Golden / Silver Age version
Roughly 10 years before their murder, Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha attend a costume party, to which Thomas wears a bat-like costume. Thomas is subsequently taken from the party at gunpoint to meet Lew Moxon, a criminal who forces the doctor to remove a bullet from his shoulder. After completing the operation, Thomas overpowers Moxon and his men and escapes. Moxon is then arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for armed robbery. As he is taken away, he swears revenge on Thomas.
After being released from prison, Moxon tells Thomas that he will get someone else to exact revenge against him. It is suggested that Moxon ordered Joe Chill to kill the Waynes and make it look like a mugging, but to spare their son Bruce in order to leave a witness who will describe his parents' murder as a robbery gone wrong.
Bruce Wayne does not uncover Moxon's involvement until years later, learning that Moxon has been operating a blimp business and cannot remember hiring Chill due to suffering from amnesia. Determining that Moxon's blimp business is a front for illegal activities, Batman pursues him in Thomas's costume after his own is damaged. Regaining his memories and believing Batman to be Thomas's vengeful ghost, Moxon panics and runs into the street, where he is hit and killed by a truck.[2]
