Who Was DC's First Batman?

Batman's history at DC Comics has been explored in great detail over the almost ninety years of the hero's existence in print. This has extended beyond the story of just Bruce Wayne and his friends, family and supporting cast have gotten their moments in the sun. One of the most important figures in Bruce's life was his father, Dr. Thomas Wayne. Best known currently for his role as Flashpoint Batman, Thomas wore the cape and cowl decades before the doomed timeline was introduced in 2011.

Batman's family and his youth have been revisited many times since his creation. From his origin story, losing his parents to Joe Chill's violence, to his many Robin sidekicks, and even Alfred Pennyworth's regularly retconned backstory, there isn't much left to explore in Bruce's history. The 1950s established the core foundations for both the Wayne family and Gotham's history, including an unlikely link between Bruce and his father. Though many think of Thomas as either the gritty, dark Flashpoint Batman or as the loving family man, there was a point long before Flashpoint where the two converged. In a one-off Silver Age comic, Thomas Wayne was revealed as the first Batman to fight crime in Gotham City.

Thomas Wayne's History, Explained

As Bruce Wayne's father and the head of a business empire, Thomas Wayne holds a special place in Gotham history. Different stories have cast him in different lights. Some of the older takes on Bruce's youth and an older Gotham imagined the Waynes as generous philanthropists and a very well-respected family. More recent stories, especially in Elseworlds and alternate DC media, have played on the idea of a more scandalous and controversial Wayne family. Some of these tales have shown that Thomas was more involved in Gotham's corruption than anyone expected, such as his encounter with the Court of Owls, a secret society of elites that pulls Gotham's strings from the shadows. For some writers, it's become normal to put their spin on the latest dark Wayne family secret that shakes Bruce to his core.

Above all else, Thomas is generally understood to have been a good father to Bruce and a loving husband to Martha. The best interpretations of the Wayne family showed an otherwise strong family, regardless of Thomas' secrets. The best explorations of the business magnate's days before his death show him embracing the values of truth and justice that his son defends. Bruce's father was an imperfect man, but he was willing to stand up against the criminal and corrupt elements of Gotham, even though it cost him his life. After all, his death inspired Bruce to don the cape and cowl and wage war on the worst elements in Gotham so that no one would ever share his trauma again.

Thomas Wayne was reintroduced to DC Comics readers in Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert's 2011 Flashpoint event. This story followed Barry Allen as he was transported to an alternate timeline after traveling back in time to stop his mother's murder. When he returned to the present, he found a broken world on the brink of destruction from a war between Atlantis and Themyscira. Barry lost his powers in the time-jump and went to Batman to try to put things right, but was shocked to find Thomas as Gotham's new Dark Knight. It was revealed that the night Joe Chill confronted the Waynes, Bruce was shot in this timeline, and a vengeful Thomas took his place as Batman. He aided Barry, restoring his powers and helping him put things right, erasing his reality so that Bruce could live in another timeline.

Thomas Wayne's Night As Batman

While Flashpoint represents Thomas Wayne's most famous turn as a superhero, In Detective Comics #235 (Bill Finger & Sheldon Moldoff), readers encountered the story of the "First Batman," which helped inspire Bruce in building his heroic identity. Here, Bruce and Dick were doing some spring cleaning in the attic, when Wayne found an old costume he didn't recognize. After playing an old recording of his father, he saw how he'd dressed up as a Batman for a masquerade party. After learning that he was a doctor, a group of gangsters abducted Thomas from the soiree, taking him to their injured boss, Lew Moxon, who was shot during a bank robbery. Here, Bruce's recording ended, and he had to turn to Thomas' journal to learn the rest of the story. When he met Moxon, the elder Wayne realized there was no chance of the goons letting him live to tell the police. Much as his son would in the future, Thomas, in full Bat costume, pummeled the crooks and made sure they were prosecuted.

After Thomas Wayne testified against Moxon, the crime boss looked for ways to get revenge on the wealthy doctor. Moxon was the man who hired Joe Chill to murder the Waynes, leaving Bruce alive as a witness to point the finger at Joe and take suspicion away from the gangster. When he realized who had hired Chill, Bruce set out on a mission to bring the crook to justice, traveling out to Coast City, only to find that the criminal had lost his memory in an accident. Resolute in his desire to get Moxon, Bruce pursued him and discovered he was masterminding a new criminal operation. After donning his father's original costume, Bruce confronted the criminal, and the sight of Thomas' suit brought his memories back. When Batman pursued the fleeing criminal, Moxon was run down by a truck in the street, robbing Bruce of true and honest justice.

Thomas Wayne's night as Batman has been revisited over the years, sometimes through modern flashbacks of Bruce recalling his own youth. It's unclear how canonical the event is in modern DC, especially since the company has introduced the idea of Batmen existing in various time periods throughout history. However, something about the idea of Thomas being Gotham's first Dark Knight brings a kind of symmetry to Bruce Wayne's narrative. Fans could even argue that this established Batman as DC's first legacy mantle, which came full circle when Thomas returned as the grimdark Batman.

Thomas Wayne In Current DC

Since the restoration of the pre-Flashpoint DCU, the alternate Thomas Wayne has made a formal entrance into Prime Earth's stories. During Tom King's Batman run, the heroes found out that Eobard Thawne had placed Thomas on Prime Earth so he had to watch his son live out the same brutal life as a vigilante that Thomas had. In a misguided mission to save his son, the loving father set a plan in motion to break Bruce's spirit so he would hang up the cape and cowl and find a better life for himself. He underestimated both his son's abilities and what he meant for his reality, though, and was later defeated by Bruce and Catwoman after they teamed up with Bane.

Following his defeat at the hands of his son, Thomas regretted the scheme he had pursued to take down Bruce and lived in shame. However, he began his path to redemption when he joined Calvin Ellis' Justice League Incarnate, a team of heroes from across the multiverse. Here, the team-up of the variant Batman and Superman gave readers something of a Multiverse's Finest team. They rescued Barry Allen and tried to save the world from the Great Darkness, the evil being that later served as the threat for Joshua Williamson and Daniel Sampere's Dark Crisis On Infinite Earths. However, Thomas was possessed by the Great Darkness, leaving Darkseid himself to use his Omega Beams to erase the hero from existence.

Despite seemingly perishing from Darkseid's attack, Thomas later resurfaced in the Flashpoint timeline, where he came to believe someone had again altered time and erased Bruce's timeline once again. In reality, his timeline had been contained in a special snow globe that Bruce had taken possession of to safeguard. In seeking a way to undo his timeline, Thomas was needlessly pursuing a course of action that would have destroyed his world and posed a threat to Hypertime itself. In this version of Flashpoint, Thomas was a man on a mission, confronting Aquaman in his occupation of Great Britain and facing off with Martha Wayne's Joker. Ultimately, Thomas came to accept the reality of his new world, worked to help Martha, and found a new Robin in the recently orphaned Dexter Dent, Harvey and Gilda's son. Now, Thomas has some stability in his world and has become a much better Batman.

Thomas Wayne Is A Brilliant Batman

Thomas Wayne's stints as Batman have been questionable but he was always a great character. Through him, readers can see a glimpse of what might have been, an alternate take on Batman's mantle in a world where the father and son's fates were reversed. Thomas shares his son's intelligence and strategic mind, and his activities as the Flashpoint Batman prove it. His more wholesome early Silver Age persona was something rarely seen in modern comics, but it worked well for its time.

Thomas Wayne's night as the first Batman showed that Bruce inherited his father's sense of justice and strength of character. It adds a lot to the hero's costumed identity, showing that his choices run much deeper than t a bat flying through his window. Of course, Thomas is now a much darker version of himself than the 1956 comic suggested, but the idea that his destiny is deeply entwined with Bruce's is powerful. As the first man to wear the cape and cowl, Thomas holds a special place in Gotham history and Batman lore.