Bruce Wayne was born in 1915 to a life of wealth and privilege afforded by his socialite parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha. This would change when young Bruce was returning home with his parents after attending a movie one late evening. Deciding to take a short cut across "Crime Alley", the Waynes were attacked by a thief named Joe Chill. Chill attempted to rob Martha at gunpoint of her jewelry. Undaunted, Dr. Wayne rushed at Chill in an attempt to stop Chill, but was shot in the chest pointblank by Chill and died. Seeing her husband killed Martha suffer a heart attack which proved fatal, leaving Bruce an orphan.

Young Bruce was deeply affected by the deaths of his parents and decided to dedicate his life to avenging himself and others against criminals. Bruce began developing himself in his life-long crusade against the criminal underworld. Wayne dedicated himself to intense physical training and mastered many then cutting-edge scientific techniques including what would later become termed as foresnics and criminal sciences. Finding normal police actions ineffective against the large-scale corrupt businessmen and open criminals that he encountered through his social status as an affluent Gotham City businessman and socialite, Bruce decided to work outside the normal areas of crime prevention. Sitting in his study one night after deciding to pursue his personal goal to attack the criminal underworld directly, Wayne is inspired by a bat that flies through his window shocking him. Deciding to act on that fear of the bat, Bruce adopted that bat as a symbol that would also inspire fear in his intended targets as The Batman.

Originally considered a vigilante who killed many of his early opponents, Bruce as Batman proved to be effective against the open acting crime organzations that the ineffective Gotham City police force could not. Batman began gathering the grudging admiration of then Police Commissioner James Gordon in his efforts, depite Batman's original heavy-handed methods of crime combatting operations.

Batman would gather a wide range of rogue villians some of which were supernormal such as the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face (Harvey Kent where the Earth-One incarnation was named Dent and later Paul Sloane), Basil Karlo the original Clayface, Scarecrow and Catwoman who would become the most influencing of his adversaries and later Bruce's wife.

But one of his more effective "normal" villians was an crime boss named "Boss" Zucco who through one of Zucco's extortion crimes caused the death of the Flying Grayons which resulted in Wayne taking in Richard Grayson who would become Batman's junior partner Robin.

As a recognized effective crime-fighter, Batman was recruited by the United States Federal government as part of a covert strike force against Nazi operations in Europe that would ultimately defeat an assassination attempt on the life of President Franklin Roosevelt. At the suggestion of Superman, Batman and Robin along with these other costumed heroes formed the Justice Society of America. Due to other commitments, Batman declined full membership status, and served only as an honorary member. He did however, become more active in the group's World War II incarnation, the All Star Squadron.

Despite being a member of the All Star Squadron, Batman mostly remained focused in protecting Gotham City though he would occasionally take part in several European cases such as with the Unknown Soldier and others.

Batman continued to remain active after World War II and the public disbanding of the Justice Society due to the unwillingness of costumed heroes to reveal their secret identities demanded by the Federal Government investigative committee. In the early to mid 1950s Bruce confronted the Scarecrow in a case that caused him to seek out the help of his one time foe Selina Kyle, the Catwoman. Upon a promise of early parole for her, Kyle aided Batman. During the course of this case, the two finally acknowledged their true feelings for each other and Batman revealed his true identity to her. When Selina Kyle was finally released from prison, Bruce Wayne accepted her. The two wed soon thereafter. Selina gave birth to thier daughter, Helena.

Deciding not to put his daughter in a similar situation as he underwent in his youth, Bruce retired from the Batman role. But desiring to remain active in some way as crime fighter, He ran for and attained the position of Police Commission of Gotham City upon the retirement of his long time friend Jim Gordon. Dick succeeded Bruce in the Batman role during this period.

After a period of inactivity a former henchman of the Catwoman's, Silky Cernak, appeared and claimed to have proof that Catwoman had committed a murder in the 1950s. Silky threatened to expose this evidence to the police and destroy Selina's life unless she helped him commit one last crime as Catwoman. Fearing the destruction of Wayne's position and her daughter's safety, Selina acquiesced in a plot to arrest him. Wayne resumed the Batman identity to stop her unaware of Selina's plan. Selina was shot by Silky in her attempts to arrest him. Selina died in Wayne's arms who was revealed to the public to have been the original Batman. Bruce decided to permanently retire from the role and Cernak would be later stopped by Helena Wayne who became the Huntress.

Upon Bruce's public identity revealed and return to the role even temporarily, Dick felt uneasy operating as a publically known successor to the original Batman and decided to relinguish the role and return to his earlier role of Robin. Wayne would only return to the role one last time after learning he was dying of cancer in order to stop Bill Jensen, who had been granted super-powers by the sorcerer Frederic Vaux. Bruce had failed to arrest Jensen, and took a Batman costume from the Gotham Museum and decided to attack Jensen directly as Batman. The two fought until Jensen realized that he could not deter Wayne in his attempt to stop Jensen. Jensen decided to destroy Batman and himself with a mystical blast which succeeded in killing Bruce. The Earth-Two Doctor Fate erased completely from all people on Earth-Two that Batman and Bruce Wayne were the same.

Bruce's daughter Helena and Dick would continue on protecting Gotham City as the Huntress and Robin until they were killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.