Originally Posted by
Arctic Cyclist
I too thought Damian: SOB was a dumpster fire when it came out, but it improves on the reread. Particularly if you realize it ties in to #700 (where the rape conception, for the record, was retconned back out to lala land where it belongs with all the times Selina had dub con sex with Bruce). If you pair them together, you'll catch that body that looks like Tim is super important as 700 shows that the Return of the Joker story happened in that universe. I had to read some of the reviews to catch that the talking cat is actually Damian having a full psychotic break due to his C-PTSD, the complete rejection of all of his genetic relatives, and the loss of the only two people who loved him unconditionally (because let's face it, outside of bad fan fiction Bruce is incapable of unconditional love). There's also the fact that Ra's and Talia fully considered Dick Damian's father since in this universe Talia never set the bounty on Damian to force Bruce into having a relationship with Damian. In addition there's strong possibility that Bruce did permanently hook up with Selina, which as we know from AoSS, King's Batman, Nolanverse, For Want of a Nail, and almost every other alternate universe written and Tim's various bad futures means Bruce did what he has always done if boinking Selina when there's someone else to adult for him: took off and left no forwarding address.
There's a lot of interesting stuff shoved into the story, but it hinges on the understanding that Talia lost interest in Leviathan and Damian and let it all peter out to go back to being with her father. It and 666 could be the same universe, but that would mean Damian himself hit the point where he decided that Bruce was never his father, Dick is. (666 also retconned out the rape retcon, it's obnoxious and stupid that Didio forced it back into canon despite fan and writer backlash and keeps trying to make Selina into what Talia was).
Considering Terry is in play already in the main canon through Warren in Gotham Academy, it's possible that Damian did decide genetics don't a parent make.
I just get a kick out of the fact that not only did Ra's start referring to Dick in his head as "Detective" long before he called Tim "Detective," and in the next four to seven years decided that Bruce never had been and that Dick was the one true Batman. As did Talia. That's a magnificent snub.