BEING A SLIGHT EXPLANATION OF THE REAL STORIES
OF SOME COMIC BOOK "SUPERHEROES" IN THE WNU
Part One
Marvelous, Fantastic Heroes
A graphic of the Batman family tree is available.
The subject of this section does not have any "super" powers yet in many ways he is the most super hero of them all. Batman is perhaps the most extraordinary of the subjects in this survey in that he has fought and successfully defeated super powered villains and monsters without any special powers of his own. Batman does not even have the beneficial mutations of the Wold Newton family [1] that the heroes as Doc Savage, Tarzan or even the Spider possessed. Bruce Wayne was in many ways the epitome of what a human could become with focused self-discipline. This is not to say that he did not possess the gifts of genius or a genetic heritage of health and fitness but these traits were the result of natural selection rather than the result of mutation.
The child of a wealthy physician and a society debutante, Bruce Wayne had a happy, affluent childhood until he saw his parents murdered before his eyes by a laughing gunman. His childhood ended when his parents were buried. It was then that his life long crusade against crime began. Using his wealth he subjected himself to a regime of training with which James Clarke Wildman sr. would have been pleased. Bruce Wayne became a master detective as well as one of the world's greatest masters of martial arts.
Despite Bruce Wayne's focus on learning the skills and crafts he thought he needed to fight crime, when the time came to start his career, he was at a loss as to how about going to do it. Although there had been costumed vigilantes before him, Bruce Wayne had thought them rather silly. Yet he realized that the costumed identity allowed the vigilante to do things he could not do undisguised. When a bat crashed through his window, he saw it as an omen. A bat was frightening to most people, it was a creature of the night and like justice it was blind.
After designing and donning the Bat-Man costume, Bruce Wayne carried a gun for a few cases and even used it on occasion. He finally decided that using a firearm and the taking of life was too much of a temptation. He did not want to sink to the level of a trigger-happy murderer, like his contemporary The Spider. Although Bruce Wayne had fully intended to embark on his quest for justice alone and had steeled himself to carry out his mission with an intense dispassionate focus, he could not fully control his emotions. Taking his inspiration from the Zorro character he made the public Bruce Wayne a business savvy, flamboyant playboy. In carrying out this pretense, he fell in love with a young woman named Julie Madison and found himself engaged. Had Bruce Wayne not gotten seriously involved with a woman, it is possible that his driven dedication would have turned him into the obsessed vigilante he is portrayed in books and films of the present era.
Another mediating factor was that he took on a partner and son; something he would never had dreamed of doing.
In late 1939 while Batman was investigating the activities of a protection racket run by a mysterious Boss Zucco, his investigation lead him to the Haley Circus, or as we should call it by its true name the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus. He discovered that John and Mary Grayson, the star high wire act, had been murdered when their trapeze rigs had been tampered with. This was an example of how far Boss Zucco was willing to go to make his point.
The circus owner caved into his demands after that.[2] Dick Grayson overheard the conversation between the circus owner and the representative of Boss Zucco. Batman saw the young man hop onto the back of the car of the crooks carrying away the payoff. He followed discreetly. The men in the roadster made a couple of other stops and noticed their stowaway. They began to manhandle Dick Grayson and had finally decided to kill him when Batman interfered. Batman made the crooks flee the scene but lost them when he attended to the boy. Batman asked Grayson what he had planned to do. Grayson said was going to trail the crooks to Boss Zucco and tell the police where he was located.
This boy whose parents had been killed by criminals struck a resonate chord with Batman. He also had an idea of the boy's skills having seen his performances. Bruce was slightly acquainted with him, Dick Grayson having aided Bruce Wayne against some thugs at the World's Fair. He explained to the Grayson that unfortunately, Boss Zucco was one of those criminals who left very little solid evidence that could be traced to directly to him. He was regarded as a pillar of the community so there had to overwhelming evidence to get the police to investigate claims against him. Grayson's efforts would only make him a target for Boss Zucco's organization.
Batman agreed to train the boy to teach him the skills necessary to fight crime in general while he learned enough to gather evidence against Boss Zucco. Dick Grayson became more than a mere student, he became his partner and eventually his adopted son. The adoption probably took place in the mid-forties after Bruce Wayne had married Julie Madison.
According to the comic
book history Boss Zucco was eventually exposed and incriminated and died in the
electric chair. Actually Boss Zucco was shot and killed by one of his henchmen,
manipulated into the act by Nero Wolfe. Boss Zucco was in reality, Adolphus
Zecchino who ran up against Sherlock Holmes circa 1892.[3]
He later moved to the
Dick Grayson adopted the nom de guerre Robin. In accord with his circus tradition he chose a costume that was colorful and bright which made a perfect counterpoint to Batman's dark outfit. The colorful costume made Robin's opponents underestimate his abilities. Robin battled crooks and their henchmen with a cheery brashness that was in part because he was a child and in part of his heritage.
In addition to fighting routine crimes, Batman and Robin also fought villains, warped in mind and body. Like many of these individuals they tended to become obsessive-compulsive monomaniacs, focusing on one aspect of their personality and letting that become the guiding principle in their lives. They also tended to focus their hatred and thoughts of revenge on one person or groups of persons. Batman and Robin became the lucky recipients a number of individuals just like Bruce Wayne's cousin, Dick Tracy[5] was the object of obsessive hatred by a gallery of rogues, as Superman was the obsession of Toyman, The Prankster, etc.
First and foremost was
the Joker. There have been a few origins of the Joker given in the comics and
film stories and some hit very close to the mark. The Joker's was Joseph Napier
[6]
he was a highly intelligent and physically strong man who never applied himself
to either scholarly pursuits or manual labor. He instead became an entertainer,
his act was singing and comedy; not spectacular- but not bad either. He
was able to gather enough of a following in the 1920's to have a career working
in the speakeasies and blind pig nightclubs. Joe was full of himself, he
thought he was smarter and slicker than anyone around him. He signed contracts
to play at clubs and when he was bored he would bolt to another. Since mobsters
owned the clubs, he arranged to get protection from his new boss every time he
bolted. Among the many reasons that he bolted was that he would skim cash, mess
around with the molls and blab the bootlegger's business. Joe's luck ran out
while up north playing in clubs run by a
This was circa 1928. Tom Powers discovered Joe talking to a rival, while mocking the Boss. Tom Powers decided to show that he was not an object of ridicule. Inspired by the current film, The Man Who Laughed, Powers ordered that Joe have his mouth and cheeks slashed and cut to form a permanent grin. His voice box was punctured. He was then dropped in a powerful bleaching solution that removed all of the pigment from his skin and hair. When Joe amazed the Boss by living through his ordeal he dumped him in the harbor.
Joe Napier had a surge
of strength as he lay on a dock. He wrested a gun away from a gunman and
blasted away. He managed to wound Powers and two of his henchmen. Joe Napier
was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Shawshank prison. After a month or so
he was almost killed by poisoning. Large amounts of copper sulfate had been
added to his food. Although he lived through the poisoning his hair and nails
began to grow in a bright green shade but no one could ever explain this
inexplicable event other than it had something to do with the high copper
content of his body. His stay at Shawshank was a living nightmare, his
grotesque appearance and physically weak body made him a primary target of the
"sisters", a group of inmates who took great pleasure in beating and
raping weaker inmates. Joe Napier died in Shawshank-
and the Joker was born. It may have been the hideous experiences of his life
coupled with the toxicity of the copper in his system than turned Joe Napier
into a full-blown psychopath. His intelligence turned to mad genius and he
created a highly toxic gas that left its victims grinning in rictus. Why he
came to
Although Batman and
Robin easily thwarted the Joker's first caper, it created another lifelong nemesis
of Batman. The prosecutor for the state's case against the Joker was Harvey
Kent, a descendant of Philip Kent[7]
and a very distant one of the prize winning journalist. During the trial the
Joker sprayed
Harvey Kent developed
schizophrenia or had a pre-existing disassociative disorder. There is some
evidence to suggest that even prior to his scarring that
Harvey Kent became Two-Face and in this instance the comics were about on the money. He did indeed dress in clothes that were half rags and half expensive cloth and he flipped a scarred coin to decide important issues.
The third grotesque in
Batman and Robin's gallery of rogues was the Penguin. Oswald Cobblepot was a
failed ornithologist. He had been kicked out of college because he had run a
fencing operation out of his dormitory room. Although Oswald affected an
English accent he was in fact from
He turned the hated nickname into a named to be respected or at least feared in the criminal world. Oswald dressed as a man of substance wearing a tuxedo, top hat, cane or umbrella. Although mainly a fence, Oswald did plan and execute some very elaborate heists. He was known for not using deadly force unless absolutely necessary to achieve the objective. He however did not refrain from using deadly force against those who tried to double deal or short shrift him.
Another scholar turned
villain was the frightening Jonathan Crane, also known as The Scarecrow. He had
developed a gas that would unleash a person's worst nightmares and used this to
blackmail several prominent citizens. Jonathan Crane was a practicing
Psychologist and a Professor of Psychology at
Another major villain
to bother Batman and Robin was The Catwoman. The comics originally portrayed
her as a shapely blond jewel thief infatuated with Batman. She was later
portrayed as a dark haired jewel thief with an infatuation for Batman. This was
closer to the truth. Selina Kyle was in fact named Khefretari, a Coptic-African
from the lost city of
A lot had happened in the year between when Bruce Wayne and Khefretari had parted company. He had acquired a wife and a partner and she was no longer Regent of Memnon, her brother having returned from being educated abroad and having achieved suitable age to assume the duties of Pharaoh. He had charged her to retrieve all of the artifacts stolen from Memnon. Since for the most part secret lost cities from Ancient Egypt do not usually have foreign embassies or diplomatic relations, Khefretari was forced to become a thief for most of these artifacts were held for by museums, private collectors and universities. If she could barter for one she would but she was not above stealing to get the artifacts back.
She adopted Selina Kyle,[9] a name to better fit in with the western world but even so her ethnicity and skin color were still remained barriers. It was because she was African she was often denied access to the offices or boardrooms of the institutions that held the artifacts. She later learned to disguise herself using make-up to appear as a dark skinned Caucasian or Latin. It is because of her ethnicity that even while gathering together a "gang”, that is hiring professional thieves to partake in robberies, she would wear a full mask shaped like a cat's head and full gloves equipped with claws. She did often have pet cats which was not unusual given her Egyptian background. She also rescued big cats that were being abused when she heard about them, using funds to have them relocated to zoos or returned to their natural environments.
As long as she stole objects that had belonged to Memnon, Batman looked the other way but when she stole objects to be used as barter to acquire other pieces he felt compelled to stop her. He underestimated her willingness to fight back against him and was caught in a net. While he was entangled she kissed him. A powerful and undeniable attraction still existed between them.
Although nothing happened between Bruce and Selina, the rumors of a romance between Batman and The Catwoman did cause a strain on his marriage. An additional strain was the activities of a woman who called herself the Batwoman. Like the Catwoman she had an infatuation with Batman, although she did not know his identity. The Batwoman would show up at crime scenes and "help" out. Batman considered her an interfering pest and was able to stop her activities when Robin revealed that he recognized her from his circus days. Robin's revelation of her identity made Batman a bit uneasy, for he had felt some attraction for her. She was his second cousin from his mother's side of the family. Batman threatened to expose Batwoman as Kathy Kane unless she quit.
Julie Madison's film career as Portia Storm was slowing down in the mid-forties it was this reason and the appearances of these costumed temptresses that caused her to put her film career on hold and become more of a homebody, playing the role of a socialite's wife.
Batman and Robin
fought the major villains listed above several times between 1939 and 1942. By
this time the Second World War was an ongoing concern and Robin was growing up.
Batman concentrated his attention on saboteurs or on home front war profiteers.
A few times he was sent to
Defending herself she defeated the robber and stopped the robbery. She had training in gymnastics, dancing and fisticuffs and so devised a unique fighting style. Although Robin resented her intrusions at first, he soon saw the benefits of having a partner. He offered to train her and she jumped at the chance. A strong physical and emotional attraction arose between the teenaged Robin and the Bat-Girl.
Bat-Girl would prove
to be none other than Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Police Commissioner
Gordon.[11]
She had just recently returned to
In 1945 with the war
winding down, Batman once again took more direct involvement with the crime
situation in
For the next two years
Batman and Robin with the occasional help of Bat-Girl fought a variety of
menaces to
Lois urged Julie to discuss these problems with Bruce but Julie believed it would be too distracting for Bruce and in his line of work distraction could have meant death.
After Dick Grayson
entered
With Dick out of the
house, Julie Madison had hoped that Bruce and she would spend more time
together. They did so at first. As if inspired by
In 1951, Julie Madison feeling increasingly suffocated as a socialite wife and as a mother, began a career in modeling over Bruce Wayne's objections. After a year of this exposure, she once again began receiving film offers and she revived her career as Portia Storm. Despite her beauty and charm, Julie Madison was not a talented actress and most of her work was confined to b-movie roles. However she enjoyed her new freedom and filed for divorce from Bruce Wayne in 1952. Bruce retained primary custody of Bruce Jr. at the mother's request.
Bruce and Alfred Beagle raised Bruce with some input from Julie; there was however a female presence in Wayne Manor provided by Dick Grayson's elderly great-aunt Harriet who had fallen on bad times. Bruce invited her to stay at Wayne Manor until she could get on her feet, fully expecting her to live out the rest of her life there.
Bruce adventures as
Batman began to take him farther from
The international criminal was from the East, a man who was said to possess the secrets of immortality, a man of corruption and honor, a master manipulator whose plans always seem to be undone by the lesser intelligent. A man bent on world conquest but was willing to achieve his goal slowly and methodically. He was a man who thought nothing of using a combination of drugs and hypnosis to make his daughter fall madly in love with a man she had never met. The comic book stories of Batman call this master villain Ras Al Ghul, The Lord of the Demons.[13]
Ras Al Ghul had begun
manipulating events shortly after the separation of Julie Madison and Bruce
Wayne. In 1952 Bruce Wayne and Batman went to
In reality Heinrich Franz had been "programmed" to commit these acts in the hopes that it would bring Bruce Wayne or the Batman to the film set. It was a small matter for Bruce Wayne's food to be drugged and for him to believe he had a sexual dream about his separated wife. In truth however it was Talia, Ras Al Ghul’s daughter who visited Bruce Wayne that night and slept with him, leaving him with a posthypnotic suggestion that it had all been a dream about Julie.[14]
Ras Al Ghul engineered
the encounter with the hopes of creating a heir to his empire, an heir that
would combine the superb intellect, physique and fighting abilities of Wane
with those of the incredible genius of Dr. Fu Manchu Ras Al Ghul’s
daughter Talia was not the physical offspring of Ras
Al Ghul but rather of Fu Manchu. Ras Al Ghul had been given the female infant
to raise as part of an agreement in which Ras Al Ghul gave Fu Manchu some tomes
containing arcane lore. Talia or Te Liu’s
mother was also descended from a group of superlative fighters. Ras Al Ghul
believed that that
Unfortunately Te Liu did not conceive of child, although she did fall in love with Bruce Wayne. She readily acquiesced to her father’s plans to use her as an instrument to seduce him into their organization.
From 1953 to 1955 Ras Al Ghul tried to bring Batman into his organization, wishing him become his heir and aid in Ras Al Ghul plans rather than attempting to thwart them.
Despite a strong but strange attraction to Te Liu, (possibly brought on by his unknowing encounter with her) Bruce would have nothing to do with Ras Al Ghul’s schemes. Te Liu's attempts to seduce him in fact made his thoughts turn to another exotic beauty from his past, his first love and perhaps his true love, Selina Kyle. He began to correspond with her during her prison stay. Selina told Bruce that the reason she had voluntarily surrendered to the police for her thefts was because she loved him. She knew that she would never be fully respected by Bruce Wayne unless she atoned for her crimes. Since she had finished retrieving the objects stolen from her homeland by the relic hunter Dent she needed to end her career. Even though at the time she had gone to prison it had seemed even less likely that she and Bruce would ever be together.
When Selina Kyle was released from prison in 1955, Bruce Wayne was there to greet her. He offered her a job as Chief of Security at Wayne Inc, feeling that her skills at breaking into buildings could be used to keep others out. Working in close proximity kindled a long burning passion and in a few months, Bruce Wayne shocked the world by marrying the ex-jewel thief Selina Kyle. The union was deemed even more shocking because of her ethnicity, which she no longer made any attempt to hide.
The marriage of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle caused a bit of a rift between Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne because in his eyes she was a convicted felon. Instead of returning to Wayne Manor, Dick Grayson stuck out on his own forming a law partnership with Horace Cranston, a relative of socialite Lamont Cranston. Dick Grayson married his long time girlfriend Barbara Gordon in 1955 a few months before Bruce had married Selina Kyle.
shortly after her marriage Barbara Grayson became a mother, giving birth to Angela Grayson in 1956. Bat-Girl retired for a while and Barbara concentrated on her career as a librarian.
Bruce Wayne continued to fight crime as a solo act during this tumultuous time, although he was training Bruce Wayne jr. to become the second Robin when he became old enough. Bruce sustained quite a few injuries from 1955 to 1961, although he had curtailed some but not all of his activities after his daughter Helena had been born in 1957.
In 1961, Bruce Wayne decided to end his career as Batman. He made an effort to reconcile with Dick, which turned out to be much easier than he thought it would be. Marriage, fatherhood and the birth of an adoptive sister had changed Dick's mind about Bruce's marriage to Selina Kyle. Bruce informed Dick that he was going to hang up the cowl, he was just too old and beat up to function as a costumed vigilante anymore. He wanted Dick to become the next Batman
Bruce Wayne moved into
the public arena, he had, despite knowing of the man's flaws, helped get John
F. Kennedy elected. He believed that the other guy was an even worse choice for
the country. Because of his business acumen and his wide knowledge on a variety
on subjects, Bruce Wayne was asked to participate in several committees on
civil rights, education, technological progress and finance. He became a good
friend of the young politician from
His investigation into the assassination was roadblocked at every turn. He became convinced that the all his years of going after the small time criminals had been a waste when there were much bigger and deadlier criminals still at large. A lone vigilante could not touch those crooks so ensconced in the web of power and prestige. Bruce Wayne resolved to find a way to go after those criminals who thought they were protected because of their position and rank in society. Bruce was going to fight crime in a different manner. He threw his hat in the ring and ran as an independent for Jim Gordon's recently vacated Police Commissioner post. Jim Gordon had suffered a stroke that had made him loose the mobility in his hands and had affected his speech center.
Bruce felt that he could do a better job is opponent's could or would do. He withstood a smear campaign and won out. Batman once again had a police commissioner he could trust.
Batman (II) and Bat-Girl were partners until Bruce Jr. was of age to become the next Robin.
Dick became the second Batman in late 1961. Bruce Wayne Jr. also joined the action as the second Robin in 1962. They fought an aging Joker, Two-Face and The Riddler as well as newer villains such as Kirk Langstrom the Man-Bat.[16] Another relatively new villain was Mr. Hyde although he was labeled as the Blockbuster in the comic book stories from the company licensed to carry stories of the Batman.[17] They had to deal with second generation villains as well, Oswald Cobblepot Jr., who was just as slick as his father, and another woman who called herself the Catwoman[18].
Although she did not venture out too often, Barbara Grayson juggled motherhood, her career as a librarian and her secret life as costumed adventurer, although by 1964 she was calling herself Batwoman.
In 1965 Captain
Although Barbara's
appearances were few and far between, another member of the Batman family
appeared in 1966, defying her parents wishes that she become involved n the
family's secret business. Having discovered the family secret when she was
quite young, Helena Wayne wanted to practice and train with her older brother.
Bruce and Selina hoped by allowing her to train with the incipient Robin, that
Bruce and Selina Wayne quickly put an end to the career of Bat-Mite. Helena Wayne became the newest Bat-Girl in 1970. Her parents made her wait a full year past their original date as a punishment. Bruce Jr. had gone to Harvard to get a degree in finance and so Dick Grayson was primarily a solo Batman, although he found himself being involved in cases that took him all over the world. Bat-Girl, Batwoman and other costumed vigilantes took up the slack. In one celebrated case Batwoman and Bat-Girl defeated one of the Joker's nefarious schemes. He vowed revenge.
Ras Al Ghul also made some appearances during the career of the second Batman, although he continued to try and recruit Bruce Wayne, made a few half hearted attempts to recruit Dick Grayson. They were inconsequential to his larger plans, if they wished to join him he would be pleased, if they did not he could crush them at his leisure.
Bruce Wayne served as
Although it cannot be proven one of Bruce's first actions, as Director of CIALD may have been to bring down the man who had hired him by leaking information to the newspapers.
In the wake of the
Watergate Scandal, Steve Rogers took a leave of absence as Captain
In 1973 Bruce Wayne
jr. married Kara Kent tying the two major “super” families together
by marriage. Kara was currently a television feature reporter and also often
aided the citizens of
Between 1977 and 1979, the Batman family was struck with series of tragedies that were orchestrated by Te Liu, the daughter of Ras al Ghul. Ras Al Ghul had tired of attempting to recruit them and so decided to demonstrate his ability to inflict upon them wounds that would never heal.
In mid-1977 an old
henchman of hers, now a minor crime boss in
Selina Wayne broke into the Asian Antiquities house where the Green Dragon was on display. She removed it from its case and climbed onto the roof where she met the criminal. She took the negatives and handed him the Green Dragon. Batman arrived on the scene in time for him to see Selina Wayne running towards the edge of the roof. A man looked inside the bag and threw it down with a curse. He yanked out a gun and began firing at Selina. She was hit in the shoulder and leg just as she was reaching for her catapult line. The impact of the bullets threw her off balance and off of the room.
Dick hurried to where Selina lay dying in the street. She gasped out the story to Dick as her breath faded. The crook had gotten away.
Helena Wayne was
currently attending college and was not patrolling as Bat-Girl as much as she
had before. She however usually listened to emergency band broadcasts while
doing her schoolwork. Hearing about the appearance of the Catwoman she decided
to investigate. She arrived a few minutes after Selina's death. When
In 1978 at the Grayson home James Gordon's daughter, her three grown children, her son in law John Drake jr. and her four year old grandson were celebrating the birthday of James Gordon. They were waiting for Dick and Tony Gordon[21], who had been called to Arkham Asylum to speak to the Joker about some murders he had committed and wanted now wished to confess. This would turn out to be a ruse.
At about the same time a the attack on the Grayson home Batman and Tony Gordon discovered the empty cell of the Joker, The Joker and several machine gun wielding thugs dressed as clowns burst into to the Grayson home without any warning. Without preamble Barbara Grayson was shot through the abdomen severely damaging her spine. Telling vapid and unfunny jokes the Joker had her stripped and he took a several pictures of her bleeding naked body. He then kidnapped the crippled former Police Commissioner. As a parting gesture he tossed a grenade filled with joker gas through the front window.
Four-year-old Tim Drake happened to catch the thrown grenade and tossed it back out the window, thinking it was a game. It landed on the front lawn and dissipated into the air. Fortunately the Joker was long gone, otherwise he would have returned to finish wiping out the Grayson family.
Batman tracked the down the Joker. After defeating his henchmen and engaging him in hand to hand combat Batman captured the Joker. Dick was only restrained from killing him by a superhuman effort of will and by the fact that Jim Gordon needed serious medical attention. Although Batman had barely noticed it during the fight, The Joker had seemed younger and stronger than he had been. Although the press began calling the younger villain, Joker Jr. he was (as fingerprints would attest, the same person some how rejuvenated.[22]
A few days after he was rescued, James Gordon succumbed to the effects of his torture and shuffled off the mortal coil. Barbara Grayson was left a paraplegic. Although Dick Grayson continued to act as the Batman his heart was not in it. This nearly cost him his life as the third tragedy played out in 1979.
Batman's old opponent Two Face was up to his old tricks. Despite being paid off by various businesses and institutions, Two-Face still bombed, gassed or murdered victims. This was because in addition to his disassociative disorder, he was also suffering from senile dementia. He would forget which way the coin had landed and so was being easily convinced that it was always on the scarred side. Two-Face carried out these bloody acts of terror without a second thought. Batman and Robin found Two-Face's lair and entered a maze of double doors, forked tunnels, twin stair cases, two sets of ladders, etc. They became separated when Dick chose a wrong door. He slid down a razor-studded slide and landed on a platform between two machine guns. Two-Face was on the other side of the platform in a small booth with television cameras and a control panel. He flipped a coin, caught it and looked at it blankly. He started to flip it once again but put it in his pocket and pressed a switch. Both machine guns opened up on Batman.
The suit protected him from taking fatal wounds but the striking bullets did bruise his skin and break his bones incapacitating him.
Robin arrived a few minutes later and found Two-Face continually flipping a coin and laughing. "Batman is dead, no, he is alive." [23]
Robin sedated and secured Two-Face and then switched uniforms with Batman. Robin did not think it would be a good idea for the criminal element to think that Batman was incapacitated.
While Dick was recovering Bruce Wayne jr. filled in as the Batman. Dick Grayson told Bruce that he was through with costumed adventuring. A press release was put out that Robin had died of his injuries. Bruce was aided in his crime-fighting career by his sister Helena, The Huntress and by his wife, Kara Kent Wayne, Supergirl. Although Kara was busy with her career as a television anchor woman and raising their daughter and had little time for costumed adventuring.
Another tragedy of the
Batman family came in 1982 when Bruce Wayne, while on a mission with CIALD was
reported missing in action and presumed dead. CIALD was investigating the
connection between the crackdown of dissidents in Mainland
Shortly after this case the Yellow Claw dropped from sight, Bruce Wayne had disappeared and Fu Manchu was rumored to be dead.
In late 1984, Batman
returned from a patrol sweep of the
Alexis Luther
initiated his Doomsday plan in 1985, a plan that would culminate in destroying
the costumed vigilantes that had most plagued him in one fell swoop and clear
the way for him to have unimpeded power. To achieve this goal turned his
investigative teams loose to discover every scrap of information about those
people he wished to destroy.
First Alexis Luther
had the Joker broken out of Arkham Asylum so the Joker could carry out his part
of the plan. Although Luther knew that the Joker would change the plan to suit
his psychotic needs, he did not know that he would do it in such a drastic
fashion. The plan was for the Joker to lure the dynamic duo into a trap and
blow them to smithereens, no elaborate death traps, no possibility of escape.
Simple effective elimination. The Joker had discovered the identity of Robin
through sheer accident although the Joker refused to share that knowledge with
Luther. The Joker used Robin’s mother to lure Robin into a death trap.
This Robin was more violent and more impulsive than his predecessors and so fell
for the trap. The Joker captured Robin and brutally beat him. This was all
televised for the Joker had taken over a television studio.
He tied up Robin and
his mother and had explosives set around them. The Joker then held a telethon
whichever victim received the most contributions would not be blown up. When
Batman arrived as the Joker knew he would, the Joker informed him that there
were dead man switches on Robin and his mother so if Batman made an attempt to
capture Joker or rescue Robin, they would be set off. He further informed
Batman that Batman’s arrival had triggered a timer of one hour, which
would set off Robin and his mother’s explosives. To make it more
interesting, the Joker had set up four places in the city where joker gas would
released in fifteen minute intervals in sequential order. So that no one else
could interfere in this game the joker gas would be triggered if anyone but
Batman tried to disable the devices. The four locations were in far flung parts
of the city.
Robin won the telethon
as more people called in to save the young hero than the unknown middle-aged
woman, although the margin was not as great as the Joker had thought it would
be. The Joker dramatically stopped the countdown on the explosives next to
Robin but let the count down on Robin’s mother continue. Robin had
regained consciousness and found a way to free himself of his bonds. He used
all his remaining strength to leap across the stage and knock the explosives
away from his mother. She was shielding from the brunt of the explosion by
Robin’s body. Robin was savaged by the explosives and died of trauma
immediately. The Joker had wanted Robin to see his mother die and then kill him
when Batman returned. Then kill Batman. Enraged that he had been cheated he
shot Robin’s mother. Batman returned from his mission through the city
and saw what had happened. He eluded the Joker’s men and fought the
Joker. The Joker was much older than the Batman and so was not a physical match
for him. Batman threw the Joker down on the spot on the stage where Robin had
been bound and began to savagely beat the Joker. Batman might have killed him
if the Joker had not released the dead man’s switch in his hands. Batman
had been close to the explosives when they went off. He was protected by his
suit but still badly injured. The Joker was also injured but he and his men
made good their escape.
While Batman was
convalescing the major blows of the Doomsday plan came to pass.
The Daredevil was
exposed as lawyer Matthew Murdock, his law license was revoked, his assets were
seized and his home was destroyed.
While fighting a
rampaging alien monster named Doomsday Superman and Supergirl were killed.
Power Girl was severely injured but believed to be alive.
The death of his wife
was a devastating blow for Bruce Wayne jr. His devastation was compounded by
guilt over the lies he had to tell about the circumstances of her death. The
guilt was not for the public lie that she was one of the many victims of
Doomsday’s rampage but for the lies he had to tell his daughter. He could
not tell Lana Wayne her mother had died a hero.
When Kara Kent Wayne
became pregnant it had been decided between Bruce Wayne Jr. and Kara that Lana
Wayne would not grow up knowing that her parents were Batman and Supergirl or
that her grandparents were Superman and Batman. Although both Bruce Junior and
Kara Kent had been told when they were old enough to understand and keep the
family secret, it was a crushing burden to put on a child. Beyond just knowing
there was the pressure that they put on themselves as children, trying to
measure up to their parents. Kara also had known how hard it was on Joel Kent
to know Superman was his father and not have inherited any Kryptonian powers.
He adjusted to being non-powered” well enough yet he still could not stay
away from becoming a masked vigilante. It was unknown how much of Lana’s
physiology would have the Kryptonian genotype and how much would be standard
human being. Kara had manifested her powers exceptionally early but her father,
a full Kryptonian had had not really begun exhibiting his powers until after
puberty. It was decided to wait until Lana had reached puberty to tell her
about her family.
When Lana’s
mother, grandfather and cousin had been killed or seriously injured by
Doomsday, the secret was still kept by Bruce Wayne jr. Yet he was physically
and emotionally unable to deal with his daughter so he sent her to an exclusive
school for girls upstate.
Needing to escape from
his grief Batman returned to prowl the streets of
In the wake of the
deaths and disappearance of Batman, Robin, Superman, Daredevil and others
criminal gangs became bolder and more prevalent spilling out of the poorer
sections of the city where they had stayed and into more affluent areas. Alexis
Luther encouraged this behavior once again hoping to sell advanced weapons to
the New York Special Crimes Unit to help quell the rash of violence plaguing
the streets.
Concurrent with the
return of Batman was the partial unraveling of Alexis Luther’s foreign
policy. It was discovered that a deal had been made to sell weapons to
Alexis Luther could
scarcely credit it but it appeared as though Batman was somehow involved in the
discovery and leaking of this information to the press. Since the Joker had
failed to destroy Batman, Alexis Luther came up with a plan to completely
remove Batman from the picture.
One of the projects
that the
Bane and his men
broke into Arkham Asylum and released all of the prisoners, which contained
some of the nations’ worst psychopathic killers. They were also the
archenemies of Batman. Bane and Luther knew that Batman would feel compelled to
hunt them down. Bane knew that this would physically and mentally wear Batman
down. When he was nearly at his breaking point, Bane would break him.
The escaped
prisoners scattered far and wide and committing wide scale murder and mayhem.
Shortly after the breakout, Alexis Luther put another phase of his plan into
play. He had sponsored two legitimate psychiatrists in their efforts to get
books published that blamed Batman for the Arkham inmates, for both their
psychosis and their subsequent actions. These psychiatrists made the rounds of
all the talk shows, slowly but surely attempting to erode Batman’s image
as a hero in the eyes of the public. [26]
Batman was joined
in his search for the escaped criminals by Robin, an older seemingly middle
aged Robin.[27] Their first lead came from a
break in a haberdasher’s shop. Left at the scene was an invitation for a
tea party at an abandoned mansion. Batman and Robin joined a tea party in
progress orchestrated by the Mad Hatter, Jervis Tetch. The other members of the
party were criminals hired for the occasion. Batman and Robin fought the
criminals and captured Tetch. [28]
Their next lead
came when they spotted a toy store that had suffered a break-in. Inside the toy
store were the Ventriloquist, a schizophrenic who believed that his dummy
controlled him, and a super strong mentally deficient man named Amygdala. Robin
was on back up once again. Batman engaged Amygdala and was nearly beaten to a
pulp by the enraged super strong psychopath. During the fight between Amygdala
and Batman the Ventriloquist made good his escape. Robin had noticed a falcon
circling above them and had followed the falcon and discovered that someone was
directing the falcon. Robin and the Falconer fought but the younger man
overpowered Robin and left him stunned. [29]
Batman received
word over the radio that a hostage situation was taking place at the
Batman’s entry prevented Zsasz from slashing her throat.
While Zsasz and Batman were engaged in dialogue the female officer stomped on
Zsasz instep and elbowed his groin, getting away from him. This gave Batman the
opportunity to fight Zsasz. As they were fighting Zsasz taunted Batman claiming
that they were very much alike. This triggered a great rage in Batman and he
quickly out fought Zsasz. Batman beat Zsasz severely, losing control to the
point where the female officer had to physically restrain him. [30]
While Batman was confronting Zsasz Robin tracked Bane to an
outpost where Bane and his men were observing Batman. Robin was spotted and
captured. Bane threatened to beat and then kill Robin unless Robin gave him
information about Batman. Robin’s life was saved by the appearance of Dr.
Mark Sinclair. Sinclair had undergone an experimental process to regenerate his
lost arm it had turned him into a humanoid alligator.[31]
His sentience however had eroded over the years. In DC comics he was known as
Killer Croc and in Marvel comics he was known as the Lizard. Bane had fought
with Sinclair shortly after arriving in
Bane had however learned one vital clue from a piece of
Robin’s equipment. Although it did not have any distinguishing
manufacturing marks the exploding R shaped shuriken reminded Bane of something
else he had seen. The font used for the R inside a ring made Bane think of
Waynetech, which had a logo of a W inside a circle. Bane had intuitively solved
a puzzle that dumbfounded many another villain. Where did Batman get all of his
toys? Waynetech was Batman’s backer. Bane relayed this information to
Luther who began an assault on another front.
Upon his escape from Arkham Asylum the Joker had made an
alliance with the serial killer Cornelius Stirk.[33]
Stirk was convinced that he achieved power through
the fear of his victims. Stirk had the ability to instantly hypnotize people
into believing he was someone that they knew. The Joker wanted to capture
Commissioner Gordon and hold him for ransom.[34]
Gordon was on the rooftop of the main police building by the Bat Signal when
Stirk walked up to him, having hypnotized Gordon into thinking he was the
Batman. Stirk however did not plan to capture Gordon but kill him. Batman
arrived in time to save Gordon.
The Joker was upset by this chain of events but soon discovered
another partner who had also watched the little drama play out, The Scarecrow,
the original master of fear. They concocted a plan to terrorize the city by
kidnapping the Mayor. Using fear gas the Joker and Scarecrow coerced the Mayor
into calling off the National Guard units he had requested from the Governor.
They also had him inform the fire department that he was making slashing cuts
to their budget. This induced the fire department to strike immediately. The
Joker then contacted an Arkham alumnus, a pyromaniac who called himself the
Firefly and told him that he had free reign to burn down the city. [35]
Batman confronted the Firefly as he was torching a building but
their encounter was indecisive as Batman had to choose between saving civilians
or capturing the Firefly.
The Scarecrow and the Joker had the Mayor inform the police
department that he had been taken hostage. He managed to blurt out his location
before the phone was wrested from his hands. The police converged on
Although exhausted from his many battles, Bruce Wayne forces
himself to attend a charity ball, one that been organized by his wife before
her death. Watching some of the news footage, Bane immediately recognized Bruce
Wayne’s body language as that of Batman’s. At the ball Lucius Fox
tried to warn Bruce Wayne that something was going on with
Batman arrived just in time to stop Pamela Isley from kissing
Lucius Fox, Waynetech’s Chief Financial Offiicer, by hitting her in the
face with a batarang. This kiss would have killed Fox for like
Rappacini’s Daugher, Isley was filled with poison. Batman then had to
kill her zombies, these were men whose bodies were had become part of a
symbiotic organism when a parasitic plant took root in them. These zombies were
inured and very hard to disable. Batman defeated them but in his exhausted
state this took a great toll on him. He barely managed to capture Pamela Isley.
[36]
While Batman was engaged with the charity ball, a person wearing
a dark costume reminiscent of a Muslim warrior prowled the streets. He called
himself Azrael.
Batman traced Firefly
to the Gotham Zoo. While Batman was dealing with Firefly, putting out the fire
that he started and recapturing zoo animals, Robin had to deal with the
Riddler. The Riddler had also escaped from Arkham Asylum and he had an idea for
a perfect score to net him a good deal of money. However due to his monomania,
the Riddler could not enact a crime without leaving clever clues for the
police. When no one would respond to the Riddler’s letters that he had
sent to the police department his gang became tire of waiting and decided to
pull the heist without him. Upset by this the Riddler decided to take his clues
to a more public forum. He forced his way onto the Sally Jesse Raphael show and
convinced her to make him a guest by showing his vest of dynamite.
Sally’s guest was a psychiatrist who had briefly worked at Arkham and was
touting a new book, which blamed Batman and society for the psychopaths
terrorizing the city. The Riddler began to spout off his riddles with the
proviso that there was a time limit. The police surrounded the television
studio but were afraid to shoot Riddler because his dead man’s switch
would explode. Robin eluded the police barricade and swung into the studio,
shooting the Riddler’s hand with an epoxy that kept his hand closed. The
Riddler was easily captured after that and the dynamite vest turned out to be a
fake. [37]
The Huntress thwarted
the burglary that the Riddler’s men had carried out without him.
After tying up the Firefly Batman was heading back the Batcave
for some much needed rest when he got a call that the Scarecrow and Joker had
barricaded themselves and the Mayor inside the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel.
The Scarecrow and Joker had decided to use the Mayor to lure
Batman into a death trap. They called in a bomb threat on the Brooklyn-Battery
tunnel. When it was shut down they took the Mayor to the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel in an ice cream
truck and used a rocket launcher to destroy several vehicles sealing off the
entrance. The police were wary of entering the tunnel for fear of another trap
and for fear of endangering the Mayor’s life. Batman slipped into the
tunnel via access holes. Once he found the Scarecrow and Joker, he was
subjected to a blast of fear gas which seemed to have no effect on him. He
overpowered the Scarecrow and turned his attention to the Joker. Something
snapped in him. This was the first time he had encountered the Joker since Jason
Todd had been killed. He was beating the Joker to death when the Scarecrow used
the rocket launcher to open a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel letting water
cascade into the tunnel. Safety doors sealed off the tunnel section trapping
the two criminals Batman and the Mayor. Batman had to make the choice to save
the Mayor or letting the Joker escape.[38]
After Batman rescued
the Mayor from the flooded tunnel he was set upon by a large, heavily muscled
man. He fought and defeated him. A man throwing knives then attacked him. After
avoiding the deadly missiles Batman also defeated this foe. Finally a man who
used trained falcons attacked him. Batman defeated the falcons and then had to
fight the Falconer who was also a trained martial artist. Once these three were
in police custody he began the journey home.[39]
His trip home was
interrupted by a police call about a body being found in the New York Museum of
Natural History, inside the ribcage of a dinosaur skeleton. Batman stopped to
investigate this call. The body was of Legs Lyman a gangster. The dinosaur used
to be known as a brontosaurus but was not named Apatosaurus. It had been
improperly named because of a wrong skull. Batman realized that the dinosaur
with two names and two skulls was a calling card from Two-Face. He learned that
Two Face had taken over the rackets of Legs Lyman. Batman investigated and in
his debilitated condition was captured by Two Face and his men. Batman was put
on trial and found guilty. Two-Face planned to hang Batman off of the girder of
a building under construction. Robin was nearby and used a thrown R shuriken to
cut Batman bonds. Batman and Two-Face fought and Two-Face was captured. [40]
Batman and Robin
returned to the Batcave to find it in a shambles. Alfred Pennyworth was hurriedly
loading an ambulance with equipment. He explained what had happened. Bane had
broken into Wayne Manor and tried to wrest the secret of Batman’s
whereabouts from him. Bane knew Batman was Bruce Wayne. When Alfred would not
divulge any information, Bane went on a destructive rampage looking for the
Batcave entrance. Unable to find it he sat and waited. Although he was only
half conscious when Batman emerged from the entrance behind the grandfather
clock, Alfred knew something was wrong but was not certain as to what.
Bane boasted how he had planned to wear Batman down to nothing and then destroy him, to break him. Batman attacked Bane. They fought through out the mansion and finally downstairs into the Batcave. Bane’s venom delivery system made him superstrong, tireless and extremely aggressive. He used props from the Batcave to batter and knock Batman around. Batman delivered blows that would have crippled lesser men but Bane did not fall. He wore Batman down and finally when Batman could not longer fight he threw him around the Batcave like a rag doll and finally broke his back over his knee. Bane walked out the mansion carrying Batman over his shoulder. He told