Joseph Chilton

Joseph Chilton

Joe "Iceman" Chill

## Biography

Joseph Chilton was born to Maxine and Jake Chilton. Maxine was a housekeeper who briefly worked for the Kane Family, while Jake was a taxi driver. Jake was a World War Two veteran and was afflicted with horrible PTSD, leading to immense struggles with substance abuse that led him to take his own life. Joseph walked in on his father hanging from a noose in their kitchen.

Without his father’s source of income, Maxine and Joseph struggled. As such, Joseph fell in to be a crook in Sal Maroni’s branch of the Cosa Nostra when he was only twelve years old. Unbeknownst to him, his mother began turning tricks to the upper class of Gotham - and also blackmailing said individuals. When Joseph was fourteen, his mother went missing and was never found.

As a result, Joseph was out on the streets. He never finished high school and ended up couch surfing for most of his young life, where he faced his own share of substance problems. He became a well-liked bagman on Maroni’s squad, where he was nicknamed “Iceman” due to his ability to stay cool in all situations. He was also known for always avoiding violence, but still carrying a gun for intimidation.

Joe started sleeping with Marcia Caspian, the daughter of the owner of a steakhouse that Joe had shook down. After an affair, Marcia wound up pregnant, so the two had a shotgun wedding. To put it lightly, their marriage was very unhappy. They had three kids together, Julian, Rachel, and Benjamin.

Joe’s job with the Cosa Nostra was struggling to feed that many mouths, so Joe begged Maroni for a raise - but Maroni didn’t think he was doing a good enough job to deserve it. So, Joe became a part-time delivery driver to help bring in some more income. While Joe was generally a bad father and a bad husband, he would often forego meals for himself in favor of the children.

On April 26th, 1981, after getting off of work, he came home and got in a spat with Marcia over money. When the fight turned physical, Joe retreated into the night with a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey. While having a smoke outside the Monarch Theater, Gotham descended into chaos around him as Arthur Fleck inspired the city’s low lives to sport red masks and attack Gotham’s elite.

In the midst of all the chaos, he noticed a wealthy looking family retreating down Park Row to get to their car. Joe picked up a discarded red mask and followed them. He demanded money and the pearls from the woman's necklace. While they were trying to comply, a car exploded in the distance, spooking Joe, and causing him to pull the trigger on his gun, killing the woman instantly. When her husband tried to intervene, he shot him and ran off into the night.

When he got home, he learned that the couple he shot were Thomas and Martha Wayne, and learned that he had left their son, Bruce, an orphan. Chilton decided to leave his wife and retreated into his guilt. He started falling hard into drugs, and was recruited into Fleck’s new Red Hood Gang, where they fueled his addiction.

However, he talked to the wrong guy, who turned out to be a police informant named Lunkhead, who told Detective Jim Gordon everything and wound himself up in Blackgate Penitentiary. Joe struggled in prison. Being sober was hard on him and led him to pick fights with anyone and everyone. Eventually, Joe settled into his life sentence and was willing to talk to his assigned psychiatrist.

As Gotham’s prisons had become overcrowded due to Batman’s appearance, Joe was let out for “good behavior”. But, he struggled to find a job. Maroni was barely relevant anymore, and the Red Hood Gang shut him out completely. Joe became a truck driver, wandering in and out of Gotham each week. He tried to contact his kids, but nobody wanted anything to do with him, and refused to help their estranged father.

He eventually found a place in the Order of St Dumas, where he became a delivery driver for them and briefly allied with one Matches Malone. To Malone he confessed to killing the Waynes, which prompted Malone to reveal himself as Bruce Wayne and subsequently Batman. When Chilton ran to tell someone of this discovery, other members of the gang didn’t hear him out, and ended up stabbing and killing the man after discovering he created Batman.

Joseph’s last moments were spent begging Matches Malone to tell his kids that he was sorry.