Batman
Real name: Bruce Wayne
First Appearance: Detective
Comics #27 (May 1939)
Residential area: Gotham City, USA
Occupation: Multimillionaire Industrialist, Playboy and
Philanthropist
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Thomas Wayne (father; deceased); Martha Wayne
(mother; deceased), Philip Wayne (uncle), Jack Wayne (grandfather),
Laura Elizabeth Wayne (great-grandmother)
Hair color: black
Eye color: blue
History:
Young Bruce Wayne was the only son of prominent Gotham City doctor
Thomas Wayne and his wife, Martha Wayne. Two events in his childhood
forever scarred his future. The first was when he accidentally fell
through a hole in the grounds of his ancestral home, the Wayne
Manor, and found himself in a cave system that ran under the house
full of bats. For years afterwards Bruce would catch sight of one
particularly large bat repeatedly.
The second and most tragic event happened just after the family had
left a showing of the classic film, "The Mark of Zorro" starring
Douglas Fairbanks, at the cinema and were walking back to their
home. They were confronted by a mugger who demanded that they handed
over their valuables. Thomas Wayne put up a struggle and in the
process he and his wife was shot dead. The mugger ran off leaving
the shocked Bruce alone with the bodies of his dead parents. First
on the scene was physician Leslie Thompkins who sought to look after
Bruce.
Thomas's brother Phil Wayne was named Bruce's guardian and with the
help of Thompkins and the family butler Alfred Pennyworth they
raised him as best they could. For days after the funeral Bruce was
unsettled, it came to a head one night when he ran to his parents
grave and swore his vengeance on the criminal world. On that night
Bruce Wayne died and the Batman was born.
Bruce put his utmost into his school work and upon graduation he
left the US to travel the world learning from the brightest and the
best in each field of speciality. He also travelled to remote
schools on the Far East and studied for years under the masters of
the various martial arts. Upon returning to the United States, he
set out on a fact-finding mission into the depraved parts of
Gotham's seedier districts to see how the criminal element had
evolved. While there he became involved in a street brawl where he
was seriously injured. He managed to make his way back to Wayne
Manor and slumped in his study slowly bleeding he considered the
situation. He was injured because the local criminals would not fear
him as plain common man on the street, yet his father always
maintained that criminals were a superstitious and cowardly lot. He
needed to make them fear...but how?
It was then at that instance that the large bat that had frightened
him years ago flew in through the window, through his weakened state
from the bleeding the answer was obvious. "Yes father. I shall
become a bat!" It was then that the true idea of the Batman formed
in Bruce's mind.
With the help of Alfred, Bruce built a path from the house down to
the massive caverns beneath, establishing a massive network within
the caves, and from there he began planning and designing the
weaponry and costume that would give him the edge against the
criminals and would instil terror upon sight. Before long GCPD began
to receive reports of a large bat shaped creature attacking and
harrying the local hoods and criminals. The corrupt police force at
that time sought to hunt down the Batman but one lone lieutenant by
the name of James Gordon who was one of the few straight cops began
a long running professional relationship with the Batman that would
lead to the down fall of the corrupt police commissioner and Gordon
advancing to the rank of Captain.
Rapidly Batman started to grow more professional and competent, he
became the focus of the fight against crime in Gotham and acted as a
catalyst for the emergence of a string of similar vigilantes across
the US such as the second Black Canary, that took their lead from
the human figure in the night rather than the superhuman figure of
Superman. Always operating on the edge of the law and inside of it
when possible it was not long before Batman clashed intellects with
the figure that would become his arch enemy and one of the most
deadly criminals in the world - the Joker. Also about this time
Batman started to run into the mysterious Catwoman, while there was
an attraction between them neither would admit to it and remained on
opposite sides of the law.
In the second year of his career Batman faced the Reaper who had
returned to Gotham City and sought to kill criminals whereas the
Batman would seek to hand them over to the police. The following
year proved to be a turning point in the Batman's career when he
teamed up with the orphaned circles acrobat Dick Grayson who became
the first Robin and the sidekick of Batman, and today has taken up
the role of Nightwing.
The next couple of years after the first appearance of Robin were a
dramatic change of direction for the Batman who had previously spent
most of his time fighting normal criminals but now he faced an
entire pantheon of sociopathic criminals such as the Penguin,
Riddler, the Scarecrow and the femme fatale Poison Ivy. Shortly
after Dick Grayson left for collage (and began spending more time
with the Teen Titans) Batman transferred his operation temporally to
a penthouse in the city above the Wayne Foundation headquarters, it
was during this time that Batman would first encounter Talia
daughter of Ra's Al-Ghul a six hundred year old criminal mastermind
who sought to rid the natural world of the infestation of mankind.
There is a definitive romantic element between Bruce and Talia but
she is so devoted to her father then nothing ever becomes of it.
Ra's and Batman respect each other and Ra's has even asked Batman to
join him, but Bruce's dedication to the law has meant that he has at
times had to thwart Ra's' plans despite working with him against
common enemies at other times.
The pairing of Batman and Robin was occasionally helped by a growing
circle of other heroes that Batman tolerated/recognized such as
Batgirl (Barbara Gordon, daughter of Commissioner Gordon) and the
Outsiders, the superhero team that Batman was instrumental in
creating after becoming dissatisfied with their refraining from
dealing with political world affairs. Shortly afterwards Batman and
Robin split over a philosophical dispute (the criminals were getting
more dangerous and Batman did not want to endanger Robin anymore
than he had to). Robin changed his identity to Nightwing and
returned to his position as leader of the Titans.
Batman largely left his role as team leader of the Outsiders after 3
years, and gave the leadership job to Geo-Force. He returned a year
after leaving for a few more adventures before devoting full time
teamwork to the newly assembled Justice League America.
The Batman for a time operated with a second Robin, a young street
kid by the name of Jason Todd whose father had been killed by
Two-Face, a fact that Batman kept from him for a period of time.
Todd was more rebellious than Grayson and had a lot of misdirected
anger than Bruce tried to channel into crimefighting. It reached the
point where Todd was grounded by Wayne rather than let this hothead
loose in the deadly world of Gotham City. Shortly afterwards Todd
was murdered by the Joker while looking for his natural mother (who
was also murdered at the same time) he never knew he had.
The loss of Todd turned the Batman into a darker figure than ever,
he dived into his work returning to the solitary figure that he was
before he teamed up with a sidekick. During this period the Batman
developed a second wave of enemies such as the Ventriloquist and
Kadaver, he also took in a tragic figure called Harold once the
armour for the Penguin he now works in the Batcave designing and up
keeping much of the Batman's weaponry. The dark drive of the Batman
was noticed by young Tim Drake, a boy that had actually managed to
work out Batman's secret identity via close observation of the
gymnastic abilities of Robin I (Tim had been watching the circus the
day that Dick's parents were murdered). Tim set out to try and
convince Dick that he should return to being Robin because Batman
needed a stabilizing presence, someone for him to watch out for. In
the process Tim accidentally became the third Robin.
Refusing to make previous mistakes the Batman insisted that Tim
train with the same people that taught himself, Tim also studied
under some that Batman had never encountered. The result was the
third Robin who is much nearer Batman's own abilities than that of
the second and perhaps even the first.
Batman faced the toughest moment of his career when already pushed
to the limit by a mass breakout of Arkham Asylum and then had to
face the massively powerful Bane, who broke Bruce's back. While
Bruce recovered from his injuries Azrael took over the mantel of the
Batman however his mental conditioning started to kick in and made
him more and more unstable to the point where he was on the edge of
literally executing criminals. It was at this stage the Bruce
managed to take back the mantle by taking down Azrael.
Now back as Batman full time he has also started working with more
heroes again developing quite a circle of vigilantes in and around
Gotham including Robin III, Huntress II, Nightwing, Azrael II,
Oracle (the former Batgirl) and sometimes even Catwoman. The Batman
also serves as an adviser and occasional active member of the new
JLA.
Copyright Avi Green. All rights reserved.
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