It’s one of the seminal moments in superhero tales, the near-legendary incident that we’ve seen repeated countless times with little variation. It’s less than two minutes, but the repercussions are transformative.
In case you haven’t seen it enough times, here’s a supercut of Bruce Wayne’s parents dying.
The key elements never change: Coming home from the opera; a shady robber with a gun; the strand of pearls flying everywhere (looking especially poetic in the animated take on The Dark Knight Returns); poor little Bruce spared for some reason. We’ve even seen it make for some pretty excellent cosplay.
Will we ever see this scene altered? Probably not. That’s clearly not the case for FOX’s new Batman prequel series Gotham (read our review of the pilot) although it’s interesting that the Gotham version seems to be the only one where child Bruce Wayne actually reacts like a child would. It’s become too much of a shorthand, at this point—so much so that we totally got that Watchmen Easter egg based on visuals alone.
Come to think of it, it’s the one time that Thomas and Martha Wayne don’t get gunned down in the street. But then we get Nite Owl instead of Batman and…that doesn’t turn out so well.
Via Vulture. Photos: Warner Bros.
