Wherever Batman goes, the Joker tends to follow not too far behind, and vice versa. As a pair of pop culture’s most popular enemies, very rarely has any movie, TV show, comic book, or video game focused on one without the other making their presence felt, and Todd Phillips’ psychological thriller was no different.

As a relatively inexpensive and R-rated production that placed the ‘Clown Prince of Crime’ front-and-centre, many expected Joker to keep Bruce Wayne and his costumed alter-ego at arm’s length. However, this being a story set in Gotham City, it was never going to happen.

Brett Cullen plays billionaire businessman, philanthropist, and mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne in the movie, with Carrie Louise Putrello as wife Martha, although the character doesn’t get any lines of dialogue and isn’t directly referred to by name. Still, because she’s Batman’s mother, everybody knew who she was.

Youngster Dante Pereira-Olson made a brief appearance as the future ‘Dark Knight’, largely tied to a subplot where Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck mistakenly believes for a spell that he might be the illegitimate son of Thomas, which would make him the biological half-brother of his future mortal enemy.

It would have been a dramatic departure from established canon and one that could have left comic book aficionados up in arms where Phillips to follow through, but it was swiftly revealed to be a red herring. One thing about the Waynes is that whenever they appear onscreen, there’s a high probability they’re going to be killed off, with Joker the latest in a long line of movies to show the couple’s murder.

The Wayne family have been put through the wringer, getting their clogs popped in Tim Burton’s Batman, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the TV series Gotham, and countless animated iterations of the ‘Caped Crusader’ mythos, so if anything, Joker was merely carrying on that proud tradition.

The end result might be the same, but Phillips nonetheless put his own spin on Bruce Wayne’s dad and his betrothed meeting their demise, even if it potentially raised more questions than answers.

Who killed Batman’s parents in Joker?

In most cases, low-level criminal Joe Chill is the culprit who guns down Thomas and Martha Wayne in the alley behind a theatre, and there’s no reason that couldn’t remain the case in Joker.

The biggest deviation made on film and television came in Burton’s 1989 blockbuster when Jack Nicholson’s future ‘Jester of Genocide’ – then going by his everyday moniker, Jack Napier – pulled the trigger to make his feud with Michael Keaton’s costumed crimefighter more personal than ever.

In Phillips’ feature, the Waynes are followed by an unknown assailant wearing a clown mask, who invokes Arthur’s “you get what you fucking deserve” mantra that didn’t end too well for Robert De Niro’s Murray Franklin earlier on in the story, either.

Even though the face of the killer is never revealed, it’s inadvertently caused by Arthur because he’s the one responsible for creating the situation that leads to Thomas and Martha being murdered. The killer may not be operating on his orders, but it’s the societal feeling Arthur created that leads to the Waynes meeting their maker, even if the face of the culprit isn’t revealed.

Technically, nobody knows the identity of the person who shoots them in cold blood within the context of Joker, which means it may or may not be Joe Chill. That said, the finger of blame can be pointed at Arthur in a roundabout way because the Waynes would never find themselves being cornered by a clown-faced goon and getting shuffled off their mortal coil if it wasn’t for his antics, causing a groundswell of street-level anarchy in Gotham.