Batman: The Man Who Falls

Batman: The Man Who Falls is a 1989 comic book story by Dennis O'Neil and Dick Giordano. It is an overview of Bruce Wayne's early life, including his parents' murder, his time spent traveling and training throughout the world, and his return to Gotham City to become Batman.

The comic was initially published as the only original story in the Secret Origins trade paperback collection. "The Man Who Falls" was reprinted in the Batman Begins tie-in graphic novel, which also included the film adaptation and reprints of other, more recent, Batman stories. The Deluxe Edition DVD of Batman Begins includes a miniature trade paperback that includes "The Man Who Falls" as one of three comics that "inspired the movie."

Plot summary
The Man Who Falls consists of a series of concentrated retellings of previously published Batman stories, including Detective Comics #33, which includes Gardner Fox and Bob Kane's first version of Batman's origin. O'Neil's text begins with a young Bruce Wayne falling down a hole on the grounds of Wayne Manor. Bats begin to swarm towards him and out the hole. Bruce's father, Dr. Thomas Wayne, rescues him but is angry at Bruce's carelessness, however Bruce's mother, Martha Wayne, comforts him. When Bruce asks if he was in Hell, she reassures him it "was just some old cave." The story then cuts to the murder of Bruce's parents and him kneeling at their dead bodies. The layouts of this version of Waynes' murder is designed to resemble Frank Miller's 1986 text of Batman: Year One.

At the age of 14, Bruce leaves Gotham City to explore and obtain skills in martial arts and forensics. Scenes of his early training as a teenager are depicted, including failed attempts at college, and a disillusioning experience in working with the FBI upon turning 20. He realizes that to achieve justice the way he sees fit, he cannot work with "the system." The story next turns to Bruce's foreign travels, one extended scene depicts Bruce's time training at a monastery, hidden in a mountainous region of Korea. After nearly a year of training, Master Kirigi tells Bruce he has exceptional intelligence and physique, but his traumatic past has made him self-destructive.

Bruce Wayne leaves Korea and heads to France, where O'Neil summarizes events from Sam Hamm's Batman: Blind Justice. Bruce trains with a bounty hunter named Henri Ducard, who shows him "the uses of brutality, deception [and] cunning." When Ducard kills a fugitive he had been tracking one night, Bruce becomes disgusted with Ducard's brutal ways of punishing criminals and departs.

Through narration, it is explained that Bruce meets and learns from every great detective in the world, when he approaches Willie Doggett. Summarizing events from O'Neil's own Legends of the Dark Knight story, "Shaman," Bruce (now 23) and Doggett track down a man named Tom Woodley to a mountain ledge, where Woodley guns down Doggett. Woodley himself falls from a precipice. Bruce, without food or warmth, wandered the snowy mountains. After being knocked unconscious, he is rescued by a Native American shaman. When Bruce awakens, the old man tells Bruce he has the mark of the bat, an animal sacred in his tribe.

Bruce returns to Gotham to begin his crime-fighting. O'Neil again recounts events from Year One: Bruce's first night out, fighting street thugs while still uncostumed, is deemed a failure. While brooding in the library of Wayne Manor that night, a bat crashes through the study window. Modeling himself after the recurring images of bats, Bruce creates his costumed identity which he names the Batman.

Continuity
The Man Who Falls uses parts of Year One, Blind Justice and the first arc of Legends of the Dark Knight as part of the story. All these make up the training and first months of Batman's career. Later stories of Matt Wagner's, Batman and the Mad Monk and Batman and the Monster Men, illustrate the emergence of Batman becoming a major presence in Gotham. Batman: The Man Who Laughs is the official direct sequel from Year One, detailing The Joker's first encounter with Batman, thus tying into the flashback elements of the Joker's past from Batman: The Killing Joke. Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's maxi-series Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory tell the stories of the latter end of Year One and part of Year Two (Long Halloween) and conclude the character arcs with Dark Victory as the official "Year Three," becoming continuity along with Batman: Year Three.