Ben Affleck as Batman Twitter pic - H 2014
@ZackSnyder/TwitterThis just in from Gotham City: Millionaire philathrophists Thomas and Martha Wayne have been brutally murdered as the result of a mugging gone wrong. Again.
The latest version of the murder of the Waynes comes not from Fox’s Gotham, but from the set of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. New footage shot by fans shows the most recent incarnation of the event that sets Bruce Wayne in the direction of dedicating his life to fighting crime while wearing an impractical cape and pointed-ear cowl combo, following in the footsteps of similar recreations of the scene showing up in almost every other Batman-related movie or television show ever.
The fact that director Zack Snyder feels the need to include the scene in the 2016 Man of Steel follow-up likely speaks less to the possibility that the audience needs a reminder about Batman’s origin — they literally just saw it a couple of months ago in the Gotham pilot — and more to do with the terrible, horrible truth: The deaths of the Waynes has become the superhero movie version of “Stairway to Heaven.”
By that, I don’t mean that watching Bruce Wayne’s parents get shot is a meandering rock epic that eventually led to a lawsuit from jazz-rock combo Spirit; instead, I mean that it’s the iconic thing that everyone seems to want to do their own version of, no matter how unnecessary that might be. We can but hope that, as Warners moves into its own interrelated movie continuity that will presumably continue for years, the Batman v Superman scene will be the last time we see the senseless slaughter of such upright citizens as the Waynes for quite some time. Child Bruce Wayne and the rest of us need a break.
And anyway: Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli did it best way back in 1986’s Batman: Year One.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will be released in Mar. 2016. Maybe then the needless killing will stop.
