Every day this week will see me feature a brand-new Cool Comic Book Moment. For this week only, I'll be specifically featuring cool moments that happened just this year. Here is an archive of all the past cool comic moments that I've featured so far.

Today we conclude the week with the death of Damian "Robin" Wayne in Batman Incorporated #8 by Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham.

Damian Wayne, as you might know, was the son of Batman and Talia Al Ghul. Talia has revealed herself to be the big bad guy behind the international nihilistic organization known as Leviathan. Batman has discovered that her plan involves creating a new Batman who will destroy Gotham City. Batman figures that she means their son, Damian, so he insists that Damian stand down as Robin to avoid her plans. As it turns out, Talia was referring to a clone of Damian that she had genetically altered and trained into basically being a mixture of Batman and Bane.

At the end of #7, Damian disobeys Batman to go save his comrades who are battling Talia and her forces (Batman has been captured and placed in a safe underwater, with his skills being timed to the second so Talia knows he will escape JUST too late). Damian's departure from the Bat-Cave and Alfred is, in and of itself, a cool comic book moment. Maybe I'll feature it some day.

So Damian shows up at the center of the battle and re-teams up with Nightwing, who was Batman when Damian first became Robin. They have an awesome reunion...

Then the third Batman shows up and takes Nightwing out of the fight. And seemingly takes Damian out, too. A young woman who works at the office has discovered Talia's bomb. The third Batman wants it. Damian, who has promised his father not to kill, can't think of any other way out of this...

As Talia planned it, Batman is just too late.

Powerful, heartbreaking stuff. Burnham's art is magnificent in this issue (and this whole series, of course, but this issue is particularly good).