Did Nite Owl Save Batman's Parents?

 

It sure looks like it.

 

One of my favorite things in Zack Snyder's adaptation of the Watchmen is the opening credits sequence.  It's an amazing montage that fills in the whole backstory of the Minutemen and their rise and fall, the creation of a new breed of heroes like Rorschach, the formation of the Watchmen (originally Crime Busters in the book) and even the Keene Act of 1977.  It's a great piece of storytelling that informs the audience on the world in which the movie is taking place in just a few short minutes.

 

There's a lot packed into those clips at the beginning of the film, and those with quick eyes can catch some interesting little easter eggs if they know where to look.

 

IO9 has a great article up that covers a bunch of different moments from the montage that are great, but to me the biggest suprise was the above scene of the original Nite Owl (aka Hollis Mason) as he dishes out fisty-punchy punishment to a common masked thug while getting his picture taken.  I totally didn't catch this when I went and saw the film the first time, but check out those posters in the background on the righthand side of the image.  Look familiar?  Those are posters of the cover of the first appearance of Batman and Robin adorning that wall.

 

But look at the rest of the scene itself.  This looks an awful lot like a famous moment we've seen many times before in films and especially in comics.  A dark alley, a smalltime hoodlum with a gun, a wealthy and well dressed couple exiting an Opera through a back door that leads out to a dark alley.  Sound familiar yet?  It should, it's the scene in which Bruce Wayne's parents Thomas and Martha are robbed and murdered before his eyes.

 

So just who is Nite Owl punching here?  Notice the wealthy and well dressed couple on the left that are exiting what appears to be the back door to an opera house, with the playbill still in the man's hand?  And according to the article on IO9, the playbill he's holding says "Die Fledermaus" on it, which means "The Bat".

 

Given all of this detail, I think we can assume here that Zack Snyder has made a little nod here to everyone's favorite caped crusader and has had Nite Owl save the Wayne family on that dark night when a Dark Knight was to have been born. 

 

I guess that explains why there's no Batman then in the world of the Watchmen.  Bruce's parents were never killed, and he probably grew up to be a lazy playboy who spends most of his time playing golf or hanging out on his private yacht with supermodels.