Over the years, we have seen much comic book content adapted to movies, especially TV shows. One of them is HBO’s Pennyworth, a show that explores the early life of the character Alfred Pennyworth before he became Wayne’s family butler and biggest ally to Bruce Wayne. At the end of season two, we see Martha give birth to a baby girl, shocking the fans expecting the baby to be Bruce Wayne. In this article, we will examine whether Bruce Wayne has a sister in the comics and why the Pennyworth TV show created Batman a sister.
Bruce Wayne does not have a sister in DC comics. One character in the comics presents themselves as Bruce Wayne’s sibling, a man called Lincoln March, an antagonist in Batman comics, and believes he is the presumed deceased brother, Thomas Wayne Jr. The reason why Pennyworth has gone with the decision for Martha Wayne to give birth to the baby girls is still unknown, but we can speculate that either the baby dies before Waynes return to the US or the baby is there to make Wayne’s family story more tragic, speculating the baby does not survive. Another speculation is that the series is set in Elseworlds, an alternate non-canon reality of the DC Universe.
We will discuss this topic more by mentioning the non-spoiler plot of Pennyworth that led to the birth of a baby girl, explain comic canon, and ultimately speculate why Pennyworth went with this decision. If you are interested in this topic, stay with us until the end of the article.
Short introduction to Pennyworth
Pennyworth is a TV show that first premiered on July 28th, 2019, on premium cable TV called Epix. The series is produced by Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon, who worked together on another DC-themed TV show Gotham. The show serves as a prequel to Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta and the TV show Gotham. Currently, the Pennyworth show is in its third season on HBO Max’s streaming platform.
We know that Gotham revolved around the early days of Jim Gordon’s career at the Gotham City Police Department, right after the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents. Pennyworth follows a younger Alfred Pennyworth, a former British soldier of the Special Air Service years before the happenings of the TV show.
After his soldier career, we see Alfred trying to form his own security company in London. The Pennyworth’s setting is similar to what Alan Moore did in his graphic novel V for Vendetta, where he incorporated an early 20th-century British city with reimagined historical events.
Of course, Alfred’s story includes Bruce Wayne’s parents, Thomas Wayne and Martha Kane, who are American agents working for the No Name League and are trying to stop a fascist party aiming to take over British Government, Raven Society.
Alfred starts working with them to stop the potential fascist danger looming through Great Britain. As you can see, the show is really serious and deals with many political and social issues of the alternate version of London, which is much different from Arrowverse and their shows.
All in all, Pennyworth is a solid show that uses great plot points from Alan Moore and his works, and the characters of Alfred, Thomas, Martha, and others are fresh and interesting. To not spoil a single thing in the show, we will focus on the ending of season two, which left some fans shocked and confused.
Does Bruce Wayne have a sister in the DC comics?
Before we discuss why Martha gave birth to a baby girl, we will explain the comic book canon. One of the most interesting things about the adaptations to other media is how story creators and developers try to make creative decisions that are slightly different from the source material.
Most of us know the story of Bruce Wayne, an only child of Thomas and Martha Wayne, whose life turns on its head after the mugger kills his parents in front of him.
Young Bruce is left all alone, except for his Wayne family butler Alfred Pennyworth and immense wealth, and vows to cleanse Gotham of criminal filth that established itself in the city’s pores.
Looking through DC comics and their stories, Batman never had a biological sibling in his family. It was never established if Thomas and Martha had another child before or after Bruce’s birth. Still, there was a one-story or alternate version of a man who claimed he was a lost, deceased biological brother of Bruce Wayne, a man named Lincoln March.
Comic book fans know Lincoln from Batman comics under the alias Anti-Batman or Owlman, who is a supervillain on the alternate Earth-3, a mirror reality to Prime Earth, where everything is opposite and reversed.
Of course, DC’s New 52 changed a lot and connected all alternate universes into one, now called Prime Earth. Regardless, this is the only shout of Bruce Wayne having a sibling in the comics.
There is an alternate version of Batman in the Elseworlds timeline of DC comics, specifically on Earth-11, where gender-reversed superheroes world in the Dark Universe. Of course, Bruce Wayne is now a woman Bryce Wayne, a twisted version of Batman who is part of the Dark Knights, a team founded by another evil version of Bat, The Batman Who Laughs.
In the DC comics or any other, there are no Bruce Wayne siblings, sisters, or brothers in any shape or form.
Why Pennyworth created Bruce Wayne’s sister?
Since we determined that DC comics do not have any versions of Batman’s siblings in most know universes, we can discuss why the Pennyworth show “gave us” a baby girl instead of the expected baby boy, Bruce Wayne.
We will not spoil the show’s plot. Still, we will mention that in the season two finale, the League celebrates the victory against the fascist organization Raven Society while Alfred is going through a rough emotional part of his life. In the meantime, Martha Kane is pregnant with Thomas Wayne’s son, revealed earlier in the season.
The season two finale sees Martha and Thomas getting married, which leads to a six-month time skip. The time skip brings a new Raven Union threat to Great Britain and the birth of Martha’s and Thomas’s child.
Pennyworth TV show revealed only the gender of the baby, and we still do not know the baby’s name. Let’s put on a tinfoil hat and speculate. If we put the show’s creative decisions in the context of its universe, Pennyworth wanted to put off the fans a bit since everyone expected the birth of Bruce Wayne and add another dimension to Alfred’s and Wayne’s family story.
Some fans speculated the baby could be Alfred’s since Martha Kane and Pennyworth seemingly slept together in the show’s first season. This fact is denied by the fact that there is a few months time skip between the first and second seasons.
Moreover, we find out about Martha’s pregnancy in the middle of season two, and knowing that the season two finale has another six-months time skip, denies the possibility of Alfred’s child with Martha Kane.
Another speculation is that the Pennyworth showrunners “gave us” the gender-swapped version of Bruce Wayne, which is impossible since the show is a prequel to the TV show Gotham, where young male Bruce Wayne exists.
Finally, the sister speculation is the strongest out of all of them since it has the most sense. There is a probability that the show wanted to introduce Bruce’s older sister to make things more interesting, but knowing what happens in Gotham and overall the nature of Batman’s and Wayne’s family story, there is a high possibility the sister will die.
Season 3 of the show is currently streaming on HBO Max, with the first three episodes already out, but it focuses more on Alfred and his “adventures” than the Wayne family and their baby girl. Alfred is the show’s main protagonist, and his story is at the center, but fans still expect the show to pay off the birth of the Wayne family’s little girl – we don’t doubt that will happen soon.
