Thomas Wayne
| Thomas Wayne | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Detective Comics #33 (November 1939) |
| Created by |
Bob Kane Bill Finger Jerry Robinson Gardner Fox |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Thomas Wayne |
| Team affiliations | Wayne Enterprises |
| Supporting character of | Batman |
| Notable aliases | Dr. Wayne, Batman |
Thomas Wayne, M.D. is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, most commonly in the Batman comic book series. A gifted physician and philanthropist, Dr. Thomas Wayne is the father of Bruce Wayne and the husband of Martha Wayne. He is the inheritor of the Wayne family fortune after Patrick Wayne, which was built through industry and real estate by previous generations. He is first introduced in Detective Comics #33 (November 1939) in the first exposition of Batman's origin story. In the story, he and his wife are murdered by a mugger, traumatizing yet influencing their son to become Batman.
The character plays a major role in Geoff Johns' alternate timeline comic Flashpoint (2011) as a hardened version of Batman.
Thomas Wayne is seldom shown outside of Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth's memories of him, and often through Bruce's dreams and nightmares. He is frequently depicted as looking very much like his son, but sporting a thick mustache.
A notable occurrence in Thomas's biography was when Bruce falls through a fissure on the Wayne property, into what would one day become the Batcave (sometimes the fissure is replaced with an abandoned well). Thomas eventually rescues his terrified son from the cave.
Dr. Wayne's role in his son's future vigilante career is expanded upon in The First Batman, a Silver Age tale which reveals that Dr. Wayne attacks and defeats hoodlums while dressed like a "Bat-Man" for a masquerade ball. According to the story, Dr. Wayne's actions result in crime boss Lew Moxon being imprisoned; ten years later, Moxon orders Joe Chill to murder Dr. Wayne. Realizing Moxon ordered his parents killed, Batman confronts Moxon, now suffering from amnesia and thus has no memory of Dr. Wayne. When his costume is torn, Batman wears his father's in order to frighten Moxon. Sure enough, the costume restores Moxon's memory; the former crime boss panics, believing that Thomas's ghost is attacking, and flees into the streets and is struck and killed by a truck. These events were retold in the 1980 miniseries The Untold Legend of the Batman. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Thomas as the "First Batman" was retconned - he instead attends the masquerade ball as Zorro. This was retconned once more in the pages of Superman/Batman, where Superman, hoping to reverse some universe-altering change in the time streams, lands in a version of Gotham City in which Thomas never died, finding him giving out Halloween candy in the original Batman costume.
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