For millennia, the vampiric Ra's al Ghul has used his Guild of Assassins to manipulate the world from the shadows. Desiring his power for herself, his daughter Talia, who was also cursed with vampirism, continually struggled to depose her father. All of her efforts frustrated, she finally found the edge she needed, a man who was potent enough to challenge the Demon's Head: Bruce Wayne.

Over many years she subtly drove Batman toward her ultimate goal; the destruction of her father. However, Talia's hopes did not rest solely on the Batman. She created a child that was the union of her and Batman. She named the boy Damian, who was the perfect union of her father's vision and her love s potential. Initially, she trained him in secret, but eventually allowed him to apprentice as Robin with her estranged lover and this is where her plans were frustrated once more.

Damian witnessed Batman's final confrontation with his grandfather, and realized how deep his mother's manipulations went. Infected by his grandfather's disease, Damian watched Batman, a man he had grown to love and respect, become a ravening monster. The ashes of his father's humanity kindled a steely certainty that the blood within him could only birth monsters. A young man at war with himself, as he too feels the compulsions of the vampiric curse he gained from his mother, but is determined to scourge the filth of vampirism from the world.