Wayne Enterprises

Wayne Enterprises (also known as Wayne Industries or WayneCorp) is an economical military defense and technology development company based in Gotham City and owned by the famous Wayne Family, which specializes in in various industrial aspects.

History

Founded in 1851 by Solomon and Zebidiah Wayne, Wayne Enterprises has become the most famous corporation in Gotham City for its prominence in the economy. When the city began falling in an economic downturn in 1983 due to a secret terrorist society called the League of Shadows infiltrating its infrastructure with the belief that Gotham has succumbed to decadence and corruption and its destruction was necessary to restore the world to balance, the Wayne Brothers' grandson Thomas Wayne nearly bankrupted the company by building a cheap public monorail system, restoring part of the city's peace. Following his and his wife Martha's murder at the hands of a mugger named Joe Chill, who blamed them for the driving the depression into causing him to lose his job, other wealthy corporations were inspired to do more help the city rebuild itself and share their works to the world.

However, the League's prediction was proven correct when the depression held-back end left Gotham open for organized crime under mafia bosses like Carmine Falcone plague it and wreck everything the Wayne's stood for. When Chill, who shared a cell with Falcone while in prison, was released in exchange for testifying against their relationship, the Wayne's son Bruce intended tho kill him so Chill wouldn't become a reminder of disgrace to the company because of what the mugger did to his parents, one of Falcone's assassins did so first. This disappointed his childhood friend, the city's assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes, who told Bruce that undermining the justice system would make his father ashamed, but impressed Falcone, who demonstrated to the playboy is that the mafia's only power comes from being feared.

Thus, both advises inspired Bruce to travel the world for seven years to seek the means of fighting injustice, eventually becoming mentored to such art by the League of Shadow's leader, Ra's al Ghul, but rejecting the League's cause on destroying Gotham. During this time, Wayne Enterprises was taken public by its CEO, William Earle, who unexpectedly did it by announcing Bruce dead and shieing away from "what Thomas Wayne would have done" to focus on heavy weapons manufacturing

Batman Begins

By the time Bruce finally returned to Gotham, he didn't show obvious interest in reclaiming the family business. Instead, he chose to work in the Applied Sciences division, using it and company chief activist Lucius Fox to provide him with high-tech equipment. He took gear originally made for the U.S. military, including body armor and a prototype armored vehicle, and used them to create the equipment needed for his war on crime as Batman. When the League of Shadows eventually followed him back to the city, they intended to finish their duty to destroy it by vaporizing its water supply with a microwave emitter they stole from Wayne Enterprises' shipment cargo after tainting it with a fear-inducing hallucinogenic drug provided by Arkham Asylum's corrupt chief administrator Jonathan Crane, then magnetize the vaporization to the central hub, located beneath Wayne Enterprises, via the monorail system to cause a chain reaction that would release the drug all over the city, making its population tear down their metropolitan home through mass panic in the process.

Batman was able to stop them with the help of Police Det. Sgt. James Gordon by destroying a section of the monorail tracks in front of Wayne Station and causing the train, with Ra's still inside, crash beneath the tower, killing him and saving the city. Finally, at the film's end, the Enterprises came under Bruce control when managed to become a majority shareholder, at which point he installs Fox as the active CEO. Also, his heroism as Batman eventually earned him back respect from Rachel, who told him that taking justice into his own hands would make his father proud, but lost her since she decided not to be with him. As a result Bruce planned to rebuild his father's work just the way it was, brick from brick.

The Dark Knight

Nine months after Bruce takes ownership of the company, Wayne Enterprises's headquarters moved to the building where its Special Projects Division was located. However, because of his nights as Batman, Bruce would fall asleep during the board meetings, causing concern to some of the other members of the board, including the enterprises' M&A law accountant, Coleman Reese. The company's attention eventually drew to the success of some improvents on itself and the city. For example, when it approved the success of a new dynamic growth from a foreign security investments company based in Hong Kong called LSI Holdings, the latter company's owner, Mr. Lau, suggested that a powerful joint business should venture between the two corporations. Fox eagerly embraced Lau's proposition, but although LSI indicated powerful economic potential at "8% annual growth", the numbers led him to suspect that much of it was off the charts and probably illegal. Bruce simply excepted it, having suspected that it was the case, and approached a business deal meant to "get a closer look at their books".

Another success Wayne Enterprises came to be inspired by was a campaign against the organized crime wrecking the company's work to support the city launched to the applause of its citizens by the new Gotham district attorney Harvey Dent, who lent the now Lt. Gordon a petitioned search warrant for five banks with suspected money-laundering to the mafia and asked to collaborate with Batman, so Bruce intruded a date Rachel had with Dent at the Ocelot and offered support for the DA if his chance against the mafia becomes a huge change for the city by throwing a fundraiser in his honor. Unfortunately, the search against the money-laundering banks was outsmarted when the mafia prevented their funds from falling into Dent and Gordon's hands by having Lau, who turned out to be involved in their laundering schemes, relocate the money to a secured location besides a bank and flee back to Hong Kong to avoid Dent's jurisdiction, before Fox could tell him that their business intel was off. Desperate, Dent and Gordon turned to Batman to get him back so that they may use him as a testimony to imprison the mob and cut off all their funds. Batman did so through an elaborate scheme, which involved having Fox equip him with new gadgets developed by the company for a CIA project called Skyhook and smuggle a SONAR system into the LSI building to kill its power, and literally delivers Lau to Gordon outside his unit's headquarters.

Using Lau's offer to testify against the mob for the sake his company and business partners which included from Wayne Enterprises, Gordon and Dent tied up the mafia in a reco case and arrested many of them. All was going well until the Joker, a humorist psychopath hired by the mob to take out Batman, emerged onto the streets in a chaotic and violent fashion with the gruesome murder of a civilian. The Clown Prince of Crime then began putting out hits on a three people involved in the anti-mafia campaign, including Dent, giving Batman an ultimatum in the process; if Batman didn't reveal himself underneath his mask and turn himself in, then all three of his hits will die along with countless others each and every passing day, even if it included those from the Enterprises. Little did the mafia bosses who hired the Joker, including Sal Maroni and the Chechen, know that he was simply using them to gain control over every level of Gotham's infrastructure though their inside agents and orchestrate his own plans to destroy social order and replace it with his own ideals of mindless anarchy and chaos. Dent was however saved by Bruce when the Joker arrived at the fundraiser to kill him personally. However, since Dent was well hidden, the Joker took this advantage throw Rachel out the penthouse window, forcing Batman to jump after and save her while the clown made his escape.

As the psychopathic killing spree continued with the murders of two men who shared Dent's name and a failed assassination attempt on Gotham Mayor Anthony Garcia, Reese became concerned of the money that was being put into the company's R&D department and investigated it in the archives, eventually discovering the blueprints for the Tumbler and confronting Fox about them. Fox reminded him of how powerful Bruce was, and that blackmailing him of his vigilante identity wouldn't work. Luckily, when Dent's false claim of being Batman to lure the Joker out into the open resulted in the scarring of his own face, Rachel's death and the psychopath's escape from the Major Crimes Unit jail with Lau as his hostage to gain control of the mafia's funds, Reese was about to reveal the real identity on TV when the Joker called in proclaiming that the ultimatum against Batman's true identity was no longer required for his regime and gave the people of Gotham a new one; if Reese wasn't killed in an hour, then a one of the city's local hospital's, which he chose as Gotham General since it housed the recovering Dent, will be bombed. As Gordon protected Reese from a a mob of hospital patient relatives trying to kill the lawyer, Bruce saved both their lives intercepting a car about to crash into them.

Later, as the Joker announced his regime to the city and warned its inhabitants to flee if they want no part of it, Fox was assigned by Batman to use an even larger SONAR concept to track the Joker's next threat on the Gotham communications system to his position. Fox agreed but insisted on resigning immediately afterwards.

Staff

Solomon and Zebidiah Wayne - founders and owners from 1851 to 1900.

Thomas Wayne - owner from 1971 to 1984.

Bruce Wayne - owner from 2005 to 2014.

Lucius Fox - Chief Activist, C.E.O. and Executive President.

Douglas Fredericks - Executive Vice President.

Coleman Reese - M&A Law Accountant.

Jessica - Secretary.

William Earle - Former C.E.O. and owner from 1984 to 2005.

Talia al Ghul - Board Member from 2008 to 2014, under the alias Miranda Tate.