Is it just me or has there been a lot of synergy between the in continuity films and the animated line?

I'm not just talking about the obvious use of New 52 costumes or Johns New 52 JL arcs being adapted by the films but also how the films inspire the comics.

Son of Batman: I hate this film with a passion. It effed over Damian's introduction and ruined Slade but since then we've got:

A) More Damian and Slade being involved with each other. Son of Batman #4, Deathstroke #4-5 of the Rebirth volume.

B) Slade was shown to be a past member of the league and was considered Ra's al Ghul's potential replacement in the final issues of the Bonny/Daniel Deathstroke run(#17-20).

C) Priests current Deathstroke vs Batman storyline(#30-35). Slade in the film implied that Talia could have been his now we find out they were lovers in the past as of this arc.

Batman vs Robin:

A)See King's Robin War crossover

B) See Seeley's Nightwing Rebirth #1 and Better than Batman (Nightwing 1-4), as well as Rise of Raptor (#7-8)storylines which were built off Robin War.

Damian being seduced by the Court, then you have Raptor who is the same character as Talon from the film. A mentor claiming to be Batman's better mentors a Robin (Dick in this case), he was a thief, tried to kill Bruce to get the Robin to join him and betrays the Court. The similarities are literally in your face.

Both the Teen Titans films: Damian joined the TT only after the films were released. Similarly The Lazarus Contract crossover which acts as a sequel of sorts to the Judas Contract arc was published just a few weeks after the Judas Contract adaptation. Both featured Damian who was not part of original story.

Bad Blood: Created a Bat family film with Batwoman and the Luke Fox Batwing. Now they're both part of Detective Comics which has become a Batfamily book.

Additionally DOS/Reign could act as Final Days/Rebirth/Reborn but more details on those will come over time.

Normally DC doesn't synergize their products but I find the synergy between their comics and incontinuity films to be quite interesting. If nothing else it allows us to make predictions.

So I'll make 2 here. In the future we might see a Secret Six film. They introduced Scandal Savage and Knockout in Hell to Pay and freed Deadshot from the Suicide Squad in said film. Then out of nowhere DC publishes a tie inn comic to Hell to Pay featuring Scandal and Bane. Hell to Pay itself was more like Secret Six film than a Suicide Squad film. And if we get a Secret Six film we might also see a return to the Six in the comics.

We might also get a Super Sons film once the dust settles after Reign.

Never thought about it this way but I think your right. There is definitely a case of synergy.

Yeah It's odd that there seem to be a lot of similarities. I wonder if it's a case of the company forcing that synergy or the writers watching those movies and thinking that there are some good ideas behind them that could be adapted.

@black_arrow: It could be a combination of both. For instance maybe writers wanted to introduce Damian to the TT for years but DC only relented after the animated films.

It could also be they feel that people watching animated films are more likely to pick up comics than tv, video game or film fans.

All of these observations and connections you have made sound plausible and more than likely hold some truth to them. I have never payed much attention to DC's animated films since they started adapting the New 52 stuff, so I never gave much thought to any similarities between the films and current comics, but reading through your list, it is hard to brush aside all of these parallels as simple coincidences. What I am wondering though is why would DC even bother ?

Their animated movies have been struggling to make 3-4 million as of late, and their budget has been getting major cut downs simply to increase their profit margin. Tying your mainline comics to the struggling animation department hardly seems like a sound decision. I think these parallels are more likely the result of creators watching these movies and incorporating some of their concepts into their work. The push for Damian to join the TT was probably the result of many factors like wanting to get him out of the main Batman book, alongside his inclusion in the TT's recent animated movies.

I think some of this is a coincidence. I mean Dick was connected with the court of owls before the movie was made, so it makes sense that they continue to use that direction. Rator was iirc quite different from Talon. And the whole evil mentor idea was btw. also done in Robin Year One and the Teen Titans catoon.

And DC has unfortunately in genral the tendency to retcon Assissins character to be LOA members even if these charaters had origianlly nothing to do with the LOA (Shiva, Sensei, David Cain, Cheshire ...), and Ras had over the year several other characters as potential replacements (Azrael and Bane for example).

That might be because these numbers are afaik only physical sales and not streaming. Which makes it hard to compare those numbers with the older movies.

@aahz: Dick was but Damian wasn't and Dick's connection was never really hinted upon. It was just some vague hint.

Raptor is closer to movie Talon than any other character. Movie Talon somewhat resembles Cobb and Calvin Rose which can be easily explained as they're the most known versions but characterwise they're both thieves, they're both associated with the Court, they both betrayed the Court, they both tried to get a Robin to join them, they both tried to kill Bruce too. I'm aware that the movies themselves may have been inspired by comics. BVR obviously was based on COO, Born to Kill and had a 666 tease but I'm referring to how much the comics have been inspired by the films. Movie Talon is closer to Raptor than Deathstroke or Nobody whom you can consider other candidates for the mentor archetype.

Also while what you about LOA is true as well as Ra's al Ghul's quest for an alternate heir, in Deathstroke's case however all these developments came after SOB and quickly I might add, just 4 years to be exact.

Dicks connection to the court was allready established in the Nightwing story line that ran parallel to the main COO event.

I think in some cases those stuff was kind of a logical development out of what was previously set up or based on current trends (having Batwoman and Batwing in Bad Blood and Tec might both be due to them wanting to bring more minority characters in the Batman franchise) and just done in the movies first.

The only case were I really think that it was intentional is Teen Titans where they went with a line up close to the movies and added with Aqualad a character how is also mostly popular for his appearance in animation.

@aahz: That storyline in question only stated that Dick would have been a Talon if not for Bruce adopting him (which doesn't make much sense but whatever).

The movie has far more overlaps with Robin War and Better than Batman.