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In the 1989 movie Batman, it was shown that the man who would become the Joker killed Bruce's parents.

Is this what happened in the official canon?

Did Batman ever get revenge on the person who killed his parents?

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  • 10
    The same guy who whacked Uncle Ben, of course.
    – Jeff
    Oct 14, 2011 at 14:53
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    The only canon in the Batman origin story is that bullets killed his parents.
    – Andrew Lewis
    Oct 14, 2011 at 22:07
  • Batman isn't motivated by revenge exactly, he wants justice.
    – pg.
    Oct 7, 2014 at 17:59

3 Answers 3

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The canonical answer is that Joe Chill killed them. Usually. I don't know of any stories where Batman got revenge on him.

I think the 1989 movie merged Joe Chill with the Joker because it made for a tighter story with fewer important characters. The Wikipedia article above claims that Joe Chill was originally slated to be the killer in the movie, as well, but they swapped in the Joker.

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  • That says "He is best known for murdering young Bruce Wayne's parents (in different versions of Batman's origin story)" Are there other versions where there was a different person?
    – OghmaOsiris
    Oct 14, 2011 at 15:43
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    @OghmaOsiris It's more like there are different Batman origin stories. Like how they redo Superman's origin story every 5-10 years. But in all cases, the basic ideas are constant. Bruce Wayne's parents are killed, he trains, and later becomes the Batman.
    – user1027
    Oct 14, 2011 at 16:52
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    @jprete There was a story called Batman: Year Two where Batman was about to kill Joe Chill and someone else shot him and years later Chill's son came for revenge on Batman in the story Batman: Full Circle, but both of these stories were long ago annexed from DC's continuity. In DC's New 52 Dark Knight issue 0 (2012), which is in continuity, a young Bruce Wayne tracks Joe Chill down and then decides not to kill him but instead chooses to leave Gotham and search for mentors to train him.
    – Nobody
    Jun 20, 2013 at 15:08
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    For what it's worth, the 1989 Batman movie is famous for that change, having the villain (the Joker) be involved up with the hero's more distant origins (the shooting). Since then many films have followed suit with this "come full circle" structure (e.g. Obadiah Stane being responsible for Tony Stark's kidnapping), a structure which has more and more come under fire by critics for being "too neat" or unrealistic. For example, the recent Spider-Man films have caught a lot of flak for altering Richard Parker's past to make it dove-tail with Spider-Man's story and origins.
    – Nerrolken
    Oct 7, 2014 at 17:02
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Gotham has a different story, Bruce track down Joe chill with the help of the joker,and decided not to kill him,but left him with powerful words and he kills himself just when detective Gordon arrived

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Both The Joker and Joe Chill murdered his parents together as partners. Joker is best known for being the shooter and Joe Chill grabbing the jewels and money.That's the true answer. They BOTH did!

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    Welcome to Sci-Fi. This answer does provide some new information, but please include some context for your answer. Just stating that the two are the same is not good enough - ideally, cite the work that you are referring to, and whether it is from a movie, cartoon, or comic book.
    – Zibbobz
    Oct 7, 2014 at 16:19

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