Warning: contains spoilers for Robin #15!
Damian Wayne’s Watchmen easter egg.
Ever since he made his first appearance in 2006, Damian Wayne has been a massive part of the Bat-Family. Of course, being the son of Bruce Wayne, there was little chance the character could have been anything less. Almost three years after his debut, Damian became the new Robin, a role he held pretty consistently over the next decade plus. Recently, Damian left Gotham City to star in his own solo series, distancing himself from his father in an effort to carve his own path in the wider DCU.
In Robin #15 by Joshua Williamson and Roger Cruz, Damian returns to Gotham after the recent Shadow War crossover. Almost immediately, he runs into a gang of clowns calling themselves the Red Triangle Gang operating out of one of the Joker’s old hideouts following his absence after the Joker War. “I’ve been in Gotham for less than a day,” Damian says as he kicks one of them in the jaw, “and I’m already dealing with clowns.” The interesting thing is that one of the clowns Damian fights is wearing a familiar smiley face badge with a distinctive blood stain over one of its eyes. That is the iconic badge of the murdered Comedian, which made its debut on the cover of Watchmen #1. This could be nothing more than a fun Easter Egg that the creators decided to throw in as a gag, but - given DC’s history with the smiley-face button - it’s also not too far-fetched to predict it could be a sign of things to come for Damian.
The button in question has led to crossovers between the DCU and the world of Watchmen in the past. The Batman/Flash crossover story “The Button” dealt with Batman finding the mysterious button in question and attempting to figure out where it came from. This acted as a prelude to the larger Doomsday Clock story, in which the superheroes of the DCU come into with the characters from Watchmen and discovered the secret history of their own universe. The button making its appearance in Robin #15 also ties in nicely with the current Flashpoint Beyond series, in which Batman is messing with artifacts from the Watchmen universe, several of which appear to be having an effect on time itself. The appearance could even signal Damian playing a major role in the multiverse moving forward, signaling a coming breakdown in reality.
The button’s appearance could also just be nothing more than a fun wink to the readers, given the Comedian is already a clown-themed villain, however there'd be few better ways to signal something like Doctor Manhattan once again tinkering with reality than dropping Easter Eggs into some relevant stories. Whether or not Damian Wayne’s Robin will interact with the Watchmen universe at some point in the future remains to be seen, but it’s fun to imagine the possibilities in the meantime.
Robin #15 is available now from DC Comics.
