Can a Joker Movie Actually Work Without Batman?

With principal photography in full swing for filmmaker Todd Phillips' Joker origin movie starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular DC Comics villain, the upcoming film has filled out its cast with one absence more glaringly visible than any other: A lack of Bruce Wayne. Perhaps the most recognizable antagonistic relationship in modern fiction, Batman not only stands as a diametric opposite to the Clown Prince of Crime, both thematically and morally, but plays a pivotal role in most accepted origins of the villain, being the one who sends the aspiring criminal into a vat of chemicals leading to his rebirth as the Joker.

The lack of Batman has been underscored by the casting of Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne's father. With the Wayne family patriarch alive and well, Bruce Wayne is presumably a content child enjoying his family's affluence rather than embarking on his usual nocturnal crusade against Gotham City's criminal underworld. While it is an offbeat approach to the source material, a Joker origin story without Batman is not an entirely new concept.

The idea that the man who would eventually become the Joker is actually a career criminal before his fateful chemical bath is present in virtually every take on the character. However, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's classic origin story, The Killing Joke, implied that the character was relatively innocent before his sanity snapped as the result of a series of unfortunate events.

This concept has largely been ignored ever since with 1989's Batman, which depicted the character as a mid-level mobster named Jack Napier before his confrontation with Michael Keaton's Dark Knight at the Ace Chemicals factory. Building off this, 1993's animated film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm depicted the character as a mafia hitman responsible for the creation of the titular vigilante in a flashback.

Perhaps the most comparable example is the television series Gotham, which features a young version of the character named Jerome Valeska. The son of circus performers, the budding killer has a visible affinity for carny culture, including clowns, while being a vicious mass murderer without any direct influence from Bruce Wayne. Given that Phoenix's Arthur Fleck has been seen on set palling around with clowns before donning a more circus-influenced look himself, the film might be drawing inspiration from the Fox series.

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Another, perhaps more likely, inspiration is the comic books themselves. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's New 52 Batman origin tale Zero Year re-envisioned the future villain as the leader of the Red Hood gang, wreaking havoc on the city before being thwarted by the fledgling Caped Crusader. With leaked set video showing Fleck dressed as the Joker leading a team of clown criminals through the Gotham subway, perhaps the Red Hood association has been replaced with the more streamlined clown aesthetic. After all, the production has already included a reference to Snyder himself in the film's incarnation of Gotham. Another theory is that the film's absence of Bruce Wayne may be explained by Thomas Wayne himself.

While Thomas Wayne is the name of Bruce's father, it is also the name of his alleged long-lost brother, Thomas Wayne, Jr. Making his debut in 1974's World's Finest #223, written by Bob Haney and illustrated by Dick Dillin, Bruce's brother was kept in an asylum for most of his childhood after suffering a traumatic head injury. As an adult, the abandoned sibling becomes the Boomerang Killer before sacrificing himself to save his brother's life.

Snyder and Capullo revisited the forgotten character in their inaugural New 52 arc The Court of Owls with Gotham City businessman and aspiring politician Lincoln March. First seen in Batman Vol.2 #1, March's mayoral campaign was bankrolled by Bruce Wayne before the candidate revealed himself to be an agent of the eponymous secret society and Wayne's long-lost brother, Thomas. Cullen's Thomas Wayne is reported to be portrayed as an unscrupulous businessman running for Mayor of Gotham City rather than his traditional occupation as a noble surgeon. Perhaps Snyder and Capullo's influence on Phillips' film is more pronounced than previously believed.

The potential surprise addition of Thomas Wayne, Jr. into the story leaves open the possibility of an adult Bruce moonlighting as Batman, but, given the origin nature of the story, any inclusion of Bruce or Batman wouldn't necessarily have to be a sizeable one.

A Gotham City featuring the rise of the Joker without Batman is an unorthodox approach, but the villain's criminal roots sans the Dark Knight are certainly not without precedent. The Harlequin of Hate doesn't need Batman to become one of the most iconic villains in comic book history, but without Bruce Wayne to stop him it all feels a little incomplete.

Directed and co-written by Todd Phillips, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character along with Robert De Niro, Marc Maron, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen and Bill Camp. It is scheduled to be released on Oct. 4, 2019.