Duke Thomas (Prime Earth)

{{DC Database:Character Template
 * Image                  = Duke Thomas Prime Earth 006.jpg
 * Theme                  = Batman
 * RealName               = Duke Thomas
 * CurrentAlias           =  The Signal
 * Aliases                = Robin, Lark
 * Identity               = Secret
 * Alignment              = Good
 * Affiliation            = Batman Family, formerly We Are Robin
 * Relatives              = Elaine Thomas (mother)
 * Universe               = Prime Earth
 * BaseOfOperations       = Gotham City, New Jersey


 * Gender                 = Male
 * Height                 =
 * Weight                 =
 * Eyes                   = Brown
 * Hair                   = Black
 * UnusualFeatures        =


 * Citizenship            = American
 * MaritalStatus          = Single
 * Occupation             = Student, Vigilante


 * PlaceOfBirth           = Gotham City, New Jersey
 * Creators               = Scott Snyder; Greg Capullo
 * First                  = Batman Vol 2 21


 * Quotation              = Can't keep waiting for Batman to swoop down and save the day. Another adult who bailed. Gotta do all the swooping myself.
 * Speaker                = Duke Thomas
 * QuoteSource            = We Are Robin Vol 1 1


 * HistoryText            = Duke Thomas is a vigilante and a member of the Batman Family. He joined the We Are Robin movement and became one of hundreds of civilian teenagers to don the Robin R and fight for their city. Eventually, he would leave the movement and join the Batman Family officially as the vigilante called The Signal.

Origins
When the terrorist known as the Riddler shut off all the power in Gotham, the madman challenged the city to get smart or die by natural selection during what would later be called the Zero Year. Riddler told the city that if anyone could ask him a riddle that he couldn't answer, he would restore power to Gotham. Duke, who was a confident student at the time, began to train his mind with brain teasers in anticipation of accepting the Riddler's challenge. Duke and Bruce Wayne met for the first time when the Thomas family rescued the unconscious billionaire when Hurricane Rene began its rampage on Gotham simultaneously during the Riddler's plot. Thanking Duke for his kindness, Wayne departed to take on the Riddler himself.

Several years later, the Joker had returned to Gotham with an endgame for Batman in mind. Figuring out the vigilante's secret identity, the Joker kidnapped Duke and his family and planned to recreate Bruce Wayne's parents' murders right in front of him using the Thomas family. Batman managed to rescue Duke from the murderer, but Duke's parents succumbed to the mind controlling gas Joker had released.

Becoming a Robin
After the events of Batman: Endgame, Duke was placed into the foster system. He became desperate to find his parents after it became apparent that the authorities were not making any progress in locating them. During his time in foster care, he went from an excellent student to having a heavy police file because of all of the fights he got into. Because of this, his temporary foster parent, Raymond Mendez, sent him back into the system.

Leslie Thompkins was placed in charge of his social case and tried to keep him from getting into trouble by reassuring him that the police were still looking for his parents and would find them. In the meantime, she asked him to stop picking fights and try to be respectful to his foster parents. She then placed him with Joanne and Roy Dawson, after telling him that police had found some of the Joker's toxin victims wandering in the sewer system. Joanne showed Duke around the dirty apartment, telling Duke that he would need to babysit the other kids and clean the bathroom. Then she left him alone for a few minutes to organize his things into a drawer in the bedroom.

Feeling guilty about letting Dr. Thompkins down, Duke climbed out the window and left the apartment behind in order to go search for his parents in the sewers. As he made his way to the sewers, he thought about his mother and how she was so clean in every part of his life. It made him sad to imagine her wandering the sewers because he knew that that meant she was extremely far gone on the Joker's toxin.

While in the sewers looking for his parents, Duke accidentally stumbled into an underground meeting of homeless people who had created a small city. There he overheard their plan to bomb different landmarks in Gotham, starting with the Hall of Records. Just after hearing this, he was discovered and attacked. Luckily, this was also when the Robins joined the fight to save him.

Together with the robins, Duke fought his way out of the sewers, only to lose consciousness after a blow to the head. When police came, the other robins were ordered by the mysterious "Nest" to abandon him and run. Reluctantly they did as they were told.

Duke awoke inside a police interrogation room. There a skinny man with facial hair and dark glasses asked him what he was willing to do in order to find his parents. When Duke expressed confusion and told the man that that was the police's job, the man left the room. After waiting and then getting frustrated, Duke tried the door handle only to find it unlocked. When he stepped out of the interrogation room, he realized that he was not in a police station at all, but actually inside an abandoned warehouse.

This was when he discovered the red biker jacket with a yellow R on the breast, atop a motorcycle. Inside the jacket, he found a cellphone.

We Are Robin
The cellphone in his new jacket instructed him to go to a new location where he met the robins who had saved him earlier. Together they found the bombs Duke had heard about, beneath the Hall of Record. Using instructions sent to their phones from a mysterious sender called the Nest, they were able to disable one of the bombs. The second bomb proved more difficult, however, as it was on a subway train track and they had to jump out of the way of trains every few moments.

Finally, the Nest instructed them to get on the next train and leave the second bomb there. However, one of the robins, Troy, refused to leave. Determined that he could disable the bomb himself, he stayed behind alone. As the others rode away, he was caught in the blast and killed instantly.

Robin War
After one of the robins was implicated in the shooting of a police officer and a robber in a convenience store, the We Are Robin movement comes under fire by the public. This leads to a member of the city council, Councilwoman Noctua, implementing the Robin Laws. The Robin Laws made it illegal for anyone in Gotham to wear robin paraphernalia and encouraged police to stop and detain anyone who might be a Robin.

DC Rebirth
After Batman's return Duke shows up at Wayne Manor, having been offered the position of Batman's partner by Bruce. After being welcomed by Alfred Duke is quickly brought to the Batcave where he meets Batman. He quickly makes it clear that he won't just be another Robin and Batman agrees, saying he's trying something new and showing Duke his Lark suit.

At first Duke works in the cave, helping Batman with his resources and information in situation's such as the ordeal with Calendar Man. Eventually however he was officially inducted as Batman's new field partner and was introduced to Alfred's Wheel of Pain, a condensed version of Batman's training that was used to train all of Batman's former protégés.

The Cursed Wheel : The Question
Duke and Batman were on their first case together, part of a training course called by Alfred the "Cursed Wheel", with each part of the wheel being dedicated to test one aspect of Duke's psychology. Batman told that they would begin his training with the most challenging part, seeking out the motivation beyond evil acts. The two of them were investigating five murders by the serial-killer Zsasz. All the while, Duke kept trying to reconnect with his parents, interned into a special wing of Wayne's Manor, but they remained insane. He particularly mentioned one of her mother's case from when he was thirteen. He focused about one of his mother's rule : visiting people first thing in the morning, because it was harder to hide who they truly were so early in the day.

Later on, Duke and Batman went investigating one of the five victims, Diana Boone, who had survived the attack while Alfred searched for information. The Dark Knight noted that Boone's business was on the rise, but that the four other victims had shady background. Duke speculated that someone may have had set Zsazs upon one of them because a certain Rita Noles may have had survived a previous encounter with the killer. Batman noted that Duke had to focus on the case at hand, to see the motivation beyond the evil act committed and thus solve the case.

Searching in Boone's basement, Duke discovered a picture of her and her parents, and he remembered vividly Boone's cry for death and his own mother's wish to kill him. Batman then told him that Alfred had discovered that Rita Noles wasn't the one who had escape from Zsasz, to which Duke said that Boone had, having deduced that from the way she asked to be killed when discovered. Batman was happy with this deduction, but he said to Duke that they were at a critical moment in his training and that having his parents at the Wayne's Manor was not a good idea, because he needed to focus. The Caped Crusader told his new protégé that the toxin infecting them had been created by the one person whose sole motivation was pure evil and that therefore there was nothing to be found in thinking about his motivations.

Batman told Duke that he to figure what kind of hero he was. Duke told to Bruce that, perhaps, there was nothing to figure out, that he was not a hero and that it was all about Batman, and his motive, something Batman did not rebuke. Watching again the photos of Boone, Duke asked who she was, to which a voice answered "A mark. Like you". Zsasz then cut deeply into Duke's chest, ambushing him. While recuperating at Wayne Manor, Duke was comforted by Bruce, who also told him that Zsasz had mistaken Noles for Boone because an accident which had forced the former to use the pull of the latter the night of her death. Duke then told Batman that he could get his parents moved away from Wayne Manor, before going to sleep.

However, Duke chose to leave Wayne Manor and went to watch Diana Boone, trying to understand what had truly happened and who she was in the light of the day, like his mother did. Using the clues Batman had given him, the young vigilante understood that Boone had disguised herself the night of the meeting while giving Noles one of her blouse. Duke then sprang up to catch her as she tried to flee. Duke chased her down, until she came close to an open window. He then asked her why she had done what she did. Boone tried to convince him that this was all an accident, that she had panicked when learning that Zsasz had escaped. However, Duke saw through her and told her that she had tried to use the killer to dispatch her competitors, but that Zsasz hadn't been as stupid as she assumed him to be.

During this discussion, Duke failed to notice that a window-cleaner was in fact Zsasz. The young man tried to warn Boone, but he was too late and she was cut down. Duke then jumped at Zsasz and launched them through the window. He was then saved by Batman while Zsasz was preparing to kill him. Later that day, Duke was watching his parents sleeping. Bruce then told him that Boone has probably contacted Zsasz thanks to Two-Face, who just had returned to Gotham. Bruce also said to his new apprentice that he had managed to seen through Boone, like his mother would have. Duke thanked him, but told him that his parents would stay at Wayne Manor.

When Batman tried to tell him that the venom in their veins was a product of the Joker, who was pure evil, Duke rebuked him. He called Joker the blind spot of Batman, because he wasn't just evil. Joker attacked those he loved, and his venom forced others to do the same. Therefore, each horrible things that his parents told to Duke were in fact their attempts to tell him how much they loved him, their motivation. Bruce then accepted to let them stay in the manor, while him and Duke prepared themselves to deal with Two-Face.

Road Trip from Hell
Duke was on a roof, alongside Batman and James Gordon just after capturing Two-Face, who had unleashed an acidic rain on Gotham, his helmet partially cracked and an arm broken; he warned Gordon that the rain may still be acidic, and the Commissioner thanked the young man for his actions against Two-Face, but Duke remarked that it would have been easier to believe without the cries of the people hurt by the rain.

Later on, Duke, in the Batcave with Alfred, remarked that Harvey and Two-Faces, sharing some memories, both knew who Batman's was. However, Alfred assured him that guessing and proving that Bruce Wayne was Batman was altogether different. The two of them then observing the composition of Harvey's cure, destined to suppress his Two-Face personality, was somehow a trap. He then left the cave, remarking that the wheel needed to turn faster.

Duke reached Batman when the KGBeast was preparing to capture him and Harley. Duke rammed a huge car into the Russian villain and helped Bruce and Harvey escape. Two-Face being terribly injured, Duke brought him and Batman to Harold Allnut's home. While there, Duke warned Bruce that Commissioner Gordon would soon be raiding Wayne's Manor. He also told Batman that the main component of the cure was used to try to heal people infected with the Joker virus but that it had failed to take. Bruce then told Duke about one particular summer in his youth, spent with Harvey and the promise they had made to each other, which explained why Batman had to try this cure.

Duke then wished to accompany Bruce, because both of them believed in second-chance, against all odds. On their way to the curse, Duke and Batman were ambushed by Talons "loaned" to Two-Face by the Court of Owl and Batman's eyes were injured by acid. Duke and Batman fought off the Talons, using embedded sonar to localize them. When Harvey tried to drawn the two heroes, Batman urged Duke to load his favourite hard-metal band songs into his armor, and used it to knock the Talons out. Duke then captured Two-Face and him and Batman used a plane to reach the end of the road trip. During the travel, Batman told the full story of his summer spent with Harvey as kids.

Duke saw a parallel between how his parents acted toward him and the way Harvey saw the world has he wanted to change it, and not how it was, asking himself if pushing through this ugliness was what heroism was. He then gave Two-Face's coin to Batman, but before the Dark Knight could throw it away, KGBeast boarded the plane and swiftly dispatched the two Gotham vigilantes. Duke awoke on Anatoli's boat, and he helped Batman escape when throngs of peoples tried to board it to free Two-Face.

Duke then helped Batman and Two-Face escape the boat and the three of the jumped from a waterfall, when he was shielded by Batman. Upon reaching land, Duke noticed that Two-Face looked sickly. Bruce explained to his acolyte that Harvey was re-emerging and that he was thus weakening Two-Face. When the three of them finally reached the house where the cure had been hidden, Duke said to his mentor that he would understood if he would not use the cure, since doing so would be the end of Batman. After Batman discovered that the cure would in fact erase the weaker personality, with high chances of erasing Harvey, Duke tried to prevent him from injecting Two-Face but was too late. He was then quickly defeated by KGBeast. However, he helped Batman by preventing a potentially deadly fall when the Dark Knight and the Beast fought over a cliff.

The Cursed Wheel : The Answer
After the deal with Two-Face, Duke and Batman faced the Riddler and his deadly enigmas. Riddler had booby-trapped several old buildings, full of hostages. Duke and Batman had to figure out a giant crosswords to save the hostages, however they hadn't managed to finish the words during the timer and Duke tried to save the innocent peoples, only to be caught in the explosion when Batman failed to find the final word. It had been an annual celebration of his Zero Year attack over Gotham City, as Bruce had explained two days ago when he and Duke went to visit Nigma in his cell at Arkham. Batman remarked that Duke was perhaps a little too impatient.

The young man had only completed half the Wheel, even if he had done a great work doing so. Batman tried to assure him that he too would find the answer to his place in the Batman Family While Batman interrogated Nigma, Duke was accosted by his former friend, Darryl, the original Mister Bloom. Duke expressed stupor to see Darryl in such a high-security wing of Arkham Asylum, but his friend explained that his power had not left him when the authorities had taken his seed. Duke said that he did not know and would have come to see him had he known. The discussion was cut short however, since Darryl attacked Duke, noting that both of them, as unworthy hero and villain, had to be more serious. Darryl then insulted Duke, pretending that he had no place to be a hero and was only a placeholder, which greatly affected Duke.

After the failure at the crossword, Duke trained in the Mud Room against a simulation of Riddler taking hostage his parents. When confronted by Batman about the fact that he had left Wayne Manor during the day while he was in no condition to do so and tried to interrogate a nurse from Arkham. Duke also lied to Batman, pretending that his reckless behavior had nothing to do with what Darryl had said, despite Bruce's words of encouragement. However, Duke admitted that while he had been under Bruce tutelage for one year, he still hadn't found the answer to his questioning. The next morning, he left Wayne Manor early to speak with Julie Madison and Isabella Ortiz at the Lucius Fox Center for Gotham Youth.

While Izzy was extremely enthusiastic, if a little bit jealous, about Duke's graduation as a direct pupil to Batman, Duke told her that he was quitting. Duke explained that he didn't feel at ease operating during the night, being unable to recognize the city during the dark hours, and was generally unsure of his place. Izzy then showed him a wall with children's drawing on it, advising Duke to be himself, as an outsider from the Batman and his usual allies. If he felt better at operating during the day, he could do so. Duke wanted to say something to her, but he left in a hurry when a television showcased the Riddler's face.

Duke rushed to Wayne Manor to tell to Batman how Nigma was able to attack from his cell. However, in the mansion, he was confronted by an escaped Darryl, who had freed Duke's parents. However, Duke activated a communicator hidden in the staircase to warn Batman from the Manor. He then explained, to both Darryl and Batman, that Riddler was using the original Mister Bloom, who was able to heal peoples, to gather those hostages, who were coming from hospitals or care centres. While Darryl admitted that Duke was right, he told him that it wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. Rather, he wanted to know what Duke was.

Darryl offered to heal Duke's parents if he told him what he was, noting that Duke and his mother's physiology was strange, with something hidden. When Duke tried to attack him, Darryl quickly incapacitated him thanks to his powers over flesh. When Duke said that he had no idea what his former friend was talking about, Darryl began torturing him. Duke was saved thanks to his mother, who viciously attacked Darryl with an electric staff, muttering that her son was normal, while her eyes began to glow yellow. However, Darryl quickly dispatched Elaine Thomas. Before he could attack Duke again, the young vigilante knocked him out while his own eyes began to glow yellow, allowing him to see the world in strange ways. Duke then panicked, wondering what Darryl had done to him.

Dark Days : Prelude to Metal
While Batman was researching information and artifacts made of strange metals around the world, he left Duke in charge of the Batcave. When Hal Jordan, sent by the Guardians of the Universe, came to investigate the place, Duke managed to sneak on him land a kick, before being immediately contained by Green Lantern. The two of them then proceeded to venture into a secret part of the cave, where Batman had hidden all his research surrounding the Nth Metal. A strange voice lured the two heroes deeper into this secondary cave system, all the while revealing secrets of Batman, such as his black-ops team, the Outsiders. Reaching a gate at the end of the tunnel, Hal and Duke opened it, only to reveal the Joker.

Joker then used Duke to escape his prison by taunting him. When the young vigilante made contact with the force field containing the Joker, the power system of the cave was shut-down, allowing the Clown Prince of Crime to escape and destroy Batman's machine, built to gaze beyond the normal Multiverse, into the Dark. Duke and Hal began to fight the Joker, but Hal's Green Lantern Ring wasn't functioning properly and he ended falling deep into the Batcave. Joker then tried to slit the throat of Duke, revealing that the young boy possessed since birth an unknown metal in his body, like his mother before him. The Clown then told to young Thomas that he was but one among a new generation of meta-humans, that Batman had been monitoring for years, only an experiment to the Dark Knight. He then called Duke the Signal which would allow Batman to peer into the Dark Multiverse and bring doom to the world, something the Joker wanted to avoid at all cost.

Hal, using the Batplane he had stumbled upon during his fall, managed to overpower the Joker. However, while Batman was returning to his cave with a dagger made of Nth Metal, Duke's nascent powers got out of control, knocking him down the plane and allowing the Joker to escape. After some discussion between Batman and Green Lantern Duke asked Batman if he was indeed an experiment to Batman. His mentor then told the young man that he only wanted to be there when Duke would choose what he wanted to become and that the Joker lied. Duke then used his power to "see" the machine the Joker destroyed earlier, producing in the same time a massive yellow aura, which disintegrated his helmet, his body reacting once again to the dagger Batman brought with him. Thanks to a replica of Hal's Ring, Duke managed to create a construct of the machine, allowing Batman to unknowingly peer into to the Dark Multiverse, and possibly create the Dark Knights.


 * Powers                 =
 * : Duke is a metahuman and is only beginning to understand his powers. All that is known so far is that he can "see" events that have happened in the immediate past, an handful of seconds, thanks to the way light was reflected.
 * Abilities              =
 * : Duke started fighting without any training and only later received training from the "original" Robins. He is also receiving further training from Batman.
 * Strength               =
 * Weaknesses             =
 * Equipment              =
 * Robin Costume: After joining the We Are Robin movement, he was given a red leather jacket by the mysterious "Nest". The jacket proved to be bullet proof, even against multiple bullets at close range.
 * Lark Costume: When Duke went to live with Bruce Wayne, he was given a new yellow and black costume. It included a yellow and black helmet.
 * Transportation         =
 * Weapons                =

}}
 * Notes                  =
 * Trivia                 =
 * Recommended            =
 * Batman: Endgame
 * We Are Robin
 * Robin War
 * Links                  =