It just dawned on me that Doug Thomas' current wellbeing/whereabouts are unknown, I haven't read comics in a while. Did he get cured or did he go missing like Elaine?
Neither........
Unfortunately we literally have ZERO clue where Doug is right now. The last we saw of him was in Batman: Secret Files: The Signal, where he was in Gotham Central Rehabilitation Center (which means he did not go missing with Elaine). That was in 2021 and we haven't heard a peep since 😭😭😭😭
In DC Power 2024 we got THIS:
This has thankfully been confirmed to be FALSE since Elaine was also listed as deceased and has since been seen alive in Batman (2025). So we're probably in the clear but DC what the hellll is going on...
Elaine has only recently made a reappearance in comics so it will be even longer for Doug (who has always been less relevant to Duke's story), but I really do hope they clear this up soon 😭😭 I have to assume if they DO pick it up that Doug is still in Gotham Central
HOLD ON AS I WAS TYPING THAT THE THOUGHT STRUCK ME Duke is going to appear in Gotham General soon which I know isn't Gotham Central BUT. BUT THIS IS THE PERFECT TIME TO ADDRESS WHERE DOUG IS DC CAN YOU HEAR ME???
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Hi, there.
Hopefully this is the right way to go about this but I've been trying to find info on Doug Thomas's whereabouts and I'm not getting very far, so I was hoping you could point me in the right direction (if there is one). I've read all of Duke's featured appearances and most of his supporting/cameo appearances but it's possible I've missed something that explains the shift from Duke searching for both his parents to seemingly only for Elaine.
As an aside, your tumblr presence is everything to me. Thanks so much for everything you do not just to spread awareness about Duke as a character but to make Black fans feel more welcome in the fandom.
Hope you're having a good day always.
Thank you! I’m gonna address ur aside first real quick bc like!!! It’s what my whole goal was with this blog & esp these last few years I feel like I’ve rlly been accomplishing it? At the very least it def feels like there’s been improvement with the general fandom being more aware of duke. As a fellow fan of color, I’m just so happy to create a space for everyone to feel welcome & uplift an awesome character who I love a lot. Representation matters so much, it’s a big part of the reason why I started reading comics in earnest while I was figuring myself out & during a time where I was getting more in touch with my own heritage. For some ppl, reading comics is just a fun hobby, but I’ve found a lot more often, these stories & characters have genuinely lasting impact on us. And I just hope more ppl find themselves open to connecting with Duke bc his story is genuinely so great 💛
As for Doug, this is absolutely the right place to ask! And it’s ok to feel like you’ve missed something, bc it’s something that’s only truly covered in 2-3 issues and could be very easy to ‘miss’. Unfortunately, he & Elaine’s stories both are what I’d call “editorial is asleep at the wheel”. Real quick, the last chronological mention of them that I recall was DC Power (2024) on Duke’s bio page:
Where they are listed as deceased 🙃🙃🙃 now this is especially disconcerting because the last time we actually saw Doug was in Batman Secret Files: The Signal. The end of which was when Elaine had been kidnapped:
This was followed up eventually by the Batman Urban Legends two-issue arc with Duke getting help from the Outsiders to finally track down Elaine & also ended with her being cured (#18 & 19). Doug was never mentioned during this story arc so I’ve always taken it as either writing him off, or for us to assume that he’s simply at a long-term care facility like before. Also I noticed a continuity error while rereading real quick. Because at the end of Secret Files, Elaine had been kidnapped during a kind of smash-and-grab from their hospital:
But in Urban Legends, they say she was more subtly taken????
The reason I bring this up, bc I have been reading for a long time now (I have a little over 4.7k comics logged on LoCG rn, I’d call myself an expert on certain characters/runs & on how comics ‘work’ for the most part). So I think I can say with some authority that sure, when a character is passed along between several writers, some aspects of their storyline might get confused/dropped/retconned depending on what the current writer wants to accomplish.
But the fact that we went from Doug not even being acknowledged in the Elaine rescue/curing arc to them both being written off as dead in Duke’s bio just felt SO egregious even for DC. Elaine & Doug mean so much to Duke’s story, to the Batman mythos: THEY WERE SET UP AS PARALLELS TO MARTHA & THOMAS. THATS IN THE FUCKING TEXT!!!!!!!
^all the way from Batman (2011) #37!!!!
Like on one hand I’m so hyped abt duke getting some appearances this year bc we’ve been having a DROUGHT of content. But on the other the knowledge that we’re not getting anything significant to his story & what WERE the most significant story arcs (his mom being kidnapped & before that them continuously tip-toeing around an eventual cure for his parents) was then tied up with such a quick arc & then basically just discarded. Dear GOD IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY & SAD AND JUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That DC Power issue really took the wind outta my sails & is a big reason why I wasn’t keeping up with Duke for a hot sec there. (Confession, I remember at least reading those Urban Legend issues at some point during my sabbatical, but this time around doing a reread it was like… wow i think I remembered the panels that got reposted here a lot more than the overall story arc, which is also kinda forgettable unfortunately. And that’s sad!!! Bc it should be a story arc that has a lot more impact but it just!!! Was not good!!! imo ofc, I’m sure some people liked it a lot more than me and that’s okay. I just think it was a waste of a good story & had a lot more potential that what we ended up getting.)
Anyways, sorry for the tangent & hoped that helped. Also sorry y’all for the queue skipping this weekend, I had a busy week with work and then yesterday was ren faire with my pals. Queue ran out at just the wrong time 😅 should be back up n running for tomorrow again 👍
IF I were to cope and make DC terrible editorial decisions into Duke angst, I think the recent trend of Duke's story leaning towards Elaine and ignoring Doug makes sense if we think about the disparate effects of their Jokerisations. In Elaine's case, it makes her say terrible things to Duke:
All-Star Batman #2
Despite the Jokerisation, Elaine recognises Duke. She knows that's her son - she says "I know it's you" and calls his name. Snyder goes out of his way to underscore this recognition, which plays a vital role in Duke's eventual acceptance of what happened to Elaine and Doug:
All-Star Batman #4
Duke comes to understand that Elaine is only attacking him because she loves him (borne out by what happens later, when she saves him from Daryl). However, Duke interestingly includes Doug in this reasoning. Doug, who has never insulted him, whose Jokerisation has never taken the form Elaine's does. This reasoning may hold for Elaine, but it makes absolutely no sense for Doug.
We Are Robin #8
Jokerised Doug doesn't attack Duke, he's quite genial actually, but he doesn't recognise Duke. So the "every horrible thing out of their mouths" applies way more to Elaine than to Doug. It's interesting how Duke is able to confront the effects of Elaine's Jokerisation but not Doug's. As horrible as Elaine's insults are, there is still the promise that she still knows him. But Doug's lack of recognition is so much more terrifying - one of the first questions Duke asks, as he cries and holds Doug's face, is "don't you recognize me?".
In fact it's SO interesting that Doug is the talker when Duke initially finds his parents in We Are Robin, but in All-Star Batman Elaine does ALL the talking and Doug falls silent. We actually never, to my memory, see Doug talk again after We Are Robin #10. While this is almost 100% just writing inconsistency, Bermejo and Snyder are two of Duke's best writers so I'll just read into it. It's like after the initial shock Duke finds it easier to talk to Elaine only; it's like her pointed insults are preferable to his vacant, unrecognising smile.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #10
In Brave and the Bold, Duke talks about his struggles with namelessness and invisibility. To me this connects directly to Doug - in front of his father, Duke has been rendered invisible. Duke is all about names, visibility, and recognition, about symbols and light. But when he looks in Doug's face all he sees is darkness. And when Doug talks to him, Duke knows he will never hear his name.
Duke's feelings get jeopardised further after the Gnomon reveal. Not that Gnomon replaces Doug in any meaningful way, but I do think Duke, already grieving the way Doug doesn't recognise him, would have a strong reaction to discovering Doug isn't even his dad at all. It's like his connection to Doug is being systematically erased, being rendered more invisible than it already was.
Detective Comics (2016) #952 // Batman Secret Files: The Signal
Silence and uncertainty linger over the way Duke talks and thinks about Doug. Duke spontaneously shares with Kate an intimate memory of him and Doug (which is strange!! He rarely reminisces aloud like this, especially not with a near-stranger), but trails off before he can finish the thought. For a character who is 90% of the time direct, honest, and clear about what he wants, his difficulty in talking about Doug is so striking. He wants to talk about Doug, or else he wouldn't have mentioned the memory, but this desire is tempered by an anxiety that renders him speechless.
After Duke learns about Gnomon, even his thoughts seem to slide over Doug. We see his yellow narration box next to the description of Doug as "Duke's... father?", separating that description from Duke's thoughts. Not only is Doug's fatherhood to Duke in question (as indicated by the ellipses, which calls back to Duke's halting words in 'Tec), but the panel depicts this uncertainty as not even in Duke's head at all. The way Doug smiles straight at the viewer is very evocative too - it's like despite all the elisions from both Duke's narration and the narrative itself, Doug will continue to haunt the story.
This is the last time (iirc) Doug appears on panel, but it's not actually the last time he's mentioned (besides Duke talking about his parents in general). This is:
Batman: Urban Legends #18
This is an utterly fascinating panel because Duke's love for Elaine is so clear and consistent, Elaine is his biggest motivator in almost everything and it is so so clear he loves her to pieces. Yet when Elaine goes missing - despite Duke pouring every effort into finding her and not mentioning/thinking about Doug at all - one of the things he has nightmares about is Elaine telling him she loves Doug more than her. I don't think this makes sense as actual commentary, like I just don't think Duke loves Doug more than Elaine, but it's an insight into Duke's mental state at the moment. I think he's struggling to directly grapple with his feelings about Doug and might feel guilty for ignoring Doug in favour of Elaine, which manifests in nightmare!Elaine saying this (remember that Duke interprets Jokerised Elaine as saying the opposite of what she feels).
Anyway Doug's absence in recent years is 99% just because DC sucks, but IF DC wanted to actually make a story out of it there's soooo much there. How Doug's inability to recognise Duke poses a completely different set of issues from Elaine's insults, how silence & uncertainty come to define him and Duke's relationship, how Duke loves him so deeply and truthfully (and in fact Doug is part of why Duke values truth so much) but is unable to articulate what that means anymore... all things that could be explored in Duke solo 2026 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
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Yes. They went to church multiple times a week and attended church events*
Yes. They went to church multiple times a week.
Yes. They went to church every Sunday and for holidays.
Yes. They went to church on major holidays.
Yes, but they weren't church goers
They were religious, but not Christian (let me know your headcanons)
Yes, but Duke isn't religious anymore
Duke and his parents weren't, but their extended family was
No one in their family is religious
See Results
Voting ended onNov 23, 2025
* think picnics, fundraisers, etc.
In my mind they're Baptist, but my basis for that is solely that most Black Americans I know, including my family, are Baptists. Though I do wonder how Gnomon (Duke's evil immortal dad who he gets his powers from) factors into that.
