Batman’s Parents Are Deeeaaaad: A Supercut

It’s happened in comics, in cartoons, in films and now even on TV. Thomas and Martha Wayne, along with their son Bruce, take a stroll down Crime Alley (guys!) on their way from the theatre. Halfway down their confronted by a thief with a gun who shoots the couple, leaving their son traumatized. Oh, and then he grows up and uses that trauma to fuel an insane war on crime that saves the lives of millions of people and pretty much ends crime as we know it in Gotham City. The story’s a classic and now Vulture has released a supercut featuring the many times Batman‘s parents have died on screen for your viewing pleasure.

While I’d argue the constant revisiting of this moment is what makes everyone in the real world see Batman and think, “that guy has to be insane”, damning the character to increasingly darker and grittier interpretations, I can’t undercut its impact too much. It is the reason he fights crime. It’s as much an inciting incident as that bush bursting into flame in front of Moses, or that time Mohammed was visited by the angel Gabriel. This is the stuff that happens in heroic fiction and mythology to get the hero in the state of mind he needs to be to accept that things are only about to get crazier from here. It’s a lightning bolt to his brain and it works every time.

It’s also interesting to see what sticks across which versions. Almost every version calls attention to Martha’s necklace crashing to the ground, a visual that I think was conceived by artist-writer Frank Miller back when he was good at this whole comics thing. In general the scene is captured elegantly in every interpretation, even the one from 1960s’ Superfriends, which you’d think would find a way to play it a lot lighter since it was a cartoon intended for children. No dice. Batman always makes you sad, papi. Also worth noting is what doesn’t stick across the different versions. Tim Burton‘s weird decision to have the random shooter be a young Joker, for example, never shows up in any other version even as an implication. That sustains the randomness of what happened to Bruce Wayne perfectly. And I think Christopher Nolan‘s take in Batman Begins is the only incarnation where young Bruce isn’t leaving a screening of The Mark of Zorro, playing with an imaginary rapier and having an awesome time; a perfect contrast to how his life is about to completely fall apart any second now. In Nolan’s version his parents leave an opera because it reminds Bruce of the bats that attacked him in the cave under his family home, which still works but kinda implies that the kid is in some way responsible for their deaths.

And then there’s Gotham‘s take, and while I initially didn’t like the shriek (like a bat!) the kid gives out, I actually think his performance is really strong and the scene still plays nicely.

Um… here’s the video: