WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman: Three Jokers #3, by Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson and Rob Leigh, on sale now.
There is no figure that looms larger in the life of Batman than Joe Chill, the mugger who murdered Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of a young Bruce Wayne in Crime Alley. The mugger had since been apprehended and incarcerated for decades, slated to die in prison after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis.
And as the Jokers set out to create the ultimate Clown Prince of Crime in Batman: Three Jokers #3, Chill's final days saw the Dark Knight save Chill as the truth behind the Wayne murders and the man who perpetrated them came to light.
Previously, the two surviving Jokers kidnapped Chill from his deathbed in Blackgate Penitentiary with the intention of not only having him reveal why he really killed the Waynes but to transform him into their latest supervillain counterpart. The Criminal Joker, the Golden Age mastermind that was more interested in committing cold-blooded murder rather than relying on cheap gimmicks, reasoned that as Bruce still had to psyche himself up mentally just to confront Chill in his normal form, a vision of Chill transformed into his greatest nemesis would be the definitive arch-nemesis for the Caped Crusader, to face his parents' killer again and again.
Batman led Batgirl and the Red Hood to the Monarch Theater, the location the Waynes had visited immediately preceding their murder, now shut down and fallen into disrepair. The Criminal Joker prepares to drop Chill into a vat of chemicals to transform him into the latest Clown Prince of Crime, after releasing a videotaped confession that Chill knew he was confronting the Waynes all along with the intent to murder them. Batman is narrowly able to rescue Chill from the chemicals and later risks his own life to save his parents' killer from a cascade of falling rubble as his battle against the Jokers escalates.
With his life saved by the son of people he shot to death in cold blood, Chill quietly apologizes for killing Thomas and Martha, admitting he hadn't intended for their son to see the killing and that it was a set of murders made over his frustration of Gotham's wealth divide. With the surviving Joker brought in custody, Bruce has Chill spend his final days in hospitalized care and forgives him, even standing by his bedside before the repentant mugger passes away peacefully in a bed as he succumbs to his cancer.
Joe Chill is often a figure that has been killed for his role in murdering the Waynes, either gunned down by his fellow criminals after learning he was responsible for creating the Batman or killed by the Reaper during "Batman: Year Two." This mortal fate for Chill would continue on different media adaptations of the character, including Carmine Falcone having Chill assassinated in 2005's Batman Begins to the Chill analogue Jack Napier being killed by Batman himself in the 1989 film. Three Jokers has given Chill the peaceful moment of reconciliation that the two hadn't really experienced as Bruce Wayne accepts Chill's apology, which allows both men to move on from their first fateful encounter in Crime Alley decades ago as the Joker's plot to create the ultimate nemesis gave way to a moment of growth for the Dark Knight.