| Batman | |
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/16/Batman_%28Thomas_Wayne%29.jpg/290px-Batman_%28Thomas_Wayne%29.jpg | |
| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Flashpoint #1 (July 2011) |
| Created by | Geoff Johns Andy Kubert Brian Azzarello Eduardo Risso (based on the original character created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Gardner Fox) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Dr. Thomas Wayne |
| Team affiliations | Wayne Enterprises |
| Supporting character of | Batman (Bruce Wayne) Flash Bane |
Batman (Thomas Wayne) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Geoff Johns (writer) and Andy Kubert (artist), he made his first appearance in Flashpoint #1 (July 2011). He is a hardened version of Thomas Wayne seen in Geoff Johns's alternate timeline comic Flashpoint (2011) whose son was killed instead of Martha Wayne and himself. His character returned to the main DC Universe in DC Rebirth as a revived amalgamation of his original self that was killed by Joe Chill and the Flashpoint Batman that was killed by Eobard Thawne in a storyline revolving around the "Smiley-face" button from Watchmen.
Background
Flashpoint
An alternate reality version of Thomas Wayne appears as the Flashpoint version of Batman. In this continuity, Thomas turns into a crime-fighting vigilante after he and Martha Wayne witness their son Bruce Wayne murdered by a gunman. When Barry Allen enters the Batcave, Batman attacks Allen, but is surprised to hear Barry call him Bruce, with the revelation that Bruce died years ago allowing Barry to deduce that Thomas is Batman rather than his son. Allen reveals to the alternate Batman that the timeline has been altered. Batman stops fighting and asks Barry the details of his son's life after his mainstream counterpart's own death. Willing to change history and ready to sacrifice his own life to restore his son's, Batman helps Barry build a device to recreate the accident behind Barry's speed powers.
This iteration of Batman is the subject of the mini-series Flashpoint: Batman - Knight of Vengeance, written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Eduardo Risso (in a story set after his first attempt to restore Barry's powers). Azzarello stated that Wayne does not care about crime outside Gotham City and that he funds his war on crime with his successful casinos. Batman works with James Gordon, the chief of Gotham's privatized police who appears to be aware of his identity. Oswald Cobbelpot is his security chief, mainly handling the casinos while Batman fights crime. The local judge Harvey Dent is distressed when the judge's twin children are kidnapped by the Joker, threatening Wayne with legal action. Gordon calls Batman and tries to convince him that he does not have to fight villains alone. Without Batman's help, Gordon tries to stop the Joker once and for all but is trapped and killed. The Joker is then revealed to be none other than Martha driven insane by grief following Bruce's murder. Batman cannot bring himself to kill the Joker, as he feels responsible for the Joker's crimes. After Batman saves one of Dent's children who had accidentally been shot by Gordon during a rescue attempt, Batman resumes pursuing the Joker. During a showdown, Batman reveals his recent discovery that they were supposed to die that night at Crime Alley and how they are alive now. Batman promises the Joker that he will do whatever it takes to bring Bruce back, even if it costs their lives; Batman's revelation apparently restores Martha's sanity and seemingly reconciles. But when Martha asks what their son turns into after their counterparts' deaths and Batman reveals, Martha hysterically flees from Batman and falls to death through the same hole that their son once fell into as a child.
After a second attempt successfully restores Barry's powers, Batman works with the Flash to rally a team to oppose Eobard Thawne's changes to history. Batman contacts Cyborg for help in tracking down the government branch "Project: Superman", only to be disappointed at Kal-El's frail appearance. Kal-El's powers manifest after being exposed to sunlight and flies away. After escaping Project Superman with the help of Element Woman, the Flash's memories change more drastically, forcing Batman to attempt to prevent the speedster's memories from altering. Batman injects the Flash with a drug that slows down electrical activity in the brain. After Hal Jordan's death during an attempt to stop the World War between the Amazonians and Atlanteans, the Flash elects to try to save this altered world, to which Batman joins the Flash as the group heads to New Themyscira in Batman's plane and are joined by Enchantress. During the final battle with both Wonder Woman and Aquaman, the battle seems to be in their team's favor until Billy Batson's death and Eobard finally appears. Batman stabs Professor Zoom in the back using an Amazonian sword and learns that altered timeline was actually created by the Flash as part of an attempt to save Nora Allen. Before acting on this new information, Batman is fatally wounded by the traitorous Enchantress. Before the Flash leaves to try and restore the old world, Batman thanks and gives the Flash a letter to his son, expressing his confidence that Barry will recreate the better world the Flash has spoken of and expressing his regret for what will happen to Nora. Despite Pandora's actions resulting in the Flash's failure of restoring the original continuum, Thomas’s will is done regardless as his son is alive as Batman in another alternate timeline. Barry gives Thomas's letter to Bruce Wayne and that the timeline could not have been restored without Thomas's help.
Thomas's letter encourages Bruce Wayne to accept their deaths and move on, as well as motivating Batman to pursue a closer relationship with his own son, and keeps the letter as a part of the Batcave's display dedicated to his parents' memory.
Convergence
In the Convergence crossover, when the alternate Brainiac miniaturized the reality of the Flashpoint universe, Thomas Wayne had returned alongside Captain Thunder, Kal-El, Abin Sur and Cyborg. Thomas prepares for war against the Pre-Flashpoint Gotham City. He ponders if this Gotham City belongs to the same world that both Flash comes from and where Bruce is alive. Thomas also mentioned that he is unsure of his being "dead" in battle and forced to fight their opposite Superman by the voice of Telos. While he watched digital renderings in the Batcave of the Pre-Flashpoint heroes against Superman, he was confronted by Kal-El asking to help the other-reality Lois Lane's pregnancy and convinces him that the other-reality heroes are not enemies. Superman arrives and pulls his counterpart elsewhere. Thomas is willing to help and successfully helps Lois give birth to their son. While leaving them pleasurable, Thomas then tells Superman that he has to protect the newborn child which Superman agrees. Following the conclusion of the Convergence, all parallel universes and alternate timelines are restored and composed as the new multiverse, including the Flashpoint reality and thus Thomas remain exist as the result.
DC Rebirth - Death
Subsequently, in DC Rebirth, Flashpoint Batman (Thomas Wayne) is mentioned by Wally West in the Batcave from the Speed Force to tell Batman (Bruce Wayne) about Thomas's letter saying how it all started and warned the Flash before the Speed Force pulled Wally away. Before Batman specified, he discovered a mysterious button embedded to the Batcave wall and pryes the button out. Later, Batman and the Flash agree to keep their investigation to themselves until they knew who or what against an impending threat after the evidence of the button from outside force.
While Batman (Bruce Wayne) still puzzled about the button, it reaction to Psycho-Pirate's mask summons the Flashpoint Batman (Thomas Wayne), his son slowly reaches out a hand to him, only for the Flashpoint Batman to vanish as Batman makes contact. Batman contacted the Flash about the button, but Eobard Thawne attacks Batman in the Batcave while Flash is busy. Thawne nearly kills Batman and destroys Thomas's letter as revenge for Thomas killing Thawne, provoking Batman to try and attack only to be outpaced by Thawne's speed. When Thawne picks up the button, Thawne is briefly teleported away, returning with his entire body mutilated by an impending threat that he vaguely identifies as "God" before he seemingly dies.
After traveling on the Cosmic treadmill, the Flash and Batman find themselves in the presence of Batman's Flashpoint "counterpart". Prior to their arrival and after the Flash left to undo the events of Flashpoint, Thomas found that the Flashpoint timeline was not erased yet as the Flash intended, and instead was forced to live out the remainder of Aquaman and Wonder Woman's war. Left to ponder in the Batcave, Thomas waited for the joint Atlantean and Amazonian hit squad to arrive so he may sacrifice himself and them with explosives, until he encounters the Flash and Batman. He believes the two are hallucinations until the Flash briefs him on their situation.
Thomas teams up with his son to hold off the Atlantean-Amazonian hit squad to give the Flash time to fix the Cosmic treadmill. The two Batmen reminisce about their first visit to the cave, and Thomas learns from Batman that he has a grandson. As soon as the Flash finished the repairs, Batman pleads with Thomas to come with him. Despite his desire to be with his son again, Thomas pushes Batman onto the Cosmic treadmill, imploring the latter to find happiness and be the father to son that Thomas could never be for him, and to let 'the Batman' die with him. As the Flash and Batman disappear, Thomas is satisfied of seeing his son alive and accepts his fate; he hopes that Bruce would move on from the past. He throws his explosive trigger away and puts his cowl back on, reminiscing about the inspiring words he gave to Bruce as a child, and jumping into the white void that is erasing the Flashpoint universe with his last words being "We rise".
His Return and Plot for Despair
Despite this, Thomas is later revealed to have survived the attack, appearing in the main timeline in an alliance with Bane; he was first shown appearing alongside the other villains in Arkham Asylum after the failed wedding between Catwoman and his son. His stated goal was to break his son's will as Batman, through methods such as psychically convincing Catwoman to end her relationship with Bruce, so that Bruce would abandon his life as Batman as Thomas wished. Once he judged Bruce to be suitably psychologically broken, he broke into the Batcave, knocked out Alfred, and trapped his son in a nightmarish sequence in Arkham Asylum. Once Bruce escaped, Thomas met him directly with the offer of restoring Martha to life so that they could be a family again, but Bruce rejected this offer, proclaiming that his father failed to understand that his goal as Batman was to hope for the future. Returning to Gotham after apparently defeating his son, Thomas set out to reconstruct the city in his image, using the Psycho-Pirate to convert the city's villains into his enforcers, but Alfred- who Thomas had left mentally free if imprisoned at Wayne Manor as an apparent hostage to prevent retaliation from Batman's allies- informed Thomas that his son was going to destroy him when he finally returned to Gotham. Thomas maintains control using Gotham Girl as his enforcer and the Psycho-Pirate to moderate the villains, issuing orders that any heroes entering Gotham will be expelled while villains contained, to the point that Gotham Girl is able to defeat Captain Atom when he tries to confront her.
In other media
Television
Live action
- In the television series The Flash, the Earth-2 version of Robert Queen is the Green Arrow after his son Oliver Queen's death, similar to Batman's reversal in Flashpoint.
Film
Animation
- The Flashpoint iteration of Batman appears in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, voiced by Kevin McKidd. Just like in the original Flashpoint storyline, Thomas Wayne turns into a crime-fighting vigilante after his son's death while Martha Wayne goes insane as the Joker. Batman doesn't care about crime outside Gotham City and has his successful casinos fund his seemingly fruitless fight on crime. Despite his cynical outlook, Batman reluctantly assist Barry Allen with a device to recreate the accident behind Barry's powers as a speedster. After the first attempt fails and the second attempt restores Barry's powers, Batman and the Flash contact Cyborg for help in tracking down the government branch that hid the frail Kal-El. When Kal-El's freedom failed along with Flash's painful altered memories, the alternate Dark Knight tries to prevent the speedster's mental deterioration with his son's memory. As the World War between Aquaman and Wonder Woman reaches its breaking point, Cyborg's crude team heads to the final battle in Batman's plane. During the chaos, Batman and Grifter kill off Black Manta to which Batman dryly refers to Grifter as the "boy idiot" before the alternate Dark Knight gets injured by the Ocean Master. In the middle of Professor Zoom's monologue to Flash, Batman shoots the evil speedster in the head. Before Flash escapes the alternate world, Thomas gives the speedster a letter for his son. In the New 52 universe, Barry gives Thomas's letter to Batman (Bruce Wayne).
- The Flashpoint iteration of Batman makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay where he is shown in Eobard Thawne's flashback; Deadshot acknowledges Batman's fatal shot with respect.
Video games
- The Flashpoint version of Batman's outfit is one of the playable costumes for Batman (Bruce Wayne) in Injustice: Gods Among Us.
- The Flashpoint version of Batman's outfit is available as downloadable content (DLC) for Batman (Bruce Wayne) in Batman: Arkham Knight.