Joker: Folie à Deux’s Waynes story will be the exact opposite of how Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins depicted Bruce’s parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne. Despite distancing itself from Batman’s mythos and not involving The Dark Knight at all, Joker (2017) still referenced a lot of elements of DC Comics lore. The Wayne family, including Bruce Wayne, appeared in Joker, although in a very different way compared to other Batman adaptations.
Not much is known about Joker: Folie à Deux’s story, except that it will be a musical, and that it will feature Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Still, Joker 2 is expected to continue from where Joker left off – even if a time jump is involved. This includes showing the aftermath of the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, the former of which would have become Gotham’s mayor.
Joker 2 Will Show A Very Different Waynes’ Death Fallout From Batman Begins
Batman Begins tied Bruce Wayne’s costumed crusade with the legacies of Thomas and Martha Wayne in a way that Batman films – and even other adaptations – had never done. Nolan’s Batman reboot highlighted that, years before Bruce Wayne became Batman, the Waynes were trying to save Gotham. Gotham had gotten even worse between the death of the Waynes and the rise of Batman, proving that Thomas and Martha Wayne were one of the few people who never gave up on the city. Joker went for a vastly different take on the Waynes, making Thomas Wayne a soon-to-be politician who was to blame for Gotham’s current situation.
Thomas Wayne was the closest thing to an antagonist in Joker, and, unlike all Batman movies and TV shows, the Joker movie made the twisted choice to frame the death of the Waynes as the Joker’s victory. The Joker did not kill the Waynes, one of his followers did, but the infamous Murray interview with the Joker sparked it all. The Joker and his followers cheered as Gotham descended into chaos, meaning that the aftermath of the Waynes’ deaths in Joker 2 will be a lot different from Batman Begins. In Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, the Waynes were essentially remembered as heroes, something that will surely not happen in the Joker universe.
Joker & The Batman Continue A Tricky Thomas & Martha Wayne Retcon
Joker tried something different with the Waynes, framing Bruce’s father as one of the reasons behind Gotham’s biggest problems. Even before becoming a politician, Joker‘s Thomas Wayne could have done a lot more for his hometown, yet “Mayor Wayne” inspired no hope that things would get better, quite the contrary. The idea of Thomas Wayne not being the role model Bruce Wayne really wants to follow was also present in The Batman, in which, like Joker, Thomas ran for mayor. Bruce’s father also tried to bride and scare a journalist in The Batman‘s universe, further strengthening his connections to Carmine Falcone.
While flipping the roles of the Waynes in Gotham’s history is an interesting way to reinvent a piece of Batman lore that has existed for decades, retconning Thomas and Martha Waynes’ characters is dangerous. If the Waynes are directly involved in any of Gotham’s big issues – Falcone’s crime empire or the Court of Owls, for example – then Bruce Wayne’s Batman crusade is no longer about honoring his parents. Instead, the Batman mission becomes a way for Bruce to redeem his family. For Joker: Folie à Deux, assuming that Batman is not an active part of the story, the Waynes changes work better, as they do not affect Batman’s arc.
