Several centuries ago, the templar knight Dumas left his group to found his own Order of St. Dumas. They pillaged villages for their wealth, and came upon the fabled treasure of King Solomon. Using this capital, this secret society began collecting information for its personal agendae and researching technology that would advance beyond the rest of the known world. To guard this, the Order created the Azraels, agents coached to believe it is an actual Biblical angel of vengeance passed on from father to son. When Ludovic Valley had impregnated a woman, the Order of St. Dumas retrieved the fetus to develop it on its own which would grow to Jean-Paul Valley.

Jean-Paul Valley, a university student in Gotham City, was unaware that he was the latest in a line of assassin-enforcers for "The Sacred Order of Saint Dumas", a sinister secret society, and had received training and mental conditioning to prepare him for his role since before he was born. He is a test tube baby, and his genes have been spliced with those of animals. For most of his life, he has been brainwashed with "The System", a deep level of psychological conditioning. The details of The System are never fully explained, but it is understood that training begins before birth and includes genetic modification, prenatal electric shock, and the use of gorillas as surrogate mothers. When he was sent by the Order to kill a weapons dealer who had killed his father (the last Azrael), Carlton LeHah who believed himself to be the idealistic opposite to Saint DuMas, his path crossed with Batman. After saving Wayne from an explosion set up by LeHah, Valley was shown the error of his ways, and he decided to fight with Batman against the criminals of Gotham, rejecting his "birthright" and seeking Batman's help in breaking his conditioning to forge a new destiny of his own choice.

Azrael as Batman

Following this, Valley became a homeless drifter in the streets of Gotham, unaware or unwilling to adopt his identity as Azrael once again. After being contacted by Bruce Wayne, Valley soon dons his Azrael costume once again and searches for clues to his past in the Order of St. Dumas, and ancient organization which had engineered Azraels throughout ages, passed from father to son. This was done through the use of deep hypnosis and genetic experiments.

Upon discovering the Order in Europe, Valley found he had been replaced by another man claiming to be Azrael, whom was quickly defeated by Valley. Eventually, after multiple contacts with the high-priests of the organization, soldiers and the imposter-Azrael, Ra's Al Ghul and the development of a relationship with a former priestess of the Order, Lihly, Valley was able to largely destroy the Order. During the No Man's Land saga, Azrael assisted Batman in the earthquake torn Gotham and eventually by attempting to contact a US Senator who would have been key to federal funding for Gotham.

The Senator was killed by a man known as Nicholas Scratch, a rock-star who was also involved with many terroristic ideals. Scratch was eventually involved in the apparent death of Valley when he disguised himself as Azrael and was confronted by Valley. LeHah reappeared and fired on Valley with an armor piercing bullet. LeHah and Valley toppled over a balcony; LeHah survived, Scratch was arrested and Azrael's body was never found. A panel of the comic showing Batman having an image of Azrael, sanz mask, is meant to lead readers to believe he is dead.