Hello and welcome to Comic Drake where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake!
Everybody knows the origin story.
After billionaire Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed right in front of him at a young
age, he traveled the world and became a master of well…
everything…
Because Batman.
But what all did that really entail?
Let’s find out!
Before we dive in, I need to make it very clear that there are MULTIPLE Batmen across
the multiverse so for this video, we are specifically taking a look at the Bruce Wayne in the mainstream
DC Comics New Earth/Prime Earth continuity.
It’s also worth noting that there is some REALLY silly stuff that has been retconned
away like a young Bruce Wayne acting as a junior detective in a prototype Robin costume.
We’ve tried to be more than thorough to get all of the facts straight and relevant
so with that out of the way, let’s dive in!
Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered in front of him between the ages of seven and ten.
Honestly, it depends on the writer.
Now, we don’t get many glimpses into Bruce’s childhood, but based on what we HAVE seen,
Bruce already had skills in basic vehicle repair, archery, and research/data analysis.
In fact, Wayne mastered speed reading and total memory recall at a young age which led
to him quickly being able to pick up and master techniques such as lip reading and lockpicking.
Bruce was also taught several skills by his butler, Alfred.
Alfred was a field medic for MI5 and a trained actor and he passed along several relevant
skills including combat medicine, acting, mastery of disguises, and voice mimicry.
We also know that at some point in his life, Bruce was a student at the prestigious Gotham
Academy, but was expelled.
Considering that Bruce was thought to be dead during the later half of his training abroad,
it can be assumed that he attended Gotham Academy beforehand.
Having learned essentially all that he could in Gotham, Bruce began his journey at the
age of fourteen where it looks like he started by picking up boxing from Ted Grant, a world
champion heavyweight boxer who went on to become the vigilante Wildcat.
It’s worth noting that while learning how to throw a proper punch IS important, Bruce
picked up an even more valuable skill under Wildcat’s tutelage, how to take a hit.
Bruce stuck around in America for a good while and became a pupil of Giovanni Zatara, a world
renowned illusionist and LITERAL MAGICIAN.
From Zatara and his daughter Zatanna, Wayne learned sleight of hand, ventriloquism, and
escape artistry, the later of which Bruce got further training with from a man named
Max Dodge.
At age nineteen, Wayne traveled to Rio de Janeiro and studied with renowned criminal
Don Miguel to learn how to drive and use speciality cars which would go on to greatly impact the
design of the Batmobiles.
After learning all that he could, Bruce ultimately sabotaged a heist and left Don Miguel for
the police.
Now although we’ve mostly been focusing on Batman’s physical talents and strengths,
let’s take a quick break and look at how Bruce trained his mind.
As he traveled around, Bruce studied at several prestigious colleges including, but not limited
to Cambridge, the Sorbonne, and the Berlin School of Science.
However, Bruce would only take classes here and there that he deemed important and he
would stay at each school for maybe a semester or two at the very most.
Six years after starting his journey, Bruce returned to America at the age of twenty where
he briefly helped out in the Chicago police department under a detective named Dan Malloy
before enlisting in the FBI.
Although they prefered college graduates, the FBI waived all academic requirements when
they saw that Bruce scored a perfect score on every single test they threw at him save
for gun handling which…
well obviously.
Wayne was put into FBI training where he studied under an agent named Arthur McKee who taught
Bruce the value of maintaining a criminal alias in order to pull information from the
criminal underground.
It was this training that led Bruce to eventually take on the Matches Malone persona.
After training, Bruce only spent six weeks in service of the FBI since he was fed up
with having to work within the FBI’s system and came to the conclusion that in order to
exact justice properly, he’d have to work outside of the law.
This marked a turning point in Bruce’s journey as he traveled east and learned every Korean
martial art from a master named Kirigi in North Korea who has trained several members
of the League of Assassins.
Bruce also learned kung fu from master Chu Chin Li in China and ninjutsu from Yakuza
assassin Tsunetomo in Japan.
After of this martial arts training, Bruce moved on to Egypt where he studied under the
ex-KGB super scientist, Sergei Alexandrov.
Not only did Wayne become one of the world’s greatest engineers under Sergei’s guidance,
but he was also tested on finding unconventional solutions to problems.
But while still in Africa, Bruce trained with a group called the Ten-Eyed Brotherhood.
Wayne has said that these guys kill demons, but it was never quite clear if he meant LITERAL
demons or metaphorical, but because it’s the goddamn Batman….
Yeah, probably literal demons.
Anyway, Bruce left Africa and flew to France where he became the apprentice of Henri Ducard,
a world class manhunter.
Along with Ducard’s bastard son, Morgan, Wayne further honed his detective, tracking,
and intelligence gathering skills, but left after unknowingly helping the Ducards exact
an assassination instead of bringing the target to Interpol.
Although he disagreed with the assassination side of the Ducards’ business, Bruce was
also a student of one of the world’s greatest assassins, David Cain.
You might know him as the father of Cassandra Cain, one of the Batgirls.
Despite learning all of Cain’s killing blows, Bruce has never used these techniques, believing
that knowing HOW to kill would make him better at avoiding it.
Additionally, Wayne learned from the legendary martial arts master Shihan Matsuda.
Not only did he further hone his already incredible martial arts skills, but Bruce gained mastery
over his body including his body temperature.
In fact, here’s a shot of Bruce melting the ground below him in the freaking HIMALAYA
MOUNTAINS with nothing but his body heat and determination…
Because Batman.
Let’s also not forget that Wayne was trained by one of the world’s greatest martial artists
and forgotten part of the DC universe, Richard Dragon.
He’s a strange case in that Dragon originally first appeared in a series of novels in 1974,
but was later adapted for the DC universe a year later and has stuck around since.
Wayne’s spiritual journey continued into the Tanggula Shan mountains where he learned
the light side of Taoism from a master named Shao-La who also trained Batman in the art
of hang gliding which he would later perfect in Yugoslavia with his glider cape.
Anyway, while Bruce learned a lot from Shao-La, he never really quite…
got Taoism so he trained in the dark side with a master names H’sien-Tan which I’m
pretty sure that I butchered.
Regardless, this man was so powerful that he could literally make others perceive him
as invisible!
Now despite the potential, Wayne ended up not staying with this master for long and
didn’t pick up this ability which is a real shame because an invisible Batman would be
even more terrifying than him just the blending in that he already does.
At the age of twenty four, Bruce was in Norway where he competed in pit fighting for TWENTY
EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT simply because he refused to kill.
In the end, Bruce won because nobody else was brave enough to face him.
Holy crap!
The final mentor that we know Bruce worked alongside of was a bounty hunter named Willie
Doggett in Alaska.
The man they were tracking killed Doggett, but Bruce was able to fight him off until
the target fell off a mountain and took Bruce’s parka with him.
After being rescued by a shaman, Wayne finally returned home and began his career as a vigilante.
Now this basically marks the end of my research, but we did get a rapid fire list of other
people Bruce had learned from in Batman #434 and #435 as they were killed off one by one
and were placed in knockoff Batman suits before their death.
A lot of these guys get so little history that all we get is their last name so let’s
breeze through it!
There’s Kingsley the chemist, La Salle the bodybuilder, Mark Jenner the race car driver,
Peter Allison the gymnast, Raphael Digorda the crossbow archer, Aurelius Boch the toxicologist,
Webber the acid expert, and Shastri the herpetologist.
All of these mentors were killed off by a demolitions expert named Frederick Stone who
deduced that he had trained Batman when he saw him use a bomb disarming technique that
he had invented.
After faking his own death, Stone murdered all of Batman’s other mentors that he could
find in hopes that by tying up those loose ends, Batman’s enemies couldn’t discover
his secret identity and in turn, wouldn’t kill Fredrick Stone himself.
Now clearly this is a LOT of information and by the time that Bruce Wayne had completed
his journey, he was an expert in nearly every single style of combat, having mastered every
weapon and martial art known to man.
Along his travels, Bruce became fluent in nearly every single language known to man
and learned most of the world’s history.
He has mastered ancient spiritual disciplines, more skills than anyone could possibly ever
know what to do with, and mental techniques allowing him to process information at an
insane rate.
Even after becoming Batman, Bruce continues to learn all that he can and now has access
to even more teachers like the Green Arrow himself teaching him archery.
In fact, we will never quite know EVERYTHING that Batman has ever learned because the list
keeps on getting bigger every single day!
Now despite the fact that I have combed through decades and decades of Batman lore in order
to make this video, I’m sure there’s an obscure detail or two that I missed out on.
So if YOU know any of these details that weren’t in this video then please leave them down
there in the description below because I’d love to know.
But if you like this video then why not consider subscribing or even watching another one?
In fact, you probably like Batman if you watched this so why not check out my entire playlist
of batman videos?
There’s a bunch of them so maybe you’ll like those.
Anyway, hopefully I’ll see you next time and thanks for watching!