Thomas Wayne - Fictional Character Background

Fictional Character Background

Thomas Wayne is seldom shown outside of Bruce Wayne's and Alfred Pennyworth's memories of him, and often through Bruce's dreams and nightmares. He is frequently depicted as looking very much like Bruce Wayne, but sporting a thick mustache.

A notable occurrence in Thomas Wayne's biography was when Bruce fell 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 Wayne eventually rescued his terrified son from the cave.

Thomas 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 attacked and defeated hoodlums while dressed like a "Bat-Man" for a masquerade ball. According to the story, Thomas Wayne's actions resulted in crime boss Lew Moxon being imprisoned; ten years later, Moxon orders Joe Chill to murder Dr. Wayne. When Batman realizes Moxon ordered his parents killed, he confronts Moxon, who now suffers from amnesia and thus has no memory of Thomas Wayne. When Batman's costume is torn, he wears his father's in order to frighten Moxon. Sure enough, the costume restores Moxon's memory; the former crime boss panics, believing that he is being attacked by Thomas Wayne's ghost, and flees into the streets where he 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, Dr. Wayne as the "First Batman" was retconned - he instead attended 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.

In many of the modern interpretations of the character, such as those by Frank Miller and Jeph Loeb, Thomas is portrayed as having been a distant, stern father, bestowing kindness and generosity on his patients rather than his son.

Thomas Wayne was once suspected to be the father of Bane, a man who, in the Knightfall story arc, breaks his son's back; however, DNA testing proved this to be false, and Bane's real father was recently revealed to be King Snake.

It is revealed in Batman: The Long Halloween that, shortly before his murder, Thomas Wayne saved the life of gangster Carmine Falcone. Falcone's father, Vincent, came to Wayne Manor and begged Thomas to save his dying son, who had been shot in a gangfight by rival gangster Luigi Maroni. Thomas wanted to take the younger Falcone to the hospital, but Vincent insisted that nobody know about the shooting; the surgery was thus performed in the dining room with Alfred assisting. After saving Carmine Falcone's life, he was offered a reward or favor but refused to accept any form of payment. Unbeknownst to Thomas, young Bruce watched this all in silence from afar. Years later, Bruce contemplates whether Gotham would have been better off had his father let Falcone die, to which Alfred explains that he would have helped anyone in need.

In Superman/Batman #50, it is revealed that, while on a drive with a pregnant Martha, Thomas witnessed a strange object fall to Earth. As he inspects it, Thomas' consciousness is transported to Krypton, and presented in a holographic form. There, he encounters Jor-El, who wishes to know what kind of a world Earth is, as it is one of many possible candidates for him to send his son, Kal-El, to. Thomas tells Jor-El that the people of Earth aren't perfect, but are essentially a good and kind race, who would raise the child right, convincing Jor-El to send Kal-El there. Upon returning to his body, Thomas uses the technology in the Kryptonian probe to revitalize a failing Wayne Enterprises. Years later, the alien technology would be the basis of much of Batman's crimefighting technology. Thomas recorded his encounter in a diary, which was discovered by Bruce in the present day.