Azrael is one of the more underrated yet incredibly interesting characters within the Batman universe.
A member of a group of assassins created by the Sacred Order of Saint Dumas, he can be
seen as a bit morally ambiguous, having been on the side of good yet still committing some
pretty heinous acts.
So today, we’re going to dive into some interesting tidbits about the valiant hero
with our list of the top 10 Azrael Surprising Facts.
10 Aliases There has been two men known to take up the
Azrael alias in the comics.
One being Jean-Paul Valley, who is likely the more iconic of the two, and the second
being Michael Washington Lane.
Jean-Paul first appeared in 1992, and became a supporting character in the Batman titles,
fighting alongside Batman and rejecting his birth right to be part of the Order, and would
eventually take the mantle.
9 Knightfall So why is Valley so iconic?
During the Knightfall story arc, in which Bane notoriously breaks Batman’s back, Valley
picks up the Batman mantle while Bruce is paralyzed.
He feels Bruce’s crime fighting tactics are obsolete, and goes a bit rogue, busting
out more brutal means of justice.
He becomes more and more delusional and violent, starts killing by letting villain Abbatoir
fall to his death, and almost strangles Robin Tim Drake to death.
Eventually, Bruce goes after him to reclaim his Batman identity, and succeeds.
8 Homeless So what happens after all that goes down?
Valley left Wayne Manor and became homeless after having a bit of a mental breakdown.
Bruce seeks him out, gives him some cash, and intel on the Order of St Dumas, so that
Valley can answer questions about his origin.
He and a new alcoholic former psychiatrist buddy named Brian go to investigate, and end
up saving a nun in the process.
7 Test Tube Baby Things only get more depressing for Valley
after that.
Ra’s Al Ghul gets involved, and Valley learns from him that he’s actually a test tube
baby, and that his genes were spliced with animal DNA.
Neat.
6 Michael Washington Lane So when does Michael Washington Lane pop up?
In 2009, during the Battle for the Cowl event, Lane starred in a mini series called Azrael:
Death’s Dark Knight.
An ex-cop, he’s approached by the Order of Purity to become the next Azrael after
their last one went insane and killed a police officer.
He runs into Nightwing and Talia Al Ghul, who both assume hes the previous Azrael, and
has to prove them wrong.
He would appear in a few later stories, and even in the New 52 with a very brief cameo
of Batwoman issue 2, but was subsequently removed.
This is because the Batwoman issues were created prior to the relaunch of the new 52, and they
had to be edited to reflect the new continuity.
5 Upbringing Despite being next in line to take up the
Azrael mantle after his father’s death, Jean Paul Valley seemed to have a pretty decent
upbringing, including an education in Programming at Gotham University.
After the fact, it was revealed that when his father crawled home in the Azrael costume,
practically dying, his intentions in giving Jean Paul a small fortune was to try to escape
the Order of St Dumas rather than join them.
4.
His Gauntlets In some pretty neat trivia, the clawed gauntlets
that Jean-Paul’s Azrael used when he was operating as Batman are now used by Kate Spencer’s
Manhunter, minus the tech that he had sitting on top of his forearms.
3 Arkhamverse Azrael appears in the video games Arkham City
and Arkham Knight.
In City, he can be first seen on a roof top when Bruce enters Arkham City, and disappears
when you get close.
He then goes on to appear in the Mystery Stalker mission, leaving cryptic statements for you,
along with symbols that form a map to his whereabouts.
He tells Batman of a prophecy in which Batman is Gotham’s saviour.
This continues into Arkham Knight, wher, long story short, he returns to tell Batman the
prophecy has come true.
This version of Azrael is a bit of an amalgamation of Jean Paul Valley and the Michael Lane version.
2 He’s in Gotham…sort of While the Gotham television show has its ups
and downs – a lot of downs, as some fans are concerned – the one thing it does have
going for itself is that it presents a different version of the Batman and Jim Gordon origin
stories, and has ventured into unexpected territory.
However cheesy that territory may be.
Villain Theo Galavan took up the helm, with a different approach on the character when
he was resurrected by Doctor Strange to take out Jim Gordon.
1 His Conditioning As we mentioned previously, Jean-Paul Valley
had a birth right to become part of the Order.
Once his father died, he learnt about his new duties, but fought against the conditioning
he had been given all his life with the help of Batman.
But he’s always been effected by that conditioning, despite trying to change his ways.
Including the way he approached problem solving.
He has a tendency to avoid using technology – which would make things easier – and
go about doing things in a more difficult manner.
During Contagion, when an antidote recipe needed to be delivered to a quarantined Gotham
City, he rushed past the military borders, breaking in, while his accomplices just emailed
the recipe to hospitals instead.
There we have it friends!
Are you a fan of either Azrael?
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In the meantime, thanks for watching!
I’m Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 nerd.
Catch you all in the next one!