COMICS: BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #0 To Put A New Spin On The Murder Of Bruce's Parents

That artwork is incredible. Alot of the New 52 art has been subpar, but this looks pretty damn good.

The panel with BW in the closet is very sad it conveys the emotion of loss well.

Cool art, but this preview doesn't give us much to go on. So should I or shouldn't I get this (or wait for the trade)...

That is some damned good artwork though. Glad to see that anyway, even if I wont be buying any New 52 books.

Joe Chill being an everyday mugger makes Batman better to me tbh, a completely random event rather than something organised that took his parents lives.

Yeah, they've done something similar in the novel Batman: The Ultimate Evil (and graphic novel) in which it wasn't Thomas but Martha Wayne that was the target and Chill was hired to do the job.

There are two schools of thought on how this should be.

The first is that Joe Chill randomly killing Batman's parents is reasonably difficult to believe. It doesn't make a lot of sense that high profile entrepreneurs and philanthropists would be gunned down in a random mugging. How could Joe Chill not possibly have known who the Waynes were? It just seems a little too dramatically convenient, so making Joe Chill a pawn in a conspiracy tends to make more sense plot-wise.

The second school of thought is that the realism of the event is less significant than what the even means regarding Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. This event sends him on a crusade of vengeance. If Joe Chill is just some guy, a symptom of the greater disease that is crime, then Batman's crusade is against crime itself. It also shows how crime can reach anyone, even the wealthiest and most intelligent. But if Joe Chill was merely being used by someone else, let's say The Court of Owls, then Batman's crusade ceases to be against crime in general and more against the Court of Owls.

I'm not sure which side I fall on. I do think it's a bit disingenuous to make Batman's crusade against crime in general when he tends to fight specific insane criminals that affect him on a more personal level rather than take on crime as a whole. You rarely see him beating up regular thugs or breaking up drug rings. I think that's what I really liked about "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" since it was more about Batman trying to put an end to crime in general by beating organized crime rather than Batman facing individual villains from his rogue's gallery.

But seeing as how Batman in the comics is more about his rogue's gallery and less about his crusade against crime, I'd say that it makes sense for Joe Chill to have a sinister big bad behind him. Then again, I think I would find a Batman that was more interested in taking on street-level crime more interesting, and in that case, it would make more sense for Joe Chill to be some random guy.

I really like the art, has a realistic feel to it. Story wise, I agree with @snufkins. Need a new tale, not a new spin on an old one.

NO! Just...NO dammit!

If you make it deliberate, you defeat the point of Batman. The whole reason Bruce Wayne does what he does has nothing to do with conspiracies or the mob. It's about a random guy with a gun.

His mission as Batman is based entirely on the notion that he doesn't want what happened to him to happen to happen to anyone else. It's why he takes in Dick Grayson as his ward. He was that kid kneeling next to the bodies of his parents. Yes he fights organised crime and supervillains but Joe Chill is nothing more than a thug with a gun. He's not part of any grand conspiracy or criminal elite. He's a lowlife. He's a symbol of the disease that plagues Gotham. Crime. Pure and simple.

Oh look, something that's not broken.. let's fix it anyway!

If its a conspiracy to "wipe out the Wayne family" then wouldn't people figure out that Batman is Bruce easier? When Bruces parents were pacifists you wouldn't expect their son to become a violent vigilante. Now if Thomas and Martha were worth eliminating it leads to the Idea of that they we very active and efficient at spoiling someones plans. That trait of activism would directly point toward Bruce taking up their mantle. This doesnt sit well with me as "better" than the original version.

Umm his parents were still killed in cold blood right? Good, then has that much really changed? Without going into the sub connotation of the event of course, and even then though.

Batman would still be batman, organized crime or not.

i agree and prefer it to be random, i also will go one step further and say that i prefer it when the waynes killer is unidentified, makes his crusade against crime that much more personal in a way because he never got closure of any kind, killer could still be out there, every night batman sees that shadowed face when confronting criminals, its a catharsis for him, a life long journey that has no definitive end because there wasnt a definitive person that started it.

@relentless1
Well said I never liked the idea of Joe Chill.