Joe Chill

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Joe Chill is a fictional character in the DC Comics Batman series. He is most famous for murdering young Bruce Wayne's parents (in different versions of Batman's origin story), thus making him indirectly responsible for Batman's existence.

Not much is known about Chill, except that he was a petty mugger who killed Wayne's parents while trying to take their money and jewelry. Chill panicked and ran when Bruce began crying and calling for help, but not before the boy memorized his features.

Mysteriously, Alfred Pennyworth once reminisced that Joe Chill was the son of one Alice Chilton, one-time caretaker of young Bruce Wayne. This implies that "Chill" is only the character's street name and an abbreviation of "Chilton."

Contents 1 Pre-Crisis versions 2 Modern Age version 3 Other comic versions 4 Earth-3's Joe Chill 5 In other media

[edit] Pre-Crisis versions

Batman's origin story was first established in a sequence of panels in Detective Comics #33 (November 1939) that was later reproduced in the comic book Batman #1 (Spring 1940), but the mugger was not given a name until Batman #47 (June-July 1948). In that issue, Batman discovered that Joe Chill, the small-time crime boss he was investigating, was none other than the man who killed his parents. Batman confronted him and revealed his secret identity ("I'm the son of the man you murdered—I'm Bruce Wayne!") and Chill, frightened, sought protection from his henchmen. Once his henchmen (who had friends that were arrested by Batman) learned that Chill's actions lead to Batman's existence, they turned on their boss and killed him, never giving Chill a chance to reveal Batman's identity.

In Detective Comics #235 (1956), Batman learned that Chill was not a robber, but actually a hitman who had murdered the Waynes on orders from a Mafia boss named Lew Moxon. In a flashback, we learn that Bruce's father, Thomas Wayne, had worn a bat costume to a costume party, where Moxon and his men had shown up and forced him to remove a slug from his arm. Afterwards, he testified against Moxon in court. The crime boss swore revenge, and hired Chill soon after. Batman confronted him years later while wearing his father's costume (since his current one was ripped in his last battle). Moxon, who had amnesia and so did not remember ordering the hit, suddenly remembered what he had done. Thinking Batman was actually Thomas Wayne's ghost, Moxon panicked and ran out into the street, where he was hit by a truck and killed.

[edit] Modern Age version

In the post-Crisis 1987 storyline Batman: Year Two, Chill played a key role. Several Gotham City crime bosses pooled their resources to deal with a vigilante called the Reaper, and Chill was hired to take him out. When Batman proposed an alliance it was agreed that he and Chill would work together - something Batman found repugnant, but which he nevertheless justified to himself as necessary to tackle the Reaper. He vowed to kill Chill afterwards. Chill was also commissioned to kill Batman after the Reaper had been disposed of. During a major confrontation, the crime bosses were all killed in a battle at a warehouse, in which the Reaper seemingly also perished. Chill reasoned that he now no longer needed to fulfill his contract, but Batman took him to "Crime Alley", the scene of his parents' murder. There he confronted Chill and revealed his identity. Batman had Chill at gunpoint, but the Reaper appeared and gunned Chill down, leaving it ambiguous as to whether or not Batman would have actually pulled the trigger.

In the 1991 sequel, Batman: Full Circle, Chill's son (also named Joe Chill) appeared, taking on the identity of the now deceased Reaper. He sought revenge for his father's death, and subsequently attempted to drive Batman insane by using hallucinogenic drugs to trigger Batman's survivor's guilt over his parents' deaths. Chill knew that his father had killed Batman's parents, but did not know of Batman's identity. However, thanks to the intervention of Robin, Batman was able to free himself from the drug-induced haze, and overcome his guilt. After the new Reaper was defeated, Batman accepted that the bad blood between him and the Chills was now over.

After 1994's Zero Hour storyline, DC Comics stated that Batman did not know who had murdered his parents after having seen in an alternate timeline that Chill hadn't done it after all. The rationale for this change was that it would allow Batman to view all criminals as surrogates for the man who killed his parents.

In 2006's Infinite Crisis #6, another cosmic crisis changed continuity and Chill was captured for the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. This change would seem to move the continuity of the comics toward the film Batman Begins, in which Chill was also caught after murdering the Waynes.

[edit] Other comic versions

In Frank Miller's 1986 limited series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Bruce Wayne finally finds it in himself to (at least partially) forgive Chill after he is mugged by street punks. At first he fantasizes that the two amateur criminals are Chill so he can take out his rage on them, but relents when they lose interest and leave him alone. Wayne at last sees that Chill had not killed his parents for killing's sake, as the two punks wanted to do to him, and thus he was not truly evil.

"All he wanted was money," Wayne realizes. "He was sick and guilty over what he did. I was naïve enough to think him the lowest sort of man." He then despairs that the "new breed" of street criminals did in fact kill for fun: "These are his children... and the world is theirs."

Although Chill was created in the mainstream DC Universe, he was most recently seen in the now-canceled DC comic book Batman Adventures in its final issue (#17). In the issue Chill was shown to have lived in fear ever since the night he killed the Waynes, especially as their son had grown into a very powerful businessman in Gotham. Chill started to see Bruce Wayne's face on random people all over town. He fell to his death from a balcony after refusing help from the Dark Knight (whose mask had been torn, though Chill thought it was another hallucination). Batman was unaware of who Chill really was or why he had refused help.

[edit] Earth-3's Joe Chill

In 1990s comics featuring the Crime Syndicate of America, it was revealed that on the Crime Syndicate's alternate Earth, Joe Chill was a friend of Dr. Thomas Wayne. A policeman had wanted to bring Mr. Wayne in for questioning, and when he refused, the officer opened fire: this Earth's version of Bruce and his mother were killed. Joe Chill came out of the alley to discover the dead bodies, and Thomas Wayne Jr. left with him. Junior would later become Owlman, while Thomas Sr. survived that day and became the police chief of this Earth's Gotham City with a cadre of officers who are even cleaner than the main continuity's police force.

[edit] In other media

Chill was not mentioned in the 1989 Batman film, directed by Tim Burton; in that film it was the young Jack Napier, who would later become the Joker, who murdered Wayne's parents.

Chill was played by Richard Brake in the 2005 film Batman Begins. This version of Chill was a down-on-his-luck bum who claimed to be driven to mug the Waynes because of the desperation of the times (Gotham was undergoing an economic depression). He killed Bruce's parents and was later arrested that night. Ten years later, he was undergoing a hearing to be released from prison as part of a deal to testify against Gotham mob boss Carmine Falcone (with whom he had shared a prison cell) in exchange for parole, but was killed by one of Falcone's henchmen as he left the courtroom. The young Bruce Wayne, who was waiting outside the courtroom with a gun of his own, was thus deprived of his own chance for revenge. A similar scenario was played out in the comic storylines Batman: Year Two and Batman: Full Circle.

Although the DC Animated Universe has never seen fit to fully portray the fateful night in the alley, the Justice League Unlimited episode "For The Man Who Has Everything" has come the closest, including an actual appearance by Chill himself. The sequence is not completely accurate and canonical, however, as Thomas Wayne is not shot, but instead disarms Chill and starts punching him, much to young Bruce's delight (the scene is relived/reimagined when Batman is captured by the "Black Mercy" plant, an alien plant which traps its prey in the fantasy of their heart's desire). In an ironic twist of casting, Chill's one line in the episode ("We'll start with the pretty pearls around the lady's neck") is performed by none other than Kevin Conroy himself, the voice of Batman in Justice League Unlimited.

In the original script for the first Batman film film, written by Tom Mankiewicz, Rupert Thorne hired Joe Chill to murder Thomas Wayne, who was running against Thorne for city council. ([1])