Bruce Wayne (Nolanverse)

Thomas Wayne (father, deceased), Martha Wayne (mother, deceased), Alfred Pennyworth (former legal guardian), James Gordon, (friend, when as Batman), Lucius Fox (friend, when as Bruce Wayne), Rachel Dawes (friend, when he is both Bruce Wayne and Batman, deceased)

Universe

Nolanverse

Base Of Operations

Wayne Manor, Batcave, and Gotham City

Characteristics

Gender

Height

Weight

Eyes

Hair

Unusual Features

None

Status

Citizenship

American

Marital Status

Single

Occupation

Adventurer, Owner and Chairman of Wayne Enterprises, Billionaire playboy, Industrialist and philanthropist

Education

College Graduate, Has Degrees in Criminal Science, Forensics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Engineering,Human Biology, Physics, Advanced Chemistry, and Technology. Trained in various martial arts throughout the world.

Origin

Eight-year-old Bruce Wayne falls into a cave where he encounters a swarm of bats. Bruce develops a fear of bats, and later urges his parents to leave an opera featuring bat-like creatures. Outside the theater, Bruce Wayne's parents are both killed in a robbery by mugger Joe Chill. Bruce blames himself for his parents' murder: had he not been frightened, the Waynes would not have encountered Chill.

Place of Birth

Crest Hill, Bristol Township in Gotham County

Creators

Christopher Nolan, David Goyer, Bob Kane, Bill Finger

First appearance

Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be.

-- Batman

History

Batman Begins Time Frame

After coming of age, Bruce returns to Gotham City from Princeton University intent on killing Chill, whose prison sentence is being suspended in exchange for testifying against mob boss Carmine Falcone. One of Falcone's henchmen kills Chill. Bruce tells his childhood friend Rachel Dawes about his foiled plan, and she expresses disgust for his blind vengeance without regard for justice. Bruce confronts Falcone, who tells him that he is ignorant of the nature of crime, so Bruce decides to travel the world to understand the criminal mind. After nearly seven years, he is eventually detained in China for theft (ironically of Wayne Enterprises cargo), where he meets Henri Ducard. He invites Bruce to join an elite vigilante group, the League of Shadows, led by Ra's al Ghul. Bruce is freed and travels to a mountaintop to begin his combat training with the League, who intend to use him to destroy Gotham. Bruce passes all the League's training, overcoming his childhood phobia in the process, but when ordered to execute a criminal, he turns on the League, destroying their headquarters. Ra's al Ghul dies and Bruce rescues an unconscious Ducard from the wreckage and leaves his mentor at a nearby village.

The blue flower that Bruce Wayne is instructed to gather. The flowers are the source of the same hallucinogenic compound used by Scarecrow to taint Gotham's water supply.Bruce Wayne returns to a Gotham City that is mostly ruled by Falcone and begins plotting a one-man war against the corrupt system. He seeks the help of Rachel, now an assistant district attorney, and police sergeant Jim Gordon, who consoled him in the aftermath of his parents' murder.

After reestablishing his connections to his father's company, Wayne Enterprises, Bruce is able to acquire, with the help of former board member Lucius Fox, a prototype armored car and an experimental armored suit. In his new Batman costume, he disrupts a drug shipment by Falcone and leaves the mob boss tied to a searchlight, forming a makeshift Bat-Signal. He also disrupts an assassination attempt on Dawes, leaving her with evidence against a judge on Falcone's payroll.

While investigating the "unusual" drugs in the shipment, Batman is stunned by sinister psychopharmacologist Dr. Jonathan Crane, who sprays him with a powerful hallucinogen. Bruce's butler Alfred Pennyworth rescues Bruce, who receives an anti-toxin developed by Fox. Crane later poisons Rachel after showing her that the toxin, which is harmful only in vapor form, is being piped into Gotham's water supply. Batman saves her and hits Crane with his own poison. The police enter Arkham Asylum and arrest Crane while Batman escapes with Rachel. After administering the antidote to Rachel in the Batcave, he gives her two vials of it for Gordon – one for the detective to inoculate himself, and another to mass produce for the city's population.

During his 30th birthday party in Wayne Manor, Bruce is confronted by a group of League of Shadows ninjas led by Ducard, who reveals himself to be the real Ra's al Ghul, and that the man killed earlier was a decoy. Ra's, who had been conspiring with Crane, plans to destroy Gotham by distributing the toxin undetected via Gotham's water supply and then vaporizing it with a microwave emitter stolen from Wayne Enterprises. Bruce, tricking his guests into leaving, fights briefly with Ra's while the League of Shadows set fire to Wayne Manor. Bruce escapes the inferno with Alfred's help just as the manor is destroyed. Batman arrives at the "Narrows" section of Gotham to aid the police in battling psychotic criminals, including Crane (now calling himself "Scarecrow"), who the League set free from the asylum. Rachel is confronted by but wards off Crane; Batman rescues Rachel when more criminals go after her. Batman intimates his identity to her while leaving Gordon in control of the Batmobile to stop the elevated train that is being used to transport the vaporizer to the city's central water hub. Batman battles Ra's aboard the train, then escapes just as Gordon topples the elevated line using the Batmobile's missiles, leaving Ra's to crash to the ground with the train.

Following the battle, Batman becomes a public hero. Bruce gains control of Wayne Enterprises and installs Fox as CEO, firing Earle. However, he is unable to hold onto Rachel, who cannot reconcile her love for Bruce Wayne with his dual life as Batman. Gordon, now a lieutenant, unveils a Bat-Signal for Batman. Gordon mentions a criminal who, like Batman, has "a taste for the theatrical", leaving a Joker playing card at his crime scenes. Batman promises to investigate it. As Batman is leaving, Gordon mentions that he has not thanked Batman for what he has done. Batman replies that Gordon will never have to, and flies off into the night.

Batman: Gotham Knight Time Frame

TBA

The Dark Knight Time Frame

A number of months after the defeat of Ra's Al-Ghul, Batman finds that multiple imitators are trying to fight crime in his costume. The same day he defeats the Scarecrow as he tries to deal his compound to Russian gangsters, the Joker attacks a mob-owned bank, shooting all his accomplices one at a time so he can keep the money for himself. Later, after Harvey Dent disables a defendent in a trial against Salvatore Maroni, Lieutenant Gordon and Batman contemplate bringing him in to help fight the mob, and possibly make him Gotham's "White Knight", which Batman cannot be. Following the trial, Gotham's mobsters meet to discuss what to do about Batman, Gordon and Dent. Their Chinese accountant, Lau, assures them that their money has been safely offloaded into Hong Kong banks, as the Chinese will refuse to extradite one of their own. Suddenly, the Joker appears, promising that he will kill Batman, Dent, and Gordon in return for half the money they own, while also informing them that Lau will turn them all in to the police if caught. While one of the mob bosses puts a hit out on the Joker, he is later found and killed while the Joker takes one of his enforcers to work for him.

Batman successfully abducts Lau in Hong Kong, and, as promised, the mobsters are all caught. Harvey is given the credit. Suddenly, the Joker appeares on the news after killing one of the Batman impersonators and hanging his body outside the comissioner's window, promising that unless Batman reveals his secret identity, people will die each day. On the playing card the Joker left on the body, they find traces of several public officials' DNA, including Harvey Dent. The two officials other than Harvey are killed, and Harvey himself is attacked at Wayne Tower's fundraiser for his campaign to become DA. Both Harvey and the Joker escape, while Rachel is saved by Batman. Later, Comissioner Loeb is attacked at the funeral for the assassination victims, but Gordon is shot instead. In his anger, Dent captures one of the Joker's henchmen from the crime scene and threatens him with a revolver, flipping a two-headed coin repeatedly in order to try and scare him into confessing. Batman suddenly appears on the scene and tells him that he won't be doing anything good by shooting the man. In a shocking twist, however, Dent understands that Batman cannot turn himself in to the law, and instead claims that he is Batman to protect him. As he is being loaded into a police van for his transfer, he proposes to Rachel, who decides to hold off on her answer.

The police convoy is attacked in a tunnel by the Joker is a semi, and the Batmobile is destroyed. Batman continues to protect the convoy in the Batpod motorcycle, and after flipping the Joker's truck reveals that Gordon survived the shooting, and he is taken into custody.

After the interrogation fails, the police reveal Batman hidden in the shadows, and he begins to brutalize the Joker, encouraged by his taunting. He finally gets the Joker to reveal that Dent and Rachel are hidden in two warehouses filled with explosives, and he doesn't have time to save both. He goes after Rachel, while the police go after Dent. Dent, in the meantime, is given the opportunity to communicate with Rachel over a phone that holds the timer. Rachel reveals that she does love him and would accept his proposal. When Batman bursts into the warehouse, however, he finds Dent: meaning the Joker had lied and switched the locations. While he saves Dent, the police are unable to reach Rachel in time, and she is killed in the massive explosion. The simultaneous explosion burns the left side of Dent's face as well. In the meantime, the Joker escapes by detonating a bomb hidden in his henchman's stomach and hijacks a police car with Lau in his custody.

The next day, Dent is driven mad over the death of Rachel and rips off his dressing, revealing that the left side of his face is nothing but charred bone and a damaged eye. The Joker reappears on TV and promises to destroy a hospital if an official for Wayne Enterprises is not killed in one hour. While he is placed in an armed convoy and subjected to several assassination attempts, including one by a police officer with his wife in the hospital, the Joker sneaks into the hospital where Dent is located and convinces him to take revenge on the people responsible for Rachel's death. He frees Dent, and still destroys the hospital after it is evacuated.

Later, Dent appears as Two-Face to several cops and mobsters, flipping a coin to determine their fate: If it lands clean side up, they live. If it lands burnt side up, they die. He kills Detective Wuertz, Maroni's driver and passenger, possibly a bartender, and several others, but he nearly kills Detective Ramierez and Maroni for their role in the corruption plaguing Gotham. The Joker receives his money for "killing Batman", but places Lau on top of the huge pile and burns it while feeding the Russian from the beginning of the film to his dogs. He declares his rule of Gotham City and informs the citizens that anyone remaining by midnight will be subject to his rule. He tells them not to take the bridges or tunnels or face the "surprise" he has waiting for him. As two ferries sail into the river, one full of civilians and one full of convicts, he informs them that each ferry is loaded with explosives that will detonate at midnight, and the only way to survive is to use a provided detonator to destroy the other ferry.

Lucius Fox agrees to help Batman, but only if he can resign as CEO of Wayne Enterprises. He sets to work trying to determine the Joker's location. The Joker had stolen his technology for a sonar system and used it to turn every cell phone in the city into a sonar emitter, forcing Fox to flip through dozens of television monitors to locate the Joker's phone. As the minutes tick away, they locate the Joker in a derelict building overlooking the ferries. The police see hostages in the windows, but Batman suspects another trick. While he tells them to give him five minutes before sending in the SWAT team, Gordon only gives him two. When he enters, he uses Fox's sonar technology to view the whole building. He finds that the hostages are in fact the Joker's henchmen in disguise, while the apparent terrorists are in fact the hostages with guns taped to their hands under orders not to move. Before he can inform Gordon, the two minutes are up and he is forced to single-handedly disabled the SWAT team and neutralize the actual henchmen. Suddenly, Gordon finds that Dent has brough his family to the same warehouse where Rachel has died, and brings the cops along with him.

As midnight passes, Batman engages the Joker in hand-to-hand combat. While pinned by the Joker, he discovers that neither ferry had anyone who wanted to be responsible for killing hundreds. As the Joker attempts to draw his own detonator, Batman disables him and leaves him hanging from a cable outside the building. He acknowledges that Batman is truely incorruptible, but Dent is not, and now Harvey Two-Face has been unleashed on the city. Batman leaves for the warehouse, letting the SWAT team capture the Joker.

At the warehouse, Harvey has captured Gordon's family. He selects his son as the first victim. When Batman appears to try and reason with Two-Face, his coin comes up bad and he is shot. Gordon's son is about to have his coin tossed, when Batman returns to conciousness and knocks Harvey off the side of the building. He falls as well, but his suit allows him to survive the fall with minor injuries. Whether or not Dent is killed is unknown, but seeing that Maroni only received broken limbs from Batman during his fall, it is possible he could have survived. As Gordon descends to the ground, Batman tells him that he will take the blame for all of Two-Face's murders. He says that Harvey is the "white knight" that Gotham needs, and Batman is not. Gordon grudgingly agrees, giving Harvey a hero's funeral, destroying the Batsignal, and putting out a manhunt for Batman.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

None

Abilities

Indomitable Will: He has no known superhuman powers, but he does have an extreme, almost superhuman "Force of Will".

Intimidation: Batman has the ability to instill fear in others, even the people that know him best are intimidated by him.

Peak Human Conditioning: Through intense training, the Batman represents the pinnacle of human physical prowess. His strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes and coordination are at peak human perfection.

Martial Arts Master: Trained by Henri Ducard and the League of Shadows, Batman is a living weapon, having mastered Western forms of both armed and unarmed martial combat.

Weapons Master: Through his martial arts training, he has become an expert on many types of weaponry. He is an exceptional swordsman as evident in his fight with Henri Ducard.

Master of Stealth: His training has made him a master at stealth capable of disappearing into the shadows and sneaking up on unsuspecting prey.

Expert Mechanic and Vehicular Driver: Proficient at combat driving. Has learned improved vehicle designs. Was trained and proficient in basic vehicles operations.

Strength level

Batman engages in an intensive exercise regimen.

Paraphernalia

Equipment: Batsuit
Transportation:
Batmobile, Batcycle, The Glider
Weapons:
Batarang, Grappling Gun, Special Sonic Device

Notes

Christian Bale plays Bruce Wayne aka Batman in the movies Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Trivia

All Batman technology and equipment is based on military technology and Equipment.

Links and References

Footnotes