Batman

Bruce Wayne is the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and the main vigilante operating in Gotham City, New Jersey known as the Batman. After witnessing the murder of his parents at the hands of a mugger as a child, Bruce waged a war on crime in Gotham City during mid-2010. He is a main character in the DC Original Universe.

During the early years, Bruce focused on disbanding the Falcone and Maroni crime families. In his second year, Batman came across the menace known as the Joker, who terrorized Gotham City in an attempt to rid it of the Batman. Batman later apprehended the Joker, and chased an up-and-coming Oswald Cobblepot out of Gotham during his attempt to form yet another criminal empire in the city. He was in a relationship with reporter Vicky Vale, but she was tragically killed during the Battle of Metropolis.

By 2015, a year and a half following the Battle of Metropolis, Bruce had become weary of the intentions of Superman, developing a hatred of the hero further fuelled by the Machiavellian manipulations of supergenius Lex Luthor. However, Bruce ultimately allied himself with Superman to save Martha Kent, and the two were later joined by Wonder Woman to defeat Lex Luthor in his kryptonite suit, though the battle injured Superman to the point of briefly losing his powers.

In the following year, Bruce began investigating rumors of scientists from S.T.A.R. Labs being kidnapped by strange creatures in Gotham, theorizing them as the precursor of an impending threat coming to Earth. After meeting Hal Jordan, discovered that his suspicions had already been confirmed, as Steppenwolf had already arrived. Bruce then decided to recruit the candidates he and Diana had been observing, realizing that an attack was imminent.

Following the formation of the Justice League, Bruce orchestrated a plan with the help of two Metahumans, Arthur Curry, and Barry Allen, to ambush Steppenwolf, forcing the latter's invasion into retreat and later death. Afterward, Batman passed the role of leader of the Justice League to Superman, who healed from his injuries, focusing his efforts on protecting Gotham City.

Early life
"There was a time above, a time before. There were perfect things, diamond absolutes. How things fall. Things on Earth. And what falls... is fallen."

- Batman Bruce Wayne was born on February 19, 1982, in Gotham City, New Jersey, to Thomas and Martha Wayne. Bruce had an idyllic childhood due to his family's fortune and the love supplied by his parents. Growing up, he would be sat down on the floor of Wayne Manor's entrance room by his father, who told him that despite the manor itself being built on railways, real estates, and oil, the first generation of Waynes made their fortune as hunters, trading pelts and skins with the French.

Assassination of Thomas and Martha Wayne
"In the dream, they took me to the light. A beautiful lie."

- Batman One day in 1991, when Bruce was 9, he and his parents were walking home from the Aragon Theatre after seeing The Mark of Zorro when they were confronted by mugger Joe Chill. While seemingly hesitant, Thomas Wayne threw the first punch, attempting to beat back the mugger, but he was quickly shot and mortally wounded. Stunned, his mother joined the fight, attempting to wrestle the gun away. Her attempt also failed, leading to a sad look of surrender come upon her eyes right before she was shot herself, Bruce screaming in horror. With his last dying breath, Bruce's father called out his mother's name in a loud whisper, reaching out for the final time. Watching her life pass away even as the mugger ran off into the night.

From then on, Bruce was raised by the Wayne family's butler, Alfred Pennyworth.

During the funeral for his parents, Bruce, overcome with grief, broke away from the service. As he ran, he stumbled across a decrepit area of the estate and fell into a cavern filled with numerous bats. This would later inspire him to use that fear to battle the criminal elements that took his parents' lives.

Becoming the Batman
In the following years, Bruce grew up inspired to make himself a symbol of fear within the heart of crime in Gotham City. He did so by training himself beyond the heights of mental and physical perfection, mastering many martial arts, the art of deception, tactical skills, and stealth, among many other disciplines. In 2010, Bruce used his newfound discipline to take up the persona of a fearsome vigilante known as the "Batman" by launching a one-man war on crime at 28, while also swiftly reclaiming control over his family company Wayne Enterprises as its CEO. The cavern with bats that he had once fallen into as a child inspired him to create the Batcave, an expansive subterranean headquarters housing all of his high-tech Batman gadgets, located near Wayne Manor.

Personality
"I bet your parents taught you that you mean something. That you're here for a reason. My parents taught me a different lesson. Dying in the gutter, for no reason at all. They taught me the world only makes sense if you force it to."

- Batman to Superman

Bruce Wayne is very determined and dedicated to his work of crime-fighting vigilantism (due to having been forced as a young child to watch his parents get murdered by Joe Chill), sometimes employing illegal and morally dubious tactics (like torture, much to the chagrin of Superman, causing him to initially view the former as a brutal and unforgiving criminal) while fighting crime as Batman, but ultimately for the good of Gotham City. Being skilled in the art of deception, Bruce often hides his true dark (almost sociopathic) personality by maintaining a façade in public - while still serious and intelligent, he purposefully comes off as a somewhat arrogant womanizing playboy (notably trying to brush off reporter Clark Kent in order to flirt with Diana Prince), so as to avoid anyone from suspecting that he could be the fearsome Batman. Bruce's deception also extends itself to his alter ego, since as Batman he strives to fool the criminal underworld of Gotham City into thinking that he is an inhuman and supernatural being, akin to a wraith. Hence, several female sex trafficker victims of Cesar Santos notably mistook Batman for a "Devil", and Cyborg initially even doubted Batman's existence. Alfred Pennyworth, however, notes that Bruce has never been skilled at deceiving him, as he has known Bruce since the latter was a child. Other than Alfred, however, the only other individual known to see through Bruce's genius deceptions is Lex Luthor.

Although possessing great anger towards criminals (most notably the Joker), Batman, like the other Justice Leaguers, has proven himself a very caring and selfless person, in addition to being incredibly brave, constantly putting his life on the line to save innocent lives and bringing the most dangerous criminals to justice for society's protection. Even as Bruce Wayne, for all his playboy demeanor, he was known to be a generous and kind businessman, often giving donations and performing charity acts through his company, and he could completely shed his playboy façade in the face of great tragedy, as shown when he fearlessly ran straight into the clouds of falling debris in Metropolis and managing to save Wallace Keefe and a little girl, showing compassion towards their conditions when Wallace tearfully realized he was now paralyzed and when the little girl tearfully admitted to now being orphaned and later on giving extensive monthly donation to the victims of the Black Zero Event from his company, showing genuine regret and sadness upon learning that Wallace Keefe had supposedly hatefully rejected and emailed him, unaware it was Lex Luthor who sent the funds back with the hate mail). He also risked his own life to rescue Martha Kent, who he proceeded to reassure was safe at his hands, spared the notorious Deadshot just because his daughter Zoe Lawton was there when he subdued him and left Zoe unharmed.

Batman, as a tremendously skilled and well-rounded vigilante and polymath genius (in tactics, deception, criminology, science, engineering, hacking, business, exploitative networking, and martial arts, as well as both inductive and deductive analysis), has bettered himself both mentally and physically to his peak, without any superhuman assistance, thereby making him capable of pulling off terrific feats without actually being superhuman. Hence, Batman epitomizes many of the humanist beliefs of Lex Luthor, who somewhat admires him, despite being Batman's enemy and business rival, and Lex, therefore, selects Batman to be his (discreetly manipulated) champion against Superman and the metahumans. While his exceptional intellect and extensive experience make Batman wise, they also make him slightly vain, as he notably condescendingly calls the younger Clark Kent "son" upon first meeting the latter, though this might have also been part of his Bruce Wayne playboy façade. Despite being a polymath genius, however, Batman was still in many ways considerably intellectually surpassed by supergenius Lex Luthor, who easily manipulated Batman as a pawn in his grand scheme to destroy Superman.

Batman's strongest characteristic has been his strong moral code to never kill (notably not even killing the Joker on numerous occasions), but he became considerably more hardcore in his approach to fighting crime in Gotham City, after witnessing the Black Zero Event first hand. It is believed that a combination of emotional and physical pain, loss, exhaustion, and potential disillusionment he's experienced during his time protecting the streets of Gotham, as well as his growing cynical, pessimistic, and world-weary personality, caused Batman to begin to view his former methods as too lenient, but he goes back to these beliefs after attempting to kill Superman.

Hence, after the Black Zero Event, Batman became more than willing to risk the safety of his enemies but still never killed, as he has repeatedly crashed into vehicles with enemies still inside using the Batmobile, as well as using both its guns and the Batwing's to cause explosions near enemies, usually by blowing up nearby vehicles. He has also caused explosions in which enemies were caught in, such as by knocking grenades near enemies. It should be noted, however, that Batman's involvements would have only seriously injured the criminals, which are caused by his enemies themselves while trying to hurt him, with him only using lethal force against them in response to them using it against him first. Therefore, Batman never has killed anyone in the eyes of the law. Along with that, he did spare enemies who survived his brutal means of dealing with crime and refused to kill those he captured, showing he still could not let go of his old morals.

Bruce tends to be extremely suspicious of others, especially those in possession of great power, since he notably claimed that even if there is only a one percent chance of the alien Superman being a potential enemy of humanity, that it has to be taken "as an absolute certainty", due to the incredible destruction and carnage that the tremendously powerful alien could potentially unleash if he were to become corrupted by evil. This very cynical point of view on Bruce's part comes from his disillusions about Superman being responsible for the death of Vicky Vale in the Battle of Metropolis. It also comes from him having seen "what promises are worth" many times during his half-a-decade as Batman, having seen many seemingly benevolent individuals become malevolently corrupted, to the point that Bruce claims that hardly any "good guys" are left anymore (making it more than a mere one percent chance of Superman's corruption in his eyes), in addition to the fact that the only other Kryptonians (General Zod and his loyalists) who arrived on Earth had attempted to wipe out all life on the planet in a terraformation apocalypse. As a result, Batman perceives Kryptonians as having a natural predisposition towards evil, and he, therefore, fears the possibility of General Zod's level of evil gradually developing in the only other member of the latter's race still to be on Earth - Superman (whom Bruce disdainfully refers to as "an alien" in a conversation with Clark Kent). Hence, despite his brilliant intellect and extensive experience, Batman, after 20 years of relentlessly fighting crime in Gotham City, is shown to have become a damaged, fearsome, and almost sociopathic individual. Alfred Pennyworth explained it as fear and rage being able to gradually render a good man like Batman into a cruel one, due to the paradigm shift that the revelation of Superman's existence had brought about. This newly darkened aspect of his personality ultimately allowed Batman to be outsmarted and manipulated, though supergenius Lex Luthor is notably the only one known to have ever successfully done so, due to him being one of the extreme few individuals to equal Batman in intellect. Lex did so by using Batman's inner rage and demons against him, secretly finding ways to provoke Batman past the point of rational thinking, with Lex claiming that it had been easy to "push [Batman] over" and make him his pawn. When combining his own personal fear of and prejudice towards Superman due to the Black Zero Event, with Wallace Keefe sending him angry notes (actually from Lex Luthor), with Lex making it seem that Superman had blown up the DC Capitol, with Bruce feeling both the need to live up to his father Thomas Wayne (to do something that would actually matter to the whole world) and kinship with his ancestors (the first generation of Waynes, who were hunters, somewhat like him now), along with a horrifying message from a possible potential future (sent by that future's version of the Flash) where Superman ruled Earth as a ruthless tyrannical overlord (along with Flash warning Batman to fear "him", someone Batman had "always been right about", interpreted by Batman to mean Superman), Batman ultimately resolved to take matters into his own hands by pitting himself against Superman in battle, intending to kill the latter before he could potentially become an incredible threat.

In the ensuing ferocious battle, Batman uses every tool in his ungraded arsenal against Superman, from a fierce Armored Batsuit, sonic emitters and lead smoke grenades, to a spear and gas grenades containing kryptonite, and even a re-purposed kitchen sink. After finally managing to weaken Superman and having him at his mercy, Batman proceeded to brutally (even somewhat sadistically) beat the alien hero, pummeling him with his armored fists, hurling him through concrete pillars, and cutting Superman's cheek with the kryptonite spear, making good on his promise to make Superman "bleed." As he placed his armored foot onto the fallen Superman's throat and prepared to kill him, Batman taunted his enemy, claiming that the alien had never been a God or even a man. However, when Superman uses (what he thinks will be) his dying breath to beg Batman to save his mother Martha Kent rather than beg for his own life, Batman, seeing Superman's lack of care over his incoming death and only that Batman save Martha, is left deeply shocked by seeing Superman's selflessness personally and able to come back to his senses in the nick of time, finally realizing that Superman is in fact a selfless person instead of an monstrous alien threat (concluding that he must have misinterpreted future Flash's message, as it would be utterly impossible for this to be a ruse on Superman's part), with the fact that their mothers share the same name ("Martha") enabling Batman to see Superman as being fundamentally just as human-like himself, despite his alien heritage. Furthermore, Batman saw how hypocritical his actions were, since while he had formerly claimed that Superman needed to be destroyed due to the possibility of him becoming malevolently corrupted, Batman had ultimately become malevolently corrupted himself (just as Alfred had previously pointed out to him), having became the thing he swore to stop, which had made it so easy for Lex Luthor to manipulate him into egregiously killing the son of Martha, much like how the thug Joe Chill had once orphaned Batman himself, the son of another Martha. In addition, Batman's prior belief of Kryptonians having a natural predisposition towards evil was invalidated when he learned of Lex Luthor's hand, as Batman realized that tremendous evil need not necessarily come from an alien, with him having been deceived this whole time by a supervillain considerably more evil than General Zod, one who was a fellow human of his. Angered, ashamed and horrified at the mislead monster that he had almost become, Batman hurled aside the spear in disgust, sincerely apologizes to Alfred for their disagreement, noting he didn't deserve him for what he had almost did, being sincerely grateful at Alfred for still being so forgiving, and atones for his mistakes by risking his life in rescuing Superman's mother, and then teaming up with Superman (and Wonder Woman) to save the world from Lex Luthor's kryptonite-powered suit.

Batman, while usually very serious, prim, and even somewhat gloomy, is a charismatic mentor and leader, and even being mentally prepared to gather together the Justice League's first roster and lead them against the impending Parademon invasion. When Flash remarks on his inexperience, many fears, and questions his value to the team, Batman helped him gain confidence with some simple advice, deducing the young speedster's potentially good judgment in their battle. Batman even gains the respect and friendship of the usually gruff lone superhero Aquaman. However, Batman is willing to be a strict and blunt leader on occasion, but this is shown to be equally effective in the end - notably when he angers Wonder Woman by using her memory of Steve Trevor to motivate her, but she is ultimately inspired by Batman's words to become a better leader and a better superhero overall. Batman's serious nature also leads to him initially getting annoyed with new Justice League recruits Flash and Aquaman, due to the former's quick-witted humor, and the latter's dry remarks about his Batsuit.