Leslie Thompkins

Leslie Thompkins
Leslie Thompkins as seen in Batman: No Man's Land Secret Files & Origins #1 (November 1999)
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Detective Comics #457 (March 1976)
Created by	Dennis O'Neil (writer) Dick Giordano (artist)
In-story information
Full name	Dr. Leslie Maurin Thompkins
Supporting character of	Batman Robin Nightwing Catwoman Stephanie Brown

Dr. Leslie Maurin Thompkins (sometimes spelled Tompkins) is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, and most frequently associated with Batman.

Created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Dick Giordano, she first appeared in Detective Comics #457 (March 1976).

A close friend and medical colleague of Thomas Wayne, Leslie serves as a surrogate parent to his son Bruce after his parents are murdered, and later becomes a confidant in his crusade as Batman. In addition to being one of Batman's allies, Leslie is also a renowned medical professional who has dedicated her considerable skills toward helping Gotham City's less fortunate.

Leslie Thompkins made her first appearance in Detective Comics #457, in which she is depicted as comforting the young Bruce Wayne on the night that his parents were murdered. Inspired, she dedicates her life to helping slum kids avoid a life of crime. Every year on the anniversary of his parents' murder, Batman visits Leslie in Park Row (which was now referred to as Crime Alley). However, Leslie has no idea he is the boy she had helped decades before.

In later years, Leslie is portrayed as having been a close friend of Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father. She takes it upon herself to look after Bruce after the boy's parents are murdered, often acting with the family butler Alfred Pennyworth as a parental figure and guardian. In Batman Special #1 (1984), after costumed cop-killer Wrath dies in combat with Batman, Leslie comforts Wrath's grieving girlfriend much as she had young Bruce. She also eventually learns that Bruce is Batman.

Wrath's girlfriend, former Mafioso Gayle Hudson, becomes a close friend to Leslie. At one point this protects Leslie from two attackers, who fear what retribution Gayle might bring.

Leslie disapproves of Bruce's vigilantism, and feels partly responsible for his transformation into Batman, fearing that somehow she failed him as a role model. She has also been linked to Alfred romantically on more than one occasion.