Gotham Knights’ Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan) isn’t the first original character created by a comic book adaptation, but he is an odd case. His isn’t a situation like Clark Greg’s Phil Coulson, given a larger role in the story after fans latched onto a minor character. It’s also not brought about by issues of actors dropping out unexpectedly like with Batwoman’s Ryan Wilder (Javicia Leslie). Instead, Turner is an original creation of Gotham Knights, standing alongside a cast that is otherwise lifted straight from the comics. But the strange thing is that he wasn’t created to fill a role that the source material lacked. Bruce Wayne has a lot of sons in the comics, so why did the show feel the need to create its own?
Turner Hayes Doesn’t Bring Anything Unique to the Table
A few episodes in and it’s unclear why the show chose to create Turner instead of using one of Batman’s sons from the comics. So far, his personality and skills seem to be a mix of several of those characters. He was adopted after his parents died tragically like Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake. He’s got the earnest, well-intentioned optimism of Dick, but also wields a sword like Damien Wayne used to do. His most unique traits are that he hadn’t yet discovered Bruce’s secret by the time his father died and hasn’t adopted the Robin persona–that role falls to Carrie Kelly (Navia Robinson). Neither of those is much to build a whole character around.
It’s possible that as the show progresses, we’ll learn more about Turner’s past and what makes him unique from the other Bat-kids. Maybe his life in Burnside before he was adopted will come into play, though between the other adopted sons, there’s already some good variety. Or maybe we’ll learn he can do more than use a sword and know things about Bruce Wayne, but it’s a little late to be establishing more core character traits. Given how varied the personalities and skills of Batman’s sons already are, it will be a challenge to meaningfully differentiate Turner from the others.
The Narrative Problem with Turner
And that’s a problem because, in a lot of ways, Turner seems poised to be the emotional center of the show’s first season. He and Carrie are the only two with an emotional connection to Bruce Wayne. For them, it’s not just about clearing his name, it’s about getting justice for Bruce’s death. And between the two of them, Turner is far more of a point-of-view character. He’s the center of the Gotham Academy half of the cast while Harper (Fallon Smythe), Cullen (Tyler DiChaira), and Duela (Olivia Rose Keegan) are introduced as a unit. He’s the one who lost his father (for the second time, it should be noted), which gives him even more of a stake in solving the mystery than the others.
But despite that, his only role in the narrative so far has been to be Bruce Wayne’s son. The only thing he’s contributed so far is a hideout, a motivation to prove his innocence, and a person to complain when the team breaks the law. His main character trait (outside of being prone to parental tragedy) is that he’s uncomfortable with being a rich kid now that he’s been adopted, but the show regularly goes out of its way to frame him as an out-of-touch rich kid compared to most of the rest of the cast. Gotham Knights doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on what to do with this character they’ve created, despite the fact he’s a key component of the story it’s set out to tell.
Damian Wayne Perfectly Fits Gotham Knight’s Story
This is all especially weird because given what we’ve seen of the show so far there’s a perfect candidate from the comics to fill the role of Batman’s son: Damian Wayne. Damian is the only one of the primary Robins to be Bruce Wayne’s biological son, conceived during a fling with Talia al Ghul (daughter of Ra’s al Ghul). Talia trained Damian as part of the League of Assassins, before sending him to Gotham to meet his father, where he eventually became the next Robin despite regularly clashing with Batman over how to go about their vigilantism.
There are several reasons why it would’ve made sense for Gotham Knights to use Damian, and one reason why it makes sense that they didn’t. Damian’s background with the League of Assassins would make the idea that he was behind Bruce’s murder much more believable. If the information about his past leaked when Bruce died and had his identity revealed, it would make more sense for characters like Harvey Dent (Misha Collins) to think that was a real possibility. Damian’s skillset would work well with the kind of story the show wants to tell, with lots of sneaking, subterfuge, and sword fights. Additionally, the weird dynamic of Turner being presented as a snobby rich kid while having only been adopted into that lifestyle would be gone and the disdain the other characters feel toward him would seem more natural.
Lastly, there’s the Court of Owls. The show’s second episode, “Scene of the Crime,” implied that Bruce’s murder was just another in a long line of Wayne murders at the hands of the Court. Whatever the Court is up to on Gotham Knights, it is directly tied to the Wayne family. While any adopted child of Bruce does fill that role, making it his biological child would make that conflict more immediately pressing. While Bruce might consider Turner to be his true son, the Court is almost certainly made up of rich elites who value things like bloodlines and lineage. If Damian were in Turner’s role, the threat of death from the Court becomes a lot more immediate and personal for him.
There most likely reason for the creation of Turner Hayes is not for any narrative reason but more of a rights reason. DC has a history of being stingy with its characters, often resisting having more than one version of a character in live-action at a time. The main four Robins are already being used by different projects. Titans has Dick, Jason, and Tim, and James Gunn and Peter Safran have plans for Damian in their new DC cinematic universe. It’s possible that Gotham Knights simply had no other option than to make up their own. But that doesn’t change the fact that Turner doesn’t seem particularly interesting when compared to the characters that came before him and the series has done nothing to make him stand out from his other fictional brothers. Maybe in time, he’ll be able to fill those shoes, but for now not using Damian seems like a major missed opportunity.
