WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Robin #3 by Joshua Williamson, Gleb Melnikov, Luis Guerrero & ALW's Troy Peteri, on sale now.
Since coming to Lazarus Island, Damian Wayne hasn't had much luck. He was promptly killed by Flatline after instigating a fight, and his investigations into the island have done little to reveal the true purpose of the various people who've come to complete in the Lazarus Tournament. One of the only friendly faces on the island, Ravager has been doing her best to help Damian calm down -- including by introducing him to their competition during their nightly party.
But even that only ends up getting under Damian's skin, as it turns out even the assassins of Lazarus Island can't stop talking about Batman -- showcasing just how difficult it is for Damian to escape the long shadow of his father and his impact on the world.
Although XXL initially calls out Damian upon arriving at the party, Ravager keeps him moving with little other incidents -- hoping that teaching him the ability to loosen up at all will help him in combat. But finding a group of villains trying to impress each other with knife tricks, Damian is able to showcase his own abilities and impress some of his peers -- with Lady Vic even mentioning his recent crimes in Teen Titans as an impressive feat. For a moment, it looks like Damian will get the chance to relax and make friends, just like Ravager wanted. He even especially impresses Raptor -- which, given both of their connection to Dick Grayson, could be the beginning of something sweet.
But instead, Constantine Drakkon ends up changing the conversation to his encounter with Robin's father -- Batman. This ends up opening up the floodgates, with everyone -- including Flatline, who'd earlier seemed to be showing signs of an attraction to Damian -- talking about Batman and the stories of his combat prowess. Frustrated, Robin leaves the party and explores the island -- abandoning a party that Batman dominates even while he's not there. Damian has long dealt with being in his father's shadow. Either as Batman's foe, friend, or even as inheritor of the cowl, Damian seems doomed to always be compared to his father.
In this regard, he finds an unlikely friend in Conner Hawke, who is revealed to have also avoided the party to meditate and ends up at the same statue as Damian -- the pair even sharing a laugh over their fathers and their weaknesses for specific types of women. It's a surprisingly sweet moment, only to be upended by Damian's pedigree: the League of Shadows reveals their fears that Damian is too much like both his parents, again forcing him to live under the shadow of their actions. They order Connor to attack, breaking up the bonding moment and setting off a fight that almost results in Damian's death. It's a surprisingly bittersweet element of the story, especially given the currently strained relationship between Batman and Robin.
Damian's trying to establish himself in the world and how people see him, and even when he's nominally not Batman's sidekick, he can't help but be compared to him. As he tries to make friends with other young people -- perhaps some of the only people in the world who could truly understand him -- he can't get a word in edgewise before the conversation turns back to what such a great fighter his father his, how cool his father really is. It gives a genuinely sad element to Damian, a young anti-hero who usually does his best to avoid emotional entanglements.
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