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Quote1 Death is powerless against you if you leave a legacy of good behind. Death is powerless against you if you do your job. My father saved the lives of over four thousand people, one at a time... with his bare hands and his mind. Death was with him the entire time. Quote2
Bruce Wayne src

Dr. Thomas Wayne, MD was one of the most respected patrons in all of Gotham City. He inherited his family's ancestral home Wayne Manor and took charge of the family business Wayne Enterprises. A skilled surgeon and philanthropist, Dr. Wayne also established the charitable Wayne Foundation. He was the husband of socialite Martha Wayne and the father of Bruce Wayne, the future Batman.

Early life

His father Patrick disapproved of his bookish, compassionate son and unfavorably compared him to his employee Colonel Brass, but he learned to appreciate Thomas after he was hit by a car and Thomas applied first aid, saving his life. Patrick fired Brass after he discovered he had accepted a bribe from mobsters. Years after his disgrace, Brass returned to Gotham and Patrick had a heart attack during a confrontation with him. His dying wish was for Thomas to use the gold Brass had taken to do good. Thomas drove Brass out of Gotham and used the gold to fund the Wayne Foundation. Brass later returned for revenge against Thomas, but Thomas fought his henchmen and forced him to flee.[1]

At some point, Thomas met the philanthropist Martha Kane at a party where he vomited on her shoes. He went to apologize to her at the Thompkins Clinic where his bodyguard Alfred stopped an attempt on her life. Unfortunately Leslie Thompkins was shot in the attack. Thomas volunteered to fill in for her, and when the clinic was targeted with a manufactured plague, he used Wayne Enterprises resources to create a cure. Thomas called his friend Zatara and the Justice Society for help when the block was set ablaze.[2]

Thomas and Martha eventually married. Martha would become estranged from her mother due to Betsy’s dislike of Thomas.[3]

Martha was pregnant when they went on a road trip where Thomas discovered an alien device and was mentally transported to Krypton and met Jor-El.[4] She was also pregnant when Thomas made his last humanitarian visit to Santa Prisca, which is when Bruce believed he might have fathered Bane, until a DNA test proved Thomas innocent of adultery.[5]

Thomas's coworker Eve Mackay became infatuated with him and wrote him five love letters, which he gave to his wife, and Martha kept them at the family's summer house as evidence of her husband’s faithfulness.[6] Thomas also treated Nora Fries and learned from her that her husband Victor was the "Robinson Park Ripper", a killer who was targeting women for their organs in an attempt to keep Nora alive, but he kept the secret and was posthumously suspected of being the Ripper himself.[7]

Thomas and Martha were friends with Roger and Marla Elliot, and Bruce befriended their son Tommy. None of the Waynes were aware of Tommy's homicidal tendencies, and after he arranged a car accident for his parents, which killed his father and injured his mother, Thomas defended Tommy when detective Slam Bradley suspected he was behind the accident.[8]

Death

On June 26, Thomas and Martha were walking home from the theater with their son when they were approached by Joe Chill, who mugged and killed them both. Bruce was inspired by their deaths to train and become the vigilante Batman.[9]

Legacy

After his death, Simon Hurt visited his mother-in-law disguised as him. "Thomas" claimed he had arranged for Martha to be killed and faked his own death, among other sins, all of which Betsy believed and shared with Martha's friend Marsha Lamarr and "the Chump" when they visited her.[10]

Bruce has seen his father in numerous visions, dreams, hallucinations, and illusions. Decades after his death, his body was stolen from its grave, along with his wife's, and held over a Lazarus Pit by Ra's al Ghul as part of a plot against the JLA.[11]

Thomas posthumously became a grandfather when Bruce adopted Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Cassandra Cain and when he fathered Damian Wayne.


Abilities


  • As a child, Thomas was a member of the Green Lantern fan club and his son Bruce (who occasionally works with his father's hero) keeps a autographed picture of ten-year-old Thomas and the Lantern.
  • Thomas was killed on June 26 at 10:47 PM.[13]
    • The Legion #29 gives his death year as 1976, however, in The Batman Files a newspaper article gives the year as 19?9, with the decade number being smudged out.

Related

Footnotes


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