Warning: Spoilers for Detective Comics #1090DC made another change to from Batman origin, and I’m worried that this will be too demanding of an issue that has plagued its many adaptations. A new Detective comics The story adds another element to the classic Batman story when a flashback reveals how Thomas Wayne helps a new mother and her daughter escape their attacker, whom he operated on to save after a car accident. This attacker has a shocking connection to Batman’s past, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
Detective Comics #1090 by Tom Taylor, Mikel JanÃn and Wes Abbott focuses on Thomas Wayne as much as Bruce, emphasizing Thomas’s commitment to saving lives, even if they are evil ones. THE the last page of the issue reveals that the attacker of a young mother and her son in Thomas’s care was none other than Joe Chillwho murders Thomas and Martha Wayne in the future, changing Bruce’s life forever.
However, the addition of Chill’s daughter into his story changes the motivation for the murders, implying that Chill killed the Waynes out of revenge for keeping his daughter from him. This new aspect of the story is a big change to Batman’s origin, and I feel it encompasses a problem that plagues many modern depictions of the Wayne murders: the desire to overcomplicate them and, in doing so, lose the essence of what makes their deaths so tragic.
I firmly believe that Batman’s origin story is one of the best in superhero fiction
Why Batman’s Classic Origin Works
At its core, Batman’s origin story is simple: Bruce Wayne’s parents are shot dead in front of him in a robbery gone wrong. While other details, such as the identity of the shooter and whether the killer was caught, may play an important role in how the murders shape Batman, the core behind the narrative purpose of the murders remains consistent. The Waynes’ murder is tragic because it could have happened to anyone. It didn’t matter if they were rich or poor, it was simply a senseless act of violence, with no personal motivation.
The fact that there is no real cause for their deaths allows Batman to be eternally haunted by their murders.
The fundamentally senseless nature of the crime not only informs Batman’s character, but also informs every aspect of Gotham City as a narrative setting. That there was no real cause for their deaths allows Batman to be eternally haunted for his murders, but he also maintains his noble mission. There is no revenge for anyone, so Batman’s crusade becomes a mission to ensure no one else goes through what he did.
Other factors may flavor this characterization in different ways. If Bruce knows that Joe Chill killed his parents and was successfully captured, Bruce’s continued desire to be Batman creates the idea that his mission extends beyond his own tragedies. If Batman never finds out who killed his parents, then his characterization will get the added cliffhanger of still chasing those two bullets all these years later. However, both ideas are firmly rooted in the presentation of the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne as senseless tragedies.
Change in Batman’s origin story could irreversibly change the iconic character
And I don’t think it would be for the better
Many adaptations of the character, however, create new versions of the Wayne murders, but these new takes on their deaths make the deaths more complicated than they need to be. Some, like the television series Gotham or the video game Batman: The Tell-Tale Seriespresent the murder of Bruce’s parents as a coup against them, making them intentional targets of the killer rather than victims of chance. Others, like the 2019 film Clownframe the murders as ideologically motivated, with the Waynes killed specifically because of their wealth.
These origins misunderstand the Wayne murders, turning them from a senseless act of violence that could have – and does – happen to anyone, into a deliberately targeted crime where it couldn’t have happened to anyone else because they weren’t there. Wayne. Furthermore, this change negatively impacts Bruce’s characterdamaging his motivations to fight crime as Batman. When their murders are senseless, it’s as if the culture of apathy and criminality in Gotham City killed their parents. Batman’s mission becomes a mission against the abstract concepts that led Chill to murder his parents.
Batman’s origin works best when it’s a random act of violence
Why make changes to such a perfect motivation?
If Taylor’s writing goes in the direction of the Waynes being killed for revenge, then the entire premise behind Batman’s origin changed for the worse. The murder of the Waynes goes from being a random act of violence fueled by desperation to a pair of deliberate murders, with Joe Chill having a personal motive for attacking the Waynes. This change also makes Batman a weaker character, eliminating the senseless nature of the crime. When it’s a deliberate act, Batman’s war on crime becomes focused on one man rather than an abstract concept.
While it’s entirely possible that this creative team is treating Chill’s presence as a red herring, the idea that Detective comics I’ll even consider this idea concerns me because of the prevalence of these types of changes in most versions of the Batman mythos. Although reinterpretations of the Wayne murders sometimes work, as in the 2022 film Batmanmost end up failing and making the character worse. The origin story is a fundamental part of the from Batman character, and changing Joe Chill’s crime from a random act of violence to a targeted act erodes those foundations.
Detective comics #1090 is now available from DC Comics.