Bobby Stewart

Early Life
Bobby Stewart was born to the wealthy Stewart family, the son of Bobby and Raezia Stewart. As a young boy of 8, Bobby Stewart falls down a well, where he is caught in a swarm of bats. Bobby is rescued by his father Bobby Sr, but he is left with a fear of bats. 4 years later, When Bobby and his parents attend the opera Mefistofele, Bobby is frightened by the portrayals of bat-like demons in the performance. He and his parents exit into an alley, where they are confronted by an armed mugger, who shoots and kills Bobby's parents. Bobby is left traumatized by the incident. When police arrived on the scene, Bobby was comforted by Detective Jim Gordon, who promised to find the killer.

Searching for Answers-12
Bobby was then taken home by his family's butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Gordon and his partner Harvey Bullock were able to kill the man that supposedly murdered the Stewarts, and Bobby thanked Gordon when they met again at his parents' funeral. Later, Gordon arrived at the Stewart Manor and confessed to Bobby that the man everyone had thought murdered his parents been framed, but asked that he stay quiet about it so that he could find the real killer. Bobby agreed to this as he was glad his parent's killer was still alive, as he wanted to see him again. In his quest to conquer fear, Bobby tried to test himself by holding his hand over a lit candle, attempting to resist the physical pain. He was caught by Alfred Pennyworth while doing so and attempted to hide his hand behind his back before showing Alfred, and being harshly yelled at. Bobby was then comforted by Alfred, after the butler realized his mistake of yelling at him. He later arrived in the middle of a conversation between Detective Gordon and Alfred, as the butler had summoned him to the Manor in an attempt to convince him to talk some sense into Bobby, who hadn't been sleeping, and was imposing physical harm upon himself. After Gordon suggested he talk to someone to help him cope with his parent's death, Bobby refused, asking the detective whether talking to someone helped him deal with the horrible things he had saw during the war he had served in. Though Gordon attempted to lie, Bobby knew otherwise, calling him a "terrible liar". Ending the conversation, Bobby offered to give money to the homeless children of Gotham, who had been kidnapped and later rescued by Gordon and Bullock. Detective Gordon however, explained that wasn't how it worked, and that they needed someone who cared about them, like Alfred did for Bobby. Still wanting to help, Bobby offered to buy them all new clothes, as they looked "awfully ragged". Later Stewart Manor, Bobby was pestered by Alfred Pennyworth, who in an attempt to have some fun with him, started a play sword fight between the two, using wooden canes. After beating the butler, as he had repeatedly told him to stop, Bobby accidentally knocked over the police files of his parent's deaths. They were discovered by Alfred, when he picked them up off the floor, and questioned Bobby as to why he would want to look at them, as they were horrible and would give him nightmares. Bobby explained he was searching for clues within the files, attempting to find anything that could deduce the identity of his parent's killers. He was later berated by Alfred for refusing to eat anything, though he later ate while watching the news about the recent capture of the vigilante known as The Balloonman. Bobby discussed the recent developments of Arkham Asylum with Detective Gordon, and the gang war brewing because of it. He sought to help Gordon intending not to let his parents' dreams die with them, as they had fought for years to get a new Asylum opened. He later awakened from a nightmare of his parents' murder, and continued to look through files pertaining to the Arkham Plant, hoping to find a connection between the recent murders of the councilmen and his parents' death. Requesting that Alfred give him any other files related to it. Bobby later watched the news in horror as Mayor James announced what would be done with the Arkham Plant. The Arkham Asylum would be reopened like his parents had hoped, but the Plant had been secretly split between Maroni and Falcone to Bobby's dismay. This led Bobby to believe that everything his parents had worked for was falling into the hands of criminals, before being reminded by Gordon, that he was still alive and that it wasn't too late for everything to be fixed. Bobby later questioned how Gotham City worked, as he was troubled by the fact that the Falcone and Maroni crime families each got substantial pieces of the Arkham Project. He later agreed to go to the Stewart Enterprises charitable ball intending to question the board members about Arkham Asylum, after deducing from several files pertaining to the project that the company most likely gave Falcone and Maroni their shares in the Arkham Project. He later met with Molly Mathis of Stewart Enterprises' Middle Management, about the several irregularities he found within the Arkham deal. Soon after, former biochemist Stan Potolsky revealed to the attendants of the ball that he had created the drug Viper for WellZyn, which was a subsidiary of Stewart Enterprises. Despite Mathis telling him otherwise, Bobby later discovered she was the onsite liaison between the two companies, leading him to believe otherwise.[9]While watching the news about the recent killings of the first born children of Gotham's wealthier citizens, Bobby refused to leave Gotham to go to the lake house, like Alfred suggested. As Bobby was under the mindset that there was still work to be done with his investigations of Stewart Enterprises and the murderer of his parents, he also noted that there was no one to take him from, furthering his reasoning for staying. Bobby was later introduced to Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen by Detective Gordon, after it was revealed that he didn't kill Oswald Cobblepot as he was instructed to do, and was on the run from the Falcone crime family. It was explained by Gordon that he didn't know whether he'd be able to keep his promise of finding Bobby's parents killer as he had promised. Bobby got frustrated towards Gordon when he attempted to treat him like a child by not being specific of what he had done, and why he expected to die. He was guaranteed by Detective Gordon that he could trust Allen and Montoya if anything happened to him, though he would try to work it out. Bobby embraced Gordon before he left. Despite his protest, Bobby was soon forced to re-enroll in Anders Preparatory Academy by Alfred, who thought he needed to be around children his own age. Later, while reading a book outside of the school, Bobby was approached and greeted by Tommy Elliot who questioned him about his parent's death, asking several questions, which promoted Bobby to leave for class. While attempting to leave the school, walking on a stairwell, Bobby was once more taunted by Tommy, who purposely got Bobby's name wrong, though Bobby corrected him. After mentioning Bobby's deceased mother, Bobby slapped Tommy, getting beat up by the latter because of this. Alfred asked Bobby what had happened when he came outside, to which Bobby explained the situation. Taking Bobby to Tommy Elliot's house for revenge, Alfred also gave him his father's watch to use as a knuckle duster. Knocking on Elliot's door, Bobby told him that the two of them had unfinished business, proceeding to beat him, until being stopped by Alfred. Bobby then left with Alfred, selecting pizza for dinner for the night. Later on at Stewart Manor, Bobby asked Alfred whether he could teach him to fight, which Alfred told him that he could. Bobby was later brought a sketch of his parents murderer by Jim Gordon as described by Selina Kyle. He was asked by Gordon whether or not he recognized the man, which Bobby didn't. Afterwards, Bobby agreed to let Kyle stay at Stewart Manor, despite Alfred's protests, as she needed a safe place to stay, and was their best shot at finding out who had killed Bobby's parents. Bobby later offended Selina by asking her about her parents, catching her later attempting to leave through the window, apologizing if making her talk about her family upset her. Afterwards, Bobby was asked whether he had ever kissed a girl, and whether he wanted to. Struggling to find an answer, Bobby was retrieved by Alfred, as it was time for his studies. Bobby later continued his training, trying to develop self-discipline and willpower, but was told by Selina that it wouldn't work, as on the streets of Gotham, one needed to be mean and ruthless, which Bobby wasn't. The two later had a food fight, after Selina threw a donut at Bobby, telling him that if he could hit her with a piece of food, she'd let him kiss her. Bobby and Selina were later forced to flee Stewart Manor, after an assassin was let into the residence by Alfred, posing as a woman who had been in an accident. Leaving the manor, Bobby followed Selina into Gotham City, the latter whom had convinced him that assassin was there for him and not her. In the city, Bobby made his way to a payphone, and while attempting to call Alfred, he was forced to flee after Selina, who revealed that the assassin was there to kill her, and not him, and she had only told him so, so that the two could hang out a while longer. After having made his way to a rooftop following Kyle, Bobby had to jump over to another roof, almost falling, though he was saved by Selina. Proving that he had earned the right to hang out with her, Bobby was taken to the Flea, a mall of sorts for street kids, there getting a change of clothes, and encountering Ivy Pepper before leaving to The Factory with Selina. At the factory, Bobby witnessed as Selina attempted to sell several items she had stolen from his home, to her fence, Clyde, though after he offered prices that were extremely lower then what the items were actually worth, the two attempted to leave. However, the two were prevented from doing so by Clyde, who threatened to poke Bobby's eyes out, if Selina didn't cooperate with him. Being locked into a room with Selina, the two later escaped after Selina knocked out one of Larissa Diaz's men who had come in. Afterwards, Bobby distracted Diaz long enough for Selina to make her escape, though after being caught by the assassin he was warned not to mistake bravery for common sense. Bobby was then discovered by Alfred, and the two embraced. Bobby was later visited by Selina at Stewart Manor, who wanted to properly say good bye, also returning the items she had stolen from the residence, all except one. He was then kissed by Kyle, who left, and when Alfred came in the room questioning as to who he'd been talking to, Bobby lied telling him that he had been thinking out loud. Leaving Gotham for Switzerland for several weeks afterwards, Bobby had Alfred drive him around in search for Selina. Getting out of the car, Bobby pleaded with Alfred to allow him to circle around the block once, and then they would go home. While on the street, Bobby once more encountered Ivy Pepper, who he asked to pass along the message to Selina that he was looking for her, though Pepper only agreed after Bobby had Alfred give her twenty bucks. While playing chess by himself at Stewart Manor, he was interrupted by Selina who had arrived there after receiving his message. Giving her a snow globe that was reminiscent of the town him and Alfred had stayed in, Bobby followed by attempting to let Selina live at the Manor, in exchange for Kyle helping him find the man who killed his parents, though Bobby was told by Kyle that she hadn't seen his parents killers, and had only said that to get out of juvy. He was later discovered by Alfred in tears, and after a pep talk of sorts from the latter, Bobby was determined to find other leads. Bobby was later visited by Detective Gordon who told him that Selina had revealed to him that she had lied about seeing the face of the killer of Bobby's parents, to which Bobby agreed that she had told him the same thing. Though Gordon persisted that it didn't put them back at square one, Bobby released Gordon from his promise of finding his parent's killer, as he'd pursue the matter on his own. Even though his father was no longer alive, Bobby decided to continue the yearly tradition the two had of hiking, rejecting Alfred's offers to come with him. After angrily walking down the hill from his campsite, Bobby fell and sprained his ankle. Struggling to get back up the campsite, when he finally did, he discovered Alfred, who had been there for over an hour. After being helped up by Alfred, the two stayed the night, with Bobby watching the sunrise, like he did with his father. Bobby was told by Alfred that Stewart Enterprises had called to confirm his meeting with the board of directors. Though Alfred was hesitant about him going, Bobby reiterated that he had made up his mind about the situation. During his meeting with the board, Bobby questioned the directors about underworld involvement in the Arkham project, and chemical warfare manufacturing within WellZyn. Though the board of directors said they would look into them, one of the members mentioned to Bobby that he hadn't brought up any points with actual proof behind them, prompting Bobby to tell them that he hadn't told them all that he knew, and that he hoped that they did look into the issues, as he'd bring them up at the next shareholders meeting, with possible legal action. After Reginald Payne tracked down Alfred, and Bobby walked in on the two talking, he insisted that Reggie stay with them a few days. Coming into the manner after training, Bobby ran into Reggie and the two sparred, though Alfred put a stop to it. Bobby later brought up a bottle of wine, and listened to the two tell stories. He seemingly excused himself to bed when Reggie stepped out of line, taunting Alfred, but waited outside of the door, listening to the rest of their conversation. Later that night, Bobby discovered Alfred bleeding in his father's study, after having been stabbed by Reggie, immediately trying to stop the loss of blood, and calling for help. At the hospital, Bobby was brought a bagel by the visiting Detective Gordon. When they were questioned as to who had stabbed Alfred, Bobby initially was going to reveal Reggie's identity to Gordon, though he followed Alfred's lead, when the butler interrupted him, with Alfred later telling him that he was going to track down Reggie himself, though Bobby ordered him back to bed. Later, Bobby was visited by Selina Kyle who he revealed to his suspicion that Reggie had been sent to spy on him and Alfred by Stewart Enterprises, and that he planned on tracking down Reggie, as he could find out who specifically sent him, from the latter. Though Selina offered to help, Bobby rejected her offer on the account of not wanting anyone else to get hurt because of him. At Stewart Manor, Bobby was visited by Gordon, who knew him and Alfred had lied about not knowing the identity of the man who had stabbed Alfred, though Bobby denied it. Putting together that Alfred wanted to go after the man himself, Bobby was warned by Gordon to stay out of it, as it wasn't his fight. He later visited every gun range in search of Reggie, after learning from Alfred that, that was where he was most likely to be. After searching to no avail, Bobby went to Selina for assistance, with the two finding him at a shooting gallery. There, Bobby questioned Reggie as to who had sent him, with Selina threatening to drop Reggie's "medicine" out of the window if he didn't tell them. After threading to tell Bunderslaw that Bobby was onto him, Bobby witnessed Selina push Reggie out of the window to his death, when the latter attempted to grab his bag from the windowsill.Bobby later plotted with Selina to get the key to Bunderslaw's safe, as every executive of Stewart Enterprises had one, and any secrets that he had, would be in there. Deciding to attend the Stewart Enterprises charity ball with Selina, Bobby was able to get her close enough to Bunderslaw so that she could steal his key. During a tour of Stewart Enterprises, Bobby excuses himself to go to the bathroom, though instead pulls the building's fire alarm. As everyone exited the building, Bobby made his way into Bunderslaw's office, finding his safe and unlocking it, though there was nothing in it. Afterwards, he was confronted by Bunderslaw himself, who had been expecting him. Bobby's suspicions were confirmed by Bunderslaw, who also revealed that Bobby's father and grandfather had also known about the illegal activities going on in Stewart Enterprises, and originally came in with his secret files demanding justice, though he came to understand the reality of the business world. Though Bobby argued against this, Bunderslaw begged him to reconsider, as he had an opportunity to the blessed life his parents had wanted for him. The pair's conversation was interrupted by Lucius Fox, who came in looking for Bobby, as a public relations person was frantically searching for him. Before leaving Stewart Enterprise, Bobby was told by Lucius that his father was a true stoic, who kept his best self-hidden, and that he wasn't the man the company thought he was. He later revealed this, and the circumstances of Reggie's death to Alfred at Stewart Manor.[2]Two weeks later, Bobby tore apart his father's study looking for evidence of his secret life. In the midst of giving up, Bobby remembered Lucius Fox had called his father a stoic, bring Marcus Aurelius to mind, a Roman Emperor who was also a stoic. Opening a book about him, Bobby discovered a remote in the back of the book, and after a quick debate with Alfred on whether or not to press it, Bobby did so, which revealed a secret passageway behind the fireplace.

Living with Uncle Ben and Aunt Toni-13-15
Bobby was then sent to live with his Uncle Ben and Aunt Toni in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York City. It was there in New York that Bobby began to love science. At the age of fourteen Ben took Bobby to science camp where he met the genius in charge named Otto Octavius. Once Bobby began an experiment of his own, but it backfired and the other children laughed at him. Dr. Octavius comforted Bobby by telling him that their laughter was meaningless, and science would justify their actions. Bobby remembered those words and looked up to him as a mentor. Bobby continued to be an intellectually precocious but socially inept teenager ostracized by society, due to his geeky look and interest in science. Bobby was too shy to approach Mary Jane Watson, the girl next-door with whom he is smitten; although as a freshman In high school he asked Liz Allen to a science demonstration on neogenics but she turned him down to go to a party with Flash Thompson(the captain of the football team). His only friend is Harry Osborn and even their friendship is tainted with jealousy by the fact that Harry's successful industrialist and scientist father, Norman Osborn, favors the brilliant Bobby over Harry himself.

With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility-16
On a student tour of Columbia University’s genetics laboratory, Bobby is bitten by an escaped experimental spider that has been bioengineered with various extraordinary and enhanced traits (i.e. jumping, webbing and reflexes). The spider's venom causes him to fall ill and he barely arrives home before collapsing into bed. After a difficult night's sleep while the venom alters his genetic makeup, he wakes up seemingly unharmed. However, he learns to his surprise that his body has changed dramatically and literally overnight. Over the course of that amazing first day, Bobby learns that not only has he acquired perfect vision and muscle tone, but he has also gained greatly increased strength and agility, a "spider-sense" that gives him a psychic warning of danger, and the ability to extend a mass of miniature barbs from his skin that allow him to adhere to surfaces. Frightened by his new abilities, he attempts to research spider bite symptoms, but is unable to find the spider that bit him, as it was a genetic mutation. He decides to visit Dr. Connors at his home, and reveals to him that he is Bobby Stewart's son. After a short discussion, Bobby gives Connors the equation to complete a limb regeneration formula, which he had learned from studying his father's notes. The next day, Bobby humiliates Flash in the school gym, but gets in trouble when he accidentally breaks the backboard of a basketball hoop. Uncle Ben meets with the school principle, and mentions that he had to switch his work shift in order to be there, and asks Bobby to pick up Aunt Toni that night. When Ben leaves, Bobby asks Gwen Stacy out, and to his surprise, she says yes. Out of excitement, Bobby goes to an abandoned shed after school, and uses his new-found powers to swing from chains hanging from the ceiling. Later that night, Bobby meets with Dr. Connors at OsCorp, helping to complete the regeneration formula, ignoring a call from Uncle Ben. When Bobby returns home, he is scolded by Ben, who is enraged that he forgot to pick up Toni. During this time, he develops a web-like fluid and the "Web-Shooters" to fire it. While he glories in these new abilities, which allow him to fend off bullies like Eugene "Flash" Thompson and jump from rooftop to rooftop with ease, Aunt Toni and Uncle Ben become concerned for their nephew's new strange and secretive behavior. On a trip to the library, Uncle Ben confronts Bobby about it and stresses to him that with maturity and power come great responsibility. Bobby snaps at him and secretly heads off to his true destination, a sports arena that promises a $3000 prize to any man who can last three minutes in the ring with the wrestler Bonesaw McGraw. Those earnings would allow him to buy a car and impress Mary Jane. With some difficulty, Bobby defeats the wrestler and is cheered as the "amazing Spider-Man." However, Bobby is cheated by the fight promoter and, in retaliation, does not stop a criminal who has stolen the gate money. Walking to the library with some satisfaction, he finds that his uncle has been shot by a carjacker in the street. Old Ben dies in front of him. Enraged, Bobby dons his spider costume to pursue the murderer using his webs for transportation for the first time. He confronts the killer in an abandoned warehouse only to learn to his horror that the killer is the same criminal he could have stopped earlier. The terrified murderer falls out of a window to his death. Bobby is wracked with guilt and grief over the death of his uncle.

The Amazing Spider-Man
He then creates a full suit for himself, which would become his Spider-Man costume. When Bobby accepts Gwen's invitation for dinner, he meets her family, and discusses with her father that the "Spider-Man" was a hero, not a vigilante. This annoys George Stacy, who insists he was nothing more than a punk in a mask. After a short argument, he and Gwen leave to "get some fresh air" on the rooftop. Here, he reveals to Gwen that he is Spider-Man, and they kiss, but he soon leaves in response to a police report on the bridge. There, Bobby faces a large, reptilian creature, known as the Lizard. He knocks the Lizard down, but is unable to fight him, as he rescues a small child from a burning car. It was here that Bobby takes the Spider-Man name himself, and the public becomes widely aware of him. The next day, Bobby goes to meet with Dr. Connors at OsCorp, and very quickly realizes that Connors has mutated himself into the Lizard. He attempts to warn Captain Stacy about it, but he does not believe him. Bobby later decides to track the Lizard into the sewers, and also get pictures of him for a cash reward at the Daily Bugle. He is attacked by the Lizard and severely wounded, and barely escapes. Bobby leaves his camera in the sewer, which the Lizard finds and realizes Bobby is Spider-Man. The Lizard later attacks the school in an attempt to kill Bobby and prevent him from further interrupting his plans, but when the fight continues for too long, the police arrive, and he is forced to retreat. Bobby calls Gwen, asking her to develop an antidote at OsCorp, then follows the Lizard and finds his lab. After finding video files in the makeshift lab, Bobby discovers the Lizard is planning to use a device capable of creating a cloud carrying a serum large enough to cover an entire city to transform New York into lizard creatures like himself. He very quickly realizes the device is located at OsCorp, and attempts to call Gwen to warn her and get her to leave. Gwen refuses, and evacuates the building. Bobby then rushes to OsCorp, in an attempt to save both Gwen and all of New York city. On his way, Bobby is attacked by the NYPD. He is shot with an electrified dart, which briefly knocks him unconscious. Captain Stacy unmasks him, but Bobby is woken by his spider-sense, and knocks Stacy down before he can see who he is. After webbing the eyes of the officers, he is forced to reveal to Captain Stacy who he really is. Stacy realizes that Bobby is truly trying to protect the city, and allows him to go. However, on his way, an officer shoots him in the leg. A weakened Spider-Man is then assisted by crane operators, as one of them was the father of the child he saved on the bridge. The operators move their cranes in a way that creates a straight shot to OsCorp. At OsCorp, Spider-Man arrives to fight the Lizard, but is restrained by his tail. Captain Stacy arrives and helps Spider-Man by shooting the Lizard, stunning him. Bobby uses liquid nitrogen to freeze the Lizard, making him more vulnerable. He manages to get to the chemical device and switch the reptilian serum with the antidote that Gwen had made. The Lizard eventually murders Captain Stacy and attempts to stop Bobby, but fails, and the antidote cloud reverts the Lizard back into Curt Connors. As Captain Stacy is dying, Bobby is forced to promise him not to see Gwen anymore, to keep her out of harm's way. Bobby attends Captain Stacy's funeral, and ignores Gwen the following days per her father's request. Bobby eventually tells Gwen it was over, but she very quickly realizes her father was the reason for this. The following day at school, Bobby is told by a teacher not to make promises he cannot keep in response to his tardiness. Bobby whispers to Gwen, "but those are the best kind", revealing he would get back together with her. He swings through the city again that night, in response to a police report. Connors, in his prison cell, is visited by a man, who says, "Hello doctor. Did you tell the boy?" Connors replies "Tell him what?" "Did you tell the boy the truth about his father?" Connors replies "No" and then demands that he leaves Bobby alone, before the visitor leaves. Bobby, eventually learns a way to make pay by supplying photographs of his alter-ego to the curmudgeonly Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, who has a continual need for Spider-Man photos though he vilifies the vigilante in his paper. Later that month, the Russian criminal and master of disguise known as the Chameleon used Spider-Man's identity to steal defense missile plans. The real Spidey was used by Chameleon as a pawn to escape the scene without problems. After managing to avoid capture by the police, Spider-Man caught Chameleon in a helicopter before he could reach a soviet submarine and handed him in to the authorities. The Daily Bugle asked for photos of the winged criminal known as the Vulture and not only did Spider-Man defeat the villain, he also found a way to take photos. Early in his career, Spider-Man fought many villains including the Tinkerer, the Chamaleon's step-brother Kraven the Hunter, who tried to hunt Spider-Man, the Living Brain (a machine gone crazy), the Kingpin of crime Big Man and his Enforcers, and Mysterio, an illusionist who tried to make Spider-Man be seen as a criminal. After, Spider-Man beat some more foes such as: the Looter, Mendel Stromm, the Beetle, the Crime Master, Molten Man, and the Cat Burglar. He also defeated the Shocker, a criminal with shock wave gauntlets as well as teamed up with Dr. Strange to defeat the wizard known as Xandu.

The Spectacular Spider-Man-17
Weeks after the return of Kraven the Hunter and battling a new Vulture, Bobby started wondering if he may be better off not being Spider-Man. Crime rose and a Kingpin appeared in NY, abducting J. J. Jameson. Bobby was forced to return to his heroic identity and save his boss. Spider-Man then went on take down The Wizard and Mysterio, fight Ka-Zar the Savage and his companion, Zabu and a new type of Spider-Slayer, and The Scorpion. Spider-Man is in pursuit of a criminal named Alexsei Sytsevich carrying a truck full of dangerous yellow plutonium chemicals through the city, despite the fact that his graduation ceremony is right at that moment. Whilst talking to a worried Gwen Stacy on the phone, he sees a vision of her late father, Captain Stacy, and is reminded of the promise he made to stay away from Gwen. During the chase, he saves the life of Max Dillon, a lonely, isolated Oscorp employee whom Spider-Man compliments as being his "eyes and ears out here". Spider-Man manages to stop Sytsevich, and leaves him in nothing but boxer shorts. Afterwards, Bobby meets Gwen at the ceremony just in time to receive his certificate, where the two share a kiss in front of everyone. However, later in the evening, Bobby tells Gwen about the visions he's been having and insists that he needs to keep his promise, albeit they stay friends. Roderick Kingsley comes to Oscorp Industries and talks with Norman Osborn, who is in very poor health. Norman explains to Roderick that the illness is genetic, rare and he and his son Harry are going to Europe to get a cure. Before he leaves, he gives Roderick temporary control of Oscorp and a small device which he claims contains his life's work. Upon hearing the news, Bobby Stewart visits Harry to wish him well. Max Dillon, now obsessively assuming that he and Spider-Man are best friends due to the compliment he made, attends work on his birthday as an electrician at Oscorp. Whilst performing maintenance on some malfunctioning equipment (presumably placed deliberately), he is badly electrocuted, loses his balance, and falls into a tank of electric eels being used for experiments. The eels attack him with so much electricity that the glass shatters and as a result, he becomes a human mass of electricity. Meanwhile, Bobby meets Gwen in attempt to maintain a friendship, and Gwen tells Bobby that a job opportunity and scholarship at Oxford means she has to move to England. Before the two can discuss it, Max accidentally shuts off the power to Times Square whilst looking for electricity to power himself. Spider-Man arrives and attempts to calm the situation down, with Gwen recognizing him from an encounter in an elevator; Max agrees, but after the police and a sniper try to shoot him, Max thinks that Spider-Man has betrayed him and attacks, destroying the buildings around. Spider-Man eventually stops him and he is taken to Oscorp to be tested on. Roderick soon begins to show symptoms of illness and uses the device Norman gave him to deduce that Spider-Man's blood could help save him. He asks Bobby for help finding him but Bobby refuses, unsure of what effects the transfusion would have. Bobby visits Roderick again, this time as Spider-Man, but again refuses. Afterwards, Roderick is framed by members of the Oscorp board for covering up the accident involving Max Dillon, now known as Electro, and removed from his position as CEO. An employee, Felicia Hardy, informs Roderick of equipment kept off the books that could help him, and Roderick makes a deal with Electro to get him back in to the Oscorp building. Once in, he finds a suit of armour and other equipment made by Norman. Roderick gets Menken to inject him with venom, from the now destroyed spiders, causing him to transform into a monster. Bobby uses information left behind by his father to locate the video message Bobby Stewart Sr. left. In it, he explains that he had to leave New York because he wasn't willing to go along with Norman Osborn's plans to use what they had created for biological weapons. Bobby then receives a voicemail message from Gwen, telling him that she was offered the spot at Oxford and was heading to the airport to fly there earlier than expected. Bobby manages to catch her by writing "I LOVE YOU" on the Brooklyn Bridge, and professes his love for her, and the two agree to go to England together. They are interrupted by a blackout caused by Electro, who Bobby heads off to fight. Gwen eventually follows, against Bobby's demands (he even webs her hand to a car), and the two are able to defeat Electro by overloading his electricity supply. Their celebration is short-lived as Roderick arrives, now the HobGoblin. Upon seeing Gwen and Spider-Man together, the Goblin quickly snatches up Gwen. Spider-Man follows and the two engage in a climactic duel inside a clock tower, with Gwen caught in the middle. Despite Spider-Man's best efforts, Gwen falls down the tower and although Spider-Man manages to catch her with a webline, he discovers she is dead. Spider-Man cradles her body and weeps. Months pass and Spider-Man is nowhere to be seen in New York, as Bobby spends every day at Gwen's grave. Meanwhile, Roderick Kingsley is visited by Gustav Fiers who tells him that they have found several suitable candidates. Roderick advises to keep it small and that he'll find everything he needs, at Oscorp. The first chosen candidate is Aleksei Sytsevich, whom they have broken out of prison and given a large suit of armor developed by Oscorp. He attacks the city streets in the suit, going by the name The Rhino. After finally listening to the recording of Gwen's valedictorian speech, Bobby is inspired to return as Spider-Man and defeats him.

Battling The Green Goblin-18
Norman and Harry Osborn come back to New York completely cured as Harry resumes his relationship with Mary Jane Watson and Norman comes back to see his Company in shambles. Oscorp is loaded with bad press and his one chance to bring them back is to give the glider technology to the US military who is interested after the Hobgoblin fiasco. However, after continual failures at weaponizing the glider and improving on the super solider serum, Norman Osborn experiences his own dramatic transformation. To save his company from losing the vital military contract, he subjects himself to a dangerous test of an experimental treatment. It increases his strength and intelligence, but also drives him insane, creating a new, malevolent personality that murders anyone standing in his way. Using his company's prototype armor — a personal flight device called a glider and a green facemask from his collection — Norman lashes out as a figure later dubbed "the Green Goblin". Spider-Man and the Goblin eventually battle at the World Unity Festival held at Times Square, where the Goblin murders the company board of directors that were planning to fire Osborn. Spider-Man drives the Goblin off and saves Mary Jane as well. While Bobby mourns the fact that he seems to have lost M.J. to Harry, the Goblin tempts him, after abducting him as Spider-Man, to join with him against an ungrateful world that hates him. Spider-Man refuses and the insulted Goblin vows revenge. Norman deduces that Bobby is Spider-Man and begins to strike at his loved ones — first attacking Aunt Toni, who ends up hospitalized, and Mary Jane. Later, Harry discovers that Mary Jane has fallen for Bobby, and grows bitter. In a climax on the Queensboro Bridge, the Goblin tells Spider-Man to choose whether to save the kidnapped M.J. or a tram car full of children. Spider-Man, with some help from New York City by-standers, manages to save both. The Goblin, enraged at being thwarted, brings Spider-Man to an abandoned building on Roosevelt Island, below the bridge. The Goblin promises to torture and kill Mary Jane, and then duels with Spider-Man in hand to hand combat. Spider-Man defeats him, only to see the Norman personality regain control and beg Bobby to stop his attack and help him control his mental problem. Yet the Goblin personality, manipulating Norman subconsciously, sets a sneak attack on Spider-Man, using the Goblin-glider's remote control. Bobby barely avoids the charging glider hurtling in to spear him in the back. When he dodges, it fatally impales Norman, killing him quickly. Honoring Norman's request not to tell Harry the truth, Spider-Man brings Norman's body home and Harry becomes convinced that Spider-Man murdered his father. At the funeral, Harry swears revenge on Spider-Man while reaffirming his friendship with Bobby. Dismayed at the tragedy he seems to cause to all those close to him, he rejects Mary Jane's words of love to keep her from again becoming a potential target of his enemies. Bobby walks away from MJ, while trying to make the best of the situation with a victory lap as he swings around the city with ease.

Showman Crime-Fighter
A mystical artifact called the Tablet of Life and Time, exhibited in ESU was stolen by Kingpin, the Tablet passed over many people who tried to get it, including Spider-Man, Shocker (who was working for Kingpin) and Man Mountain Marko (who was working for the Maggia crime family) Finally the Tablet got to the Maggia boss, Silvermane, who forced Doctor Curt Connors to translate the tablet. Connors managed to create a powerful rejuvenation serum from it. Silvermane drank it and became a young man again. But the serum made Silvermane regress beyond birth. Meanwhile Connors, as the Lizard, escaped. During this time, Bobby dated Betty Brant of the Daily Bugle. With his secret identity making his life impossible, Bobby tried to give up being Spider-Man and created a cure for his powers that instead made him grow four extra arms. With the help of Curt Connors he found a cure, fighting Morbius the Living Vampire and his alter-ego in the process and he finally returned to normal. Being accused of the death of both Stacys, Spider-Man was confronted by heroes such as Power Man and the Punisher in the latter's crime-fighting debut. It was also during this time that Bobby decided to call it quits with Betty Brant.

Battling Doc Ock-19
It has been three years since Bobby Stewart first donned his webs, and he is finding a double life very difficult. He loses a job, faces financial difficulties, is having trouble with his estranged friend, Harry Osborn, who still blames his father's death on Spider-Man (Harry does not know that Norman was actually the villainous Green Goblin or that Bobby is Spider-Man, but is angered that Bobby's trust is not in his best friend, but in Spider-Man, his "bread and butter"), struggles with his studies and school work, as Professor Curt Connors reprimands him, and finds that he is losing his powers. Moreover, he has learned that Aunt Toni is being threatened with foreclosure on her house, and his potential girlfriend, Mary Jane, has acquired a new boyfriend, John Jameson, the son of Bobby's employer, J. Jonah Jameson. MJ turns increasingly hostile to Bobby after he fails to keep a promise to see a play in which she is the female lead. Further, he questions if he could ever have what he "needs," a life as Bobby Stewart, which climaxes in a vision involving Uncle Ben. Bobby's idol, a brilliant, gentle scientist named Otto Octavius becomes a mechanically-controlled lunatic, as the result of a disastrous fusion accident and the loss of his wife. "Doc Ock", as he is now called (due to the metal tentacles wired to his spine), desperately wants to rebuild his experiment, and Spider-Man, in the meantime, must stop him from robbing a bank. In the robbery attempt Aunt Toni is nearly kidnapped, and is enlightened to the fact that Spider-Man is a hero after he saves her. Bobby's morale hits a nadir when Harry lashes at him in a drunken rage, MJ and John Jameson announce their engagement and he loses his powers due to a form of burn-out syndrome. Bobby temporarily gives up Spider-Man, shirking his responsibilities. As Bobby has much more spare time now, not only does he excel at his physics courses, but at least one of his relationships improves. Bobby and MJ connect once again, but as MJ is engaged, it seems too late. On the other hand, Aunt Toni is distressed by Bobby's confession that he was somewhat responsible for Uncle Ben's death. Soon after though, she sees his bravery in admitting the truth and inadvertently inspires him to become Spider-Man once more, as she speaks of how he gives hope to others and that one must do things for the greater good in spite of one's own dreams. In the meanwhile, Doc Ock and Harry Osborn, now head of Oscorp's research division, make a deal: Harry supplies him with tritium for his experiment, and the Doctor agrees to capture Spider-Man for him. MJ remembers the upside-down kiss she had with her savior, Spider-Man, and that Bobby's kiss felt suspiciously similar. She arranges a meeting with Bobby, and although she is very fond of him, Bobby's secretive behavior estranges and intrigues her. Before things can develop, however, they are attacked by Doc Ock. Because he knows that Bobby and Spider-Man are close (although he does not know that they are the same person), he attacks Bobby. Doc Ock threatens Bobby and tells him to tell Spider-Man to fight him, unless he wants MJ killed. Then he abducts her. This shock brings back Bobby's powers. He has a massive fight with Doc Ock, and the insane scientist forces Bobby to rescue a rogue train. With the utmost effort, Bobby stops the train before it falls off an unfinished bridge. Before that, he took off his mask to avoid burning himself, but the people on the train return his mask, promising not to tell anyone. Unfortunately, he is weak from stopping the train and is captured easily by Doc Ock, and brought before Harry. Harry unmasks him and is stunned that Spider-Man is Bobby Stewart. Bobby implores him to tell him where Doc Ock went, or MJ will be killed. But this is a conflict that has not been resolved yet, and will no doubt be explored later on as Harry realizes his best friend murdered his father. Bobby finds Doc Ock in an abandoned warehouse, where he holds MJ hostage and has just launched his doomsday experiment, which is clearly going astray, extending flares, sucking up and incinerating anything metal (except Doc Ock's tentacles, which were designed to be impervious to heat and magnetism). They fight a second time, and in the end, Doc Ock regains his sanity. He also understands why Bobby is "brilliant but lazy," as the student leads a double life. Old advice dispensed from the doctor to Bobby and some of Aunt Toni's words are repeated by Bobby that forces Doc Ock to realize the monstrosity of his actions. Determined to end his doomsday experiment by drowning it, Octavius destroys it and ends up dying a hero ("I will not die a monster!"). MJ finds out that Bobby is Spider-Man, and is in awe and full of joy at the same time. But Bobby tells her they can never be together, as he will always have deadly enemies, and M.J. should spare herself the grief of coming too close to him. As he hears of the warehouse disaster in the media in his penthouse, a distraught Harry meets face to face with his own father, the late Norman Osborn in a mirror. Norman demands his son to kill Bobby, which prompts Harry to lash out and throw a dagger through the mirror. This, for the first time, marks Harry's possible departure into mental decline, furthered when he finds that the mirror is actually a passageway. The passageway reveals Norman Osborn's secret lifestyle as the Green Goblin, as a full assortment of his weapons and gear can be found, as Harry realizes who his father really was. MJ runs away from her marriage with John Jameson. She gatecrashes Bobby's apartment, telling him that she has decided to live with him - despite the risks - because a full dangerous life is better than a half, carefree life. She - almost forcefully - persuades Bobby to finally be her boyfriend while accepting the need of his vows by letting him respond to a sudden call for help. As Bobby joyfully swings to the rescue, Mary Jane remains, still somewhat apprehensive of the bizarre and potentially dangerous relationship they have committed themselves to.

A Bizarre Discovery
Bobby had to go on a work trip with Robbie Robertson, and he and Mary Jane share a kiss at the airport. After returning from the trip to France, Bobby found himself with Gwen Stacy, but could not bear to rekindle their relationship because of his relationship with MJ. With the help of Ned Leeds, Spider-Man found out that Gwen Stacy was a clone created by the Jackal, who, after defeating Spider-Man with the help of Tarantula, was revealed to be Bobby's old college professor, Miles Warren. After kidnapping Leeds and Spider-Man, Warren explained to the hero that he loved Gwen and blamed Spider-Man for her death. And after managing to clone a frog, he used a blood sample from Gwen to clone her. Later, Spider-Man was left unconscious in a stadium, where he battled a clone of himself to save Ned from a bomb. Gwen's clone made Jackal realize everything was wrong, so he freed Ned and the bomb exploded, apparently killing him and the Spider-Clone. Spider-Man took the corpse of his clone and buried it at an industrial chimney, while the clone of Gwen Stacy left New York. Unsure whether he was the real Bobby Stewart or the clone, he had Curt Connors run tests on him. However, he never checked the results, being convinced by his emotions for Mary Jane that he must be the original. 2 months later, Bobby had to leave Betty Brant's engagement party to defeat the Shocker, causing friction between him and Mary Jane. He then came into conflict with the Kingpin once more who was trying to acquire parts of a crime super computer before it was activated. The computer itself turned out to be self-aware and a menace. 3 months later, Bobby served as best man at Ned Leeds' and Betty Brant's wedding. Also in that month, He defeated the Fly and faced off against the Tinkerer, who had reconstructed the Spider-Mobile at the orders of the Kingpin. He also teamed up with the Punisher to bring down Jigsaw who was trying to fame the Punisher for several sniper killings.

Hard Times-20
Bobby Stewart then plans to propose to Mary Jane Watson, who has just made her Broadway musical debut. A meteorite lands near the two in Central Park, and an extraterrestrial symbiote attaches itself to Bobby's moped. Elsewhere, police pursue escaped prisoner Flint Marko, who falls into an experimental particle accelerator that fuses his body with the surrounding sand and allows him to shapeshift at will as the Sandman. Bobby's best friend, Harry Osborn, who knows Bobby is Spider-Man and holds him responsible for his father Norman Osborn's death, attacks Bobby with new weapons based on his father's Green Goblin technology. Harry injures his head on a pipe and suffers from partial amnesia, making him forget his revenge and that Bobby is Spider-Man. During a festival honoring Spider-Man, Marko robs an armored car. The NYPD Captain tells Bobby and Aunt Toni that Marko was Ben Parker's killer, and the deceased Dennis Carradine was only an accomplice. While a vengeance-obsessed Bobby sleeps, the symbiote bonds with him. Bobby wakes up hanging from a skyscraper and discovers his costume has changed and his powers have been enhanced, but the symbiote brings out Bobby's dark side. Wearing the new black suit, Spider-Man locates Marko and fights him in a subway tunnel. He discovers water is Marko's weakness and uses a water pipe to reduce the Sandman to mud. Bobby's changed personality alienates Mary Jane, whose career is floundering, and she finds solace with Harry. Harry recovers from his amnesia and, urged by a hallucination of his dead father, compels Mary Jane to break up with Bobby. After Mary Jane tells Bobby she loves somebody else, Harry meets with Bobby and claims to be "the other guy". Later, Bobby, wearing the black suit, confronts Harry and spitefully tells him his father never loved him. Harry throws a pumpkin bomb at Bobby, who deflects it back, disfiguring Harry's face. Under the symbiote's influence, Bobby exposes Eddie Brock, a rival photographer at The Daily Bugle, by submitting doctored photographs showing Spider-Man as a criminal. Furious at having to print a retraction, J. Jonah Jameson fires Eddie. To make Mary Jane jealous, Bobby brings Stacy's daughter Gwen to the nightclub where Mary Jane works. Gwen catches on and storms out. Bobby brawls with the bouncers and, after accidentally hitting Mary Jane, he realizes the symbiote is changing him. Retreating to a church bell tower, he finds he cannot remove the suit but that the symbiote weakens when the bells ring. Bobby tears the symbiote off and it falls to the lower tower, landing on Brock, who is praying for Bobby's death. The symbiote bonds to Brock's body, transforming him into Venom. Brock then finds Sandman and offers to join forces. Brock hijacks Mary Jane's taxi and hangs it from a web hundreds of feet above a sand-filled construction site. Bobby seeks Harry's help, but is rejected. While Bobby clashes with Brock, Harry learns the truth about his father's death and goes to help Bobby. Harry subdues a gigantic incarnation of the Sandman, while Bobby fights Brock. Brock almost impales Bobby with Harry's glider, but which Harry jumps in the way, causing him to only be stabbed instead. Fighting the symbiote, Bobby recalls how the church bells weakened it. He grabs pipes and creates a ring around the symbiote, creating a wall of sonic vibrations. The symbiote releases Brock, and Bobby uses his webs to pull Brock from it. However, the symbiote has gained enough power from Bobby and Brock, to live on its own without a host. Bobby throws a pumpkin bomb at the symbiote from Harry's glider, but Brock jumps in to rebond with it, and both are seemingly killed by the explosion. After the battle, Marko explains to Bobby that he never intended to kill Ben, but only wanted his car and shot him accidentally when Dennis grabbed his arm, and that Ben's death has haunted him since. Bobby forgives Marko, who dissipates and floats away. Bobby and Harry forgive each other, and Harry dies with Mary Jane and Bobby crying at his side. Mary Jane returns to the nightclub and sees Bobby while giving a song. Bobby and Mary Jane dance, reconciling their relationship. Bobby soon proposed marriage to Mary Jane, but she would not accept, making their relationship falter. MJ then moved to Florida with her Aunt Anna. As Bobby continued to live on his own, his Aunt Toni decided to transform her home into a senior citizens' boarding house.

New York City's Champion-21
At one point Bobby began a romantic relationship and heroic partnership with the Black Cat, developing feelings for her and even starting to love her, although Bobby later broke it off due to the Black Cat's disdain for Bobby's life apart from being Spider-Man. Later, Mary Jane returned to Bobby's life. A man named Puma dislocated Spidey's arm. Spider-Man passed out pushing it back into place. Black Cat saved Bobby from Puma and left Bobby at home. MJ came over to visit, because she thought Bobby felt let down by something, and tried to have some fun. But Bobby shoved MJ out of the door when his Spider Sense went off. Just as Bobby shut the door, Puma crashed in. During the battle in another building Puma confirmed that Spidey's web was organic. After the battle, Black Cat came in and MJ left Bobby’s home. Cat said MJ is nobody, and Bobby snapped at her. When she started to leave, Bobby webbed her hand, and Felicia decided to stay. As Spider-Man, Bobby met and fought alongside nearly every hero in Manhattan, if not the world. Spider-Man met the international mercenary Silver Sable, often working on her behalf.

Mr. & Mrs. Stewart
Soon after a fight with Electro, Bobby and Mary Jane married. Later, Venom reappeared in Manhattan showing that the pumpkin bomb did not kill him; however Spider-Man defeated Venom in battle again. Bobby's old friend Harry Osborn left Bobby a loft in the condo that Harry and his family lived in inside of his will. Bobby and Mary Jane moved into the loft to honor Harry. Mary Jane's cousin Kristy also temporarily moved in with the Stewarts at one point. Eventually, however, the Stewarts had to move into a room in Aunt Toni's house due to financial problems.

The Last Hunt-22
Bobby later returned to his studies and postgraduate work as a lab assistant at Empire State University. During this time, Bobby was briefly endowed with the powers of Captain Universe, in order to stop a series of robots, including the mutant-killing Tri-Sentinel. Once the menace was defeated, the extra powers he gained left him. After being defeated by Spider-Man once again, Kraven the Hunter's remaining sanity was destroyed. He hatched a scheme to finally defeat Spider-Man. While Spider-Man webslings around the city, Kraven hits him with a tranquilizer dart. Spider-Man starts hallucinating and Kraven knocks him down and captures him in a net. He shoots Spider-Man with a rifle, apparently killing him while in reality his drugs kept him completely immobile and buries him alive. Kraven then dons a copy of Spider-Man's costume, calling himself "The Spider," he seeks to become a better Spider-Man than Bobby. Brutally attacking and beating criminals, ultimately sending fifteen men to the hospital and killing one. The Spider confronts Vermin, who had resurfaced and killed various people, in the sewers. During the ensuing fight, The Spider overpowers Vermin and captures him. After two weeks, Kraven’s drug eventually wears off and Spider-Man emerges from his grave. He learns from a newspaper that someone has been impersonating him for two weeks. He reunites with Mary Jane at their apartment before going to confront Kraven. However, he refuses to fight, saying that by "killing" and impersonating him, he has proven his superiority. Kraven leads Spider-Man to a caged Vermin and releases him, goading him into attacking Spider-Man. At first Spider-Man fights back but backs off, refusing to play Kraven's game. Vermin overwhelms him and flees with Spider-Man following him. Having finished his greatest hunt, Kraven leaves a confession saying that he impersonated Spider-Man for the past two weeks and then commits suicide with a hunting rifle. Spider-Man takes down Vermin and hands him over to the police, who found Kraven's confession. Bobby then reunites with Mary Jane.

Deception
The Stewarts then met Ben Reilly, whom Bobby had fought earlier as a clone of himself. Reilly created a similar spider-costume, dubbed the Scarlet Spider by the Daily Bugle, and helped Spider-Man in his adventures. Shortly afterward, Mary Jane became pregnant, and the apparent revelation that Ben was the original Bobby Stewart and Bobby the clone prompted Bobby to retire from Spider-Man and relocate to Portland. After a crisis in Portland resulted in minor damage to Bobby's cellular structure that prevented him from accessing his powers, Bobby chose to accept retirement and focus on his new family. Back in New York, Reilly eventually assumed the identity of Spider-Man himself, since the second villain by the name of Doctor Octopus tarnished the reputation of the Scarlet Spider. After a few months in Portland, Bobby and Mary Jane returned to New York, with Bobby's powers returning after a strange illness was revealed to be his body 'resetting' itself. As Bobby's powers returned, however, he and Ben began to contemplate the possibility of both of them acting as Spider-Man. This plan was cut short when Mary Jane was rushed to hospital while giving birth due to an unexpected medical emergency, later revealed to have been staged by Norman Osborn, the original Green Goblin; Osborn had survived his apparent death and hid in Alaska for years due to an unexpected increased healing factor as part of his powers that nobody had known about before. Having stolen the body of the Stewart's baby, the Goblin revealed that he had manipulated the tests that confirmed that Bobby was the clone and Ben the original with the goal of destroying Bobby's life. During the subsequent confrontation, Ben Reilly jumped in front of the Goblin's glider when he sent it flying towards Bobby, sacrificing himself to save Bobby. Reilly's body disintegrated after his death, finally convincing Bobby that he was the original. Due to this "revelation" and the fact that his daughter had died, Bobby once again became Spider-Man.

Norman Osborne is Back
After many more months of adventuring, Norman Osborn returned to take control of the Daily Bugle, providing faked evidence that he had never been the Green Goblin and discrediting all contradicting sources. He angered Bobby, which caused Spider-Man to brutally beat Norman, which was all caught on a hidden camera in his house. With the staged confrontation and the apparent murder of a small-time criminal using what appeared to be Spider-Man's webbing, Osborn was able to create the fake impression that Spider-Man was a straightforward criminal, and increased pressure was placed on capturing him. In order to continue his crime-fighting career and investigate the fraudulent claims, Bobby relinquished his Spider-Man identity while creating four unique and separate ones: Dusk, Hornet, Prodigy, and Ricochet. As Dusk, Bobby was able to investigate the villain Trapster- the only person capable of creating a convincing duplicate of his webbing- and convince him to confess to the crime to hurt Osborn and publicly exonerate Spider-Man of the murder charge. He also used Prodigy to present fake evidence that someone else had attacked Osborn dressed as Spider-Man, at which point he resumed his Spider-Man identity. Later, the Golden Age hero Black Marvel acquired the four costumes and gave them to four teenagers, forming a team he named the Slingers.

Marriage Crumbles-23
Bobby, Mary Jane, and Aunt Toni then moved to an apartment in Manhattan. Bobby had promised Mary Jane to give up his Spider-Man identity, but he would continually sneak out at night as Spider-Man. Their marriage began to strain, in part because of Mary Jane's new modeling career and in part because she discovered Bobby's secret. Before they could reconcile, however, Mary Jane was supposedly killed when her airplane exploded. For a long time, Bobby refused to believe her dead, but eventually grew to accept it. Bobby discovered Mary Jane was alive, captured by a villain who had been stalking her prior to her airplane flight. After a brief reconciliation, Mary Jane requested to divorce Bobby, saying that she needed time to adjust by herself. Bobby soon took a job as a teacher at his somewhat beloved Midtown High.

Totemistic
After getting this job, he encountered a strange old man named Ezekiel who possessed powers very similar to his. He knew Bobby's secret identity and talked to him about things about his powers he had never thought of, like, "Did the radiation enable the spider to give you these powers? Or was the spider trying to give you those powers before the radioation killed it?" He told him that he defeated all those animalistic themed villains because their totemic nature stolen, impersonated or borrowed, and Bobby's was given freely. After many questions, telling Spidey his powers were 'totemistic' in nature, that a totem is a being that connects the animal and human realms, and showing Bobby what he could have done had he stayed in showbiz. Ezekiel warned Bobby about a totemistic predator named Morlun, who would try to kill him, he offered him a room which will block him from Morlun's detection. After ignoring the warnings of Ezekiel, and being defeated by Morlun, Spidey attempted to get Ezekiel to help him. With Ezekiel refusing to do so, telling Spider-Man that the room was now useless since Morlun had his scent. Spidey went after Morlun again after Spidey found him terrorizing innocent people. After being nearly beaten again, Ezekiel helped Spidey, but seemingly perished. Bobby managed to escape with a sample of Morlun's blood, which he discovered contained the DNA of every genus in the animal kingdom. Realizing that Morlun's DNA was pure, Bobby found a weakness he could exploit. Luring Morlun to a nuclear power plant, Spidey then injected himself with a lethal dose of radiation at a nuclear plant, becoming an "impure totem" which hurt Morlun when he tried to absorb his life force, enabling Spider-Man to defeat him by injecting him with radiation with every punch he threw. Morlun pleaded Spider-Man to spare him, saying he was doing what he need to survive. While considering what to do with him, Morlun's assistant, Dex, shot Morlun. He let Dex go and returned to Ezekiel's offices only to discover they were empty. He found footprints on the outside of the windows and a rubber spider. After the brutal battle, Spider-Man returned to his apartment, and fell deep asleep. Aunt Toni came by, only to find that Bobby had severe wounds and scars, and a tattered Spider-Man costume on the floor. Ezekiel then appears and warns Bobby that Morlun is not the only one hunting him and another more powerful foe is coming for him. Ezekiel warns Bobby of the coming of the Gatekeeper, who controls mystical forces. Ezekiel says that the Gatekeeper sees him as unworthy, since he received his powers by accident, to be in possession of his powers so he will kill him. Ezekiel tells Bobby to return to Ghana with him but Bobby refuses. However, swarms of spiders attacked New York. Spider-Man tries to save as many as he can when Ezekiel says that the Gatekeeper has arrived to kill him; he urges Bobby to go with him. The spiders gather to form the body of the Gatekeeper, who tells Bobby that bugs are important to the world and the spiders are the hunters of the bug-world. Spider-Man attempts to fight him but he is outmatched and the Gatekeeper tells him that he was chosen by mystical forces to receive his powers from the students in the demonstration. He continues saying that Bobby has become a natural hunter because of all the anger he carried in his life when he was bullied, never being able to fight back and reserving the anger to himself, making him never give in to the odds and a hunter because he was the prey. Bobby realizes that contradicts what Ezekiel said and the Gatekeeper reveals that Ezekiel is unworthy of his powers because he "stole" them. Spider-Man wakes battered and bloodied and Ezekiel tells him that he has to kill Bobby because the Gatekeeper will only allow one of them to live. Bobby realizes that the supernatural menaces he recently fought were after Ezekiel. They fought but Ezekiel defeats him by drugging him with a syringe. Ezekiel chains him to a column in a temple and stabs him with a knife to have his blood flow into the spider runes on the floor. Then a giant spider monster appears to kill Bobby as Ezekiel walks away. In panic, Bobby uses his Spider-Sense to bond with Ezekiel's mind and shows him his heroics. Ezekiel realizes that he has wasted his life seeking wealth and Bobby is the one worthy of his powers. He goes and sacrifices himself instead and saves Bobby. A shaman named Miguel buries Ezekiel and tells Bobby that Ezekiel was redeemed by saving him. Bobby asks him if his powers came from science or magic, and Miguel tells Bobby that they came from both, that they co-exist and that Bobby was meant to have them.

New York's Official Mascot-24
After the wedding of Aunt Toni and Jay, Jonah's father, Spider-Man saved Jameson from a revived Doctor Octopus. Around this time, Bobby renewed his relationship with Black Cat albeit for a short period of time. He later battled a man who wanted to kill Ben Reilly, and saw the return of Bobby's living clone Kaine. Despite his problems, Spider-Man helped the original Jackpot start fighting crime and overcame the corrupting control of Mister Negative's energy. The Kravinoff family soon started a vengeance scheme on Spider-Man, kidnapping Madame Web and Mattie Franklin, one of the Spider-Women. In addition, Spider-Man managed to get a videotape of Osborn practicing illegal experiments to damage his reputation and leaked it to the public. Later, Spider-Man faced re-powered villains such as Electro, who destroyed the Daily Bugle building; Sandman, who became obsessed with taking care of his "daughter" Keemia; Rhino, who left reformation to kill a new Rhino who murdered his wife; Mysterio, who starts a gang war; a new Vulture, who tries to kill Jameson; and the Lizard, who evolved and "killed" his alter-ego and his son Billy. Many of them where helped by Kraven's wife Sasha, who wanted revenge on Spider-Man, arranging most of these attacks so that Bobby would be a potent sacrifice. The Kravinoffs killed Mattie Franklin to resurrect Grim Hunter, and finally hunted Spider-Man and killed him to revive Kraven. However it was revealed that the corpse was Kaine's, who had earlier knocked out Bobby and switched places to save him, with the corrupted resurrection ritual thus leaving Kraven an apparent immortal who was nevertheless detached from the world around him. After a battle with the Kravinoff family, Madame Web died and Julia Carpenter took up her mantle. The surviving Kravinoffs left New York. Later, Kaine was resurrected from his grave and mutated into a more spider-like creature by the Jackal. As Spider-Man’s hero career rose up again, Bobby starts a relationship with police officer Carlie Cooper. Bobby found a dream job, thanks to Jameson's wife Marla Madison, as a compensation for Jameson firing him, as a scientist at Horizon Labs where he had access to much technology and resources while also giving him freedom to come and go as he liked so long as he delivered good results. Spider-Man then faced a new Hobgoblin and the Kingpin, but days later, he lamentably lost Marla in a fight between Alistair Smythe's Spider-Slayers.

Battling Carnage
Homicidal maniac Cletus Kasady was serving eleven consecutive prison terms when an opportunity for early parole presented itself in the form of his new cell mate: Eddie Brock, human host to a symbiotic costume once worn by Bobby Stewart. Monster and man had merged to become the villainous Venom, but Brock was separated from the alien during a battle with the web-slinger. While Brock waited for the symbiote to spring him from prison, Kasady entertained him with his homicidal philosophy on life: Even the average person can commit murder, if only he has the courage. As anticipated, the Venom symbiote attempted to free Brock by inciting a destructive jailbreak. Unknown to its human host, the alien was pregnant. It gave birth during the disastrous rescue. Left behind in the midst of the riot that ensued, the symbiote's spawn bonded with Kasady. Empowered far beyond the levels of Spider-Man and Venom, he escaped - intent on using his new-found power to disseminate his lethal doctrine and as Carnage, his first victim Gunther Stein was chosen from a Telephone book. Embarking on a citywide killing spree, Carnage was confronted by Spider-Man. However, the wall-crawler's amazing arachnid-like abilities were insufficient to subdue the thrice-strong serial killer. Spider-Man was forced to enlist the aid of a dangerous ally: Venom, his hated foe. The villain however, despised its offspring even more, and agreed to help. Facing the combined might of Spider-Man and Venom, Carnage was captured and imprisoned at the Ravencroft Asylum. Carnage soon escaped Ravencroft however and after a battle with Venom, Carnage, was about to give birth to another symbiote. Carnage was threatened by its existence and attempted to destroy it. However, Venom wanted to raise and train the new symbiote as an ally and partner. Weakened by the actual birthing, Carnage was unable to kill the newborn, supplanting it in Patrick Mulligan, a New York city cop. Venom named the new symbiote Toxin, after himself. Fearing that Toxin would grow to become someone like Spider-Man, Venom made a temporary alliance with Carnage to kill his "grandson", but in the end they were defeated by the combined efforts of Spider-Man, Toxin and Black Cat.

Spider-Man No More-25
On the 9 year anniversary of when he was bitten by the radioactive spider, Bobby Stewart’s powers were lost to him for good. The radioactive toxin in his blood was now gone and Bobby Stewart was relegated to being nothing more than a normal civilian. Bobby was at first overjoyed about no longer having the burden of being Spider-Man, but when unimagined amounts of crime started to plague New York; Bobby couldn’t handle sitting on the sidelines anymore. Bobby tried everything possible to try to regain his spider powers but each attempt came to no avail.

The Prince of Gotham
Heartbroken at his dilemma and the apparent loss of the city to super villainy, Bobby decided to move back to his childhood home of Stewart Manor in Gotham City. The Mansion has been kept tidy for the last 12 years by the families loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth. Bobby soon becomes enraged when he finds out that Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents, is having his prison sentence suspended in exchange for testifying against the mob boss Carmine Falcone. Bobby then goes to the court hearing intent on killing Joe Chill. Chill is assassinated by one of Falcone's henchmen, depriving Bobby of his opportunity. When Bobby tells his childhood friend Rachel Dawes about his foiled plan, she expresses disgust and gives him a lecture of the difference between justice and revenge. Realizing she is right, Bobby decides to confront Falcone himself, but the mob boss dismisses him as ignorant of the nature of the underworld (Saying, "You're Bobby Stewart, the Prince of Gotham--you'd have to go a thousand miles to find someone who doesn't know your name!"), having his thugs rough him up. Realizing that Falcone is right, and that he cannot truly understand what he intends to fight as a wealthy playboy, he abandons his life at home, stowing away on a cargo ship and traveling the world.

Vigilante Justice or A Normal Life-26
While in Egypt, Bobby meets a woman named Andrea Beaumont in a cemetery while she was visiting her mothers' grave; Bobby goes to cemeteries to remind himself of all of the losses in his life from his parents to his daughter and remind himself why he will always strive to fight for justice. That night, in one of his first non powered crime-fighting attempts, Bobby foils an armored car robbery while disguised in a black ski-mask and leather jacket. Though he succeeds, he is discouraged that the criminals did not fear him. Around the same time, he begins a romance with Andrea. Eventually, Bobby decides to abandon his plan to become a crime-fighting vigilante and proposes marriage to Andrea. Soon afterward, however, Andrea mysteriously leaves Egypt with her father, Carl Beaumont, ending her engagement to Bruce in a Dear John letter. Believing that he has lost his last chance of having a normal life, Bobby is left with more resolve than ever to fight crime once again. Bobby then leaves Egypt behind and travels to Asia.

Batman Begins-27
He associates with criminals to learn their ways and is thrown in prison by police in China for theft, ironically of Stewart Enterprises property. After a prison brawl, an enigmatic man who identifies himself as Ducard invites Bobby to join an elite vigilante group, the League of Shadows, under the leadership of Ra's al Ghul. Bobby is freed the next day and travels to the top of a mountain to begin his combat training with the League. In his training, Bobby overcomes his fear of bats while under the hallucinogenic influence of a mountainside blue flower. Following his training, it is decided that Bobby will lead the League in its fight to restore order to Gotham. When Ducard orders Bobby to execute a murderer as a final test, Bobby refuses to obey and destroys the League's headquarters, killing Ra's in the process. However, Bobby rescues an unconscious Ducard from the wreckage and leaves his mentor at a nearby village. Bobby Stewart 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. Bobby pays a visit to Gordon one night in disguise to establish communication. After reestablishing his connections to his father's company, Stewart Enterprises, Bobby is able to acquire, with the help of former board member Lucius Fox, a prototype armored car and an experimental armored suit. He augments the suit with League of Shadows armor, and a special cape that can become a rudimentary hang glider. One night, in his new 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 that has gone soft on Falcone in the past. While investigating the "unusual" drugs in the shipment, Batman is stunned by Dr. Jonathan Crane ("The Scarecrow"), who sprays him with a powerful hallucinogen. Bobby is rescued by Alfred and administered an anti-toxin developed by Fox. Crane later poisons Rachel after showing her that the toxin, which is revealed to only be harmful in vapor form, is being piped into Gotham's water supply. She is saved by Batman. The police enter Arkham Asylum, and Batman escapes with Rachel in his Batmobile. After administering the antidote to Rachel in his cave, 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. Later at a party held at his mansion, Bobby is confronted by a group of ninjas from the League of Shawdows and his old mentor Ducard, who then reveals himself to be the real Ra's al Ghul, the former who died being a decoy. Ra's, who had been conspiring with Crane the entire time, plans to destroy Gotham by distributing the toxin (which was extracted from his blue flowers) undetected via Gotham's water supply, and then vaporize it with a microwave emitter stolen from Stewart Enterprises. Bobby, tricking his guests into leaving, fights briefly with Ra's while the League of Shadows set fire to Stewart Manor. Bobby 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, who are engaged in battle with psychotic criminals set free from Arkham Asylum by the League. After saving Rachel, and intimating his identity to her, he leaves 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, then escapes just as Gordon topples the elevated line using the Batmobile's missiles, leaving Ra's to crash with the train to the ground. Following the battle, Batman becomes a public hero. Bobby gains control of Stewart Enterprises and installs Fox as CEO, firing Earle. However, he is unable to hold onto Rachel, who cannot reconcile her love for Bobby Stewart with his dual life as Batman. Gordon, newly promoted to lieutenant, unveils a Bat-Signal for Batman and mentions a new criminal that, like Batman, has "a taste for the theatrical", leaving a Joker playing card at his crime scenes. Batman promises to investigate and takes off into the night.

Year One
Bobby’s next challenge was Dr. Hugo Strange, a mad scientist who had created Monster Men to do his bidding. The third enemy Batman encountered was the fearsome Man-Bat, who was on a crime spree on Gotham, and Batman was being chased by the police as the main suspect. Batman managed to capture Man-Bat and revert the mutation that caused Dr. Kirk Langstrom to transform into the monster.

The Dark Knight-28
In Gotham City, the Joker robs a mob bank with his accomplices, whom he tricks into killing one another, ultimately killing the last one himself. While investigating the robbery, Batman and Lieutenant James Gordon contemplate including new district attorney Harvey Dent in their plan to eradicate the mob. However, Batman wonders if Dent can be trusted. Stewart runs into Rachel Dawes and Dent, who are dating, and after talking to Dent, he realizes Dent's sincerity and decides to host a fundraiser for him. Mob bosses Sal Maroni Jr, Gambol, and the Chechen meet with other underworld gangsters to discuss both Batman and Dent, who have been cracking down on the mobster's operations. Lau, a Chinese mafia accountant, informs them that he has hidden their money and fled to Hong Kong in an attempt to preempt Gordon's plan to seize the mobsters' funds and hide from Dent's jurisdiction. The Joker appears and offers to kill Batman for half of the mafia's money, but they flatly refuse and Gambol places a bounty on the Joker's head. Not long after, the Joker kills Gambol and takes control of his men. In Hong Kong, Batman captures Lau using a skyhook, and delivers him to the Gotham City police, where Lau agrees to testify against the mob. Dent and Gordon arrest the mob, and in retaliation the Joker issues an ultimatum to Gotham: people will die each day until Batman reveals his identity. When Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb and the judge presiding over the mob trials are killed, the public readily blames Batman, prompting Bobby to decide to reveal his identity. Before Bobby can turn himself in, Dent holds a press conference to try and persuade the public not to sell Batman out just because of one terrorist. However the public, though grateful for everything Batman has done for the city, insists that things have now reached a point where Batman must make the sacrifice, so Dent announces that he himself is Batman and is arrested as part of a plan to draw the Joker out of hiding. The Joker attempts to ambush the police convoy carrying Dent, but Batman and Gordon intervene and capture him. In recognition of his actions, Gordon is appointed the new police commissioner. Later that night, Dent and Dawes disappear. At the police station, Batman interrogates the Joker, who reveals that Dent's and Dawes' police escorts were corrupt police and have placed them in warehouses rigged with explosives on opposite sides of the city—far enough apart so that Batman cannot save them both. Batman leaves to save Dawes, while Gordon and the police head after Dent. With the aid of a smuggled bomb, the Joker escapes police custody with Lau. Batman arrives, but finds Dent instead of Dawes. Batman successfully saves Dent, but the ensuing explosion disfigures Dent's face. Gordon arrives at Dawes' location too late, and she perishes when the bomb detonates. Unable to cope with this new level of chaos, Maroni goes to Gordon and offers him the Joker's location. Aboard a cargo ship, the Joker burns Lau to death atop a pile of half the mob's money, and has the Chechen killed before taking control of his men. Meanwhile, an M&A lawyer working as a consultant to Stewart Enterprises, Coleman Reese, finds out Batman's identity and after failing to blackmail the company, decides to go public. However, realizing that he does what he does only because of Batman, the Joker changes his mind about revealing Batman's identity and issues a public ultimatum: either Reese is killed within the hour, or he will blow up a hospital. When attempts on Reese's life are foiled, the Joker goes to the evacuated hospital, disguised as a nurse, and frees Dent from his restraints, convincing him to exact revenge on the people whose corruption led to Dawes' death. Dent begins by flipping a coin to decide if he should kill the Joker, and spares him. The Joker destroys the hospital on his way out, and then escapes with a hijacked bus full of hospital patients. Out of the hospital, Dent goes on a personal vendetta, confronting Maroni and the corrupt cops one by one and flipping his coin to decide their fates. Now with complete control over the Gotham mob, the Joker announces to the public that anyone left in Gotham at nightfall will be subject to his rule. With the bridges and tunnels out of the city closed due to a warning by the Joker, authorities begin evacuating people by ferry. The Joker has explosives placed on two of the ferries—one ferry with convicts, who were evacuated in an effort to keep the Joker from freeing them, and the other with civilians—telling the passengers the only way to save themselves is to trigger the explosives on the other ferry; otherwise, he will destroy both at midnight. Batman locates the Joker and the hostages he has taken. Realizing the Joker has disguised the hostages as his own men, Batman is forced to attack both Gordon's SWAT team and the Joker's henchmen to save the real hostages. The Joker's plan to destroy the ferries fails after the passengers on both decide not to destroy each other. Batman finds the Joker, and after a brief fight, is able to subdue him, preventing him from destroying both ferries. When Batman refuses to kill the Joker, the Joker acknowledges that Batman is truly incorruptible, but that Dent was not, and that he has unleashed Dent upon the city. Leaving the Joker for the SWAT team, Batman searches for Dent. At the remains of the building where Dawes died, Batman finds Dent holding Gordon and his family at gunpoint. Dent judges the innocence of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son through three coin tosses. As the result of the first two flips, he shoots Batman in the abdomen and spares himself. Before Dent can determine the boy's fate, Batman, who was wearing body armor, tackles him over the side of the building. Gordon's son is saved, but Dent and Batman fall to the ground below resulting in Dent's death. Knowing that the citizens of Gotham will lose hope and all morale if Dent's rampage becomes public news, Batman convinces Gordon to hold him responsible for the murders. Police swarm the building, and Batman flees as Gordon and his son watch. Gordon delivers the eulogy at Dent's funeral and smashes the Bat-Signal.

The Rouges Gallery
There would be many more villains starting to appear within this time. The Scarecrow returned to strike terror into the hearts of his victims for his own pleasure when Scarecrow started a campaign to attack the Gotham University. In the encounter, Batman was dosed with Scarecrow's Fear Toxin and it caused him to have hallucinations of his father, Bobby Stewart being ashamed of Bobby. Batman managed to overcome his fears and using Scarecrow's own fear gas, he captured the villain and delivered him to the police. The Riddler was another deranged genius who felt a psychological compulsion to demonstrate his intellectual superiority, and constructed elaborate crimes while delivering clues daring law enforcement to catch him. Having strategically calculated his plans, Edward Nygma, donning the alias "the Riddler" cuts the power throughout the entire city of Gotham, telling the people that they will need to get smart or die. As the lights darken in Gotham, Riddler kicks off what he will later call "Zero Year". Working with a vengeful scientist named Karl Helfern, Riddler sits back as Helfern collects all the materials needed to bring the city to its knees. While Helfern's motives are to hurt Wayne Enterprises, Riddler's motives are to make the city of Gotham smarter - to eradicate those that dumb down the human race. As Batman battles Dr. Helfern, Commissioner Gordon discovers Nygma's current base of operations - Philip Kane's old office in the Stewart Enterprises building. Gordon is outsmarted by the Riddler, though, who escapes the building. Batman manages to defeat Dr. Helfern, but Nygma's plans are untouched by his ally's defeat; because Gotham was not smart enough to stop him, the Riddler blows up the retaining walls around Gotham. The approaching hurricane that the city had been preparing for is now unchallenged, and the streets immediately flood with several feet of water. Using a special chemical developed by Dr. Pamela Isley and stolen by Helfern, Riddler hastens the growth of plants throughout the city. The city, now a dark, savage jungle, is told to get smart or die by it's new overlord Riddler. Nygma challenges the city: for one hour every day, he will show his face on the huge television in midtown. If anyone can ask him a riddle he can't answer, he will give the city back to the people. But, if the Riddler answers the brave challenger's question, he will be dropped down a trap door to his death. Working with Commissioner Gordon and Lucius Fox, Batman discovers the Riddler's location after multiple difficult tasks to find his broadcasting spot. Riddler and Batman meet for the first time with their masks on where they had met for the first time with their masks off - the Gotham Museum. Pointing multiple lasers at the vigilante, Riddler challenges Batman one last time by demanding he answer twelve riddles. Batman, goes along with it for a bit, afraid that the villain will detonate weather balloons throughout the city if he does not play along, but ultimately punches Riddler in the face before the mastermind has a chance to ask all his questions. Turning the power back on, Riddler's reign is ended. Nygma, deemed too dangerous for the usual Blackgate Penitentiary, is put in a strait jacket and detained at Arkham Asylum.

29
Poison Ivy attempted to destroy the city when an advanced connection to plant-life led her to wage a personal war against humanity. Pamela Isley threatened to release her suffocating spores into the air unless the city met her demands. Thus, she became infamous as Poison Ivy. Batman captured her, resulting in her incarceration in Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The psychotic Mister Freeze used dangerous experimental technology to take revenge against society when his wife died. His first act as a costumed criminal is to take revenge upon Ferris Boyle, a plan with which Batman interferes. Mr. Freeze fired his freeze-gun at Batman, but he dodged, causing the beam to shatter Nora's capsule. Freeze blamed Batman, and swore to destroy whatever the Dark Knight holds dear. Another crime boss appeared named the Penguin who acted as an eccentric criminal mastermind without any crippling mental illness other than a desire to prove himself. The Penguin snuck a priceless painting out of a museum by hiding the rolled-up canvas in the handle of his umbrella. The Penguin later used the canvas as proof of his intellect to a local mob, which he was then allowed to join. With the Penguin's help, the mob pulled off a string of ingenious heists, but the mob's leader and the "be-monocled bird" eventually fell out, leading Cobblepot to kill him with his umbrella gun. The Penguin became leader of the mob and attempted to neutralize Batman by framing him for theft. The Penguin's plans were eventually thwarted, but the bandit himself escaped. Many of these villains were kept in Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane after they were defeated by Batman.

Mask of The Phantasm
During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, gangster Chuckie Sol is killed by a mysterious cloaked figure, shortly after Batman bursts in on the meeting. Due to the killer's resemblance to Batman, the Dark Knight is blamed for Sol's death. Councilman Arthur Reeves tells the media that Batman is a public menace (despite Commissioner Gordon's protests), then later attends a party at the mansion of billionaire Bobby Stewart, Batman's secret identity. Reeves(a friend of the Beaumont family) teases Bobby about his bad luck with women and for having allowed an old girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont, to get away. Meanwhile, The mysterious killer finds and murders another gangster, Buzz Bronski. Around the same time, Batman discovers that Andrea has come to Gotham and she ends up finding out that Bobby is Batman. Batman soon finds evidence linking Andrea's father with gangster Salvatore Valestra, for whom both Sol and Bronski once worked as enforcers. When he visits Andrea to try and get more answers, she rebuffs him over the choices that he made since she left him. The killer later targets Valestra, who turns to the Joker(who went M.I.A. before the SWAT could catch him) for help. The killer arrives at Valestra's house, and finds the gangster already dead at the Joker's hands; the house explodes, with the killer barely escaping. Batman pursues the killer, but is interrupted by the police, who try to arrest Batman. Andrea rescues Batman in her car, and they spend the night together at Stewart Manor. Andrea explains to Bobby that she and her father had left Gotham and had been hiding in Egypt from the Valestra mob, to whom he owed a lot of money. When the Valestra mob found them in Egypt, they then pack up and went to Europe. She tells Bobby that her father trusted nobody especially him since the "Prince of Gotham" was randomly in the country and she was forced to not disclose her whereabouts to him in her letter. Batman comes to suspect that Andrea's father may be the killer, but later gets Reeves (who was told of Batman's innocence by the Joker before being poisoned by him, as he believed the Councilman to be the killer) to confess that he told the Valestra mob where Beaumont was hiding in return for campaign contributions, and that the mob ordered Beaumont's death. The killer tracks the Joker to his hideout — an abandoned world's fair amusement park — and removes its ominous costume: the killer is Andrea, intent on avenging her father's death at the hands of the Joker, who is revealed to be the last surviving member and professional hitman of the Valestra mob. Having already deduced her identity, and ready for her attack, the Joker fights her. Just before he can kill Andrea, Batman arrives and saves her from the Joker. Bobby begs Andrea to give up her quest for revenge and She refuses, stating that the mob ruined her life by taking away her future with him. She tells Batman that he himself is driven by revenge before disappearing. Batman then battles with the Joker, a struggle that ends in a stalemate. Moments later, Andrea returns and seizes the Joker, bidding Batman goodbye before vanishing with the maniacally laughing clown in a cloud of smoke as the entire amusement park erupts in a series of rigged explosions. Batman barely escapes by falling into a waterway and being swept away to safety by the current. Alfred later consoles a heartbroken Bruce, telling him that no one could have helped Andrea. Bruce finds a locket containing a picture of himself and Andrea left behind in the Batcave. Meanwhile, Andrea is shown standing alone on the deck of a departing ocean liner, content with herself on what she did with the Joker; taking him to Arkham Asylum. Batman then stands alone on the top of a Gotham building; when the Bat-Signal appears in the sky, he swings off into the night to continue his war on crime.

JLA-30
Superman the savior of Metropolis soon came to Gotham viewing Batman as a dangerous criminal and attempted to arrest him for his vigilante tactics. They were forced to work together tracking down the dangerous psychopath Magpie, and Superman realized that although his own style of crime-fighting was suitable for his environment, the Bat-Man did what he needed to do to protect his city. They both gained respect for each other, although they doubted they would ever work together again. A couple of months later, they both met as Bobby Stewart and Elijah Rolle while they were forced to share a room on a cruise ship. They are made aware of each other's secret identities when both are called upon to fight threats including Deathstroke and the Crime Syndicate. Superman later introduced him to Wonder Woman when they teamed up against Ra's al Ghul and Bizarro, and she disliked Batman at first for his methods. She later gained respect for him after they fought together as a team for the first time. 3 weeks later, there was a great team-up between many heroes to fight the alien Appellaxian invaders, including these three along with Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter. Eventually they would decide that they could better protect the planet if they permanently joined forces... and they became the Justice League of America.

Repeat Offenders
After that, Scarecrow again planned to pollute Gotham's main water supply with his fear toxin and as with every other encounter, Batman was dosed with the toxin, causing him to lose control of the Batmobile in the middle of the road and being taken as an inmate in Arkham Asylum. Batman tried to warn everyone about Scarecrow's plans, but nobody would believe him. Using every bit of energy left in him, Batman managed to escape from his cell in Arkham and chased down Scarecrow. Batman struggled with the visions caused by the toxin but in the end he stopped Scarecrow from achieving his ultimate goal. Sometime later, Poison Ivy created some sort of serum that would transform people into trees and conducted an illegal spa as bait to attract victims. Her targets were always wealthy people who damaged the environment. Once again, Batman stopped her by creating a gigantic tree that destroyed her base of operations. The Joker had escaped Arkham and kidnapped Commissioner Gordon, Summer Gleeson and Harvey Bullock. His ultimate goal was to prank Batman but the joke was on him as Batman stopped his evil plans and sent him back to Arkham. 2 weeks Later, Joker escaped Arkham again and spread his laughing gas in Gotham City; creating chaos and allowing him to steal from every citizen. Once again Batman was able to stop him and made sure they put the Joker in the maximum security wing at Arkham.

Super Fighters Vs Superheroes
Batman also spent a huge portion of this time teaming with the Justice League. After Darkseid's apparent defeat at the hands of Superman, invaders from another dimension began appearing. Batman intervened and stopped a rampaging Flash in Gotham City, who had been overcome by Kombat Rage, from killing a defeated Kano, only to be challenged by Flash to a fight. Batman was overwhelmed by the Kombat Rage fueled Flash and was defeated, having to resort to taking him down with his taser. Bringing Flash to the Bat Cave, he tried to run some tests on the rage that consumed his teammate, but Flash suddenly disappeared and was replaced with the ninja spectre Scorpion. Thinking the Dark Knight was his archnemesis Sub-Zero in disguise, Scorpion attacked Batman, but was defeated in his dazed shape and captured. When another power anomaly appeared in Gotham, Batman was forced to take Scorpion with him. Arriving in the city via the Batmobile, he was then forced to fight his archnemesis, the Joker when the Clown Prince of Crime threw a bomb on the hood of his car after he escaped from Arkham. The Joker was able to escape Arkham due to the merging of the two dimensions. Batman Defeated the Joker and cuffed him, Batman was surprised by the sudden appearance of Bo Kazama. The rage in the monk made Batman appear as Shang Tsung and another fight ensued with Batman emerging the victor, but at the cost of Scorpion and the Joker escaping. Via Green Lantern, Batman took Kazama to the U.N. orbital station, where he discussed that Earth might be in for another invasion. Raiden, the god of thunder, suddenly appeared and demanded Kazama's release. Batman refused without obtaining answers and in a following fight, he was able to resist the god of thunder with his insulated armor, but Raiden still got away with Kazama. Batman then realized how dire the situation had become when he saw the two Earths merged together. He would soon after contact Wonder Woman and urge her to find Superman. Returning to the Cave, Batman found Sub-Zero searching for Scorpion. Even with the rage powering him up, Batman was defeated by the Lin Kuei warrior. Batman then deduced that, through the magic of the two worlds merging, the other heroes and villains were gaining incredible strength. This was demonstrated when Joker defeated Batman in a fight after luring him to Gotham City. Subduing the maniac clown, Batman brought them both to the formed team of heroes and villains where they learned that a being named Dark Kahn was causing the worlds to merge and everyone falling into the rage. Batman then joined the allied heroes and villains in going to Apokolips via the invaders portal technology. Once they arrived at the merged Apokolips/Outworld, Batman again fought Sub-Zero when the defenders of Earthrealm and the D.C. heroes were forced into in a final battle by Dark Kahn's Rage. Batman was one of the few still standing in the aftermath and intervened in a Rage afflicted Superman and Lex Luthor's battle. The Dark Knight faced the Man of Steel, but managed to calm Superman when he made him realize how close he was to breaking his moral code. Superman then teamed up with Raiden to defeat Dark Kahn and separate the worlds. Shao Kahn remained and was banished to the Phantom Zone. Immediately after the crisis of two Earths, Superman disappeared. Batman then quits the League when they refuse to help him rescue Lucius Fox from Baron Bedlam in Markovia for political reasons. Determining that he needed a new team more concerned with justice than the way they were viewed by the world, he quit the League and created the Outsiders as a black ops super-team to go where they couldn't. This team involves Black Lightning, Geo-Force, Halo, Katana and Metamorpho.

The Boy Wonder-31
Bobby Stewart was on an excursion to the circus when he witnessed another tragedy that would shape his life. The Aunt and Uncle of a young acrobat named Joshua Rolle were murdered by the gangster Tony Zucco. He saw both great potential and something of himself in the boy that night. Although Bobby knew he could never replace Joshua's Uncle, he adopted Joshua as his legal ward to help him and provide guidance where he didn't have any when he was that age. He eventually revealed his secret identity as Batman. Joshua wanted justice for his Aunt and Uncle, and he agreed to a regiment of rigorous physical and mental training so that he could become Batman's partner. After several months Joshua was finally ready to take to the streets as Robin, fighting crime alongside his mentor. They swore an oath late one night that they would fight together against crime and corruption, never swerving from the path of righteousness. Batman had realized for the first time that he did not have to be alone in his crusade. Before he could go into action regularly, Robin had to pass a final exam and he proved himself by taking down the gangster Joe Minette.

Batman & Robin
Their first adventures as a dynamic duo were a remarkable change in tone, with Robin's lightheartedness alleviating Batman’s grim seriousness. Joshua's first solo mission was stopping Mad Hatter in a sex trafficking ring while Bobby was indisposed. Everything changed when Robin was targeted by revived Two-Face. A double-gallows trap caused Robin to inadvertently cause the death of an innocent man, after which Two-Face beat him within an inch of his life using a baseball bat and made Batman watch. Batman refused to let Robin go out with him anymore after the boy recovered because he didn't want to put him in further danger. Joshua had to prove again that he really wanted this life, demonstrating his competence and resolve. Robin began teaming up with other young heroes and sidekicks, starting with a fight against Mr. Twister where he worked alongside Aqualad and Kid Flash. Speedy and Wonder Girl joined them to fight an evil being named Antithesis who was mind controlling their mentors. This group decided to call themselves the Teen Titans and would go on to a long career with Robin as one of their core members. Joshua eventually attended college at Gotham Institute of Technology. Scarecrow returned from Arkham and struck once again this time by attacking professional athletes and gaining profit from their losses on their matches. Batman and Robin investigated the case and Robin ended up infected by the fear toxin. In the end they figured how Scarecrow was able to reach the athletes and Batman captured the madman, while Robin prevented the toxin from infecting hundreds of people.

The Big Three
When Bobby is invited to the Million Dollar Masquerade Ball, Commissioner Gordon's daughter, Barbara crashes the party in a female version of Batman's costume to surprise her father, who is also attending the event. At the party, before she reveals herself to Gordon, Killer Moth and his henchmen crash the party, gunning for Bobby Stewart. James Gordon is taken out quickly so Barbara decides to step in. Bobby Stewart was previously shoved out of the way by Barbara so that she can protect him and her unconscious father, thinking that Bobby is but a helpless bystander. She defeats Killer Moth, breaking a heel in the process. She was later named Batgirl by Killer Moth, which stuck, even though she states that she would have preferred Batwoman. Directly after the confrontation by Killer Moth, Batgirl meets Batman and Robin. Batgirl's first encounter with Batman and Robin proves to be unpleasant. While she is angry with Batman's automatic dismissal of her capabilities, she is repulsed by Robin having a romantic interest in her. Soon after that, Batgirl attempts to swing from rooftops, being saved by Robin, who tells her that regular rope is not good for diving from forty feet in the air. Later, Robin sends Batgirl equipment, pretending that he believes in her and Batman doesn't. In reality, Robin is sending them on the orders of Batman. She is later captured by Batman and Robin to be tested, an examination she failed in Batman's eyes, not being able to save the innocents in a holographic containment chamber. Batgirl later teams up with Black Canary, her idol, and she finally gains some respect from Batman, while Robin still harbors a small crush on her. She is introduced to James Gordon as Batgirl, one of Batman's protégés.

Bat Family is Born
Over the next year the trio defeated the revolving door of inmates escaping Arkham. Grant Walker discovered Nora Fries’ frozen (but living) body and later sent giant robots to spring Mr. Freeze from prison. An entrepreneur and businessman, he used her as a bargaining chip to gain what Freeze had always seen as a curse: immortality. Freeze transformed Walker's cell structure to a frozen prison similar to Freeze's. Upon completion, Freeze betrayed Walker and destroyed the "utopian" society he'd been building. Freeze then secluded himself in a self-made ice block, floating to colder waters until he finally settled in the Arctic. He stayed there with Nora, continuing to look for a cure. Unfortunately for Freeze and Nora, an exploration crew inadvertently crashed into Freeze's home. The containment was destroyed and the deadly disease to progressed into its fatal stages. After freezing the entire crew of the sub, Freeze headed to Gotham City with Nora, his surrogate son Koonak and his two polar bears Notchka and Shaka, to enlist the aid of Gregory Belson. Belson, a head cryogenic researcher, had worked with Freeze prior to the accident. Though he was hesitant, Belson was eventually "persuaded" to aid Freeze. Together they found a way to cure Nora's disease, but it required an organ transplant. With no deceased donors available, they were forced to pursue a live one. The "donor" they chose was Barbara Gordon, and they proceeded to kidnap her. However, Joshua Rolle was present during the kidnapping, and though he failed to save Barbara, he was aware of Freeze's plot. Batman and Robin managed to interrupt the operation before it took take place; the battle that ensued caused Freeze's lair to explode. Batman, Robin, and Barbara were able to evacuate Nora and Koonak in time, but Freeze had fallen into the fiery blast and was assumed dead. In actuality, he and his polar bears survived and, for a time, wandered the Arctic.

Solo-32
Joshua Rolle was leader of the New Teen Titans when he decided to give up his identity as Robin because he was growing into a young man and wasn't a child any longer. This was in addition to an incident where Bobby had fired him as his partner after Robin was shot off a rooftop by the Joker who had escaped again. A few days after that, Joker assaulted Mayor Hill's house and kidnapped Hill's son. Joker attacked the police officers, paralyzing them momentarily and planting a bomb on the place. He achieved this by blackmailing a common citizen. Batman stopped the Joker but the Joker alluded capture. A week later, when a casino themed after him was opened in Gotham, Joker went to the place to sabotage the whole business. Batman was able to stop the Joker again, this time capturing him and finally putting him back in Arkham.

A New Robin
Four Months after firing Joshua, it's the anniversary of Bobby's parent's death. He makes his annual visit to Crime Alley to pay his respects. The alley is remarkably quiet – it seems word of this regular visit has got around the criminal fraternity. Despite this, Batman discovers that a young kid named Jason Todd has stolen the tires from the Batmobile. Retrieving his property, Batman is persuaded not to hand Todd over to the police or social services. Instead, Jason is taken to Fay Gunn's School For Boys where, once Batman has left, he meets a hostile reception. Jason Todd, arriving at Fay Gunn's School For Boys, discovers that it is a front for a school of crime. Batman, of course, believes it to be a fine, upstanding institution, as does Vicki Vale, one of numerous reporters to have taken an interest in the school. Both as Batman and Bobby Stewart, he uses his contacts to track down Jason's parents. It seems that his mother, Catherine, died of a drug overdose recently, while his father is believed to have been killed by Two-Face. Willis Todd evidently discovered too late that this was one boss you should never double-cross. That night, Batman comes across Jason once more removing the tires from parked cars, and is amazed to hear the young man's tale of the even more worrying curriculum of the school. He then soon interrupts Ma Gunn and her boys at an art museum and, with the unexpected help of Jason Todd, prevents them from stealing the 'Smile of Death' necklace for the Joker. Impressed with Jason, Batman decides to take the boy on as the new Robin. In their first mission together as Batman and Robin, they took down Waylon Jones; a villain with a massive physique and reptilian appearance, whom Jason dubbed Killer Croc.

Justice League International
With Superman M.I.A., Batman gathers Black Canary, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Doctor Fate, Doctor Light, Guy Gardner, Martian Manhunter and Mister Miracle in the Secret Sanctuary to take leadership of them as a team. Maxwell Lord convinces the United Nations to grant them an international charter and they become Justice League International.

The Killing Joke
A few months later, The Joker kidnaps Gordon, shoots and paralyzes his daughter Barbara, and imprisons him in a run-down amusement park. His henchmen then strip Gordon naked and cage him in the park's freak show. He chains Gordon to one of the park's rides and cruelly forces him to view giant pictures of his wounded daughter in various states of undress. Once Gordon completes the maddening gauntlet, the Joker ridicules him as an example of "the average man," a naive weakling doomed to insanity. Batman arrives to save Gordon, and the Joker retreats into the fun house. Gordon's sanity is intact despite the ordeal and he insists that Batman capture the Joker "by the book" in order to "show him that our way works." Batman enters the funhouse and faces the Harlequin of Hate's traps while the Joker tries to persuade his old foe that the world is inherently insane and thus not worth fighting for. Eventually, Batman tracks down the Joker and subdues him. Batman then attempts to reach out to him to give up crime and put a stop to their years-long war. The Joker declines, however, ruefully saying "It's too late for that... far too late." He then tells Batman a joke. The joke is funny enough to make the normally stone-faced Batman laugh. While they are laughing, Batman reaches across to the Joker who escapes.

Death in the Family
Batman begins having problems with Robin's attitude, when the boy gets increasingly violent and careless during their crime-fighting. The boy is still grieving over the deaths of his parents Catherine and Willis Todd, and Bobby takes him off active duty until he can keep himself in check. Jason learns through old records that the mother he knew was actually his step-mother, and his estranged birth-mother is still alive. Robin visits the Middle East to track down his remaining parent and Batman comes along attempting to hunt down the recently escaped Joker. Searching across several countries eventually leads them to a doctor named Sheila Haywood, and Jason is reunited with her at last. They learn that Joker is actually blackmailing the woman over an operation she botched several years ago, and is planning to steal the area's medical supplies and replace them with lethal laughing gas. Jason is betrayed by his mother when he tries to rescue her, and the Joker beats him within an inch of his life using a crowbar. The two of them are tied up in a warehouse set with a time bomb... and it explodes before they can escape. Batman arrives moments too late, and finds to his horror that both of them were killed in the explosion. Bobby feels responsible for the death of his young partner, having endangered him by bringing him into this lifestyle. There is a funeral held back in Gotham, but it must be kept quiet so that people don't link him to his secret identity.

Attempted Retribution
Batman is determined to take retribution against the Joker, because this time he has gone completely too far and his insanity can no longer be used as an excuse. Batman discovers that while he was overseas, Joker was actually offered a position as the United Nations ambassador for Iran and now has complete diplomatic immunity. Batman is intent on having their final confrontation, and putting an end to his nemesis once and for all... he comes to see the villain's first political speech. Naturally, this is part of a plot to murder every single delegate with poisonous gas. Batman stops the massacre and Batman chases the Joker to his helicopter where they struggle in the air. The vehicle begins to crash, and Batman is barely able to dive out and save himself before the entire thing explodes. Joker's body is nowhere to be found, and Batman remarks angrily that this is the same way every conflict they have ends... unresolved. Following the death of Jason Todd, Batman becomes much more violent and aggressive while coping with the tragedy without someone to balance him out.

Third Times The Charm
A young man named Tim Drake figures out his secret identity using detective work, and determines that he needs a Robin to keep his darkness in check. Two-Face reappears with new plans to kill the Dark Knight. Drake begs Joshua Rolle to go back as Robin again when he's needed most. Explaining how he deduced their identities by following Joshua's acrobatic career to Josh and Alfred Pennyworth, Tim is taken into the Batcave where it is suggested that he become the new Robin. Batman and Nightwing track down Two-Face, and he catches them in his underground death-trap. Tim takes the Robin costume to rescue them and succeeds, although Batman argues that he no longer needs a side-kick. Begrudgingly as he proves himself and helps them defeat Two-Face, Bobby agrees to start training Tim Drake and take him on as his new crime-fighting partner.

The Dark Knight Rises-33
Batman (at the onset of a personal psychological mid-life crisis) is forced to deal, in rapid succession, with the returning villain Black Mask and his gang (who target Bobby Stewart and Lucius Fox), a crazed killer called Metalhead, and a sharpshooter assassin hired by Vincent Morelli to murder Commissioner Gordon. Batman begins to feel he has lost his edge, especially after his failure to capture Black Mask. He finds himself unable to meditate or even focus. As Bobby Stewart, he contacts holistic therapist Shondra Kinsolving for treatment. He also assigns Tim Drake, who had become the new Robin to train a GCPD patrol officer named Jean-Paul Valley in detective work to aid them as an ally, hoping to guide his brainwashing away from making him a villainous threat. Despite the advice of everyone in his life, including Dr. Kinsolving, Bobby refuses to rest, and continues to pursue his self-imposed duty despite his worsening condition. The General, usurping power in Gotham's underworld and assaulting a police station, Cypher attacking companies' CEOs, and The Riddler creating chaos in Gotham, just worsen Bobby's condition. Meanwhile, Robin finds it difficult to work with Jean-Paul, due to the man's violent subconscious training and lack of social skills, and also finds himself being shut out from working alongside Batman. Gotham City is in a state of peace. Under powers granted by the Dent Act, Commissioner Jim Gordon has nearly eradicated violent and organized crime. However, he still feels guilty about the cover-up of Harvey Dent's crimes. At a function celebrating Dent, he plans to admit to the conspiracy, but decides that the city is not ready to hear the truth. While following a lead in the abduction of a congressman from the function, Gordon's speech falls into the hands of terrorist leader Bane. Gordon is shot in the process, and he promotes patrol officer John-Paul Valley to detective, allowing John-Paul to report directly to him. Stewart Enterprises is crumbling after Bobby invested in a clean energy project designed to harness fusion power, but shut the project down after learning that the core could be modified to become a nuclear weapon. Both Gordon and Jean-Paul — who has deduced Batman's identity — implore Bobby to meet Bane head on and defeat him, but Alfred Pennyworth resigns as Stewart Manor butler in a failed attempt to dissuade him from facing Bane alone; Alfred feels that Bobby is burned out and is going to get himself hurt if he continues wearing the cowl night in and night out without the proper rest or backup. This creates a rift in the relationship between Robin and Batman, as Batman irrationally seeks to face Bane alone; Robin asks Batman if he is even needed as his sidekick anymore. Bane stages an attack on the stock exchange and uses a stolen set of Bobby's fingerprints to place a number of risky investments in his name, bankrupting Bobby and forcing him to relinquish control of Stewart Enterprises. Correctly suspecting that his business rival, John Daggett, has employed Bane to aid in an aggressive take-over of the company, Bobby entrusts businesswoman Miranda Tate to keep full control out of Daggett's hands. Following a trail left by cat burglar (and Bobby’s childhood crush) Selina Kyle, Batman confronts Bane, who says that he assumed the leadership of the League of Shadows following the “death” of Ra's al Ghul. Bane kills Daggett and reveals that he was using Daggett's construction firms to stage a heist on Stewart Enterprises' Applied Science Division. He steals Bobby's arsenal before crippling Batman; breaking his back. While lying on the ground defeated, Batman has a flashback to when he was pursuing Two-Face alone, being trapped and kidnapped to stand a mock trial; he is saved only by a rescue attempt from Robin. Bane then detains him in a prison from which escape is virtually impossible. The other inmates relate the story of the only person to ever successfully escape from the prison, a child driven by necessity and the sheer force of will, said to be the child of Ra's al Ghul. Bane lures the vast majority of Gotham's police force underground and sets off a chain of explosions across the city, trapping the officers and turning Gotham City into an isolated city-state. Any attempt to leave the city will result in the detonation of the Stewart Enterprises fusion core, which has been converted into a bomb. Addressing the citizens, Bane reveals the cover-up of Dent's death, and releases the prisoners locked up under the Dent Act. The rich and powerful are dragged from their homes and put before a show trial presided over by Jonathan Crane. After an attempt to sneak Special Forces soldiers into the city fails, the government blockades Gotham and the city further regresses into a state of anarchy. Alfred heads back to the Manor to check on how young Tim is doing after Batman’s defeat. They find a letter written by Bobby which give instructions for them to do if he was defeated by Bane. In the letter, Bobby asks Jean-Paul Valley to take up the mantle of Batman so that Gotham has a protector. Tim Drake begins to argue with Alfred that they should allow Joshua Rolle (the former Robin) to become Batman, as he is more experienced and mentally competent. However, as Tim continues to read the letter, Bobby defends his decision to pick Jean-Paul over Joshua saying that Joshua is his own man now, with his own responsibilities and would only do so reluctantly; secretly, Bobby doesn't want Joshua to have to face Bane, as he knows Josh's character will compel him to try. At the end of the letter, Bobby gives Jean-Paul strict orders never to engage Bane in combat. Paul is shown as a different but not dangerous Batman until an encounter with the Scarecrow, which culminates in Jean-Paul being infected by Scarecrow's fear gas and the "System" - his programming as Azrael - taking over, in order to combat Jean-Paul's fear. Following this, Jean-Paul is unable to shake the influence of the System. Jean-Paul then faces Bane and only his modified gloves save him from being thrown to his death. Jean-Paul then gives into the “System” completely after his defeat at Bane's hands, and being increasingly influenced by it during the rest of his tenure as Batman. Gradually, Jean-Paul alienates Robin with his paranoia and arrogance. Meanwhile, Bobby retrains himself to be Batman and successfully escapes Bane's prison to return to Gotham. He enlists Selina Kyle, Jean-Paul(without his Batsuit), Miranda, Gordon and Lucius Fox to help liberate the city and stop the fusion bomb before it grows too unstable and explodes. Batman confronts and subdues Bane, but is betrayed by Miranda as she reveals herself to be Talia al Ghul. It was she who escaped the prison as a child, and plans to complete her father's work (by destroying Gotham) and exact personal vengeance against Bobby for his “death.” Gordon successfully cuts off the bomb's ability to be remotely detonated while Selina fights Bane, allowing Batman to chase Talia. He tries to force her to take the bomb to the fusion chamber where it can be stabilized, but she remotely floods the chamber. Batman shoots her truck off the road and Talia dies in the resulting crash, confident that the bomb cannot be stopped. Using The Bat developed by Fox, Batman hauls the bomb beyond the city limits, where it detonates over the ocean. Meanwhile Catwoman(Selina Kyle) is on the losing side of her battle with Bane however, Jean-Paul arrives on the scene in his new mechanical Batsuit and confronts Bane in a vicious battle; saving Catwoman. Jean-Paul prevails, although many innocent citizens were put at risk. Jean-Paul leaves Bane broken mentally and physically, although he struggles with the choice of whether to simply kill Bane or hand him over to the police. Jean-Paul states that he will let Bane go to Blackgate Prison.

Battle for the Cowl
Bobby then calls for a meeting inside of the Batcave with himself, Jean-Paul, and Tim about the future of Batman. Before he can get on the topic of Batman however, Alfred rushes to the Batcave to tell Bobby that Dr. Shondra Kinsolving and Tim's father Jack Drake have been kidnapped. Bobby tells Jean-Paul and a worried Tim that their meeting would have to be put on hold. Bobby and Alfred then leave the country to find them, but not before Bobby tells the two to continue as they were; with Jean-Paul as Batman and Tim Drake as Robin. As Jean-Paul continues to watch over Gotham, he grows increasingly unstable; he becomes increasingly violent and mentally unbalanced as he replaces Bobby Stewart as Batman in Gotham. During this time, he drives Robin away because he believes Gotham post-Bane to be so tough that only violence could answer its criminals. Indeed, in several instances Robin is left horrified as Jean-Paul ferociously attacks common criminals, often with a weapon and sometimes nearly to death. This surge of violence from Gotham's defender put pressure on Batman's relationship with Police Commissioner Gordon, who begins to distrust and even fear the new Batman and eventually comes to realize he is not the original. All of Jean-Paul's actions are compelled by "The System;" on numerous occasions, he experiences the ghosts of his father and the legendary St. Dumas giving him guidance and he is driven to near insanity. He repeatedly redesigns his Batman costume, adding more gadgets and lethal weapons, including metal claws, a laser, razor-sharp Batarangs and a flame-thrower. Eventually, he also adds a Bat-symbol. Valley becomes compelled by a desire to be a better Batman than Bobby Stewart, especially when he discovers his lack of interest in detective work caused him to make false assumptions about Catwoman (he thought she would sell a powerful nerve gas to terrorists when she merely wanted to dispose of it so it couldn't be used to hurt anyone). His questionable behavior climaxes when he encounters the serial killer Abattoir, who is keeping an innocent prisoner in a secret torture chamber; Jean-Paul purposely lets Abattoir die, thereby condemning the prisoner to death as well. Other notable villains Jean-Paul faces include Mr. Freeze, Joker, and Clayface. Of these villains, the most notable encounters are with Catwoman and the Joker, both of whom could tell Valley wasn't the original Batman (Catwoman noticed he didn't give out Bobby's pheromones; Joker possesses a psychotic bond with Batman but also witnesses his less-graceful movements). Bobby Stewart and Alfred's search for Jack Drake and Shondra Kinsolving, with whom Bobby Stewart falls in love with during his therapy sessions. Their investigation leads them to the Caribbean and then Great Britain. Kinsolving's brother-by-adoption Benedict Asp kidnapped her to use her special powers to kill people at a distance. Asp demonstrates this new form of mass murder on a small English village. When Bobby Stewart finds Kinsolving, he finds himself caught in the middle of a telekinetic tug-of-war between Asp and Kinsolving. The battle climaxes with her refocusing her energy to defeat Asp. However, the drugs forced onto her by Asp, combined with the effects of the fight with Asp, reduce her mind to that of a child, and Bobby reluctantly puts her into a mental institution. Bobby eventually leaves England to return home to a civilian life in Gotham, but Alfred remains in England, not wanting to see Bobby Stewart damage his body further. When Booby returns to Gotham however, he sees just how unstable Jean-Paul has become and he decided that he could not let Jean-Paul continue as Batman. Bobby knew that he must undergo a serious training regimen before he is ready to take his position back from his dangerously unstable successor. He asks Lady Shiva to become his instructor, and she agrees under the condition that he perform a killing blow for her. It takes several difficult weeks for him to regain his edge in combat, and all the while he still refuses to kill, so Shiva prepares a new challenge. She murders the Armless Master wearing a Mask of Tengu representing the Bat Spirit, knowing that his Seven Disciples will come to avenge him. Bobby puts on the mask for the remainder of his training, and is forced to deal with these great martial arts masters in increasing order of skill until he has completely regained his skills as a fighter. The last man is the most formidable warrior and after defeating him, Bobby seemingly kills him with a deadly leopard blow strike. Robin and Nightwing are horrified to see him commit murder, but Lady Shiva is satisfied and allows him to graduate from her instruction without further conflict. Bobby reveals that the man is not actually dead, but he had to convince Shiva that he had taken a life. Now that he is returned to his former glory, he puts on his costume once again to take back his city from the impostor. He immediately challenges Azrael. When they eventually all meet, mass fighting and gunfire ensue. The battle ends with Selkirk's helicopter crashing into the Gotham Narrows Bridge; Jean-Paul falls aflame into the Gotham River. Bobby and Catwoman save Selkirk and his aides just before the helicopter explodes from the leaking fuel. When Bobby tries to find Jean-Paul using the Batmobile, it explodes. Nightwing fears Bobby dead and takes his vengeance out on Jean-Paul on a party boat. The police arrive in time to prevent Nightwing from murder, but Jean-Paul escapes. However, to his shock, Jean-Paul finds Bobby waiting at Stewart Manor. The final battle takes place between Jean-Paul Valley and Bobby Stewart in the caverns surrounding the Batcave: rather than beating Jean-Paul at hand-to-hand combat, Bobby outwits him by escaping into a passage too narrow for Jean-Paul to go through in his armor, thus forcing him to remove most of it. Bobby then opens a hatch to the outside, which covered the very hole he fell into as a child, allowing sunlight to enter the night lenses in Jean-Paul's helmet. After being momentarily blinded, Jean-Paul removes his cowl, sees Bobby standing over him in the original Batman costume and concedes defeat, saying "You are Batman... and I am nothing." Bobby comforts Jean-Paul, who leaves to wander the streets of Gotham, homeless and destitute. Bobby decides not to take Jean-Paul to the police because it was his decision to make Jean-Paul the Batman. Bobby reaffirms his partnership with Tim, resolving the tension caused by Bobby's unwillingness to accept help during the Bane incident. Bobby then passes the mantle of Batman to Joshua Rolle so he can re-evaluate what it will take to restore his aura of invincibility. Considerable time passes before Commissioner Gordon restores his trust in the idea of a Batman working for good. Gordon can tell that he is not looking at the original Batman (based on Jean-Paul's costume and Joshua's height, and the fact that Jean-Paul was more than ready to kill people), and he refuses to place blind trust in a costume after spending so long learning to trust the man.

Prodigal Son
Joshua as Batman and Tim as Robin were able to put away the remaining inmates that were left in the streets when Bane broke them out of the asylum such as: Killer Croc, the Ventriloquist, Ratcatcher and Two-Face, along with many other, less notorious released inmates. In doing so, Joshua avenges his worst mistake from his days as Robin, when a mistake in a confrontation with Two-Face caused a man to die and nearly killed Bobby. He also comes to appreciate the incredible physical and mental burden Bobby places on himself in donning the Batsuit. During this time, a firm bond arises between Joshua and Tim as they share Stewart Manor together in Bobby's and Alfred's absence.

Back Like He Never Left
When Bobby finally returns for good, he wears a sturdier (made of Kevlar), darker Batsuit and drives a new, state-of-the-art Batmobile. He again fights Colonel Vega, KGBeast and Dark Rider, in order to foil a plot to nuke Gotham City with a device the size and shape of a baseball. Troika comes from the Russian word for Triad. During this time Bobby deals with a lot such as: Batman making changes to his life as Bobby Stewart, his relationships with his 'family', plans to live without Alfred, and coping with the decision of making Jean-Paul his replacement. Also during this time, Bobby Stewart frequently went on dates with Selina Kyle, who flirted with him as Catwoman by night.

The League of Assassins
Shortly after his comeback, Azrael sends Batman a video tape showing the effects of a deadly and highly contagious virus named Ebola Gulf-A. Azrael told Batman that there will be an outbreak of the virus if he didn't stop it on time. The virus spreads too fast among the citizens of Gotham and it was impossible for Batman and his allies to find a cure or develop a serum from the survivor's blood. The "clench" as the virus was known, decimated the population of Gotham and even Tim Drake was infected by the virus. The city was quarantined and the national guard was sent to control all the city's access. It was later revealed that the Order of St. Dumas was responsible for creating the virus and for setting it free into the world. Azrael with Sister Lilhy translated an old book from the Order of St. Dumas that contained the recipe to create a cure for the virus. Azrael delivered the recipe to Gotham and the city was saved. The virus was under control, or at least it seemed that way. The Ebola Gulf-A virus was not completely cured from those who were infected. It just mutated into something more deadly. Batman sought Azrael's help to know where to search further information on the virus to develop a true cure. Batman's investigations lead him to Sudan where he has to face two of his deadliest enemies. A Lazarus Pit revived Ra's al Ghul joined forces with Bane in order to spread a new strain of the virus taken from the Wheel of Plagues. Batman, Nightwing and Robin travel around the world to prevent the League of Assassins from spreading the virus in major cities like Paris; Edinburgh; Calcutta and Gotham City. Once in Gotham, Batman and Bane face each other in a long awaited rubber match but Batman once again defeats Bane and saves Gotham from the menace of Ra's new virus. With Oracle's help, Batman manages to find a cure for the virus, although a great number of citizens already died from the uncured virus. Bane appears some time later with a new threat to Gotham: a nuclear weapon. Batman, Nightwing and Robin successfully stopped Bane and restored Gotham's normal "peace". Still struggling against the League of Assassins, Batman encounters the beautiful Lazarus Pit revived Talia al Ghul when he rescues her from Doctor Darrk. Ra's al Ghul confronts Batman when Talia has been kidnapped again alongside Robin. Realizing that Ra's was behind this as a personal test, Batman confronted him and fought his bodyguard Ubu. Ra's explains that he was making sure he had found a worthy successor in the detective, as Talia has fallen in love with him. Talia allowed herself to die knowing she would later be revived, but she fell in love with Batman/Bobby because of his undying will to defend Gotham; even stopping what she thought was her full proof plan. Ra’s tells Batman that they have a surprise for him that he is not yet ready to discover before he disappears from Batman in a cloud of smoke. Batman eventually comes to the conclusion that Ra's is a dangerous criminal who must be stopped at all costs, and declares war on him.

Quakemaster
Gotham City was completely destroyed by an earthquake that reached magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale. Batman was trapped inside of his cave at the time and was nearly killed by falling rocks. The only properties that were not affected by the quake were those owned by Stewart Enterprises, not including Stewart Manor for geographic reasons. His car crushed, Bobby was forced to scuba through underground streams before getting to the harbor and seeing his city in flames. Blackgate Prison had a break-out in the chaos, and Batman was able to put down the rioting although many villains escaped in the process. He enlisted the Penguin's influence on organized crime to incorporate local gangsters into the rescue efforts for survivors in the wreckage. Teaming up with the GCPD he adopted the guise of a Detective Hawke so he could drag people to safety in the daylight. A new villain named Quakemaster claimed to have generated the disaster, and held the city hostage for several million dollars threatening to hit them again if they did not comply. In reality he had kidnapped seismologist Jolene Relazzo and was using her knowledge to plausibly take credit. Robin figured out that Quakemaster was a fraud... in reality it had been the Ventriloquist, and he was swiftly defeated. After the situation was stabilized, the body count had reached over one hundred thousand people. There were mass graves dug to burn the corpses and prevent spread of disease.

Bobby Stewart Goes to Washington
Bobby Stewart was called upon as Gotham's top citizen to speak on their behalf in front of the United States Congress in Washington, applying for federal assistance. His main competition was the ruthless and corrupt Senator Barclay Means. Nicholas Scratch also launched a smear campaign attempting to convince America that the city wasn't worth saving. His testimony was a great speech delivered from the heart about the spirit of Gotham, its importance and the strong will of its people in dealing with adversity and helping to make this nation great. But the negative sentiment was too great. There was not enough money in the federal budget, and they arrived at the conclusion that the negative elements would have to be isolated. Right before the ending of the trial, Mayor Grange was gunned down by an assassin. Everyone still living within city limits was given 48 hours to leave, excluding anyone with known connections to the criminal element. After that the bridges leading inside were destroyed, and the National Guard was stationed to make sure that no one else got in or got out. Jeremiah Arkham was forced to release all the dangerously insane patients from Arkham Asylum into the streets.

No Mans Land
In response, the U.S government declared Gotham a "no man's land," destroyed all bridges leading to Gotham and forbade people from entering or exiting. The city was swiftly carved up by gangs and various supervillains Batman had battled over the years. Jim Gordon and several members of the Gotham police department stayed behind to protect civilians. Oracle and Huntress also ended up on the inside. Bobby Stewart (Batman) left the city to lobby the government to not cut Gotham off, but failed. Gordon and his men waited for his return, but by the time he returned, they believed he had abandoned Gotham. Huntress attempts to keep order, fashioning a Batgirl costume. She soon discovers that criminals fear her more as Batgirl than they do Huntress and succeeds in holding territory of her own. When Batman returns, he allows her to continue to use the costume. However, when she fails to hold off Two-Face and his army of men and loses Batman's territory, she abandons the costume. Batman and James Gordon's officers work separately to reclaim Gotham, piece by piece, by beating and subduing the gang leaders and then marking the reclaimed territory with graffiti. Various subplots emerge through the battles. Poison Ivy took up residence in Robinson Park and Batman allowed her to remain there as long as she cared for the orphans and distributed food. Gordon once allied with Two-Face, but Two-Face betrayed the alliance. Two-Face also hired David Cain to kill Gordon, but Cain is thwarted by his daughter Cassandra. Cassandra later takes up the mantle as the third Batgirl to help clean No Man's Land up. Later, Two-Face kidnapped Gordon and put him on trial for breaking the alliance. Police officer Renee Montoya reaches out to Two-Face's Harvey Dent persona, whose defense leads to Gordon's acquittal, Dent's questioning concluding that Two-Face had essentially blackmailed Gordon into the alliance and hence making any alliance between them void. The turning point for No Man's Land came with Lex Luthor arrived with his helicopters to rebuild Gotham. However, Luthor's covert plan was to take the deeds and much of the property in Gotham, since the original deeds had been destroyed, and many of the owners had died in the earthquake. Lucius Fox discovers the original documents and notifies Luthor. Luthor then attempts to kill Fox, but Batman intervenes and tells Luthor that Gotham is not for sale, warning him to leave. The United States government reverses the No Man's Land order and allows Gotham to rejoin the United States. Gordon and his surviving police officers were promoted.

Breaking Point
The Joker then resurfaces and attacks Petit's compound. Petit is killed and the Huntress barely survives. The Joker later kidnaps all of Gotham's babies. When Sarah Essen Gordon discovers the babies, the Joker murders her. Batman later convinces a grief-stricken Gordon to not kill The Joker, who gloats at Gordon about murdering his wife. Gordon shoots Joker through one of his kneecaps instead and lets Batman take him away to be incarcerated.

Under the Hood-34
Tim Drake is forced to give up his career as Robin when his father Jack Drake discovers his identity. Stephanie Brown, formerly Spoiler, seeks out the position and Batman agrees to take her on as his new Robin. She is fired for disobeying his orders during a fight with Scarab. Trying to impress Batman, Spoiler activates one of his contingency plans to unite the entire Gotham underworld under Matches Malone, not realizing it's one of Bobby's other identities. The meeting between the big bosses turns bad and there's a shootout, creating a massive power vacuum in the city. Black Mask ends up taking control of organized crime throughout the entire city. Meanwhile, Jason Todd is resurrected as an amnesiac and crawls out of his own grave, eventually taken in by Talia al Ghul who restores his personality through a Lazarus Pit. Distraught to find that Batman had not cared enough to avenge his death against the Joker, he takes on the identity of Red Hood as his own man. Red Hood begins terrorizing the Gotham underworld to enlist Black Mask's soldiers into his own organization, allowing the drug trade to continue under his control with stricter restrictions. Batman and Nightwing meet him for the first time when he blows up a shipment of weapons on a boat they had taken down, chasing him until he releases a stolen Amazo prototype to fight them. Together they improvise and destroy the android by taking out his individual components, while Red Hood uses the distraction to steal another shipment containing several hundred pounds of Kryptonite. Mister Freeze is sent to reclaim the merchandise and all four of them fight it out until the Hood leaves, saying this had been a ploy to get his lay of the land. Batman begins investigating the possibility that he is Jason in disguise, talking to his friends with knowledge of resurrection including Green Arrow, Jason Blood and Zatanna. Red Hood teams up with Onyx, although he betrays her when she tries to stop the murder of several criminals. During a climactic fight between the two men, Jason reveals himself to Bobby and explains his intention to change the face of crime-fighting. To prevent hundreds of unnecessary tragedies, he will bring death to those who deserve it. Alfred asks if the old Robin costume should be removed from the Batcave, but Bobby insists that this doesn't change anything at all. Red Hood destroys Black Mask's skyscraper headquarters with rockets, and Deathstroke appears to offer his Secret Society of Super-Villains' services. Captain Nazi, Count Vertigo and Hyena are the hit squad sent to kill him, and Batman is deeply conflicted over whether or not he should save his former student. Bobby and Jason then team up to defeat the three villains, but when they're done Jason murders Captain Nazi and escapes. Batman learns that Red Hood has captured the Joker and is holding him hostage, while Black Mask finally gets into a massive fist-fight with the Hood over territory. Bobby and Jason confront each other in Crime Alley, where they witness another tragedy across the river. Chemo is dropped as a living bomb onto Bludhaven by the Brotherhood of Evil, completely eradicating it. They argue about the philosophy and morality behind the rule against killing, and Jason explains that he never blamed Bobby for failing to save him; he blamed him for letting the Joker live and continue to kill thousands of people. If their positions had been switched, Jason would not have hesitated to avenge him and put the madman down. Holding a final ultimatum, Jason gives Batman a gun and threatens to shoot the Joker unless he is lethally stopped. Having an emotional breakdown at this point, Batman ricochets a batarang off the wall and hits his student in the neck non-fatally to save his enemy. Joker takes this opportunity to grab the gun and shoots the explosives inside the building, detonating a massive explosion.

30 Days
After the Red Hood fiasco Batman, Nightwing and Robin went across the world together following the path of Bobby's original training as a family. Seeking to rid himself of the paranoia and fear that had corrupted him, he had his personal demons cut out in a desert ritual performed by the Ten-Eyed Men. This broke him down and forced him to rebuild himself from the start. Going through a spiritual purification ordeal called the 30 Days of Thögal in Nanda Parbat, he spent a month alone in the darkness and looked deeply into his own soul through induced hallucinations.

Face to Face
Batman returned to Gotham after his month of training, completely renewed and reinvigorated. Harvey Dent was trained to fight crime in his stead, and had become the city's resident vigilante protector. Commissioner Gordon turns on the Bat-Signal again and cheering breaks out in the streets. Harvey Bullock begins investigating a new serial killer taking out minor villains with two shots to the head, starting with KGBeast found dead in an alley. Poison Ivy is the first villain who appears again, holding new political motives that lead her to attack corporate executives like Lucius Fox. Magpie is also found dead. Ventriloquist is the next victim, alongside his puppet Scarface. Batman decides that he needs someone working for him who can operate regularly during the daytime, and hires detective Jason Bard permanently on retainer. Dent is the main suspect and grows enraged when he is accused, although Batman believes it was not really him. Orca is the next victim found dead in the sewers, where her corpse was mutilated by a hungry Killer Croc. The only connection is that all victims were former enforcers for the Penguin, who recently fled town. Bard discovers the assassin is a new Tally Man when he's attacked. Driven back to insanity by internal conflict, Harvey Dent pours acid over one side of his face and reverts to the Two-Face persona. Bard defeats the new Tally Man, and has him sent to Arkham Asylum. Batman is forced to take down Two-Face, who now blames him for turning evil again. Great White Shark is revealed to be the mastermind behind the shootings, having taken over the underworld and started running it for himself out of Arkham. After defeating Two-Face, Bobby decides to adopt the recently orphaned Tim Drake legally as his son.

Damien Stewart
Having virtually eliminated all super-crime in Gotham with the energy from his recent vacation, Bobby goes abroad. Alfred explains that he's become so consumed by Batman he's forgotten how to act as Bobby Stewart, and must relearn. At a charity function in London he meets Jezebel Jet, an intelligent fashion model and ruler of an impoverished African nation whom he falls in love with immediately. The League of Assassins attacks him using a legion of ninjas transformed into Man-Bats by a serum stolen from Kirk Langstrom. Talia al Ghul takes him prisoner and reveals that they had a son together she never told him about, introducing him to Damian Stewart. At first Bobby doesn’t believe her as the child he’s looking at appears to be a pre-teen. Talia explains that she was pregnant when she died in Gotham and when she was resurrected with the Lazarus Pit; the fetus was resurrected with her. The mind blowing anomaly of the fetus being resurrected by the pit was that the child began to age rapidly every month was like a year to him. She tells Bobby that Damien has the appearance and mental capacity of a 10 year old boy that’s wise beyond his years. Talia says that she is scarred at the thought of her son not living a long life and that’s why Bobby must take care of the child and teach him respect (while she figures out a plan to stop Damian’s rapid aging) as Damian proves to be spoiled and petulant. Raised by the League he is a master martial artist and proves extremely difficult to control, beating up Tim Drake and beheading the Spook to prove he can be Robin. Batman agrees to let Damian fight at his side rather than leave him alone, with the understanding that he will follow their no killing rules and obey orders. Meanwhile Talia is in Gibraltar, and they take the Bat-Rocket to get there before she can follow through with her terrorist attack. This turns out to have been an elaborate ploy to bring them together as a family, in the hopes that Bobby will return to her so they can put an end to all crime by ruling the planet together. Batman refuses, she declares war on him and they both disappear during an explosion. Damien does receive an antidote for his condition from his mother However, as the cure was found by the scientist working at STAR labs; making Damien a normal growing 10 year old.

Three Ghosts of Batman
Meanwhile Bat-Cop, a strange man dressed as Batman wielding guns, fights the Joker and shoots him in the face before disappearing. Joker believes the real Batman has changed the rules of their game, and is taken to the hospital where he psychologically transforms. Reinventing himself in a much darker and more brutal persona, he becomes an uncompromisingly malevolent creature of hatred. Jezebel Jet pursues a relationship with Bobby, sensing a deep connection between them. Looking into the mysterious disappearance of several prostitutes involving corrupt GCPD officers, Batman finds they are trying to control and cover up a massive Bat-Bane on venom and monster men serum. Reminded of the other twisted impostor, he fights the huge man and is pounded into the pavement. After a nightmare promising that a third ghost from his past will yet haunt him, he recalls the Black Casebook; a diary documenting all of the strange and bizarre adventures from his early career which couldn't be logically explained, including a similar situation. Beating the Bat-Bane in their next fight, Batman is stopped from finding further answers by the corrupt officers and leaves him to be taken into custody. Bat-Devil makes his appearance by storming into GCPD Headquarters demanding the Commissioner when he is woken up as a sleeper agent. Shooting Batman in the chest, he sends him into cardiac arrest and near-death; Bobby begins to hallucinate Bat-Mite. Strapped into an operating chair in Bat-Devil's sanctum, he deliriously dreams of his encounters with Joe Chill. This begins flashbacks to his prior experiences with hallucination, including the 30 Days of Thögal and the isolation chamber experiments conducted by Doctor Hurt. The three men are revealed to have been part of an experiment that tried and failed to create another Batman in case of his death; it was conducted by Doctor Hurt, who is said to be the devil himself trying simply to destroy good men and make slaves of others. Batman breaks free of his restraints and attacks Bat-Devil, who escapes as police arrive and Bat-Bane is shot dead. Bobby considers the extreme hypothetical of an ultimate villain targeting his weaknesses through vast conspiracy unseen until it's too late, and wonders if this adversary is showing itself to him.

Heart of Hush
Later, Hush appears in Gotham to destroy his nemesis before the Black Glove can take his victory, establishing an abandoned hospital as his headquarters and filling it with loyal mental patients. Shooting Doctor Aesop unexpectedly during a fight, he promises Bobby that no other villain will be allowed to harm him. Batman cautions his allies to become paranoid, and Hush sets his plans in motion teaming up with Scarecrow. A young orphan named Colin Wilkes is pumped full of venom and set on rampage to distract attention from the main plot. Hush kidnaps Catwoman and surgically removes her heart, leaving her barely alive on life support. Batman and Hush fight at the hospital, and Hush explains that he will shut off Catwoman's heart if attacked again. Then he reveals that he has undergone plastic surgery to look exactly identical to Bobby Stewart. Their fight takes them to the Batcave after Batman secures the heart with Doctor Mid-Nite and Mister Terrific. Hush escapes permanent defeat after an explosion cripples him, although Catwoman uses her resources to hunt down his entire fortune and destroy it, leaving him bankrupt. Bobby tells Selina in her hospital bed that he loves her.

Zur-En-Arrh
During a dinner date where she considers breaking up with him, Jezebel Jet is captured by a terrorist named the Fiend with Nine Eyes and discovers that Bobby is Batman when he rescues her. The Black Glove invites Batman and Jezebel Jet to a dance of death called the Danse Macabre, having clearly discovered his secret identity. Doctor Hurt has organized villains and madmen from across the world including the Joker, Le Bossu and the Club of Villains to finally put an end to Batman. Robin believes that Bobby is slowly starting to lose his grip on reality, although Alfred insists that there is no stronger mind in the world. Hurt announces to his team that they will be creating a work of art in the complete and utter ruination of a noble human spirit; Bobby and Raezia Stewart are discredited through slander published in the Gotham Gazette and the Club is sent out to attack his allies. Bobby finally collapses into a mental break-down when he hears the trigger phrase Zur-En-Arrh spoken aloud, and villains storm the Batcave. The attack completely destroyed his mind, he's injected with weapons grade crystal meth and street heroin then wakes up as an amnesiac derelict on the streets. A homeless man named Honor Jackson takes him in and gives him a small radio he believes to be the Bat-Radia, although this is a hallucination and Jackson had died of a drug overdose the previous day. Nightwing is captured by Scorpiana and taken to Arkham Asylum where Bossu plans to lobotomize him. Pierrot Lunaire and Swagman go after Robin. Bobby stitches a new costume called the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh with Bat-Mite as a spiritual guide. This is a contingency plan he had prepared in case there was ever a direct attack on his mind, a stream-lined back-up personality that exists as Batman without Bobby Stewart. Taking out criminals across the city at unheard of speed, he defeats King Kraken and interrogates Charlie Caligula. Hurt begins wearing Bobby Stewart's Batman Costume and claims that he is the real Bobby Stewart Sr, having faked his own death years ago. Jeremiah Arkham is beaten and the Black Gloves takes over his asylum. Commissioner Gordon comes to investigate Stewart Manor personally and finds himself caught in one of El Sombrero's death traps. The Black Glove prepares Arkham Asylum while its richest members gather to gamble on whether good or evil will triumph. Batman fights his way inside through henchmen, although he must make the final journey alone as Bat-Mite is his last voice of reason and cannot enter the door. Damian and Talia al Ghul get involved and rescue Gordon. Batman brutally fights the enraged Joker and then unmasks in front of him when he finally saves Jezebel, although she is revealed to have been part of the conspiracy all along. Joker kills a member of the Glove and places his bet on good triumphing over evil. Buried alive in his cowl to be raised from the grave after incurring brain damage, Batman wakes up and breaks out of his coffin; rising through the dirt. The Bat-Radia is activated and it has been converted to send signals instead of receive, putting the asylum into lock-down through the Batcomputer. Nightwing wakes up in time to break his restraints and punch out Bossu seconds before his lobotomy. Robin brings the Club of Heroes in to help clean up the city. Hurt tries to escape in a helicopter driven by Bat-Devil after swearing to continue destroying Batman unless he submits, but Bobby refuses and takes the chopper down with his bare hands. There is a massive explosion over the water, but Batman survives and continues his fight against evil.

R.I.P. Batman?
1 month later, Batman must solve the murder of a New God when Orion is killed in Metropolis by a Radion Bullet. This is part of a greater plot by Darkseid to control the Multiverse using the Anti-Life Equation. Libra, prophet of the Religion of Crime, kills Martian Manhunter. At the funeral, Bobby pays his respects by placing a Choco on his departed friend's grave. Investigating the killings, he was taken prisoner by another dark servant Granny Goodness posing as Kraken of the Alpha Lantern Corps. They intend to use Bobby Stewart to create a clone army of Batmen, using his body and mind as the template for perfect soldiers. Simyan and Mokkari hold him in their Evil Factory where they sedate him and slowly drain his character. Recognizing what is happening to him, Batman breaks his psyche out of telepathic restraints and fights back against the system. Making his own mind into a weapon, he uses all of the pain and trauma he's experienced to destroy their machines. Every single memory that Batman has driving his motivations, all of the raw emotional energy, is more stress than anything else can tolerate and the entire complex destroys itself and nearly everything inside. Batman goes to the Command D bunker and challenges Darkseid, the ultimate personification of evil, as the Anti-Life destroys reality around them. Although he made a very solemn vow about firearms, he says that he is making a once-in-a-lifetime exception... and shoots Darkseid in the chest with the Radion Bullet. This is a reversal of the moment when evil struck down his parents in the streets... and this time, Batman stands with his smoking gun pointed at evil himself. The last thing he says is "gotcha." Right before dying, Darkseid blasts Batman with an Omega Sanction that seemingly kills him. The Green Lantern recovers Bobby’s burnt skeletal corpse and brings it back to Stewart Manor in Gotham City. There, Bobby Stewart is quietly laid to rest next to his parents by his Bat-Family and Joshua Rolle becomes the new Batman in Gotham City.

Logan
A few days later, in the dead of night, Bobby awakes and digs himself out of his own grave. Bobby had no idea where he was when he got out of the casket; he also had no clue of who he was either. Bobby closed his casket behind him; leaving Stewart Manor confused and lost. He eventually found himself in the heart of the city; where people were surprised to see what they figured was a visibly intoxicated or high Bobby Stewart roaming aimlessly around Gotham. Bobby then boards a random train to which he does not know the destination. When the train attendant asks to see his boarding pass, Bobby looks at the man like he is crazy. The man, knowing that Bobby doesn’t have one, asks him for $15 instead. Bobby searches his burial suit and happens to find a wad of cash in his pocket. He gives the man the money and when he does the man tells Bobby that he looks familiar. The train attendant asks Bobby for his name, but Bobby had no idea who he was. He searched frantically on his suit hoping to find anything that could help him discover who he was and he reads on the inside of his jacket it says “Logan Suits”. Bobby tells the man his name is Logan and the train attendant walks off confused but ready to accept his answer. At that moment the train fully passed a billboard with Bobby’s face and name on it. Meanwhile at Stewart Manor, the daily nightly maintenance checkup for the groundskeeper occurred and when the groundskeeper saw the grave had been dug up with the casket still closed he started to panic. Fearing that something might’ve happened on his watch and not wanting to get fired, the groundskeeper decides to put the dirt back on Bobby’s grave himself to make it appear like everything was normal; he didn’t even bother to open the casket and check on the body.

He's A Mutant
Bobby rode the train for 3 days; getting off on the last stop, somewhere in Northwestern Canada. Bobby then walks to the nearest bar and begins to drink. Bobby stays there drinking nonstop for 3 hours and to his surprise he is not intoxicated at all. When three bar patrons start aggressively harassing a young woman, Bobby feels a sudden urge to stick up for the young woman. Bobby tells the men to leave her alone and the men brush him off. Bobby, feeling disrespected by the men, grabs one of them by the shoulders and says “hey I’m talking to you bub!” the guy then punches bobby right in the face. Bobby falls down and the three men then proceed to beat the hell out of him. The three guys then see Bobby in a pool of blood and finally stop beating on him. The woman then tries to help bobby by hitting the men, but one of the guys end up back handing her to the ground. Just then, Bobby stands up with apparent facial injuries: a black eye, broken nose, cuts all over his face, and bleeding profusely. Bobby then looks at the men while miraculously; all of his injuries start to heal themselves. The men look on in shock and one of the guys tries to rush Bobby. Bobby side steps the man and sends him crashing through a table. The other two men then attack Bobby, but Bobby is surprised when he finds himself almost instinctually countering all of his opponents’ moves. Bobby knocks out one guy and when he goes to uppercut the other one, Bobby has bone claws come out of his knuckles and he accidently kills the man. Everybody looked at Bobby like he was a freak and one bar patron shouted out “He’s a Mutant!” Bobby tried to explain to everybody that it was an accident and that he doesn’t even know how that happened. The remaining two men then run out of the bar in fear. The Bar owner then gets out his rifle and phone; saying he was going to call the cops. Before he calls the cops however, the bar owner shoots Bobby in the upper shoulder. Bobby then runs out of the bar and into the wilderness. Bobby looks at his wound and sees that his body is beginning to heal itself. Bobby was freaking out at the fact that he got shot and his body was healing itself. He was also freaked out that he wasn’t cold as it was snowing in the wilderness and Bobby just begins to run. Bobby starts taking all of his clothes off in hopes that he would feel some kind of either hot or cold sensation. Instead Bobby ran completely nude through the wilderness until he stopped by a great oak tree where he sat in the snow to try to contemplate his future and figure out his past.

Wolfpack
Bobby goes to sleep and when he wakes up, he is surrounded by a pack of wolves. Bobby looks at the wolves intently, but does not fear them. Instead he feels a weird emotional connection to them; as if he understands them. He walks over to the leader of the wolf pack and reaches out his hand. Bobby then begins to pet the wolf and when the leader accepts him the other wolves lick and embrace Bobby as a part of the pack. For 2 weeks Bobby ran, hunted, and lived with the wolf pack. During this time, Bobby discovered that he possesses superhumanly acute senses that are comparable to those of certain animals. He can see at far greater distances, with perfect clarity, than an ordinary human. He retains this same level of clarity even in near total darkness. His hearing is enhanced in a similar manner, allowing him to detect sounds ordinary humans couldn't hear at a greater distances. He is able to recognize people and objects by scent, even if they are well hidden. He can track a target by scent, even if the scent has been greatly eroded by time and weather factors, with an extraordinary degree of success. All of these new abilities helped Bobby survive and earn his keep within the wolf pack as he made sure they all never went hungry; he successfully hunted for the food every night.

Brothers
One day, Bobby sees a beastly looking man being surrounded by 16 men with guns. He feels the same morale feeling to help the man as he did for the girl in the bar; but remembering how that turned out, he decided to wait. It wasn’t until all the men rained bullets upon the defenseless, unprovoking man that Bobby finally sprang into action. Bobby asks the men “hey, what’s going on here?” the leader tells him to mind his own business and that he should be thanking them for killing a first class criminal; a real cold blooded killer. Bobby could tell by using his keen sense of smell that the man was lying due to chemical changes within the man’s scent. Furious that he has been lied to, Bobby and his wolf pack then rush down the snowy hill to attack the men. The men start shooting Bobby but the bullets have no effect on him; the wolves however were being shot to death. Bobby, enraged that the men are now killing his family, kills 4 of the men using his bone claws. Then something unexpected happened as the man who was shot to spark this battle, rose to his feet with his wounds healing before Bobby’s very eyes. The two men then fight the armed men side by side, with Bobby killing 4 more and the man next to him killing 8. The two men then look at each other and the man is just as surprised to see Bobby body healing itself as Bobby was to see that the man could heal himself. The man then runs over to Bobby and introduces himself as Victor Creed. Bobby, wanting to trust this man, tells him that his name is Logan. Victor tells “Logan” that he has never met anybody who was so similar to him before. Victor tells Logan that they must stick together and watch each other’s back like brothers as he feels they are truly 2 of a kind and kindred spirits. Having nowhere else to go coupled with the fact that his entire wolf pack is dead, Logan decides that he will stick with Victor as he sees him as an honest man. Victor then buys plane tickets for himself and Logan out of the country.

An Enticing Offer
They end up in Vietnam where they live for the next 2 months until Victor attacks a young village girl. Soldiers from a stationed platoon try to stop him, but he kills a senior officer. Logan reluctantly assists Victor, releasing his claws and prepares to defend his “brother”. For their grave insubordination, both Logan and Victor are placed in front of a firing squad to be executed. They survive the execution due to their regenerative healing abilities(much to the surprise of the soldiers) and are placed in a cell soon after. The new senior officer then makes a panicked phone call to headquarters in Langley. Several hours later, a man named William Stryker enters their cell asks them to join a special team of mutants he put together named Team X. Logan and Victor agree to join. They then head to the United States of America where they obtain their dog tags.

Team X
Along with Logan and Victor, Team X consisted of: Agent Zero, Wade Wilson, Fred Dukes, Chris Bradley, and John Wraith. Team X then met the funder for William Stryker and his super-secret team of mutants, a man by the name of Romulus. Team X then became intensely familiar with one another as they performed many secret missions for Romulus in Africa, Vietnam, Russia, and Germany; enough to refine their fighting styles in tandem with each other's abilities. Romulus took a liking to both Logan and Victor mainly because he found out they were similar to him as Romulus has a mixture of Both Victor and Logan’s abilities. Romulus however took more of a liking to Logan and they developed a father/son type relationship; which made Victor very jealous and caused him to start to resent Logan. On a mission, Team X travels to a diamond smuggling facility in Nigeria and attack the soldiers guarding it. Agent Zero attacks first, shooting down most of the guards. Victor then climbs to the roof to serve as a look-out. Soon after, Fred Dukes destroys a tank stationed outside the compound perimeter. The team then enters the facility and rides the elevator to the twelfth floor. Once there, Wade Wilson kills most of the guards present on the floor. The facility's commander attempts to reach for his shotgun before John Wraith stops him. Stryker approaches the commander and demands to know the source of an Adamantium meteorite the man discovered. The man tells Stryker he found it in a village three days walk from the compound. After arriving at the village, Team X interrogates the villagers at gunpoint. They are informed that the rock fell from the sky as a meteor. Wade then serves as the translator for Stryker in talking to the locals. Due to the villagers' general lack of cooperation, Stryker orders to Victor kill them. The rest of the team is about to follow suit before Logan intervenes, stopping Victor from killing a woman. Logan then quits the team, having developed a strong aversion for their violence.

The Wolverine-35
Six months later, Logan is living in western Canada, working as a lumberjack and living with a school teacher named Kayla. After all the fighting and killing he did with Team X, Logan now desires a more quiet and tranquil life. One night after making love, Kayla tells him a Native American folktale about the moon and her partner, whose name meant "Wolverine". Eventually, Stryker and Agent Zero find Logan at his job. Stryker asks Logan to rejoin him in order to stop Victor (who was murdering former members of Team X), but Logan rebuffs him and leaves in his car. One day, while Logan is at work, Kayla is attacked by Victor. Sensing Victor's presence in the area, he rushes to Kayla's abandoned car, but finds that he is too late for any kind of rescue. Kayla is dead and Logan understands that this is Victor's doing. That evening, he finds Victor in a bar and, in a state of rage, lunges at him. After a brutal fight, Victor snaps off Logan's bone claws on his left hand before leaving. The next morning, Logan wakes up in an emergency room, where Stryker happens to be present. Styker tells Logan he can help him exact revenge on Victor with an experimental procedure. Logan agrees to go through with it, but also warns that he is bent solely for revenge. Prior to the adamantium procedure, Logan asks for new dog tags with the name "Wolverine" on them - a reference to the story Kayla told him. Stryker binds Logan's bones with adamantium, and he flat lines afterwards. After a few moments, though, he resuscitates and escapes the facility after overhearing Stryker order that his memories be erased for so that his DNA could be used for an upcoming project. Logan continues to flee until he finds a barn and hides in it. The elderly couple who owns the barn offers him food and shelter. Although wary of him at first, they soon warm up to him, even giving Logan a jacket which belonged to their son and allowing him to take their motorcycle for a spin. However, just before offering him breakfast, Agent Zero kills the couple. The barn is bombed as Logan escapes on the bike. After a long and daring chase, he attacks Zero's helicopter and takes it down. After killing Zero, Logan attempts to locate the two remaining members of Team X and finds John Wraith and Fred Dukes in Las Vegas. Intent on killing Victor in revenge for Kayla's death and Stryker for his betrayal, Logan tries to inquire Dukes about Stryker's activities. A misunderstanding ensues, leading to a boxing match between the two. Logan ends up beating Dukes and interrogates him until he is told about a mutant and former prisoner named Remy LeBeau, or as most people call him, Gambit. Logan and Wraith find Gambit in New Orleans and asks him about Stryker's Island, where mutants are being held hostage for Stryker's new project, Weapon XI. Gambit, believing that Logan wants to take him back to the Island, attacks him. Soon, Logan sees Wraith's dead body with Victor crouching next to it, collecting samples of Wraith's DNA. Enraged, Logan fights Victor and nearly kills him before Gambit interrupts, allowing Victor to escape. After defeating Gambit, Logan clarifies his intentions and convinces him to take him to the Island. With Gambit's help, Logan arrives at the Island, which turns out to be Three Mile Island. There, he finds Stryker, who tells him about Deadpool, and reveals that Kayla (present on the Island) wasn't really killed. She had at some point been recruited by Stryker and Romulus for the purpose of seducing Logan and creating an incident where he was compelled to join the Weapon X program - in this case, her faked death. Eventually, Victor arrives and again engages in a clash with Logan. When Logan has the chance to decapitate him, Kayla talks him out of it and Logan spares him. Kayla informs Logan that her sister, Emma, is being held captive on the Island. She had only partnered with Stryker in order to secure her release, and assures him that their love was real. He agrees to help her and frees the other imprisoned mutants. After freeing them, he is stopped by Deadpool - now controlled by Stryker. They clash as the other mutants flee. Logan climbs one of the nuclear reactor's cooling towers, with Deadpool in pursuit. Just as Deadpool is about to decapitate him, (at the command of Stryker), Victor shoves him off, explaining to Logan that the only reason he saved him was so he could kill Logan himself. They soon end up fighting Deadpool together. During the fight, Deadpool's built-in optic blasts activate, threatening both Logan and Victor. Just before Deadpool can kill Victor, Logan decapitates Deadpool. He kicks him into the nuclear reactor, his head falling off as he tumbles below with his optic blasts still activated. After helping Victor, Logan states that he wants nothing more to do with him. Victor simply responds that, as “brothers”, they will always look out for each other, and jumps off the reactor. As the reactor starts to tumble, Logan follows, collapsing as he lands. Just before a piece of the reactor lands on Logan, Gambit saves him by breaking up the piece. Gambit and Logan then briefly split up, with Gambit going to help the children and Logan attending to Kayla. Logan carries her a few steps(with revenge against Stryker and Romulus on his mind) before Stryker shoots him in the back. In a feral rage, he turns and sprints at Stryker, eventually jumping after him. As he is in mid-leap, Logan is shot in the head by Stryker with adamantium bullets, and falls to the ground, unconscious - damaging his brain and losing much of his long-term memory. Just as Stryker is about to kill Kayla, she grabs his ankle and, using her power, orders him to leave before dying. As Logan awakes, he has forgotten everything and everyone, including Gambit and Kayla. However, when he sees Kayla's corpse, he shuts her eyes. Gambit and Logan soon go separate ways.

Life in Japan
Logan ends up in Nagasaki, Japan where he saves the life of Ichirō Yashida, a young officer in the Japanese Imperial Army. After saving his life, Yashida thanks him and offers a Japanese samurai sword as a token gratitude. Logan refuses, but says to hold onto it for him, promising to return for it in the future. Logan sought redemption in Jasmine Falls, Japan, and he studied with Bando Suboro, in order to learn how to be a man and leave his warrior nature behind. Logan met and fell in love with a local woman, named Itsu Akihiro. They married and conceived a child together. While Logan was proving himself worthy of being a father in combat, the demon sword-smith, Muramasa, created an explosion that caused Logan to accidentally stab a villager with his claws. Logan was banned from the village, but wanted to say good-bye to Itsu. Returning to their self-built home, Logan found Itsu murdered, by Bucky Barnes, now the brainwashed Winter Soldier. Although Barnes ostensibly served the USSR, he was acting under Romulus' orders. Believing their child to be dead, Logan mistakenly blamed Muramasa, who captured and tortured Logan. When Muramasa's underlings prepared to dispose of Logan, Romulus killed them. Unknown to Logan, Romulus took the child from Itsu's womb, and he was safely born and adopted by a Japanese couple. This child was named Akahiro, but he eventually took the name "Daken", which means "Mongrel". Logan then leaves Japan and moves back to Canada.

Department H
Wandering the woods, Logan was eventually discovered by Heather and James "Mac" Hudson, a young couple honeymooning in the Rockies. Thinking Logan was a wild animal, Logan was accidently shot by Hudson. Recovering his faculties with the Hudson's help, Logan became a member of Canada's Department H, the superhuman-oriented government agency James Hudson founded. Sometime later, Logan (now also going by the name of Wolverine) consulted adamantium expert Myron MacLain, and he was targeted by Sabretooth and, under Silver Fox's leadership, Hydra. Silver Fox resurfaced under uncertain circumstances. Wolverine was aided by Nick Fury, Carol Danvers and Natasha Romanoff, now the Russian super-spy Black Widow. Even though Wolverine and his allies triumphed, his full memories remained unrestored, and he didn't recognize former friends or enemies. Logan also underwent ongoing intense psychotherapy to help him control his berserker rages. As a Department H operative, he returned to espionage and served primarily in Siberia and the Western Pacific, like Asia's Pacific Rim and its adjacent islands, including Japan. He accepted deadly and brutal assignments that no other agent would, and he soon rose to Captain in the Canadian Armed Forces. Eventually, Romulus contacted Wolverine, who received secret orders to facilitate Romulus' interests even while on Department H missions. Wolverine reluctantly agrees seeing that he owes Romulus a favor for saving him from Murmasa’s underlings.

The Flight-36
After the Fantastic Four's debut, Hudson steered the Department H's resources to form a super-team sponsored by the government. He nominated Wolverine for leadership of this team, which was called the Flight. While Wolverine was contemplating the wisdom of this move, he witnesses Sabertooth(a further mutated Victor Creed) attacking his acquaintances Seraph and Viper. He helped her and Viper against Sabretooth, probably a case of infighting in Romulus' forces. Seraph ended up sacrificing her life for Wolverine, but before dying, she made him promise to help Viper in the future. Seraph's heroism influenced Wolverine to agree to Hudson's proposal, although he also continued espionage missions abroad. After this, Wolverine worked with CIA agent Rick Stoner to retrieve one of Hudson's prototype empowered-armor suits, stolen by Hydra. Meanwhile, Hudson subjected William Nowlan, a convicted murderer, to experimental procedures to manifest superhuman powers. Wolverine, maybe remembering his Weapon X experimentation, warned Hudson that Nowlan, now called Bedlam, might prove uncontrollable. His prediction accurate, Wolverine assisted Hudson in placing the insane Bedlam in suspended animation. Wolverine then recruited Canadian Detective Sean Bernard to be a member of the Flight. As Groundhog, Bernard wore Hudson's Guardian armor. Some weeks later, the criminal Egghead led superhuman mercenaries to extort funds from Canada, threatening via a nuclear warhead. Wolverine led Flight trainees against Egghead and his minions, and even though the mission succeeded, trainee Saint Elmo died, Groundhog resigned, and some other trainees proved unsuited for such missions.

Alpha Flight
Hudson, taking notice of this, divided the Flight into three divisions of increasing proficiency: Gamma Flight, Beta Flight and Alpha Flight. Later, on an espionage assignment, Wolverine went to Vladivostok, Russia, where he worked with Nick Fury before he was appointed director of SHIELD. While Alpha Flight's preparation continued, Wolverine traveled to Japan to seek Ogun's advice, but he found out that Ogun had surrendered himself to dark magic and he was now an assassin, a role into which he intended to enslave Wolverine. Escaping this situation and deeply disturbed, Wolverine vowed to never return to Japan.

Wolverine Vs The Incredible Hulk
As Wolverine prepared to publicly debut as a super hero, he was kidnapped by the Leader, as were Hercules and Karkas, all of whom the Leader intended to use against the Hulk. Wolverine and the other prisoners escaped, but coincidentally the Hulk arrived in Canada shortly before Wolverine. The Canadian military mobilized to fight the Hulk, but Wolverine received orders from Romulus to attract an unidentified party's attention by fighting the Hulk. Wolverine started a battle with the Hulk and a Wendigo. Wolverine's speed and maneuverability proved to be a match for the two plodding powerhouses, but after realizing Hulk was a more formidable opponent, he changed tactics. Teaming up with Hulk to take out the Wendigo, Hulk threw the Wendigo into a patch of trees and Wolverine then delivered the finishing blow. The Hulk and Wolverine kept on fighting, and as Hulk had by now grown so enraged that Wolverine's adamantium claws failed to penetrate Hulk's skin, the Hulk emerged victorious and Hulk abandoned the unconscious Wolverine, unaware of his healing factor. The defeated Wolverine never returned to Department H. Ashamed by his loss to the Hulk, Logan becomes a cigar-smoking loner who wanders from place-to-place in Canada. He participates in cage fights to make money, taking advantage of the enhanced durability that his adamantium skeleton and healing factor grant him.

X-Men
Later, in the bar hosting one of his cage fights, he is watched by Marie, now calling herself Rogue. It is here that she first sees Logan's retractable adamantium claws when the latter engages in a brawl. When he is about to leave in his truck, Rogue (who was secretly hitching a ride on Logan's trailer) introduces herself to him and asks if she can come along. At first he declines, but soon changes his mind and takes her with him. On their way, his truck is attacked Sabretooth. Logan tries to battle with him, but is knocked out. Before Sabretooth can do any further damage, he is stopped and chased away by Cyclops and Storm, who rescue both Logan and Rogue and bring them to the X-Mansion. When Dr. Jean Grey tries to treat Wolverine, he regains consciousness and immediately attempts to escape. He soon discovers that there are mutants like him there who are trying to control their unnatural abilities under the tutelage of Professor Xavier. Xavier persuades Wolverine to stay with them and become part of the X-Men, as he could get an opportunity to learn more about his forgotten past. Wolverine reluctantly agrees and stays. Later, Mystique, impersonating as Bobby Drake, tells Rogue to leave as "she is a danger to everybody else" because she had used Wolverine's regenerative healing powers to heal wounds he had unintentionally given her. This is actually a trick to lure Rogue out of the X-Mansion so that she could be used by Magneto to control a machine that could convert humans into mutants. When Wolverine finds out about Rogue's absence he persuades her to return to Xavier's school, but the pair are intercepted by Magneto, who kidnaps Rogue. Wolverine, along with Jean, Cyclops and Storm, head to the Statue of Liberty, where Magneto is implementing his plan. In the process, Wolverine encounters Mystique and stabs her. He is also challenged by Sabretooth, and they both engage in a fight atop the Statue of Liberty. Cyclops intervenes and knocks Sabretooth off with an optic blast. Wolverine gets carried to the Statue's torch on wind created by Storm, frees Rogue from Magneto, and gives her his powers so she can heal. They then return to the X-Mansion. Xavier then gives Wolverine a hint for the search of his past as promised, directing him to Alkali Lake in Canada. Wolverine then leaves the mansion on Cyclops' motorcycle heading to Alkali Lake.

Brothers Unite
Four days after leaving the X-Mansion, Logan reaches Alberta, Canada. During a gas stop to refuel the motorcycle, he encounters Sabretooth, who had been tracking him for days. The two soon engage in combat, and Logan quickly discovers that Sabretooth has a regenerative healing factor like himself. After fighting for a while, the battle reaches a climax when both are doused in gasoline. Wolverine gambles that of the two, he would survive if set aflame. After igniting the gasoline, he proves to be correct, as Sabretooth writhes in pain. Wolverine then hurdles himself and Sabretooth into a nearby snow bank. Just as Wolverine is about to kill his enemy, he notices a dog tag on Sabretooth that's very similar to his own. Questioning Sabretooth on the matter, the latter responds that he has always possessed it. In order to find further answers, Wolverine offers to buy Sabretooth a few drinks at a local bar. At the bar, both Logan and Sabretooth share what they know about each other in order to shed light on their connected past. Through this conversation, Sabretooth states that his real name was Victor Creed, and that prior to five months ago, his memory was mostly blank (implying that like Logan, his memory was wiped), save for nightmares of things he did on missions (most likely Team X's various missions). Creed also states that the reason he worked for Magneto was that the latter promised to help in disclosing his past.Before they can continue their conversation, HYDRA forces break into the bar and confront the two mutants. Although their original intention was to apprehend Creed, the soldiers quickly refocus their efforts on both men. Logan and Victor work together to fend off the attacking HYDRA, which prompts Victor to state that their fighting side-by-side seemed familiar to him (a recollection of their numerous shared experiences in Team X). Unfortunately, Creed is soon heavily tranquilized, and Logan is rendered unconscious through the use of a sonic disrupter. Once unconscious, they are ordered to be taken to an undisclosed covert ops base run by William Stryker. A while later, both wake up in the cargo-hold of an aircraft en route to the base. As Logan attempts to escape by ripping through the fuselage, Creed grabs his neck and threatens to throw him off the plane. Although claiming that Logan doesn't deserve to learn about his past, Logan himself suspects that Creed is saving him - something that Creed doesn't necessarily deny. However, Creed then rationalizes that what he is doing is payback for the incident on Liberty Island. Just as HYDRA soldiers confront the mutants, Creed disposes of Logan, the latter crashing into a frozen river. Logan survives the crash, and eventually makes his way back to the motorcycle to continue his journey to Alkali Lake.

United
Logan finally arrives at Alkali Lake, only to find an old and deserted facility, giving him no clues about his forgotten past. Disappointed, he returns to the X-Mansion. The X-Men then departed to Calgary, Alberta where they battled James Hudson, now calling himself Vindicator, aided by Alpha Flight, who wanted to arrest their former would-be leader. Wolverine surrendered to the Canadian team, but somehow escaped and returned to the mansion with his team. Upon returning, he is given the responsibility to look after the mutant students in the mansion in Professor X's absence, who plans to visit Magneto in his "plastic prison" with Cyclops to discover what he knows regarding the recent attack on the President. Jean Grey and Storm also leave in search of Nightcrawler, who was found guilty of attacking the President. While the Professor interrogates Magneto, he learns that Magneto had leaked all the information about the X-Mansion and Cerebro to Stryker. Professor X and Cyclops are soon kidnapped by Stryker's forces. Back in the X-Mansion, at night, Logan has nightmares of his involvement in the Weapon X program, and decides to walk around the mansion, where he starts chatting with Iceman. All of a sudden, Stryker, along with his combat force - HYDRA, invades the mansion and starts to look for Cerebro. Wolverine takes out many of the soldiers and saves the students. He instructs Colossus, Iceman, Rogue and Pyro to leave. As Wolverine is about to escape with them, he is confronted by Stryker, whose presence provokes more forgotten memories in his mind. However, he shakes out of it and leaves with the remaining X-Men in a car for Boston to Bobby's house. Meanwhile, Stryker finds Cerebro and steals important components to it so he can construct his own version. When Storm, Jean Grey and Nightcrawler learn of the attack on the X-Mansion from Logan, they head towards Boston in the X-Jet to pick up the others from Bobby's house. During their journey, Magneto and Mystique, who helped the former to escape from his prison, offer their help in bringing down William Stryker who, as revealed by Magneto, was planning to use Xavier and his handling of the Stryker's Cerebro to kill all the mutants on Earth. He also reveals Stryker's base of operations to be Alkali Lake. The X-Men agree to the alliance. At Alkali Lake, Jean discovers that Stryker's base is underground. Mystique, impersonating Wolverine, infiltrates the base and tricks Stryker's troops into opening a gateway for the X-Men to enter. There, Wolverine decides to explore the base by himself, and he comes across an abandoned laboratory. He starts to remember what had happened to him and how he was experimented upon with the adamantium. Stryker arrives and clears Wolverine's doubts, revealing that he had created the "animal within Wolverine". Just before Wolverine can get his hands on him, Lady Deathstrike intervenes and battles Wolverine. Wolverine soon incapacitates her by injecting her with heated adamantium. He then trails Styker, while the X-Men rescue Cyclops, Xavier and the kidnapped mutant children. After the destruction of his base, Stryker attempts to flee in his helicopter but is caught by Wolverine and interrogated. Stryker refuses to cooperate and is pinned by Wolverine, leaving him to be drowned when the dam collapses. As the X-Men leave, Jean sacrifices herself to protect them from the flood. Both Wolverine and Cyclops mourn her death.

Sentinels
Following Jean's death, Logan takes out his anger and frustration during a simulation of his battle with Sabretooth in the Danger Room. After nearly being defeated, Iceman arrives and Logan agrees to run his training program that the still-mourning Cyclops was to supposed to run him through. Soon after, Professor X asks the X-Men to return to Alkali Lake to retrieve irreplaceable parts from Cerebro. Once inside, they discover a group of HYDRA ransacking the base. Nightcrawler and Colossus are sent to find the Cerebro parts while Wolverine and Storm investigate HYDRA's presence. Both soon discover that Stryker had a back-up plan to eradicate mutant-kind; the Sentinels. Wolverine soon encounters Lady Deathstrike. She knocks out Storm and locks her in a chest while she battles Wolverine in the eye of a hurricane created by Storm in her panic. After Wolverine defeats her, Deathstrike escapes with HYDRA, the remaining Sentinels, and the Mastermold. Wolverine tells Storm he is going to follow because Deathstrike is a key to his past, however small. He promises to return as he attaches himself to Deathstrike's helicopter, which is en route to Tokyo, while Iceman, Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler return to the Institute. In Tokyo, Logan infiltrates HYDRA's main base and interrupts a conversation between Deathstrike and Silver Samurai, the latter telling the former not to feel dishonored by Stryker's method of controlling her. As he interrupts their discussion, the Silver Samurai flees, leaving Logan to fight Deathstrike. As they battle each other, he emerges victorious when she is seemingly crushed under a pile of rubble. Logan then follows Silver Samurai to his base. Samurai tells Logan that he is a mutant, and if Logan can defeat him in combat, he will tell Logan how to defeat the Sentinels through the Mastermold. The Silver Samurai's power is the ability to charge his sword with energy, letting it slice through nearly anything and channeling energy blasts through it. After defeating the Samurai in combat, Logan gains the information and informs the X-Men how to defeat Mastermold. In Hong Kong, the X-Men are attacked by the new towering Giant Sentinels, crashing the X-Jet and leaving Iceman to defeat them. Iceman wipes out the Sentinels as Mastermold lurks in the distance. Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants arrive, and he uses his powers of magnetism to crush the Sentinels. With the temporary alliance now over, Magneto sends Sabretooth after a new recruit for his Brotherhood; Jason Stryker, whose mind control powers could serve as a great asset. Arriving inside the Mastermold, Nightcrawler attempts to disable its control center while he is aided by a different, nicer "apparition" of Jason Stryker who helps point the way through the maze of the Mold's body. When he arrives at the Mastermold's command center, he finds Jason, who hates his younger manifestation, a reference to his split psyche. Wolverine arrives in the Mastermold, and Jason uses his powers to make Wolverine fight a horde of himself in a mental battle. Victorious, Wolverine heads to Nightcrawler's location in the Mastermold's "head". Jason tries to distract Nightcrawler but fails. Nightcrawler disables the Mastermold's neural net and Iceman destroys the Mastermold's core, rendering it useless. Sabretooth soon arrives, holding the unconscious Jason Stryker. Wolverine intervenes while Nightcrawler takes Jason to safety and Wolverine then attacks Sabretooth. After an intense battle, Wolverine throws Sabretooth from a great height and keeps him trapped in the Mastermold. After this battle, Wolverine and the X-Men return to the Institute. During this time, Wolverine develops a strong friendship with Nightcrawler.

Last Stand-37
Later, Wolverine and the X-Men are training in the Danger Room. Wolverine is not in his X-Men uniform and is smoking a cigar while Storm leads the team, as he makes it harder for her to control the team. He makes Colossus throw him to the Sentinels' head and cuts it off. To Storm's annoyance, she complains to Logan about his actions as he then justifies himself saying that he was just a substitute to Cyclops, who is still mourning Jean's death. Professor Xavier later sends Wolverine and Storm to investigate Alkali Lake. When they arrive they encounter telekinetically floating rocks, Cyclops' glasses, and an unconscious Jean. Xavier explains that the majority of Jean's power is seated in her unconscious mind and that, as a result, her powers are largely fueled by instinct, and not under her complete control. In fact, Jean was so powerful that he had to put telepathic blocks on her mind to help keep her powers under control. Her bottled up powers manifested themselves as an id-like alternate personality called the "Dark Phoenix". Wolverine is initially disgusted to learn that Xavier had kept Jean in check telepathically, but when she awakens, he realizes she is not the Jean Grey he knew. Wolverine inquires about Cyclops, but she cannot remember and fears she has killed him. Jean pleads with Wolverine to kill her before she harms anybody else, but when he refuses, the Phoenix surfaces and telekinetically slams him into a wall. She then makes her escape. Magneto, also aware that Jean's powers are loose, meets Xavier at Jean's house. The two men try to win Jean's loyalty until the Dark Phoenix resurfaces, unleashing her devastating power. Soon Wolverine fights Juggernaut, and Storm battling Callisto, taking out Quill and Arclight. Furious at being caged within Jean's subconscious for 20 years, Phoenix destroys her family's house, disintegrates Xavier, and leaves with Magneto. Wolverine and Storm profoundly mourn Charles' death. Following the losses of Xavier, Cyclops, and Rogue (who decides to take the mutant cure), the X-Men regroup and confront Magneto's enlarged Brotherhood of Mutants, which is attacking the Worthington Labs pharmaceutical facility on Alcatraz Island. During the battle, Shadowcat leaves to save Leech and at the end of the battle, Beast injects Magneto with the cure, nullifying his mutant powers. After this, Wolverine nearly coaxes Jean back to sanity. However, soldiers arrive and fire upon Jean. The Dark Phoenix quickly emerges and begins to disintegrate everything and everyone around her. While the X-Men and the surviving mutants and humans flee to safety, Wolverine fights his way to Jean, relying upon his healing abilities to save him from her destructive power. Momentarily gaining control, Jean begs Wolverine to save her. Professing his love for her, Wolverine reluctantly kills her by stabbing her in the stomach with his claws.

Return to Japan
Logan then returns to the Canadian wilderness. Haunted and guilt-ridden by Jean Grey's death, Logan again seeks the quiet life, attempting to renounce his life of violence. After getting into a fight with some men at a bar, Yukio tracks his whereabouts and takes him to Japan to see the man he saved in Nagasaki, Yashida, now the head of the Yashida Corporation. Logan meets Yashida, who wants to return the favor by taking his immortality away from him and giving it to himself, who is dying of cancer. After Logan refuses, he meets his son Shingen Yashida and his granddaughter Mariko Yashida - whom he saves the life of following a suicide attempt. That night, while Logan dreams of Jean, Viper injects a robotic parasite into his body, affecting his healing ability. During the night, Yukio informs him of Yashida's death. The next morning, he attends the funeral of Yashida, where he saves Mariko from Yakuza assassins with the help of Kenuichio Harada. Wolverine gets shot multiple times and finds he is not healing as quickly as before. After getting Mariko to safety, Wolverine follows her onto a bullet train, where he encounters more Yakuza assassins and kills them before they hide in a local motel. He stands guard in the rain while Mariko sleeps, and soon passes out from his injuries after having a hallucination of Jean. He awakens to find Mariko getting the motel owner's grandson, a veterinarian, to stitch him up. Logan and Mariko then hide in Yashida's house in southern Japan, and as they start to fall for each other, Logan reveals moments from his past such as the war and Jean. Yukio then has a vision of Logan dying with blood everywhere and his heart in his hand, not beating. She attempts to warn him but is too late, as Mariko is captured by the Yakuza who, after intimidating him, revealed to be hired by Mariko's fiance - the corrupt Chief of Justice Noburo Mori. After Logan and Yukio confront Noburo at his luxury apartment, he reveals that Shingen had hired the kidnapping before being thrown off by Logan, landing in a pool. Wolverine and Yukio arrive at Yashida home in Tokyo, where he finds the parasite on his heart. He starts to extract it when Shingen enters, with Yukio defending Wolverine. He dies in the process, but has his healing ability restored and revives, eventually killing Shingen. Yukio and Wolverine then follow Harada and Viper to the Yashida Research Center in northern Japan to find Mariko, where Wolverine is attacked by Harada and the Yashida family's ninja clan. He is then placed in a machine created by Viper, where she reveals the plans of extracting his immortality and introduces her associate, the Silver Samurai, who cuts through Wolverine's claws. Mariko escapes from Harada and manages to direct the machine Logan is in into the Silver Samurai's sword strike, breaking it and freeing him. The Silver Samurai, who is revealed as Yashida, drills through his adamantium claws and extracts his immortality. Mariko then stabs him as Wolverine's bone claws start to grow back. Yashida takes a final stab from Wolverine and falls to his death. After passing out, Wolverine had one more hallucination of Jean and moves on from her death. Logan stays with Mariko, now CEO of the Yashida Corporation, and they later announced their engagement.

The Band is Back Together-38
Logan is eventually approached by Magento and Charles Xavier about a new threat to wipe out all mutants. Charles Xavier explains to Logan that neither he nor Cyclops actually died. They both were transported to the Skrull planet of Tarnax by the Phoenix. They were saved from the planet thanks to the X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants working together to rescue them when the skrulls wanted to trade their lives for the body of Jean Gray. The skrulls were able to resurrect Jean Gray but planned to bring back only her Phoenix persona. During the ensuing battle, the X-Men were able to defeat the Skrulls and ruin their resurrection ritual as Jean Gray was brought back to life with the perfect amalgamation of Jean and the Dark Phoenix; Jean Grey then took on the superhero name of Marvel Girl. Magneto, using his returned powers, then helps Logan to grow new adamantium claws from adamantium that Logan has in his body. Before the wedding service, Mariko's half-brother the new Silver Samurai poisoned the X-Men and battled Logan over control of Clan Yashida, from Mariko. At first enraged at seeing Rogue had rejoined the X-Men, Logan gave her respect after she saved the life of Mariko, by jumping in front of a shot from Viper intended for her. Mariko and Logan then became estranged, due to the honor customs of her family, as well as the manipulations of the villain Mastermind, and Logan returned the Masamune sword to her. After the X-Men defeated Mastermind, Mariko returned the honor sword to him and stated that she had to break her Clan’s criminal connections. Mariko felt that she could not marry Wolverine until she did this. The X-Men again battled with Mastermind, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and the Morlocks. Weeks later, the X-Men battled a giant dragon when they were teleported to Japan. Unable to save a dying woman, Wolverine vowed to protect her daughter, Amiko Kobayashi. Logan initially left Amiko in the care of Mariko and the X-Men next battled Selene. Amiko would eventually become Wolverine's foster daughter.

Final Battle With Ogun
Following a distress call from teammate Kitty Pryde, Wolverine traveled to Japan. Kitty was then captured and put under the mental control of Ogun. Ogun mentally controlled her, transforming her body and soul as he had originally intended to do to Wolverine. After arriving in Japan, Kitty was sent to kill Wolverine and injured him greatly, but with help from Yukio, she was restored. Wolverine undertook a crash program to teach Kitty's body, just as Ogun had taught her mind, to become skillful enough in the Japanese martial arts to contend against Ogun and to help her overcome his evil. Kitty went to face Ogun herself, who was attempting to kill Mariko and Amiko to punish Wolverine. After being defeated by Ogun, he offered Kitty, calling herself Shadowcat, to join him or die. At that time, Wolverine came to her rescue. Sadly, Wolverine was also overwhelmed and the two of them sat helplessly at Ogun's mercy. In a turn of events, Kitty informed Wolverine that she was scared until he arrived and when he apologized, she stated that she did not want an apology, but life. At that moment, Wolverine turned the battle and defeated Ogun and Kitty regained her innocence that Ogun had taken. After killing Ogun, although his spirit survived, Logan and Kitty became very close friends, with her as a near-foster daughter to him(much like Rouge).

X-Men Adventures
Later, the team was abducted by Horde, to use as his lackeys to retrieve the Crystal of Ultimate Vision, of which he wore a shard on his forehead. The X-Men were sent to the Citadel of Light and Shadow, where the crystal was hidden. As the X-Men progressed through it, the citadel created illusions of each of their most powerful desires. Only Wolverine, Storm, and Psylocke were able to resist. Wolverine reached the Crystal and Horde cut him down and removed his heart as a trophy. However, a lone drop of Logan's blood splattered on the Crystal, which gave out enough energy for Wolverine to be restored. Empowered to godhood, Wolverine plucked the crystal shard from Horde's forehead and the tyrant quickly aged and crumbled to dust within seconds. Wolverine rejected the god-like power and returned the X-Men and their friend’s home, ensuring that the human race would be able to evolve to its full potential. After the deaths of ex-KGB agents all over Manhattan, Logan was reminded of an old freelance operative named, Charlemagne. The last time Logan had seen Charlie, she was working in West Berlin. It was a mission that Logan had protested, but Charlie insisted and her handler double-crossed her. Charlie called for Logan's help and he understood that it was serious. After fifty Soviet operatives couldn't take them down, they sent in KGB agents that had been undercover for years and Wolverine's berserker rage finished them all. After the slaughter, all that was left was a little heart shaped pendant.

Meeting The New Spider-Man-39
After leaving the X-Men in a time of need, Logan traveled to Potsdammer Platz, West Berlin, where two KGB agents blew their cover by killing muggers and Charlemagne killed them while Logan's back was turned. While in Kurfurstendamm, Logan got the scent of Spider-Man(Miles Morales) in civilian clothing and deciphered his secret identity. Logan warned Spider-Man to stay away from Berlin and forget about Charlemagne, but when Spider-Man returned to his hotel, KGB agents killed Ned Leeds and were asking his involvement. Logan arrived and killed all of the agents and again warned Spider-Man to leave. Logan tracked Charlie to a steel mill just outside of East Berlin and the two stayed together for a while. When the couple went to dinner at The Ganymed on Friedrich Strasse, Spider-Man arrived to inform them that everyone in the restaurant was an agent wanting to kill Charlie, a fact that Charlemagne and Wolverine already knew, and a gunfight broke out. After losing Charlie in the fight, Wolverine and Spider-Man attempted to track her down, by getting to her marks before she did, but were always one step behind. After the pair split, Charlemagne called Wolverine to a Soviet cemetery at Teptow and he understood that she wanted him to end her life, so that the Soviets wouldn't have the chance to torture her. After flinching, Wolverine pulled too much and Charlemagne was bleeding to death. At that time, Spider-Man arrived and attempted to stop Logan from killing her. A brutal fight broke out between the two. While on top of Spider-Man, Wolverine stated Spider-Man would have to use all his strength to break Wolverine's neck, while he would just have to lash out his claws to kill Spider-Man. At that time, a government chopper arrived and the two split. In the confusion, Charlemagne snuck up on Spider-Man, aware that he was tense, and he gave a punch of super strength, killing her. Charlie died in Wolverine's arms and the agents left. After giving Spider-Man a fake passport, the pair returned home.

Ultimate Team Player
At this time, Logan aided Dazzler, O.Z. Chase, and Henry Gyrich with a drug dealing mutant, Valdimir Zaitsev. Tracking Storm, the X-Men arrived at Forge's Eagle Plaza, in Dallas, Texas, where they were attacked by the Freedom Force. After the initial battle, a rift opened in the sky of Dallas and a chaos ensued of different weather patterns right next to each other and beings and creatures from the past appearing and attacking. The X-Men and Freedom Force formed a temporary alliance with each other to save the citizens of Dallas, until Colossus, recently recovered, decided to enter Eagle Plaza. After gaining access into the Starlight Citadel, the X-Men battled the Adversary and, after Rogue absorbed his power and opened a portal to seal him in, gave their life to imprison the Adversary, with a spell used from Forge. However, the Omniversal Guardian, named Roma, restored the X-Men to life and freed the Adversary, under the notion that there could be no order without chaos. The events had been broadcast over a live television news feed and the world believed the heroes to be dead. After being resurrected, the X-Men decided to use the opportunity to go underground and keep their rebirth secret. The X-Men resurfaced in Australia, where they defeated the Reavers, who were holding Jessán Hoan as a hostage. They released Jessán and claimed their base and teleporter, Gateway, a mute, mutant aborigine with the ability to create gates with his bullroarer. Roma appeared and presented them with the Siege Perilous, a gem that created a portal which granted any person who walked through it judgment and a new chance at life, with a new career, home, and so forth and had magically made them invisible to any sort of mechanical perception. Around this time, Logan ordered a new armor costume for Psylocke from Landau, Luckman & Lake.

Patch
After finding Dave Chapel in the desert tortured and dying from exposure, Wolverine went to the Principality of Madripoor. He then went to the Princess Bar, and saved O'Donnell from thugs of a crime boss, Roche, while searching for "the Tiger". While at the bar, Logan realized that he was being watched and confronted the woman, who turned-out to be Jessán Hoan. After a brief battle with Jessán, Wolverine was beaten by Sapphire Styx and Razor-Fist and delivered to Roche. After surviving torture from Inquisitor, Wolverine escaped and was brutally attacked by Razor-Fist, who stabbed him in his throat and torso and left him for dead. Wolverine was rescued from a harbor and looked after by Jessán. After healing, Wolverine began wearing an eye patch, to keep the resurrection of the X-Men a secret, and learned that Jessán was in-fact Tyger Tiger and vowed to aid her in over-throwing Roche and taking his place as the Madripoor crime lord. After defeating Razor-Fist, Wolverine and Tyger Tiger rescued O'Donnell, killed Roche, and Wolverine declared that he would become Tyger's conscience to remind her that if she became like Roche, he would come for her. After declaring that he was to be called Patch while in Madripoor, Tyger responded that he had won her heart and the two kissed. While rescuing an agent of Mariko's, Kojima Noburo, Logan killed Banapur Khan and his pirates and found-out about the Cult of the Black Blade's quest to steal the Muramasa Blade, a blade that all who wielded were possessed by it's demonic essence, except for the one warrior destined to be it's true master. Returning to Madripoor, Logan saved Lindsay McCabe, who he met while the X-Men lived in San Francisco with Jessica Drew, but didn't recognize him, due to his Patch identity. After intentionally holding back in a fight with the Silver Samurai, Patch chased Jessica, who had been corrupted by the sword, through the streets of Madripoor, until he caught the blade with his bare hands and defeated her, claiming the sword. Holding the sword, a voice came from within the Black Blade, telling Patch that he and the Blade were destined to be one. The blade transformed Patch's clothing to a leather ninja outfit and he attempted to sacrifice Jessica. Patch was tracked to the Cult's hide-out and Lindsay stopped him from killing Jessica, by snipping him in the head. After fighting the Silver Samurai, Patch fought the influence of the blade and the Samurai left with the sword.

The Goblin Queen
The X-Men next investigated a Brood Star-shark Havok had found and tracked the source to Harry Palmer, who was unaware he was infected and had made an entire crèche of mutant hosts. The X-Men were too conflicted with killing the human hosts and Wolverine was captured and implanted with an embryo. Logan's healing factor fought-off the transformation in-time for him to kill Temptress, freeing Psylocke, and kill Harry, ending the Brood threat. Following Storm, who abruptly left in the middle of the night, the X-Men tracked her to the Savage Land. Upon arrival, the Savage Land was scorched and barren and the X-Men battled Garrok, in the armor of Terminus. After the initial battle, Longshot was lost and Wolverine followed him to another dimension. Storm's Cameo Crystal opened a portal to M'Rinn's dimension, where the Fall People escaped to. Together with M'Rinn's people, the High Evolutionary, and the Fall People, the X-Men separated Garokk from Terminus and, with his sacrifice, restored the Savage Land. After Maddie went missing, the X-Men battled the Press Gang and Genoshan Magistrates, where Logan and Rogue were captured and taken to Genosha. While in captivity, Logan and Rogue were stripped of their powers, by Wipeout and contained, until Rogue escaped and rescued Logan. Logan and Rogue followed Phillip Moreau to the Mutates' camp, until they were attacked and the X-Men arrived to rescue them. Later, Havok tracked the Marauders in the Alley, and the X-Men ambushed them. The Marauders fled and, as the X-Men gave chase, they found themselves also battling a demonic invasion of New York, slowly becoming demonic themselves. Wolverine recognized familiar scents and the X-Men confronted X-Factor, the original X-Men, harassing Madelyne Summers(a clone of Jean Grey) and Jean Gray’s stolen baby. After Logan forcibly kissed Jean, Madelyne instigated a battle between the X-Men and X-Factor, having the X-Men under her demonic influence and believing that X-Factor was attempting to kidnap Nathan Summers, Jean and Scott's child. After the demon, N'Astirh, attacked, the X-Men and X-Factor combined efforts to defeat him, assuming that he was controlling Madelyne, calling herself the Goblin Queen, and Havok, calling himself the Goblin Prince. At that moment, Marvel Girl was captured, by Maddie, and another battle was instigated between the X-Men and X-Factor. The Goblin Queen attempted to sacrifice baby Nathan atop the Empire State Building to permanently open a gateway between Earth and the demonic Limbo. The Goblin Queen locked herself, Nathan, and Jean inside a psionic barrier. Both the X-Men and X-Factor's combined efforts seemed to be futile in an effort to break through the telekinetic bubble. The invasion was thwarted after Madelyne committed suicide in combat with Jean, attempting to kill everyone in her power, but the X-Men and X-Factor protected each other while Jean protected Nathan Christopher. After Madelyne's death, Jean began to scream in pain and Storm ordered Psylocke to take Scott and the X-Men into her mind, where Mr. Sinister was attempting to erase all of Jean's memories, until Jean defeated him on the Astral Plane. Following Mr. Sinister's psychic trail, Marvel Girl tracked him to the School for Gifted Youngsters and the X-Men and X-Factor were ambushed by the Marauders. While interrogating Malice/Polaris, Mr. Sinister destroyed the school. While the X-Men and X-Factor battled Sinister and Malice, Wolverine defeated Sabretooth and Sinister attempted to claim Marvel Girl, but Cyclops seemingly killed Sinister with an unchecked optic blast.

Boys Night Out
Attempting to comfort Havok after the recent loss of both the women he loved, Wolverine suggested that the men of the X-Men go to a bar in Sydney, taking the idea from Dazzler who took all of the women out. While at the bar, the four X-Men stopped an alien invasion of the many aliens in the Conquest. Shortly after, Wolverine and Havok were vacationing in Mexico and saved a woman from terrorist attackers. The woman was actually Scarlett McKenzie and was working for the Russian scientist, Dr. Neutron (Meltdown), who wanted to use Havok as a means to absorb the entire energy of a breaking down atom reactor and transmute it into himself. Scarlett gave Alex Summers false information that terrorists were trying to sabotage the plant and when he ventured into the heart of the reactor, he found it shortly before reaching critical limit. The timely arrival of Wolverine prevented a full disaster and after Logan killed the scientist, Alex redirected the nuclear radiation into space. For Alex's sake, Logan kept Scarlett’s betrayal secret, as he was still trying to get over the back-plotting of Madelyne.

Madripoor
At this time, Logan left the X-Men, with no explanation and returned to Madripoor. After following the scents of suspects for a murder case, Patch ran into Karma, of the New Mutants, working for her uncle, who was attempting to overthrow Tyger Tiger, and made an uneasy ally with Police Chief Tai. After informing Tyger that he would not assassinate or kidnap for her, Patch and Tyger were beaten, by Roughouse and Bloodsport, and rescued, by Karma. Patch left Tyger with Jessica, Lindsay, and Chang (who was killed by Roughouse and Bloodsport), while he destroyed General Nguyen Ngoc Coy's opium supplies, where he encountered the Harriers. After disrupting Coy's drug activities, Patch took the fight directly to Coy and battled and defeated Roughouse and Bloodsport, while rescuing Lindsay, Jessica, and Tyger. Patch had General Coy at his mercy, until Prince Baran intervened and, thanks to Lindsay, considered them all honored guests of his. The Prince offered that Tyger and General Coy worked together, to stop a power vacuum and war-zone in Madripoor and Patch convinced Tyger to accept. Next, Patch began his quest to save Karma from her uncle's service, but was sidetracked when he learned that disrupting General Coy's drug activities planted a target on the General's head and Karma needed him to help her find her missing brother and sister. Patch accompanied Xi'an Coy Manh to the airport to witness the arrival of Joe Fixit, who Patch smelled right away and recognized as the Hulk. Patch went-on to use Joe to disrupt General Coy's drug and slave operations. Later, Police Chief Tai informed Patch that he was aware the Patch and Wolverine were one and the same. Remembering his first "birthday gift" from Creed, Patch saved a couple from being mugged and was later targeted, by the thugs. After escaping an attempted hit, Patch tracked them to the Princess Bar, only to find them dead and a note from Creed reading "Nobody kills you but me - especially today". Patch returned to San Fransisco with Jessica, when Archie Corrigan asked for help with his mentally unbalanced brother, Burt Corrigan, who was in danger of losing his inheritance. While at the trail, Burt burst through the window, dressed as Indiana Jones, screaming that he needed help from Ba'al. When the X-Men temporarily relocated to the Australian Outback, Wolverine took the runaway mutant Jubilee under his wing, after she saved his life from an attack by Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers. Jubilee eventually became like a daughter to him, much like Rouge and Kitty before.

Savage Lands
While based in Australia, a man would ask Wolverine to go to the Savage Land, where he encountered a tribe of humans. Arriving in a lightweight plane, the tribe believed him a god, with the exception of Gahck, the tribe's female chieftain. Gahck challenged Wolverine to combat, and once it was established that he wasn't a god, he offered to help their hunting parties. Logan subsequently started a relationship with Gahck. When members of the tribe were captured, Wolverine discovered that a robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex would attack the tribe and take their members to a secret base. Wolverine discovered that experiments were performed on the tribe members by Apocalypse, and after freeing himself and the captured Gahck, he battled Apocalypse, though it turned out to be a robot. In the Apocalypse robot's lab, Logan learned that Apocalypse was the man who had told him to journey to the Savage Land. After defeating the robot, Wolverine left the Savage Land, despite Gahck's feelings for him.

Love Dies-40
After the X-Men returned to America, Wolverine began wearing his original blue and gold uniform again. Wolverine then returned to Japan, where Clan Yashida, besieged by internal dispute, was attacking Hand ninjas. Silver Fox, still with Hydra, observed the proceedings and cooperated with Matsu'o Tsurayaba, the Hand leader, to poison Mariko. Faced with a slow, painful death, Mariko asked Wolverine to end her life quickly and mercifully. Wolverine reluctantly complied. This changed Wolverine's character significantly, making him even more disciplined and emotionally distant. Wolverine then vowed to Matsu'o that on each and every one of his birthdays he would slice off a body part until there was nothing of him left. Shortly after Mariko's death, he investigated with Team X survivors Sabretooth and Silver Fox, after the alumnus Mastodon died from reversal of his age suppression factor. Wolverine was shocked to learn that Silver Fox was still alive. To his surprise, Silver Fox despised him for something she believed he had done. Tracing Mastodon's death to Aldo Ferro, now Psi-Borg, they were overwhelmed by his illusions, and Sabretooth, under Psi-Borg's control, killed Silver Fox, before Wolverine could figure out what she believed he had done. Ferro himself died soon afterward.

Trying To Remember
After his encounter with the mutant assassin Omega Red, Logan began to question the memories he possessed, but his searches to find his true identity and memories proved fruitless. Logan possessed memories of being a samurai in Japan, a mercenary operative for the CIA, and a "wild man" in the Canadian wilderness. He also had remembered romances with Mariko and Silver Fox. Wolverine suffered a mental breakdown which stemmed from the deaths of Mariko and Silver Fox and Weapon X's mental tampering. During an encounter with Magneto on his space station called Avalon, Wolverine slashed Magneto with his claws. Magneto retaliated, using his powers of the magnetic field to tear the adamantium out of Wolverine's skeleton, causing extensive injuries. Around this time Professor Xavier, Beast, and Heather Hudson conducted experiments on Wolverine. These showed that Logan's mutation was actually ongoing, and whilst his healing factor and senses would accelerate it would also cost him his humanity- for it would slowly change him into a bestial, wild, animal-like creature. It also turned out that the presence of the adamantium slowed his mutation process down; his healing factor treated it like a foreign substance in the body and tried constantly to expel it. As a result of his injuries, Logan left the X-Men for a time. He visited Muir Island at the request of Kitty Pryde, and was also attacked by Cyber. During the Phalanx invasion, Logan was asked by Professor Xavier to find and rescue the captured X-Men. They joined with Cyclops and Jean Grey, returning from their honeymoon, and freed their teammates in Tibet.

Horseman of Death
Later, Logan was kidnapped by Tyler Dayspring, calling himself Genesis, who wanted to make Wolverine one of his new Horsemen of Apocalypse. Genesis had acquired adamantium by destroying the body of the mercenary known as Cyber, and had planned to recreate the bonding process used on Logan years ago. This time, however, Logan's body rejected the adamantium, and he regressed for a time to a feral-like state. Logan slowly regained his lucidity with help from ninja Elektra Natchios, and rejoined the X-Men. Some months later, Viper invoked Logan's promise to Seraph many years before. Wolverine married Viper, giving her the status to become ruler of Madripoor. Logan was subsequently kidnapped by the would-be conqueror Apocalypse and forced to fight the savage assassin Sabretooth for the mantle of the Horseman Death. Knowing that he might be able to resist Apocalypse's programming and that Sabretooth would be a very dangerous villain with the support of Apocalypse, Logan fought and defeated his nemesis. As a result, Apocalypse succeeded where Genesis had failed, rebonding adamantium to Wolverine's skeleton. Meanwhile, one of a Skrulls faction allied with Apocalypse impersonated Wolverine while in the X-Men, but he was slain by the actual Wolverine. Under the control of Apocalypse, Wolverine fought the X-Men ferociously in his Death persona. But with the help of his teammates, he eventually broke free from Apocalypse's control and returned to the X-Men.

The Losses Keep Mounting
Wolverine returned to Madripoor to battle Ogun, now a possessing spirit, and Viper divorced him, freeing him from her debt. Sometime after this, Malcolm Colcord, a survivor of Wolverine's rampage in Weapon X years before, revived Weapon X and Wolverine's ties to it; controlling him as an assassin. Wolverine escaped from Colcord's control, and with Cyclops and Fantomex, a fellow Weapon Plus experimentee, they penetrated the World, Weapon Plus' base. There, Wolverine learned how he had been used in the Roanoke slaughter years before, and other Weapon Plus secrets. Later on a mission with the X-Men, Wolverine and Jean were lured onto a Weapon Plus satellite by the villain Xorn. Although Logan was able to access detailed files on his past, they realized it was a trap as it hurtled toward the sun. As the heat slowly began to intensify, Jean could no longer stand the pain and asked Logan to take her life with his claws. Obliging his love's last wish, Jean's death unlocked the power of the Phoenix. Thus empowered, Jean returned Wolverine and herself back to earth as Logan slowly healed. However, as the duo confronted Xorn alongside their fellow X-Men, he injected Jean with a lethal electromagnetic pulse and she died in Cyclops arms. Wolverine greatly mourned Jean's loss and was not pleased with Cyclops' and Emma Frost's new relationship, but he has remained a valued member of the X-Men, serving on as many missions as he can while also indulging in the occasional solo mission.

The Hand-41
Wolverine was soon ambushed by the Hand. Transformed into a killing machine and outfitted with several devices, he battled various other heroes. He stabbed both Hornet and Northstar. Also, one of the Hand's mystics, Phaedra, retained a fragment of Wolverine's soul, which became the warrior Shogun. Wolverine escaped from the Hand's control, and he helped S.H.I.E.L.D. defeat the Hand and their allies in Hydra. While on a mission in the Savage Land, he met the recently reformed Avengers and eventually accepted membership, as Joshua Rolle felt that Logan could provide a useful perspective to the team in this modern world. Over the next 12 years, Wolverine continued to go on occasional missions with the X-Men and the Avengers; while his day job was teaching combat classes at the X-Mansion. Also during this time, Daken fell under the influence of Romulus, and he was told lies that his father despised him and abandoned him, filling Daken with hatred.

Finding Daken-53
Wolverine then abruptly left the X-Mansion, traveling to Japan in an attempt to come to terms with his past. He went to visit the Silver Samurai, who serves as a guard to the prime minister of Japan. Wolverine battled with Silver Samurai, cutting his hand in the process. Later, he visited the site of the original Weapon X program at Alkali Lake, which led to a clash with Bucky, who apparently killed Wolverine's wife, the Japanese Itsu, and son. Bucky apologized to Wolverine, telling him that he was not in control of his actions at the time. Wolverine then began to reminisce about his wife, Itsu, and the events that led up to him meeting her. Soon after US government officials, probably under Romulus' command, sent a Shiva robot and Nuke to kill Wolverine. However, he survived. Emma Frost later learned that Daken, Wolverine's son, was still alive and had been manipulated into hating Wolverine. Wolverine swore to locate him.

Civil War
After the destruction of Stamford by the super-villain Nitro, which started the Civil War, Wolverine went after Nitro himself. Although the X-Men were neutral in this conflict, Wolverine, also a member of the New Avengers, led a S.H.I.E.L.D. team to apprehend Nitro. This went badly, with Wolverine as the only survivor, and a conflict with several Atlantean guards, and the king of Atlantis himself, Namor. Nitro was eventually brought to Atlantis, where he lost a hand to Wolverine's adamantium claws. Working with Atlanteans, Wolverine fell in love with Amir, an Atlantean woman, but she was killed by Scimitar terrorists, who attacked Wolverine. Lazaer then defeated him in the astral plane, leaving him brain-dead. He recovered with help from Doctor Strange, and then confronted Scimitar members Shogun and Phaedra, who resurrected Shingen Harada to fight him. Wolverine defeated Shingen and apparently slew Shogun and Phaedra. Lazaer also returned the stolen soul fragment, but warned Wolverine he could never again escape death by defeating him in astral combat. Finally, Romulus made himself known by sending his own ancient memories into Wolverine's mind, and inserting himself into Wolverine's memories.

Father & Son
Now aware of the manipulator in his life, Logan teamed up with Deadpool to find his son, who had many similarities to his father such as aspects of his personality, abilities, and powers. Wolverine arranged for Daken to be shot with carbonadium bullets, which would slow his healing factor so Wolverine could capture him and remove Romulus' influence. However, Sebastian Shaw abducted Daken, intending to brainwash him into servitude. Wolverine fought against Shaw's Hellfire Club. Blocked by a psychic booby trap in Daken's mind, Shaw manipulated Professor X into triggering the trap and absorbing most of the damage, which restored Daken's memories. Both Wolverine and Daken defeated Shaw and resolved to seek vengeance on Romulus together, but the two parted ways when Daken decided to join Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers.

X-Force
A new X-Force consisting of Wolverine as team leader, Warpath, Wolfsbane and X-23 was born to take care of the dirty business the rest of the X-Men wouldn't do normally, including murder. Their first mission involved infiltrating a North Dakota S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to root out a group of Purifiers who had infiltrated the base and stolen valuable technology required to resurrect the Sentinel known as Bastion. In the planned raid Wolfsbane and X-23 disobeyed Wolverine's orders and entered ahead of the team and got Wolfsbane captured. Wolfsbane was later rescued but suffered from a seizure. After the mission, Logan's former Team X teammate, Maverick, contacted Logan to inform him that a private military contractor called Blackguard had got their hands on the old Weapon X files, including the recipe for synthesizing adamantium, and created a group of twelve mercenaries called Strikeforce X, an elite unit of men armed with healing factors, unbreakable skeletons and laser claws. Not only that, but they were being used to carry out atrocities in the name of Blackguard's corporate interests. With the help of reporter Melita Garner, Logan was able to expose Blackguard to the world and kill most of Strikeforce X, but the Chief Executive somehow managed to survive. What Logan didn't know was that Maverick was the man who stole the Weapon X files in the first place and sold them on the black market. In an effort to cover up his involvement in kick-starting the Strikeforce X program from Wolverine, Maverick killed the man whom he sold the files to.

Where Am I?
Later, Wolverine found himself in Dunwitch Sanatorium in a foggy haze with a hospital full of misfits and few memories of a past that seemed to point to the fact that he was insane. A fellow patient warned him that the director, Dr. Rottwell, has a penchant for harvesting brains; which seemed to be proven out when, the very next day, Logan discovered that the patient has been lobotomized. Logan lost his identity in an insane asylum and Dr. Rottwell tried to get him to release the aggressive killer inside of him while still sublimating the rest of his past. A pair of mob goons came looking for someone to pull off a contract killing and Dr. Rottwell offers them Charlie Chainsaws from whom he has removed his hands and attached actual chainsaws; as Logan reached the end of his tolerance for abuse and torture, he finally popped his claws and took out an orderly while Rottwell looked on and smiled. Unable to warp Logan's mind into becoming a feral killer using conventional brainwashing, Dr. Rottwell decided to take the direct approach by cutting directly into his skull. When Rotwell kept wrecking blades on adamantium, he plugged Wolverine into his innovative God Brain machine to get some readings. Logan was able to make a mental cry for help to reporter Melita Garner (the very same journalist who helped him expose Blackguard) before the machine takes full effect. Melita received the desperate psychic message from Wolverine and called in the X-Men to help; Nightcrawler and Psylocke invaded Dunwitch Sanatorium and dismantled Rotwell's God Brain machine. The mob later showed up looking for their missing goons; with chaos abounding as the mob, the patients and the staff all try their best to kill each other, Logan took the opportunity to try and carve up Dr. Rottwell but finds his tormentor impossible to kill; Rottwell then escaped as Wolverine made his way to Melita to recuperate. As his relationship with Melita blossomed into something more, Logan received relationship advice from the women in his life; He tried to warn Melita away from him because of his lifestyle and his past history with women who end up dead but she simply replied that she could handle it. Mystique found out about the affair.

All Hell Breaks Loose
Soon after, Logan visited Wraith, who survived Creed’s attack and was now a pastor. After a few weeks, a child was found dead with three claw marks. Wraith found Logan’s body, which had been possessed by the devil. In hell, Logan apparently met Satan and was forced to battle Hand soldiers. Meanwhile, Wolverine’s body was going around killing the people he cared about. Melita, and surprisingly Mystique, teamed up with the Ghost Rider and Daimon Hellstrom to get Logan’s soul back. In Hell, Logan was tortured and then forced to battle Sabretooth. On Utopia, “Hellverine” has managed to get past the defenses, only to be knocked down by Colossus. In Hell, Logan fought Satan and on Utopia, the X-Men battled Hellverine. Before Colossus could be killed, Melita, Mystique, the Ghost Rider and Hellstrom captured Logan and began the ritual to bring his soul back. In Hell, Logan met Bobby Stewart the 1st, who claimed to be his real Grandfather. The X-Men led a rescue attempt and went into his mind and the Phoenix burned the demons from his mind.

Never Forgive, Never Forget
Logan then planned to get revenge. Wolverine began to track down the Red Right Hand, the group that sent him to Hell. The first target is Mystique, who played a part in sending Wolverine's soul to Hell; despite the fact that she helped return him from hell and tried to warn him that the Red Right Hand were setting him up. Wolverine manages to kill Mystique, despite interference from Lord Deathstrike. Maverick then gives Logan the location of the Red Right Hand. Wolverine invades the Red Right Hand's base, killing the Mongrels. The members of the RRH kill themselves, leaving Logan with a message; the Mongrels were his children; conceived from the unnatural amount of one night stands Logan has had in the past 19-20 years.

Beyond Depressed
Logan was devastated with the fact he killed his own children. Logan took the bodies of his children and buried them next to their mothers; the last one was William Downing whose mother was Dolores Downing. After burying William, Logan went to a bar and got himself drunk. When Logan left the bar he was attacked by Daken who told him he helped the Red Right Hand in what they did which made Logan enraged. Later he called Melita Garner and told her to tell everyone not to look for him and let him go, after that he started to climb a mountain and throwing himself off it many times over.

Epiphany
When he stopped throwing himself from the top of the mountain, he started to move with a pack of wolves and whenever the pack was hunting, Logan couldn't kill the prey as he remembered how he killed his children. The pack was soon attacked and the young were taken, the old were killed, and Logan was shot in the head, however, his healing factor saved him. Logan tracked the attackers, killed them and freed his pack. Logan found who took his pack and that they were using the wolves to fight children for sport. Logan freed the children and returned them to their parents. Logan was confused afterwards knowing that if he hadn't killed his own children, he wouldn't have saved those children. In the middle of this, Melita found him and with the help of his friends convinced him to return.

Facing Apocalypse-54
Wolverine worked with the Avengers during the Serpent's attacks on Midgard, first fighting the secret organization S.T.R.I.K.E. that planned to destroy New York with an Atomic Bomb, and later, using one of the armors Joshua Rolle made with the mystical metal Uru, and fought the Worthy. After the Second Coming event, Cyclops ordered Wolverine to dissolve his X-Force team. Logan believed that his team was still necessary, so he formed a new X-Force with Archangel, Psylocke, Fantomex, and Deadpool. During their first mission, they found Clan Akkaba who was indoctrinating a young Apocalypse, to resume his duties. Clan Akkaba was protecting Apocalypse with a new group of Horsemen, but X-Force defeated them. While the rest of the group was still discussing the moral implications of killing a child, Fantomex immediately shot the kid Apocalypse in the head. After this event, Angel lost control of his Archangel personality, and went on a killing spree. Trying to kill Apocalypse's influence on him, X-Force traveled to the Age of Apocalypse universe, thanks to Dark Beast, to find the Life Seed, the only thing that could save their friend's life. There, Logan found the Jean Grey of that universe, his alternate daughter, and an evil version of himself. When X-Force returned to their universe, they were attacked by Archangel and the Dark Beast, who took the Life Seed, because they needed to restart evolution. After a heavy battle between the forces of Archangel and X-Force, Psylocke was able to stab Archangel with a different Life Seed, killing his alter ego, and saving Earth from the Age of Archangel.

Rift Within The Team
When the return of Kid Omega set off a new wave of anti-Mutant sentiment, Wolverine and Cyclops steadily grew divided. Wolverine wished to hand Quire over to Commander Jonathan Tulloch, while Cyclops wished to deal with him within the mutant community. When a new Hellfire Club attacked and incapacitated the X-Men at the opening of a Mutant History Museum, Oya whom Wolverine had taken a liking to, was the last one standing. As Logan tried to convince Idie to stay hidden, Cyclops pressured her to act: leading to Idie killing a dozen men. Logan was enraged and blamed Cyclops. Eventually it got worse when Wolverine saw that the idea of Cyclops raising and training the teenage mutants as soldiers were only going to get them killed and after demolishing a Sentinel that was sent to destroy Utopia, Wolverine and a number of X-Men quit the team and left with a number of the teenage mutants to return to their former home in New York with it clear that Cyclops has clearly crossed the line with his actions.

The Jean Gray School for Higher Learning
Wolverine founded the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, spending all the fortune that he had amassed over the years upon it. On its first day it was assaulted by the new Hellfire Club, whom had been a major force in causing the Schism of the X-Men. Wolverine made it clear that he didn't want to lose any of the kids and fought as hard as he could against the Frankenstein Monster, whom Iceman defeated by making Ice clones of himself. Then, they were attacked by the Hellfire Club, that was in possession of a spawn of the original Krakoa. Kid Omega who wanted to prove himself to Broo, Idie and Kid Gladiator who told him they never heard of him, reasoned with Krakoa who then joined Wolverine's X-Men. Wolverine, along the School's staff and students, confronted the Hellfire Club and he made clear to them to stay away from his school. As the Hellfire Club members were leaving, Krakoa almost attacked them but Logan stopped him as he had a better idea on how to deal with them. As the school was being rebuilt, Logan was informed that Krakoa was glad they allowed him to stay and Logan found it good to have a school ground that could fight back.

X-Men Vs The Avengers
When Nova arrived on Earth with a warning, the Avengers discovered that the Phoenix Force was heading on a destructive path towards Earth. Captain America turned to Wolverine for advice. Wolverine informed him of Hope Summers' connection with the Phoenix, and the stand that Cyclops and his X-Men team would take on this matter, using the cosmic energy that comes with the destructive power of the Phoenix to save mutantkind from extinction. Captain America asked if the Jean Grey School would side with him, but Logan insisted that he had founded the school to keep the kids out of fights. When Cap called on the Avengers to invade Utopia, Wolverine was there alongside them. While the X-Men and the Avengers fought for the control of the mutant nation Utopia, Wolverine found Hope, and was going to fulfill his promise of killing her. But Hope, using the powers of the Phoenix, was able to escape, burning Logan's skin and muscle. He recovered and went with Captain America to the Savage Land looking for Hope, but Captain, thinking that Logan was a liability, asked him to stay in the Quinjet while they searched, punching him in the face, prompting a vicious fight between them that was resolved thanks to Giant-Man who pushed Wolverine out of the plane, making him fall in the middle of the North Pole. Wolverine is tracked down by Hope who offers him a truce if he'll help her. She plans on going to the Moon in order to confront the Phoenix but in case she loses control she wants Wolverine to be there to kill her. Wolverine agrees but betrays her by calling the Avengers who show up on the Moon to capture her. The X-Men arrive shortly after but the fighting is cut short by the arrival of the Phoenix. As the Phoenix descended on the Moon, Iron Man used a special suit to try to destroy the Phoenix. He only managed to splinter it, and it took the five other X-Men present as hosts; Namor, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magik and Colossus. The Phoenix-possessed X-Men started changing the world into a better place for living, but knowing that Phoenix's ultimately destructive nature would bring chaos, Steve and the Avengers tried to get Hope from Utopia in order to use her knowledge about the Phoenix against it, after the Scarlet Witch helped them against the X-Men (previously having visions of the Phoenix destroying Earth), Cyclops decided to hunt down every Avenger. The Thunderer offered the Avengers to hide in K'un-Lun, as well as to train Hope to face the Phoenix, because of his past experience with the Phoenix Host and Iron Fist Fongji, and the prophecy of the Phoenix bringing chaos to Earth. Before the entire Avengers could teleport to K'un-Lun, Namor attacked where they were hiding, Wakanda, along a full army of Atlanteans. After defeating Namor with the price of the partial destruction of Wakanda, the Avengers teleported to K'un-Lun, in order to help Hope to train to face the Phoenix. The Avengers were attacked by Cyclops who now possessed half of the Phoenix. He made quick work of anyone that opposed him but was defeated by Hope who in an act of desperation combined the powers of the Iron Fist, Scarlet Witch's chaos magic and Shao-Lao's flames to teleport Cyclops to the Moon. The Avengers then teamed up with several X-Men who had realized that Cyclops and Emma had completely lost control. Together they attacked Cyclops and Emma and gained the upper hand until Cyclops was forced to take the final piece of the Phoenix from Emma, making him the sole host. The complete Phoenix proved too much and finally turned him into Dark Phoenix. The Avengers fought Summers around the world with the help of the X-Men and Nova, as well as trying to contain the chaos the gigantic force produced around Earth, but who finally managed to defeat him were Scarlet Witch and Hope, the Phoenix left Scott and possessed Hope, but she managed to control it, repairing all the damage Scott caused on the planet, and finally, using the powers of the Scarlet Witch to manipulate reality, she destroyed the Phoenix Force with a final blast of energy which caused millions of people around Earth to manifest mutant powers. Cyclops was finally incarcerated, and Steve accepted the Avengers should have done more to help mutants, and allowed the world to hate them. As a result, he started planning a new team of Avengers in hopes of unifying mutant and humankind.

Full Time Avenger
After the war with the X-Men and the New Avengers were disassembled, Wolverine rejoined the main Avengers team and the Avengers Unity Division after Captain America asked him to join the Avengers, which he accepted.

Goodbye to Being Unique-55
During a rescue mission to help S.H.I.E.L.D., Wolverine was infected with a Microverse virus that shut down his healing factor. In an attempt to prove he was still the best at what he did, he tried to fight a brainwashed Black Panther, but failed miserably. Even having to be defended by Kitty was a little embarrassing for him. Eventually, he was captured and beaten to a pulp by Sabretooth. When he was on the brink of getting his head cut off with the Muramasa Blade, Creed gave Logan a verbal smack down about how neither the X-Men nor the Avengers kill but that Wolverine is willing to do otherwise. He walked away and left the blade next to a bloodied and broken Wolverine. The virus was revealed to have sentience, and told Logan it would be willing to give Wolverine his healing factor back in exchange for evasion from S.H.I.E.L.D., as the organization intended to destroy the virus completely after Wolverine was cured. Wolverine rejected the virus' offer and broke the Muramasa Blade. When he was finally rescued, Logan begun alienating his friends and stated that "The Wolverine was dead". After denying the virus evasion from S.H.I.E.L.D., the virus quickly started stripping Logan of all of his mutant powers; while also disintegrating the Adamantium in his body. Logan was now nothing more than a regular Homo sapiens. Following the loss of his mutant powers, he left the Jean Grey School and the main Avengers team.

Knowledge is Power
Logan now had nowhere to go as he was just drifting in the world. Logan was bothered every night however, with reoccurring dreams of his grandfather Bobby Stewart the 1st. Logan felt a strong connection to the name as if it should mean something to him and he deducts that he does not know as much about his past as he thought he did. Logan then goes to the one person he thinks can help him get all of his memories back; Franklin Richards. Logan goes to Franklin Richards and practically begs him to unlock his memories. Franklin initially says no but upon seeing how desperate Logan is, he agrees to unlock Logan’s hidden Memories. The two men then take a trip inside of Logan’s subconscious where Bobby sees his whole life flash before his eyes: his parent’s death, Uncle Ben’s death, becoming the original Spider-Man, being in love with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane, becoming Batman, endless battles with the same enemies, and him being the head of a billion dollar corporation. Franklin tells Logan that his real name is Bobby Stewart and he is the head of Stewart Enterprises. As they look at Batman’s last battle with Darksied, Franklin tells Bobby that Darksied’s Omega Sanction should’ve killed him; but since he had a dormant Mutant gene, all the blast did was unlock his Mutant powers while also giving him complete memory loss. When they return to conscious reality, Bobby remembers every little detail in his 55 years of living. Now blessed with the knowledge, Bobby departs. Franklin asks him where he is going and Bobby says “im going home, to Jersey!” Franklin replies “Good and this little favor will cost you about a million bucks.” Bobby responds “I owe you a lot more than that” before he finally goes off headed for Gotham City.

Return to Gotham City
When Bobby arrives in Gotham, he finds it is a Warzone. Bobby then makes his way toward Stewart Manor and once inside, he is met by his 31 year old son Damien. Damien is shocked and emotional to see that his father is still alive; he even digs up Bobby’s grave and checks if there is a body in it to make sure that the man in front of him was his real father. Damien tells Bobby that after he “died” Joshua Rolle took up the mantle of Batman. He continues that after Joshua gave up the cowl, Tim Drake became Batman in his place. When Tim left Gotham to become a full time member of the Justice League, Jason Todd became the new Batman in Gotham City. Damien said that he served as Robin for all three men until Jason left Gotham when he was recruited by the Flash to help in the Atlantean-Amazonian War in Europe. Damien said he then took the mantle of Batman with his very own Robin, his best friend Duke Thomas. Damien admitted that when he failed to protect his Robin and Duke died in battle, the lines between right and wrong blurred themselves as he began to defeat crime bosses permanently. Damien breaks down and tells his father that he doesn’t know how he didn’t go insane when he thought Jason had died. He tells his father that all these years later there had only ever been one real Batman and that is Bobby Stewart! Bobby says that he knows Damien has done his best and that he cannot throw stones at anybody after the things he’s done in the past 20+ years. He tells Damien that now is the time to leave the past in the past and move forward with the next evolution of Batman.

Batman Incorporated
Having come to a new conclusion about the direction of his fight against crime, Bobby Stewart reveals himself in a press conference after he had been publicly missing and assumed dead, and tells the public that he has been privately financing Batman for years and goes public with Batman Incorporated. Batman then gathers his closest associates in the Batcave and gives them all new assignments as the start of an army against crime, Joshua Rolle, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown and Damian Stewart. Bobby says they will make their battle ideological, fighting the idea of crime with the idea of Batman and making sure there is nowhere for evil to hide. Batman then makes sure to honor an old promise of his and reemphasizes to the Bat Family that they cannot kill under any circumstances. Lucius Fox is commissioned to make a private army of Batman Robots. Bobby then tells Damian that he will continue to work on missions in Gotham City.

Leviathan
These actions draw the attentions of the Leviathan organization. Batman then travels to Japan with on again-off again love Catwoman, to recruit the crime-fighter Mister Unknown. They help Mister Unknown defeat a Leviathan agent called Lord Death Man, and Mister Unknown becomes the new Batman Japan. In France, Bobby Stewart recruits a Muslim called Nightrunner to become the Batman of Paris. After that, Batman visits Argentina to recruit El Gaucho. They battle Leviathan agents El Papagayo, El Sombrero, and Scorpiana. This trail leads them to an island prison, where Leviathan have released the aging Nazi super-criminal Doctor Dedalus. Bobby continues his expansion with Batwing in Africa, Black Bat in Hong Kong, Dark Ranger in Australia, Red Robin in charge of the Outsiders, and a mysterious new Wingman. During a visit to South Dakota, Bobby helps Man-of-Bats and Raven Red deal with the Leviathan agent Red Rippa. Bobby soon introduces Internet 3.0 to his investors, and Oracle defends it against Leviathan cyber-attacks. Meanwhile, Batman and Batgirl go undercover to take down an evil finishing school. They stop Son of Pyg, who is using the school to recruit for Leviathan. Later, Doctor Dedalus traps the entire team in a labyrinth to drive them insane, until Damien is forced to kill Dedalus. It is revealed that Dedalus was just a distraction, and the mastermind by Leviathan is Talia al Ghul. Armed with the League of Assassins' power, Leviathan began taking over the city of Gotham, and in an effort to gain more information, Batman took on his old identity of Matches Malone to infiltrate the crime ring. He was, however, betrayed to Leviathan and sentenced to death, requiring Damian save him. Bobby managed to escape on his own steam, and upon reuniting with the surviving Batman Incorporated members, he warned them that they would be facing 30 of the world's greatest assassins.

Fallen Hero
Though they were successful in defeating the assassins, Batman worried that Damian would have to return to his mother or there would be dire consequences. He had seen those consequences come to fruition in a foreboding vision, earlier. After learning of an attack on the other members of Batman Incorporated, Batman rushed to the site, where he encountered a series of traps leading to the top floor of a building. On the way up, Talia taunted him by warning that he would have to choose between his city and his son. At the top of the building, he encountered her creature, the Heretic, who had killed Batman's allies, and soon threw Bobby from the roof. Batman was captured by Man-Bat Commandos and put in a death trap by Talia, who had taken over Stewart Tower in the meantime. Against Batman's wishes, Damian left the Batcave, once again, and helps his father. While Batman escaped his trap, Damian faced the Heretic alone, with his call on Talia to put a stop to the monster unheeded. Though he fought well, Damian was no match for it, and he was skewered on the Heretic's blade. Thwarted in avenging his son, Bobby was thrown from the Tower. He later held a small, private funeral for Damian, even as his city was overrun by Leviathan and the Mayor declared him a menace, forcing Stewart Enterprises to cut funding to Batman Incorporated. Borrowing the Suit of Sorrows to face Talia and the Heretic, Batman transformed himself into a bat-creature. While Batman pummeled the Heretic and discovered with disgust that he was a clone of Damian, his allies learned that the international spy community had allied against Batman Inc., though they still needed the organization to stop Talia's plan. The Heretic escaped Batman only to be executed by Talia for failing to follow her orders. Batman and Talia came to a final confrontation in the Batcave. Joshua is called upon by Bobby to help him face Talia. Joshua and Bobby face Talia, but a tactical error by Bobby left Joshua exposed to gunfire. Severely shot in several places including both his right eye, and his spinal cord, Joshua was incapacitated. With the woman forcing him to choose between taking her life or giving his life along with his city - with the trick being that she had already poisoned him. In a bid for Batman's life, Wingman offered the Oroboro device Talia sought, as a distraction, as the headmistress of Spyral shot her in the head, freeing the city of Leviathan's grasp. In the aftermath, Bobby Stewart was arrested, but charges were dropped. Upon his return to the manor, he and Alfred discovered that the corpses of both Damian and Talia had been dug up and stolen by Ra's al Ghul. Damian's death left Bobby an emotional wreck. He began going through the five stages of grief, beginning with denial. Despite briefly being drawn together by their loss, Bobby began alienating his family.

The Dark Knight Returns-56
After the death of his son Damien, billionaire industrialist Bobby Stewart forced himself to retire from his Batman persona. A year later, Gotham City is overrun with crime and terrorized by a gang known as the Mutants. Bobby maintains a friendship with 74-year-old retiring Police Commissioner James Gordon, while the Joker (Batman's archenemy) has been catatonic in Arkham Asylum since Bobby's retirement. Arkham inmate and former district attorney Harvey Dent undergoes plastic surgery to repair his disfigured face. Although he is declared sane, he quickly goes into hiding following his release. Dent's disappearance, news stories of the crime epidemic throughout the city and the memory of his parents' deaths drive Stewart to become Batman once more. He combats serious crimes, rescuing 13-year-old Carrie Kelley, whom Damian had once hired to give him acting lessons. Bobby refused to admit to her that he'd died. He also refused to admit that Damian was gone to himself. Since coming out of retirement, Batman now struggles with the physical limitations of age. Public reaction to his return is divided; Dent's psychologist, Bartholomew Wolper, blames Batman for creating his own villains. Dent resurfaces, threatening to blow up a building unless he is paid a ransom. Batman defeats Dent's henchmen, learning that the bombs will explode even if the ransom is paid; he realizes that Dent intends to kill himself. Batman disables one bomb, and the other detonates harmlessly. He defeats Dent, who reveals that although his face was repaired he still thinks of himself as Two-Face. Kelley then dresses as Robin and looks for Batman, who attacks a gathering of the Mutants with a tank-like Batmobile (incapacitating most of them). The Mutant leader challenges Batman to a duel; he accepts, to prove to himself that he can win. The Mutant leader (who is in his prime) nearly kills Batman, but Kelley distracts him long enough for Batman to subdue him. The leader and many gang members are arrested. Injured, Batman returns to the Batcave with Kelley. He then allows her to become his protégée. Batman has Carrie disguise herself as a Mutant, and she lures the gang to a sewer outlet at the West River. At the Gotham City Police Department, the Mutant leader murders the mayor during negotiations. Commissioner Gordon deliberately releases the leader, providing an escape from the building, which leads to the sewer outlet. Before the amassed Mutants, Batman fights the leader in a mud pit; the mud slows the leader, removing his physical advantage, and Batman overpowers him. Seeing their leader's defeat, the Mutants divide into smaller gangs; one becomes the "Sons of Batman", a violent vigilante group. Batman's victory becomes public and the city's inhabitants are inspired to stand up against crime. Gordon retires after meeting his anti-Batman successor, Ellen Yindel. In Arkham, televised reports about Batman bring the Joker out of his catatonic state. Feigning remorse for his past, Joker convinces Wolper to take him on a talk show to tell his story; he makes plans for his escape with an old henchman, who supplies him with mind-controlling lipstick. Meanwhile, Superman, who works as a government operative in exchange for being allowed to covertly help people, is asked by the President to end Batman's vigilante activities. Framing these events is a growing hostility between the USA and Russia over possession of the island of Corto Maltese. As Batman's continued presence humiliates the national authorities, Yindel becomes commissioner and orders Batman's arrest, and Superman warns Batman that the government will not tolerate him much longer. Joker makes his talk show appearance as Batman fights with the GCPD on the studio roof; while they fight, Joker kills Wolper, gasses everyone in the studio to death and escapes. He finds Selina Kyle and uses one of her escorts and his lipstick to take control of a congressional representative, who calls for a nuclear strike on the Russians before falling to his death. Batman's investigation leads him to Selina, whom he finds bound and dressed like Wonder Woman. Kelley notices cotton candy on the floor, and Batman deduces that Joker is at the fairgrounds. There Kelley accidentally kills Joker's henchman while Batman pursues the Joker, who indiscriminately guns down dozens of people. As Batman corners a wounded and partially blinded Joker, he admits to feeling responsible for every murder Joker has committed and intends to stop him permanently. In the ensuing fight, Joker stabs Batman repeatedly, and Batman breaks Joker's neck in front of witnesses; Content that he made Batman lose control and that he will be branded a murderer, the Joker finishes twisting his neck, killing himself. The GCPD arrive and Batman, bleeding profusely, fights his way to Kelley and escapes. After Superman deflects a Soviet nuclear missile, he is hit with the blast and badly injured; the detonation creates an electromagnetic pulse that wipes out all electrical equipment in the United States and causes a nuclear winter. As the city descends into chaos, Batman, Kelley and Gordon rally the Sons of Batman and the citizens of Gotham to restore order, and Yindel accepts that Batman has become too powerful to take down. While the rest of the powerless U.S. is overrun with crime, Gotham becomes the safest city in America, embarrassing the President's administration and prompting them to send Superman to finally stop Batman. Batman and Superman agree to meet in Crime Alley. Wearing a powerful exoframe and supported by Kelley and former superhero Oliver Queen (Green Arrow), Batman fights Superman, using various tactics to make the fight even. When Superman gains the advantage, Queen hits him with an arrow made with synthetic Kryptonite, severely weakening him. Batman defeats Superman, and claims that he intentionally made the Kryptonite weak, to defeat Superman without killing him. Batman then apparently dies of a heart attack, while Stewart Manor self-destructs, and Alfred dies of a stroke. In the aftermath, all of his secrets are destroyed with the manor and his finances disappear. As Superman leaves Bobby's funeral, he gives Kelley a knowing wink after hearing a faint heartbeat coming from Bobby's coffin. In underground caves, Bobby is revealed to have faked his death and makes preparations to continue his mission more discreetly, allied with Carrie, Oliver, and his followers.

Finding Damien
Batman decided at last to begin the search for Ra's al Ghul and the stolen bodies of Damian and Talia. He joined with Aquaman in search of the island where Damian had been raised, hoping to find them there, but they arrived too late to stop Ra's from escaping with their sarcophagi to Paradise Island. With Wonder Woman's help, he learned that Ra's intended to use a Chaos Crystal in a Lazarus Pit on the island to revive his daughter and grandson. After that plan was disrupted, Ra's escaped to Nanda Parbat, where a battle ensued, and Damian's sarcophagus and the Chaos Crystal were stolen by Glorious Godfrey, and taken to Apokolips, spurring Batman to eschew the Justice League's advice against it, and go there, after his son. Ignoring the League's dissent, he snuck onto the Satellite to steal a specialized Batsuit designed to help him survive against the threat of Apokolips. Without the league's support, he called on his family for help instead. He urged them to look after Gotham in his absence, forcing them to stay behind while he journeyed to Apokolips. While Batman fought his way to Glorious Godfrey, his family decided that they would not allow him to fight this battle alone, and kidnapped Cyborg, forcing him to open a Boom Tube that would get them to Apokolips as well. After questioning Godfrey, Batman united with his allies and learned that Darkseid's son Kalibak was using the Chaos Crystal and Damian's sarcophagus to power a weapon called the Chaos Cannon that could destroy an entire moon.

Resurrection
Batman's arrival on Apokolips roused even Darkseid himself, and he was eager to get revenge on Batman after he survived Darkseid’s Omega Sanction blast. In their fight, he tossed Batman into the Chaos Cannon's fuel tank, freeing Damian's sarcophagus. When he then attempted to finish Batman with the Omega Sanction, Batman took a shard of the Chaos Crystal, and absorbed the energy before escaping through Cyborg's Boom Tube. Though his Hellbat suit threatened to kill him, Batman thrust the charged up shard into Damian's chest, and restored him to life before succumbing to his wounds. Fortunately, he recovered in time to help stop Kalibak, who followed them through the Boom Tube home. It was then that they discovered Damian's resurrection had given him super-human abilities, which he used to beat Kalibak back into the Tube, which Cyborg closed behind him. Though they were safe, Batman would from that point have to deal with the prospect of a super-powered son.

Flash in the Pan
Witnessing Damian use his powers, Bobby worried that the effects of the Chaos Shard may not have been permanent, and determined that Damian was not actually invulnerable - only unable to feel the physical pain he was receiving. He therefore formed a plan with the Justice League to have Damian expend some of his built up energy on a bogus mission. Damian fought well on the mission, impressing the League. In the fight, Damian's powers were depleted, and by the next morning, he woke without them.

The Finale
When Batman learned of people being killed by a mysterious strain of Joker Venom, He travelled to the ruins of Arkham Asylum in search of clues, where he encountered employee Eric Border. To his surprise, Eric locked him in a cell, revealing that he had been the Joker in disguise the whole time, and promising to unleash a virus on the city. To ensure Batman would see it happen, he paralyzed him with a toxic gas. Batman was confused to find the Joker still alive after he saw the Joker kill himself with his own eyes. After recovering, he learned that the virus had already spread, and was resistant to efforts to develop a cure. Batman learned that Jim Gordon had been attacked by the Joker in the meantime. When Batman found Jim, he was still alive, but he'd been infected. Before attacking Batman, though, he revealed that he had fired a killshot against the Joker, and watched him come back to life. Not long after, Batman learned from Damien that a blood sample he'd collected from the Joker contained a compound similar to the contents of the Lazarus Pits, only stronger. The Joker could not be killed. Following a lead from Arkham Asylum, Batman had an encounter with Dr. Paul Dekker who claimed that the Joker had actually been alive for centuries, and was an immortal like Vandal Savage or Ra's al Ghul, thanks to a chemical called Dionesium. Unwilling to believe that this could be true, Batman sought the Court of Owls for confirmation of these claims. He learned nothing from the Court besides that they had once found a corrupted version of Dionesium. Batman returned to find that the Joker had been in the Batcave. The Joker stole several trophies and mementos, with which he staged a parade, to capture Batman's attention. Allying with his family and his own enemies, Batman formed a plan to retrieve the Dionesium deposit in the Joker's spine. In fact, this plan was a ploy. He sent Damien in his place as Batman to feign an attempt at gathering the sample, while he searched for the pool of Dionesium that lay hidden beneath the city. By the time he had discovered it, though, the Joker had realized the trick, and attacked him in the tunnels. They fought brutally until both of them were near death, and as the cavern collapsed around them, Bobby held the Joker back from the healing pool, forcing him to acknowledge that he had not been around for centuries as he'd claimed. The pool was destroyed by a boulder. Batman and the Joker, however, appeared to have died together in the cavern. Two weeks later, Damien found a note from Bobby, and all it had said was "Ha." He understood this to mean that Bobby knew he was flawed, and could only ever be a mortal who died in tragedy - never immortal, and never a happy ending. Three weeks later however, Bobby Stewart was found alive; although he had died he was revived by the Dionesium in the cavern's pit.

Fatherhood-57
During the course of the next year, Batman(Bobby Stewart) and Batman(Damien Stewart) struggle to maintain order in Gotham. With the new Superheroes in the world blurring the lines between Good and Evil, the idea of Batman felt out of place to Bobby. Bobby then decides to retire the Batman for good. This leads to an argument with Damien who thinks that Batman shouldn’t retire just adapt to the new age. Bobby ends up kicking Damien out of the mansion and tells him never to return to Gotham. Before Damien leaves, Bobby admits to Damian he does not much about being a father but he loves him and that is all that matters. Damian understands and puts the argument behind them. Damien then leaves Gotham City to become his own man. Shortly after, Bobby is visited by a woman named Helena Stewart. Helena claimed to be the daughter of Bobby. When Bobby asked who her mother was, he was shocked to find out that Helena's mother was Selina Kyle. Bobby, not wanting to believe the woman but knowing that she might be telling the truth, decides to take a DNA test to authenticate the woman's claim. When the results came back positive that he was the father, Bobby accepted Helena as his child. He then went to see Selina and ask her himself for the reason Helena was kept a secret from him. Selina told him that when Helena was born she first thought about giving the baby up for adoption. She knew that the baby could never be raised properly with a father like Batman and a mother like Catwoman. She continues that she had a change of heart and decided to raise the baby on her own. After returning as Catwoman in a couple of ops side by side with Batman, she knew it would be wrong to hide Helena from Bobby. Selina said that she decided to debut baby Helena to Bobby, but before she got a chance he was seemingly killed by Darkseid. Selina said that she trained her and raised her on her own and eventually Damien found out about his sisters existance. Damien then began to train his sister as well to get her ready to join him on his crusade. When Bobby unexpectedly returned, Damien and Selina thought it would be best to keep Helena a secret and she sent her daughter away from Gotham to attend UCLA in California. Bobby accepts this reality and leaves Selina Kyle's home. In an absurdly short amount of time, two more people came to Stewart Manor to bring news. The two people were twins: A Man and a Woman. they also claimed to be the children of Bobby Stewart. Bobby need only look at their faces to see who their mother was. When Bobby asked them if their mother was Mary Jane Watson, the man says yes. He introduces himslef as John Watson and the woman introduces herself as May Watson. They tell Bobby that he is the only parental figure they have left as Mary Jane had recently died from cancer. As a result they decided that it would be great to atleast meet their biological father atleast once. When Bobby says that he needs to run some blood tests and that he needs proof, May shoots a spider web at the window and asks Bobby if he still neded proof. Bobby satisfied with what he saw says "no". With the deaths of the Mongrels still fresh in his mind, Bobby was subconsciously happy that he had more children out in the world and that he could still be a positive influence on their lives. Later, Batman re-meets Superman, who had also become a father by that time. The World's Finest acknowledge their responsibilities as fathers and decide to stand together, whatever happens.

Kingdom Come
Also by this time many of Batman's rogue gallery have been completely eliminated by the new heroes, particularly by the one called Genosyde who blown up Arkham Asylum, Belle Reve, and Blackgate Penitentiary, in which Batman admitted that he doesn't have to worry about his past enemies. When Superman came out of retirement with a more "proactive" stance, Batman opposed him, uniting the more idealistic members of his Earth's second generation of heroes. Batman gathered his own group of superhuman agents to work against the forces of Superman. Bobby employed numerous people in various business entities who constructed him new state of the art battlesuit and the equipment that his team of metahumans used to compete with the forces of Superman. He and his team went undercover; pretending to ally themselves with Lex Luthor III's Mankind Liberation Front. This was done so Bobby could discover Lex's plans. Bobby then Battled in the Metahuman War and survived the United Nations attack on the superheroes. After these events, Bobby turned his home into a hospital for the survivors of the bomb and used Luthor's Mankind Liberation Front members as hospital staff. In doing so, Bobby had to use inhibitor collars to keep the more dangerous inmates such as Lex Luthor III in line. He also turned down the government's offer of subsidies to renovate the manor and used his own resources. After the metahumans formed their own community, he remained actively involved in working with and training the younger heroes.

Over the Hill-58-70
Over the next 12 years, Batman sightings in Gotham became less frequent as Bobby started being plagued by heart problems. Bobby would only go out as Batman once a year; to prove to himself that he still  has what it takes to done the cowl and to honor the memory of his parents by making appearances on the anniversary of their death. After his heart started acting up during an attempt to rescue Bunny Vreeland, daughter of Bobby's socialite friend Veronica Vreeland, from kidnappers, he was forced to break his personal rule of never using a gun, just to defend himself. Bobby then decided to hang up the mantle of the Batman for good. Shortly after, he was bought out from Stewart Enterprises by Derek Powers in a hostile takeover. After all this, Bobby chose to retire to Stewart Manor, living a life of solitude with his dog Ace.

Batman Beyond-75
5 years later, 17 year old Terry McGinnis figured out that Bobby Stewart was Batman. Wanting revenge on Derek Powers for killing his father, Warren McGinnis, Terry stole Bobby's advanced Batman suit and went after him as he was about to strike a deal with a foreign weapons dealer about a shipment of chemical weapons. At first Bobby used a remote command to lock down the suit, but after Terry pointed out the parallels in their pasts, Bobby felt sympathy for him, and begrudgingly agreed to help him. After Terry managed to stop the deal, Bobby, impressed with his performance, offered Terry a chance to take up the mantle of Batman under his guidance, to which Terry agreed.

Revelation-90
As one of Bobby's kidneys started to fail, Terry signed up as a donor. Finding out that their DNA was suspiciously similar, Terry started questioning his origins, which lead to a fallout between him and Bobby and him forsaking his identity as Batman. Terry sought out Bobby's enemy and later ally from his Justice League days, Amanda Waller, and learned that he was created as a biological son to Bobby Stewart through the use of Project Cadmus nanotechnology injected into his father, for the sake of creating a Batman to take over for Bobby Stewart, for it was apparent that Gotham will always need a Batman. After realizing Bobby was not behind the deception, Terry decided to reconcile with Bobby, and take up the Batman mantle again.

Death & Legacy-92
Bobby would live for another two years until his heart finally gave out on him. Bobby’s funeral was very well attended by a large array of his family, friends, colleagues, and admirers. Although Bobby met most of his children, he did not meet them all. Bobby had a son with Andrea Beaumont, named Levon, who became a crime fighting vigilante similar to his father. He also had another son named Kurt with Melita Garner whom Bobby left when he lost his Mutant powers; never getting a chance to find out about her pregnancy. Kurt was born with his fathers Mutant gene activated and had all of Wolverine's powers. Kurt ends up taking his unique abilities and becomes and Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.