After she and her husband are murdered in a street robbery, her orphaned son is inspired to fight crime by adopting the vigilante identity of the Batman.

[3] As a key figure in Batman's origin story, Martha Wayne has appeared in multiple forms of media.

Martha Wayne first appeared in Detective Comics #33 (November 1939) in a story by Bob Kane and Bill Finger which detailed the origin of Batman.

As revealed in the miniseries Batman: Family by John Francis Moore, Martha's closest friend in those days was the woman Celia Kazantkakis.

In this guise, she attempted to stage a coup of Wayne Enterprises,[4] until Batman discovered the true nature of his mother's history with Celia and defeated her.

Shortly after Celia's departure, Martha met and fell in love with prominent physician and philanthropist Dr. Thomas Wayne.

Returning to the car through an alley, they were confronted by a lone gunman, who attempted to steal Martha Wayne's pearl necklace, an anniversary gift from Thomas.

Later retellings would claim that Chill had been hired by gangster Lew Moxon, an enemy of Thomas Wayne, and told to make the killings look like a robbery.

After DC Comics' history-altering Zero Hour series, this interpretation was abandoned in favor of the Waynes' deaths being a random street crime.

Since her death, Martha Wayne has only appeared in the Batman series in flashback and in the occasional out-of-body experience or hallucination.

In this story, Batman ingests an elixir given to him by his enemy Ra's al Ghul, and believes he is having a conversation with his dead parents.

storyline reveals that the Kanes hired a detective to prowl about the circumstances of her death, suspecting that Thomas Wayne married her for her money.

Many years later, the detective hired by the Kanes presents to Commissioner Gordon a dossier describing Martha as a helpless, frail woman hooked on drugs by an abusive husband, who frequently indulged in orgies and extramarital affairs, taking Alfred Pennyworth as her lover.

After her father was tricked into a shady investment deal by a mobster named Judson Pierce, which drained the Kane fortune and made him suffer a fatal heart attack, Martha became involved with charity work focusing on Gotham's poorest citizens.

One of her main projects was raising support for the free clinic founded in Gotham's slums by doctor Leslie Thompkins.

He affirmed this reputation by being extremely drunk in public and vomiting on Martha's shoes, causing her to storm off in disgust despite his apologies.

After the murder of Thomas and Martha, the asylum ceased to receive proper funding and the staff started to abuse the children in their care.

Whether Lincoln really is Bruce's brother or a ploy set by the Court of Owls in order to enlist him in their ranks is left ambiguous; Bruce acknowledges that the evidence favoring March being Thomas Jr. makes sense, but is certain that his parents would have told him if he had a brother, and observes that every piece of evidence has an alternative explanation, but without a DNA test there is no way to be certain.