Bruce Wayne (Earth-Two)

{{DC Database:Character Template
 * Image                  = Batman cape.jpg
 * ImageText              = Dark Avenger of the Night
 * RealName               = Bruce Wayne
 * CurrentAlias           = Batman
 * Distinguish1           = Batman
 * Distinguish2           = Bruce Wayne
 * Aliases                = Robin, Many as Wayne was a master of disguise and would assume many disguises and aliases to conduct detective work
 * Identity               = Secret
 * Alignment              = Good
 * Affiliation            = Partner of Robin; Former associate member of the Justice Society of America; leader of the Batman Family
 * Relatives              = Dr. Thomas Wayne (Father; deceased); Martha Wayne (Mother; deceased); Selina Kyle-Wayne aka Catwoman (Earth-Two) (Wife; deceased); Helena Wayne aka Huntress (Daughter; deceased); Richard "Dick" Grayson (Former Legal Ward, Deceased)
 * Universe               = Earth-Two
 * BaseOfOperations       = Gotham City (Earth-Two)


 * Gender                 = Male
 * Height                 = 6'2"
 * Weight                 = 210
 * Eyes                   = Blue
 * Hair                   = Black
 * UnusualFeatures        =


 * Citizenship            = US Citizen
 * MaritalStatus          = Widowed
 * Occupation             = Formerly Millionaire owner of several companies, Formerly Police Commisioner of Gotham City
 * Education              =


 * Origin                 = Witnessing the murder of his parent, young Bruce Wayne vowed to wage a never ending war on crime.
 * PlaceOfBirth           = Gotham City
 * Creators               = Bob Kane and Bill Finger
 * First                  = Detective Comics #27 (May 1939)
 * Last                   = Adventure Comics #462
 * HistoryText            =

Origin
Bruce Wayne was born in 1915 to a life of wealth and privilege afforded by his socialite parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha. This would change when young Bruce was returning home with his parents after attending a movie one late evening. Deciding to take a short cut across "Crime Alley", the Waynes were attacked by a thief named Joe Chill. Chill attempted to rob Martha at gunpoint of her jewelry. Undaunted, Dr. Wayne rushed at Chill in an attempt to stop Chill, but was shot in the chest pointblank by Chill and died. Seeing her husband killed Martha suffer a heart attack which proved fatal, leaving Bruce an orphan.

Young Bruce was deeply affected by the deaths of his parents and decided to dedicate his life to avenging himself and others against criminals. Wayne began developing himself in his life-long crusade against the criminal underworld. Wayne dedicated himself to intense physical training and mastered many then cutting-edge scientific techniques including what would later become termed as foresnics and criminal sciences. Finding normal police actions ineffective against the large-scale corrupt businessmen and open criminals that he encountered through his social status as an affluent Gotham City businessman and socialite, Wayne decided to work outside the normal areas of crime prevention. Sitting in his study one night after deciding to pursue his personal goal to attack the criminal underworld directly, Wayne is inspired by a bat that flies through his window shocking him. Deciding to act on that fear of the bat, Wayne adopted that bat as a symbol that would also inspire fear in his intended targets as the Batman.

Crime Fighting Career
Originally considered a vigilante who killed many of his early opponents, Wayne as Batman proved to be effective against the open acting crime organzations that the ineffective Gotham City police force could not. Batman began gathering the grudging admiration of then Police Commissioner James Gordon in his efforts, depite Batman's original heavy-handed methods of crime combatting operations.

Batman would gather a wide range of rogue villians some of which were supernormal such as the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face (Harvey Kent where the Earth-One incarnation was named Dent), Basil Karlo the original Clayface, Scarecrow and Catwoman who would become the most influencing of his adversaries and later Wayne's wife.

But one of his more effective "normal" villians was an crime boss named "Boss" Zucco who through one of Zucco's extortion crimes caused the death of the Flying Grayons which resulted in Wayne taking in Richard Grayson who would become Batman's junior partner Robin.

As a recognized effective crime-fighter, Batman would be recruited by the United States Federal government as a part of a covert strike force against Nazi operations in Europe that would ultimately defeat an assassination attempt on the life of President Franklin Roosevelt. At the suggestion of Superman, Batman and Robin along with these other costumed heroes formed the Justice Society of America . Due to other conflicts, Batman only joined as a Honorary Member declining full member status though he would be more active in the group's World War II Federal government supported incarnation known as the All Star Squadron.

Despite being a member of the All Star Squadron, Batman mostly remained focused in protecting Gotham City though he would occasionally take part in several European cases such as with the Unknown Soldier and others.

Batman continued to remain active after World War II and the public disbanding of the Justice Society due to the unwillingness of costume heroes to reveal their secret identities demanded by the Federal Government investigative committee. In the early to mid 1950s Wayne confronted the Scarecrow in an case that caused Wayne to seek out the help of his one time effective foe Selina Kyle (the Catwoman). Upon a promise of early parole for her, Kyle aided Batman. During the course of this case, the two finally acknowledged their true feelings for each other and Wayne revealed his true identity to her. When Selina Kyle was finally released from prison, Bruce Wayne accepted her. The two soon wed thereafter. Selina gave birth to Wayne's daughter, Helena.



Deciding not to put his daughter in a similar situation as he underwent in his youth, Wayne retired from the Batman role. But desiring to remain active in some way as crime fighter, Wayne ran for and attained the position of Police Commission of Gotham City upon the retirement of his long time friend Jim Gordon.

After a period of inactivity a former henchman of the Catwoman's, Silky Cernak, appeared and claimed to have proof that Catwoman had committed a murder in the 1950s. Silky threatened to expose this evidence to the police and destroy Selina's life unless she helped him commit one last crime as Catwoman. Fearing the destruction of Wayne's position and her daughter's safety, Selina acquiesced in a plot to arrest him. Wayne resumed the Batman identity to stop her unaware of Selina's plan. Selina was shot by Silky in her attempts to arrest him. Selina died in Wayne's arms who was revealed to the public to have been the original Batman. Wayne decided to permanently retire from the role and Cernak would be later stopped by Helena Wayne who became the Huntress.



Upon Wayne's public identity revealed and return to the role even temporarily, Grayson felt uneasy operating as a publically known successor to the original Batman and decided to relinguish the role and return to his earlier role of Robin. Wayne would only return to the role one last time after learning he was dying of cancer in order to stop Bill Jensen, who had been granted super-powers by the sorcerer Frederic Vaux. Wayne had failed to arrest Jensen, and took a Batman costume from the Gotham Museum and decided to attack Jensen directly as Batman. The two fought until Jensen realized that he could not deter Wayne in his attempt to stop Jensen. Jensen decided to destroy Batman and himself with a mystical blast which succeeded in killing Wayne. The Earth-Two Doctor Fate erased completely from all people on Earth-Two that Batman and Bruce Wayne were the same.

Wayne's daughter Helena and Grayson would continue on protecting Gotham City as the Huntress and Robin until they were killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. in which all references to the Earth-Two Batman was erased from the DC Universe.


 * Powers                 = No known superhuman powers.
 * Abilities              = Brilliant athlete and acrobat; master of many forms of hand-to-hand physical combat as well as weapontry; superb reasoning and deductive ability; mastery of many advanced forms of disguises and acting.
 * Strength               = Advanced human strength beyond most atheletes though technically not superhuman
 * Weaknesses             =


 * Equipment              = Various small hand to hand devices usually carried in his utility belts and assembled into his costume directly such as low level armor that gave him some protection against bullets and knives
 * Transportation         = Various devices and other motorized vehicles most notably the Batmobile, batcycles, Batboat, Batplane and others; swinging under own power via grappling hooks and other devices.
 * Weapons                = Various though his most notable offensive are batarangs though he did carry and use a handgun for much of his early career, as well as later used various explosive devices.


 * Notes                  =
 * Unlike his Earth-One and modern era counterparts, the Earth-Two Bruce Wayne was a regular open pipe smoker for many years as noted he did from before his marriage to Selina to after her death which was attributed to be over twenty years, which some writers and fans state was the source for the character's cancer that was killing him.
 * Unlike the original Golden Age stories, the Earth-Two Batman was shown to have carried and used a gun after forming his partnership with his Robin whereas the original stories have Batman using a gun in only his earliest adventures and stopped before Robin joins him as a partner in 1940 (shown in Detective Comics #38).




 * He was briefly succeeded in the role of Batman by his former junior partner, Dick Grayson, after Wayne retired. . But Grayson felt uncomfortable in the role of Batman and decided not to continue in the role and resumed his original costume identity of Robin with a modified version of his mentor's costume. Grayson later replaced that version of his costume with his better known mostly yellow bodysuit version.


 * The Earth-Two Batman's spirit recently appeared in the Infinite Crisis events and claimed to now be elsewhere and that his previous existence was now "complicated".


 * Trivia                 =
 * The Earth-Two Batmen costume was differentiated from the Earth-One Batman by mostly just the yellow circled chest symbol. Frank Miller removed the chest symbol from his story of Batman by using the yellow chest as a target symbol for Batman's adversaries.  Post-Crisis Batman never really adapted the yellow circled chest symbol of the Earth-One Batman.
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