Name: Dr. Thomas Wayne Sr
Alias(es): Tommy Wayne
First Appearance: Detective Comics v1 #33 1939 DC
In-Universe Debut: (as Agent of the Shadow) 1925 (as Bat-Man) 1939
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 175 lbs
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
Relations, Sidekicks, Colleagues, and Teams[]
Wayne Family, John Vance (First Sidekick), Mary Willis (Second Sidekick), Dick Grayson (Third Sidekick), Barbara Grayson (Fourth Sidekick), Katherine Kane (Student)
Wayward Earth History[]
The first born son of Patrick Wayne and Imogene Lawton Wayne and heir to Wayne Industries. His brother Phillip was born three years later. He attended Brentwood Academy where he excelled at sport and academics with a special interest in debate. Rather than law or business which his father wanted him to go to college for Tom went to New York and studied medicine with an eye to becoming a surgeon. Due to his intentions to stay in New York, Wayne's fiance Julie Madson called it off. After the first world war and the violence and depravity of prohibition Wayne felt there had to be more he could do. He had made friends with the son of a newspaperman, one Lee Travis and Travis introduced Wayne to Kent Allard and soon Tommy was applying his surgical skill and new-found sense of justice as an agent of the Shadow. Under the supervision of Allard and various agents Wayne and Travis were trained in firearms, infiltration, fighting arts, spycraft, and a variety of skills they would utilize in Allard's ongoing war with Shiwan Khan and Ra's al Ghul. One of Wayne's first cases with the Shadow was against the Monk. Around this time Tom began running into and eventually seeing socially Linda Page, a nurse from his hospital. She soon joined the Shadow's forces and Wayne, Page, Travis, and Travis's chauffeur Wing How became a rather effective unit. Frequently Travis and Wayne discussed how taking the organization public could increase its efficacy, but Allard would have none of it.
When the Hawk and Clock appeared Wayne and Travis decided to take a page from their boss' book and donned masks and Tommy added a scalloped inverness coat reminiscent of a costume he'd worn to a society ball years ago. The Clock and The Hawk had been tearing up the New York underworld for almost three years by the time The Bat Man, and The Crimson Avenger hit the scene. Travis' newspaper operation moved to Los Angeles and so did Lee, but Tommy had made the acquaintance of Wesley Dodds and Theodore Knight, two playboy inventors who's night-lives had become rather adventurous, and with them he set to building his Society of Science Heroes. John Zatara, an old friend of Tommy's from Gotham (Shadowcrest, the Zatara family home being down the road from Wayne Manor) had fallen in with Doctor Occult and his Sentinels of Magic and there was some discussion as how the two groups, while limited in the scope of threats they could handle alone could be exceedingly effective working together. This was the root of the Justice Society.
Wayne would take on a partner in John Vance after Vance helped Wayne take down the gangster Birrell Binter. Vance took the name Nightwing and would serve with Wayne throughout the war.
As the second World War broke out and the Justice Society was absorbed into Roosevelt’s All-Star Squadron Tom had begun his treatise on perfecting the “Extra-Normal Civilian Operative” which would come to be known as The Wayne Papers. Linda occasionally joined him as the Bat Woman. The War in time wound down and Tom and Linda were married. They had a son – Thomas Jr – and Tom began to spend more time with his private practice and less as a costumed adventurer. It was positively idyllic and doomed to end. The Wrath began killing police officers in New York City and while every Mystery Man and Crime Buster in the city was hunting for him, Wayne found him. The two would tangle and the Wrath would escape, but he had now found a worthy adversary. The Wrath in time deduced the identity of The Bat Man and when Tom was off with the Society fighting a resurrected Ian Karkull the Wrath murdered Linda, stole their son, and burned both Wayne's home and practice to the ground. During his stalking of Wayne the Wrath had discovered an incomplete copy of the Wayne Papers and would use these in training Thomas Jr as the second Wrath. After the Wrath's rampage across Wayne's life, Wayne sent Vance to a private school in Europe. Vance would return decades later as the Ghost Breaker Nightman.
1948 - Gotham
After the destruction of his life Wayne left the Justice Society and returned to his family home in Gotham City. His brother Phillip had been killed only a year before by the Black Mask who had a long-standing grudge against the Wayne family leaving Tommy heir to the Wayne legacy. Allan Scott, the Green Lantern, had just left Gotham for Los Angeles after a disastrous encounter with the Grim Reaper, the Whistler had been shot down by the Falcones, and Mister Scarlet's career was winding down, but the Cavalier – Hudson Pyle – and the Commando (formerly Commando Yank) were still in operation when Wayne registered with the Gotham City Police Department and the Bureau of Metahuman Affairs as a Crime Buster. The Batman soon began his own war on the underworld with Lieutenant Jim Gordon and Prosecutor Harvey Dent.
The Batman's career started off with a bang with Doctor Death, Doctor Schimmel calling himself Mister Zero, and the return of Tommy Wayne's high school sweetheart Andrea Beaumont as the Phantasm.