air by flying Parademons, and Batman and Ra's leap after them to tear the coffins from their talons.   Upon finally getting the creature to drop his son, the sarcophagus falls open, and Bruce retrieves the Chaos Shard. After touching it, his mind fills with memories of his first encounter, long ago, with the heroes of Earth 2, and the fight with Kaiyo, who shattered the chaos crystal in the first place. He has a further inkling that, somehow, Damian will save everyone. Godfrey catches up, at last, and blasts Batman away from the crystal. Sensing residual energy from the shard within the sarcophagus, he decides that he will bring both the shard and the coffin back to Apokolips.   Before returning, Godfrey prepares to fulfill his promise to kill Batman, and places his gun to the man's head. Suddenly, his hand and the gun are encased in ice, courtesy of Captain Cold and the rest of the Justice League. Against Batman's protests, the League begins battling the Parademons and Justifiers. Godfrey sees that it would be to his advantage to make an escape and activates his Mother Box to escape with the sarcophagus. The League eagerly ushers him away, through a Boom Tube, failing to realize that Batman has lost what he came to retrieve. Awkwardly, Wonder Woman apologizes for rushing in without fully assessing the situation, and costing Batman his son. Talia and Ra's, meanwhile, have disappeared - possibly dead, but likely alive.   Batman explains that what he saw in the Chaos Shard suggested to him that there is a way to bring Damian back to life - but he needs to get to Apokolips to do it. Whether he has the rest of the League's support or not, he intends to go there and get his son back - alive.