#Wayne Industries

[batfamscreaming]

Once again trapped in trying to figure out what Wayne Industries actually Does. "Everything!" yeah sure but they had to get there somehow. Amazon was an online bookstore at first there was a lot of very rapid growth between then and now.

Usually I hear that they started as a shipping business which makes sense when Gotham is 90% waterfront, but at some point they had to transition from just shipping other people's things to shipping things they made as well. I suppose if they started making their own transports for shipping (starting with their own steamboats and later trains and cars) that would make sense. Maybe in the industrial revolution they even bought their own steel mill upon getting tired of having fluctuating prices or a steel shortage and just deciding they were going to get their own damn steel and sell the extra instead. If they chose to manufacture higher quality steel instead of cheapest possible steel that's also laying the groundwork for them to be well liked by their customers. Not railroad barons but making the steel to lay the railroad and build the trains. It's the 1800s so they have a couple patented medicines by then as well that are.... not really medicine but no one has officially noticed yet. They ship their own chemicals out west for a good time.

In 1880s Alan Wayne makes the building that becomes Wayne Tower?? Which I think is much too early, but apparently we were building sky scrapers in 1888 so business must have been booming I fucking guess. This is also the man that has them go corporate.

Of course the railroads start to fall out with the growth of cars and car lobbying. They are still used along with boats for transport but with railroads not being built as much and not being maintained and the union wars, Wayne Industries has to make a pivot somewhere to stay in the race. The family can have a lot of personal money but the business itself is still going strong in Gotham even before Bruce takes over.

I guess if they're already in shipping, they're probably importing as well by then. They may have started with steamboats but then in WWI and WWII all steel factories started producing things for the war efforts, surely they made a couple big ships by then capable of crossing the Atlantic, if they weren't already in oceanic shipping by then. It lets them ride out the great depression because of government maritime subsidies that were a little out of control until the new deal kicked in. That would've also presumably kept WI employees working in the depression and cemented them harder in the city as smaller businesses closed around them.

The patented medicine starts shifting to actual generics that are a little less Heroic post 1918.

Maybe at around that point was when WI started manufacturing... sort of everything. You get your ships, and all the things on board that you need to run a ship. You get your ovens and stoves and big pots and your radar and hell your sailors can even buy their boots and uniforms from us.

When WWII ends they shift back to transporting other people's goods but also maybe more luxury vehicles as well. Cruise services. Some nicer kitchen installations. Kitchens on land even. Get a nice WI electric mixer. Get your waterfront boots. Get your generic ibuprofen.

At that point we're closer to Martha and Thomas' era and they're just... Along for the ride I guess. Thomas is a figurehead CEO. He's off doing medical school and mostly just shows up for formalities, while Martha works in the Wayne Foundation (either the only thing Thomas really made or opened in the 60s to try and get Gotham really booming) as a charity liason. They're still not really celebrities as much as a charismatic couple in high circles. WI doesn't need them to function. It's basically just funding them as they do their own things.

And then the murders happen

And then Bruce, over eighteen, shows up having inherited the figurehead CEO title and his entire family's controlling stock in WI, and announces they're going to be doing things his way now.

The CEO/Board of directors is supposed to do things in the best interest of their stock holders.

If Bruce is the controlling stock holder, they do what he says his best interest is.

[violent138]

I have an HC that because of all the organ transplants and healing the Bats need, Lucius Fox and Batman have shot organ regeneration and stem-cell technologies five hundred years into the future, and Gotham has a rich biotech industry the benefits as a result.

[aleks-norward]

Bruce Wayne.

Age: early 30s

P.S. Digital art 🎨, NOT AI 🤖

[anormalkidingotham]

i really hope those new water filters wayne industries just announced are actually going to work because we're living relatively close by the water (or at least it used to be water) and i would very much like this situation to get fixed before my home gets destroyed

[wingdingking]

TELL ME WHY I JUST HAD A WAKING DREAM WHILE I WAS LAYING IN BED THIS MORNING

THAT WAS LITERALLY A FANFIC CALLED

‘BEXBULL TOWER’ (DUNNO WHERE THE HELL THAT NAME CAME FROM)

AND IT WAS TIM FUCKING DRAKE AS THE YOUNG CEO OF WAYNE ENTERPRISES AND HE S E D U C E S OTHER CEOS AND THEY THINK HE’S HARMLESS BUT HE ENDS UP DISMANTLING THEIR CORRUPT BUSINESSES FROM THE INSIDE OUT

THIS IS SOSO FUNNY

[folk-ever-lore]

Coffee Confusion

for @the-alice-of-hearts

Marinette fiddled with her hands nervously as she headed up the barista taking her order. "Hi, l have the strongest coffee you can give me please?"

The barista nodded politely and asked, "Okay, that'll be a Double Extra Shot Cappuccino. Can I have a name for the order please?"

"Sure, I'm Marinette," she told them cheerily, quickly paying for her order and getting out of the way.

As she stood at the other side of the room, waiting for her order time seemed to slow down; each second lasting a minute. She was on way too tight a schedule to have time for a wait this long. Maybe risking getting the drink was a mistake, but she'd been up way too late to work on her pitch for this meeting to be able to stay awake without it.

Today was super important - she had a meeting with Tim Drake, the CEO of Wayne Industries, to discuss a partnership with them and her company, MDC. She couldn't afford to miss it, let alone fall asleep during it. That would give completely the wrong impression.

An order announcement brought her out of her thoughts. "I've got a Double Extra Shot Cappuccino."

She moved forward to collect her drink, her hand brushing against it right before it was taken from her grasps by a man who looked around her age.

"Hey," she exclaimed. "That's mine."

He shook his head, "I don't think so. I ordered a Double Extra Shot Cappuccino and I got here and ordered before you, therefore it must be mine."

"You don't look like you need a coffee that strong," she muttered.

"And neither do you but here we are."

"Why don't we ask them who it was for, they do take names for a reason," she offered.

When they did ask, Marinette soon found out that it had been for someone named Tim. "Oops, sorry," she said apologetically. "I'd really been hoping it was mine since I've got a meeting soon that I need to stay awake for."

Tim smirked, "Me too actually. Who's your's with?"

She grinned, "You'd never believe me."

"Try me."

"Wayne Industries. How about you?"

"I think actually my meeting may be with you. You're MDC, I presume?"

"Yes actually, how'd you know?"

He held out a hand for her to shake, "Tim Drake, nice to meet you."

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," she returned with a smile.

[sagaduwyrm]

I write something! I did it! The muse didn't even suddenly abandon me partway through!

Against the Smoke of the City (I Marched)

There is a city called Gotham that doesn't exist, but by god the Daily Planet is going to find it. Or Gotham is so cursed the outside world doesn't even know it's there, but that's nothing in the face of a reporter's curiosity.

Just off I-nine in New Jersey, there is a city that doesn't exist.

Clark knows this because for weeks the Daily Planet has been researching every piece of evidence they could find to prove the city that doesn't exist, did exist.

It started with a piece on the richest companies in the world where the numbers just wouldn't add up. It was Marlene Samson's first big piece, and she was crying when she came to Dean Jones, the Daily Planet's best eye for tax returns and accounting, certain she had to have done something wrong. The rest of the Planet assumed that would be the end of it, extending Marlene their sympathies for running into so many problems on her first big job, but certain it would be solved soon with Dean looking at it.

It was not.

Three weeks later, Dean came in with raccoon eyes, greasy hair, and a four foot pile of files that he had to make Clark help him carry.

Apparently, Marlene didn't do anything wrong, it was just that there was a whole multi-billion dollar company somewhere on the East Coast that existed in government tax data, agreements with other companies, and nowhere else.

It should be noted that even as a company that regularly reported on alien invasions, Superman's love life, and Lex Luthor's newest schemes, this was not the conspiracy the Daily Planet expected to find on an average day.

The crown jewel of Dean's coffee-fueled hallucinogenic research binge was a series of photos of an unfamiliar logo for one Wayne Industries on a variety of products from luxury cars, to prosthetic limbs, to the coffee maker in the office, often covered by a sticker from whatever company didn't want to admit they were reselling the products of a nonexistent corporation. Under each logo was a minuscule maker's mark that said, "Made in New Jersey."

This was about when the whole thing stopped being a personal project and became a company-wide mystery that the Daily Planet was determined to solve.

Diane and Thea were the next to come up with something. They were the history buffs of the group, the ones who wrote about the historical value of such-and-such building or how this event a century ago affected the city today. Real interesting stuff, if a little niche for some of their readers.

"The New Jersey Mystery" it was called.

It was a whole thing for anyone interested in the historical urban development of the New England area. Clark didn't claim to understand it, but Diane said that a large number of historians, amateur and professional, believed that there was something off about the socio-economic development of New Jersey, particularly in the lack of big cities. According to the historical and modern shipping routes, there should have been a harbor city as big as Metropolis in the area, but there just… wasn't. It was, frankly, baffling and mildly concerning to most historians, according to Thea.

It wasn't hard to guess that a missing city and a missing company were more likely than not connected.

Catt Grant was the next to dig something up, finding an old piece from the gossip section about some kind of scandal, written by one Vicki Vale. Dale, the IT guy, managed to find some emails from her time in Metropolis that identified the mystery city as sitting on the Mullica River, next to the Great Bay. Mrs. Vale complained extensively about the swamp land around the city, apparently caused by a dam being built where it shouldn't some fifty years ago, now spread to the entire area. The waters were known to be toxic enough to kill a swimmer, but not dangerous enough for the municipal government to do something.

That was just the beginning of it. Jack found police reports about a mafioso that was to be sent back to New Jersey to be tried with the rest of his group. Stella traced charity funds back to a foundation in the city. Sawyer and Thea managed to make a model of the supposed dam, putting an exact location to the place.

So.

Just off I-nine in New Jersey, there is a city that doesn't exist. They don't know its name, size, or population, just that money comes flowing out, legally and illegally, but people stay in.

And it is Clark and Lois's responsibility to prove that it does exist, and, hopefully, to figure out why it's on no map, spoken by no human tongue, and invisible to satellites and Superman's gaze.

+++

They take a bus first. They'd both prefer to drive themselves, but James Pierceson managed to get an interview that suggested that only people who'd been before could find the city they were looking for. A train was out too, as even if the conductor was a native of the place, it still only had a small chance of passing through the city. That was all James had gotten out of his interview, though. Nothing about the city itself, the company that drew Daily Planet's eyes, nothing. Just how to get in, and a warning to make sure they could still get out afterward.

The bus is their only real option. It's a creaky old thing, grimy in all the wrong ways, but it had the only driver they found that knew where they were going.

Clark stares out the window as they ride, eyes on the road so he knows how to come back if he needs to. He watches as the woods slowly change into swamp land, filled with strange, nasty , brackish water that smells too much like corpses for comfort.

Lois is beside him, typing on her laptop, putting together everything they've found so far, ready for whatever they find in the city. She looks up when she feels him tense against her shoulder, just in time to see the sign as the bus passes.

Turn Back All, nailed to a half-dead tree, rusted red and falling apart.

"Just a little joke folks, the locals aren't fond of tourists so they like to scare 'em off if they can. Just means we're getting close." 

The rest of the bus is seemingly mollified by the bus driver's words, chattering about the fun local custom, but Clark's eyes are on the next sign, peeking out of the foliage on the other side of the bus.

Beware.

The bus goes silent.

Danger.

Leave This Place.

Warning: Death.

They just keep showing up, one after the other even as the sky gets darker with clouds and the rot in the air gets thicker. Some are clearly set up by the city, with neat lines and bright colors. Some are probably made by the citizens, big pieces of wood or metal covered in messy paint. A few are just paint on the trees, dripping like blood.

Go Away.

This Place is Not Safe.

Get Out.

"They might as well have said 'Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here,'" Lois mutters.

Clark snorts, but his eyes stay up. The bus is turning a corner, and a city is finally visible through the thick foliage.

It was tall, is Clark's first thought. There aren't any suburbs of short little houses for the bourgeoisie, no industrial outskirts, just crumbling brutalist architecture and gothic decor right from the entrance.

He can finally hear the city too. He doesn't know why he couldn't before, how it hid from Kryptonian ears, but it echoes in his ears now, gunshots and sirens and screams and whispers. He can't hear anything else on top of the noise, like the rest of the world no longer exists even to Superman's ears. He would have been afraid if his mind had room for it.

The bus is being swallowed, Clark was suddenly sure. The signs were the teeth of the great and terrible city he sees before him and soon they would pass through the maw and enter the place of no return. Soon they would be in the throat and it would convulse and throw them downward and then the city would digest them alive. Whatever was left would not be the same as what entered.

The bus stops at a rickety station just inside the city. The bus driver turns to them as the doors open and his smile is friendly but his eyes are distant and tired.

"Welcome to Gotham," he said. "The most cursed city in America."

"Good luck."

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

TARGET: WAYNE INDUSTRIES -- MOTIVE: HACK THE BATCOMPUTER.

PIC INFO: Resolution at 610x1650 -- Spotlight on a close-up panel of Edward E. Nygma as the Riddler, whilst demonstrating his superior hacking capabilities, from the pages of "Justice" Vol. 1 #2. December, 2005. DC Comics.

Script by Jim Krueger & Alex Ross. Artwork by Doug Braithwaite (pencils) & Alex Ross.

Source: www.zipcomic.com/justice-2005-issue-2.

[thevernofficial]

Vern doesn't want to do the homework they signed up for pt 2

This time I'm writing a fake report on why Wayne Industries should use ✨Slack✨

[riddlingmywaydowntown]

Wayne Industries sticky notes: Saving my art since May 1st 1939

[nerdpoe]

Gordon has a new detective, freshly transferred to his department, who Will Not Stop Making Death Puns

And he's about ready to commit murder.

The man is very, very good at his job. He seems to stumble across evidence without realizing what he's doing, and freaks out suspects at interrogation tables by bringing up crap his wife and husband do that perfectly mirrors the suspect's story, and then points out the inconsistencies.

He is quickly becoming the most hated man in the department, in terms of who criminals hate.

Great news, Gordon's 100% sure he isn't corrupted.

Bad news, Gordon's 100% sure of that because he keeps easily outing corrupted cops with an ease that makes Gordon feel like he's been wasting time all these years.

So when Batman pisses Gordon off just a little too much, goes over his head one too many times, Gordon decides "fuck it, he get's to deal with Detective Daniel Foley."

But as he's walking away, as Foley starts to hand over the files, he hears the most Dreaded Phrase that man can ever say.

"Ya know, my wife-"

Basically Danny is married to Sam and Tucker, both he and Sam took Tucker's last name, and Danny is a modern Columbo.

Only he speaks to ghosts for easy cheat codes to evidence.

@simplestoryteller

[magnoliasandarson]

take a break

Tim Drake was seconds from spontaneous combustion. He had been awake for going on fifty hours, kicking ass as Red Robin, closing cold cases from the cave, and running Wayne Enterprises/Drake Industries.

It wasn't logically (or scientifically) true, but Tim was starting to believe his blood was turning into coffee. He was tired- he was burning out- and he knew it, but if one more person said, "Take a break."

He couldn't take a break, and it wasn't his fault.

Dick took Robin away from Tim, like hell Tim would ever validate that by being anything less than the best vigilante. Bruce and Jack both willed their respective business empires to him, and even though Bruce was back, Tim still had an obligation to uphold the legacies granted to him. Various Bat-themed heroes had passed off cold cases to him, and he couldn't let them down.

He had work to do, everything else could wait.

It wasn't his fault that he couldn't stop, he just couldn't.

So Dick telling him to take a nap, Stephanie scolding him to rest, Damian tsk-ing at his bedraggled appearance, Alfred switching his coffee for decaf, Bruce warning him he was taking on too much-

wasn't fucking helpful.

[sentient-stove]

Miranda said to stay put, keep his phone on him and wait for help. Unluckily for Danny, he had not stayed put, kept his phone on him and if help came in the form of a meta-disliking vigilante, he’d rather find his way to the police himself. Not that he was a meta- he was dead- but apparently freaky kidnappers from pharmaceutical companies didn’t care about the distinction if you could heal quicker than the average joe.

Right now, he really only had two goals in mind. The first was to get the fuck out of the sewers, hopefully via a manhole since his powers were completely out of reach due to the new collar that had been clamped around his neck when they’d removed the cuff. And the second goal was to avoid getting caught again. The internship leads had stressed the importance of setting small, attainable goals, and Danny liked to think that in a fucked up sort of way, he could manage to set goals in the style recommended.

Look at him go. Learning. Weren’t internships just the best?

Danny glanced back when a roar echoed through the tunnel he was casually jogging down, good hand on the wall to keep as a point of reference while he navigated in the dark without night vision to help. It sounded close, but that could’ve been anything, and didn’t have to be the same guys after him. Still was a not great sign though. Just because they weren’t Danny’s problem didn’t mean he wanted to add them to his already embarrassing list of issues.

[dickheadcanons]

sorry for the vent, but nothing annoys me more than people who don't read the comics because they claim they don't want to read inconsistent characterization. Just say you're too attached to the fandom versions of the characters! You don't want to find out what they are actually like!! Being inconsistent with what you like is not the same as being inconsistent!

Because, at the end of the day, these people don't know if the stories are inconsistent because they don't actually know the characters, they haven't read the context, and they don't know how the events in the story came to be. These characters have been around for decades. They've "done" almost everything under the sun. If someone's only heard a laundry list of things they've done (usually told by a pretty biased 3rd party, myself included) then of course the actions are going to sound inconsistent. The connecting tissue of how they got from point A to point B is the entire point of a story.

I think this urks me so much because it’s always couched in this haughty, "it's impossible to read all of the comics and they’re not good enough to try" language, which for one thing, is just such a dismissive attitude of something they claim to love. But the other thing is that, so often, these people love to talk or write about specific comic events. If all they're writing about is the batfam going for a day at Disneyland, then yeah, they don't need to read anything. But if they're specifically writing a fic to address, like...Tim and Jason's fight at Titans Tower, or Bruce's return from the timestream, especially in a “fix-it” framing, and they can't be bothered to read the *40 pages of pictures where that happens*....what is this manufactured outrage? Are they just trying to be angry about something that never happened? Are they so obsessed with the canon being wrong that they can't give the thing they're mad at a chance to be right?

[necroclubinc]

Static-X - Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

[frownyalfred]

I desperately need a crack treated seriously fic of Batman pulling out more and more specific and random items from his belt. It starts off innocuous with, like, a snack for Flash and just goes from there. Next thing you know he's pulling out a geode with some ancient water trapped within and everyone is like why and where and how. And Batman is just this one time in Gotham-

I had a fic idea a while back anon where Jason and Bruce both have to unload their pockets/belts and it's just piles and piles of knives, wrapped candies, half a human finger (Jason), a suspicious amount of reinforced zip ties (Bruce), weapons that don't look like weapons (both), a full day's worth of MREs, and like 60 million random little screws or bullets from the bottom of both of their utility belts.

Neither of them, as you mentioned, see any problem with what they're carrying.