Joe Chill

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Joe Chill
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Detective Comics #33 (November 1939), Named: Batman #47 (June-July 1948)
In-story information
Full name	Joseph Chilton

Joe Chill is a fictional character in the DC Comics Batman series. He is best known for murdering young Bruce Wayne's parents (in different versions of Batman's origin story), thus making him indirectly responsible for Batman's existence.^[1]

Fictional character biography

Not much is known about Chill except that he is, in most versions of Batman, a petty mugger who kills Wayne's parents while trying to take their money and jewelry. Chill panics and runs away when Bruce begins crying and calling for help, but not before the boy memorizes his features. In at least three versions of the Batman mythos, Chill is never identified.

Pre-Crisis version

Batman's origin story is first established in a sequence of panels in Detective Comics #33 (November 1939) that is later reproduced in the comic book Batman #1 (Spring 1940), but the mugger is not given a name until Batman #47 (June-July 1948). In that issue, Batman discovers that Joe Chill, the small-time crime boss he is investigating, is none other than the man who killed his parents. Batman confronts him and reveals his secret identity. Chill, frightened, seeks protection from his henchmen. Once they learn that Chill's actions led to the hated Batman's existence, they turn on their boss and gun him down — just before they realize how valuable his knowledge is to them. Before a dying Chill has a chance to reveal Batman's identity, the Dark Knight intervenes and apprehends the goons; Chill dies in Batman's arms, addressing him by his true name.

In Detective Comics #235 (1956), Batman learns that Chill was not a mere robber, but actually a hitman who murdered the Waynes on orders from a Mafia boss named Lew Moxon.

In the 1980 miniseries The Untold Legend of the Batman, Alfred Pennyworth reminisces that Joe Chill is the son of one Alice Chilton, Bruce Wayne's one-time nanny.

Modern Age version

In the 1987 storyline Batman: Year Two, Chill played a key role. Several Gotham City crime bosses pool their resources to deal with a vigilante called the Reaper, and Chill is hired to take him out. When Batman proposes an alliance it is agreed that he and Chill will work together — something Batman finds repugnant, but which he nevertheless justifies to himself as necessary to tackle the Reaper. He vows to kill Chill afterwards. Chill is also commissioned to kill Batman after the Reaper has been disposed of. During a major confrontation, the crime bosses are all killed in a battle at a warehouse, in which the Reaper seemingly also perishes. Chill reasons that he now no longer needs to fulfill his contract, but Batman takes him to "Crime Alley", the scene of his parents' murder. There he confronts Chill and reveals his identity. Batman has Chill at gunpoint, but the Reaper appears and guns Chill down. It is left 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) appears, taking on the identity of the now-deceased Reaper. He seeks revenge for his father's death, and subsequently attempts to drive Batman insane by using hallucinogenic drugs to trigger Batman's survivor's guilt over his parents' death, creating a video where a young boy's parents are killed in front of him and then the boy subsequently thanks God he didn't die himself; Chill knows that his father had killed Batman's parents, but does not know of Batman's identity. However, thanks to the intervention of Robin, Batman frees himself from the drug-induced haze, and overcomes his guilt. After the new Reaper is defeated, Batman accepts that the bad blood between him and the Chills is now over, hoping that their vendetta, beginning with Joe Chill and Thomas Wayne, will end with their sons.

After 1994's Zero Hour storyline, DC Comics stated that Batman did not catch or confront the man who murdered his parents after having seen in an alternate timeline that Chill hadn't done it after all.

In 2006's Infinite Crisis #6, another cosmic crisis reestablishing that Chill murders Thomas and Martha Wayne and adding for the first time that he is later arrested on that same night for their murder.

In the 2008 Grant Morrison story, "Joe Chill in Hell" (featured in Batman #673), Chill is reinterpreted as a mid-level crime boss who builds the Land, Sea, Air Transport company from the ground up (most likely through illegal means). He blamed his crimes, including murdering the Waynes, on class warfare. In this story, Batman has visited and frightened Chill every night for a month. Chill is living as a shut-in, but his guards never see or catch Batman during the visits. On his final visit, Batman gives Chill the gun he used to kill the Waynes. There is one bullet left within it. Chill finally realizes who Batman is, and fears what his fellow gangsters would do to him if they found out. It is hinted that he commits suicide; considering the issue consists of Bruce's flashbacks and hallucinations from an experiment he undergoes during his early career, however, it is left ambiguous.

In 2009's Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? by Neil Gaiman, Joe Chill is seen as the bartender attending Batman's funeral (The funeral itself being a near death experience). Batman, who is observing the event, as well as Catwoman, note that Joe Chill should be dead. Joe notes that he was there at the birth of The Batman, and it is only fitting he should be there to witness the end.

Other versions

The Dark Knight Returns

In Frank Miller's 1986 limited series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Bruce Wayne finally finds it in himself to forgive Chill (who is not named, implying that, in Miller's Dark Knight Universe, Bruce Wayne never learned his identity, something Miller saw as a key dynamic.) While being mugged by street punks, Wayne at first fantasizes that the two amateur criminals are Chill so he can take out his rage on them, but relents when they leave him alone after realizing he would have fought them. 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."

Crime Syndicate

In comics featuring the Crime Syndicate of America, it is revealed that on the Syndicate's alternate Earth, Joe Chill is a friend of Dr. Thomas Wayne. One night, a policeman wants to bring the elder Wayne in for questioning and, when he refuses, opens fire; this Earth's version of Bruce Wayne and his mother are killed. Chill comes out of the alley to discover the dead bodies, and the Waynes' younger son, Thomas Wayne Jr., leaves with him.

In other media

Television

• In the The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians episode "The Fear," a flashback depicts Thomas and Martha Wayne being mugged by someone who might be Joe Chill. This flashback is induced by the Scarecrow. When his father tries to fight him, a young Bruce says "No Dad, he's got a..." and lightning is shown in the sky as his parents are shot. This episode represents the first time that Batman's origin is portrayed on television.

• The Justice League Unlimited episode "For the Man Who Has Everything" features an appearance by Joe Chill. In the sequence, Bruce Wayne has a hallucination in which his father is not shot, but instead disarms Chill and starts punching him, much to young Bruce's delight, until Chill gains the upper hand and ultimately shoots and kills Thomas and Martha. The scene is 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 Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman in the DC animated universe.

• Joe Chill is the main focus in Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Chill of the Night". Batman is taken back to his past by the Phantom Stranger and he witnesses how Chill murdered his parents.

Film

• In the original script for 1989's Batman, written by Tom Mankiewicz, crime boss Rupert Thorne hires Joe Chill to murder Thomas Wayne, who is running against Thorne for city council.^[2] Chill is not mentioned in the final version of the film, directed by Tim Burton. In that film, a young Jack Napier, who would later become the Joker, is the Waynes' killer.

• Joe Chill appears in the 2005 film Batman Begins played by British actor Richard Brake. This version of Chill claims to have been "driven to mug" the Waynes by poverty (Gotham had suffered an economic depression because of an undisclosed plot by the League of Shadows). Chill Mugs the Waynes at gunpoint, demanding wallets and jewelry. Thomas willingly gives him his wallet, but Joe demands Martha's necklace. Thomas tries to stop him from shooting Martha and in the scuffle both Thomas and Martha are shot and killed. At the police station, Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb arrives and tells Bruce that they have caught Chill. After serving 14 years in prison, Chill undergoes a hearing to be released 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. During the hearing, he claims to regret his crime. After the hearing, despite police presence, he is killed by one of Falcone's hired guns who poses as a reporter and shoots him as he exits the courtroom. Falcone later reveals that he had bribed the judge in Chill's case to make the hearing public and bring Chill out into the open. Bruce Wayne, who is waiting outside the courtroom with a gun of his own, is thus deprived of his own chance for revenge. As with Year Two, it is left ambiguous whether or not he would have actually killed Chill. Bruce later confronts Falcone, who taunts him by saying that Chill bragged that Thomas Wayne "begged like a dog" before his death.

Video Games

• Joe Chill is referenced in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Scarecrow's fear gas has Batman reliving the experience where his parents were shot in an alley by Joe Chill (whose voice is distorted). Also, Thomas and Martha Wayne's bio mentions them being shot by Joe Chill.

Miscellaneous

• Chill appears in the DC comic book The Batman Adventures (based on Batman: The Animated Series) in its final issue (#17). In the issue, Chill is shown to have lived in fear ever since the night he killed the Waynes, especially as their son had become a very powerful businessman in Gotham City. Chill starts to see Bruce Wayne's face on random people all over town. He falls to his death from a balcony after refusing help from Batman (whose mask had been torn, although Chill thought it was another hallucination). Batman is unaware of who Chill really was or why he had refused help.

See also

• List of Batman Family enemies

References