Jean-Paul's entire personality disappears as soon as he places Azrael's helmet on his head, and he begins to believe he is an actual avenging angel, as opposed to a man dressed like one.
Batman eventually becomes so exhausted by fighting villains throughout the city that he is finally defeated by Bane in combat, and suffers a broken back in the process.
Under the influence of "The System", Azrael designs vicious new gloves for the Batsuit, which feature sharp metal claws and a mechanism for launching Batarangs at high speed.
Azrael becomes quite conceited and believes himself superior to the original Batman, even directly disobeying Bruce's only condition by fighting Bane one-on-one, and actually manages to defeat him by utilizing an all-new Batsuit which features heavy armor and a Bat-signal spotlight on the chestplate.
His defeat of Bane gives him a false confidence in his abilities, and erodes his conscience as he believes himself above any questions of morality as long as the job is getting done, leading him to actually begin killing villains.
Bruce is shocked and disgusted that the name of the Batman is being used this way, and determines he must return to Gotham and take the title back from Azrael.
When he has finally recovered and trained his body back into physical fitness, he returns to Gotham and asks Azrael to give up the Batsuit.
Later, Bruce Wayne begins to feel guilt for abandoning Jean-Paul, and tracks him down in order to give him financial funding so that he can take care of himself.
The Order had developed over the centuries into an extremist cult-like organization and had built a number of fortresses all over the world, where they conducted secretive genetic experiments and trained elite assassins.
Starting with issue #47, the series was retitled Azrael: Agent of the Bat and played a major role in the No Man's Land storyline.
Azrael is seemingly killed in the series' final issue, shot with two specially-coated bullets while battling archenemies Nicholas Scratch and Carlton Lehah.
In this story, the character teams up with Batman and Robin in an attempt to thwart an ancient demonic cult from sacrificing seven children in an effort to resurrect the embodiment of the eighth deadly sin.
This characteristic of the armor and swords has had the effect of causing every previous Azrael in the Order of Purity's history to have descended to insanity, although in varying lengths of time.
Thus, Lane finds it increasingly difficult to resist these voices and maintain his mental health, especially as he was already struggling with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, due to the violent deaths of most of his family members.
Lane's trust in his supervisors within the Order of Purity is further eroded after he learns that they deny some of the most fundamental tenets of the Christian religion, such as the divinity of Christ and his death and resurrection.
Lane's faith in his traditional Catholic teachings as a child cause him to debate whether he should place his trust in such an organization that claims Jesus was still alive when he was removed from the cross and buried, or if he should betray them.
He delays his decision and continues serving them as he attempts to apprehend a serial killer who is systematically murdering members of the Order of Purity in ways inspired by the martyrdom of several Christian saints.