Bruce Wayne, the vigilante know as Batman, is a stone cold killer. Get over it. (Wel

The BBQ Pit
1

I was veiwing a number of discussion over the 1990s batman movie and the up-coming one. In them, a large number of people were repeating the words, “Batman doesn’t use guns”, and “Batman doesn’t kill.” Bullcrap.

Why DC comics should have The Joker Killed

Skipping all the incessant “heroes don’t kill, Batman doesn’t kill” etc.
arguments, he has in the past. He has throw man off roffs, strangled them with the batrope and shot men with guns. A discusion was made for him not to kill any longer, upon which, Robin started to kill thugs. Why? Because the story called for it.

In Batman issue one.

Batman has a second encounter with Professor Hugo Strange, who has used a special glandular growth formula to transform inmates from a local insane asylum into feral, 10-foot-tall “man monsters.” Batman is captured by Strange and his men and injected with the monster serum, but he manages to concoct an antidote in time to save himself. He subsequently kills a number of Strange’s henchmen and “man monsters ” with machine-gun fire from the Batplane, hangs another monster with the bat-rope, and uses tear gas pellets to cause the last monster to fall to his death from a downtown skyscraper. BF/BK/JR
Notes: This story was the first appearance of a fixed-wing Batplane, replacing the previous autogyro (and the only time in the comics the Batplane was armed with a machine gun!). The confrontation between Batman and the final monster atop the skyscraper was clearly based on the final scenes of RKO’s 1933 film King Kong. The violence of this story prompted an edict from new Batman editor Whitney Ellsworth (who began his tenure with this issue, replacing original Batman editor Vin Sullivan) that Batman should never kill his opponents.

I was fine with that. However, what I mind is that his fan boys pretend he never has in the past.

The comics I read features a man who solved crimes, illegaly took down criminals and palled around with Superman, all the while never admitting that he had killed thugs in his past. The never admitting part being that in was none the less true.

Someone might, and has said "Surely the whole point of heroes is that they do heroic things. Killing people is not heroic. " That kind of mentality degrades any number of pre-superhero works of fiction that had the hero killing villains. Why, any child who plays cowboy know that the hero shoots the bad guy. This was reflected in the Michael Keaton Batman movie.

He was inspired by heros like the Shadow, and when the Shadow fought his enemies, he didn’t use trick gun shoots to take down the chandelear on top of thugs, he shot them. So the early Batman shot villians as well.

What would be my solution? Divide the comic series into a line for all ages, and a line for adults. If you want to, the mathure reads column can be taking place in that “Earth-Two” nonesense, but set in a way that it is identical to modern times, kinda like how the current spider girl comic takes place in a future that looks just like the current day.

P.s. Thanks to
The Golden Age Batman Chronology for reference.

p.s.s. Yes, I know it is just a work of fiction, and I expect to get flamed all over this thread, but I had to get this out in print, or I would explode.

P.s. Literary heros who have killed, partial list,
Beowulf, King Arthur, Cyrano de Bergerac, too many to count.

2

Now imagine what your life would be like if you used all that energy for something that matters.

3

Oh, I do, I do. My earth-moon teleporter is almost complete.

4

What good can come from teleporting the earth to the moons orbit?

5

Heh heh heh! You’ll see. You will all see. cackle

6

While I agree that the “No killing” rule is the worst part about the Gotham universe, and the PG rating slapped on everything I read is the second worst part, dude, get the fuck over it. DC’s comics, DC’s rules.

Without launching into a discussion of vigilantism, ethics, and the judicial system, I’ll just say I’ve never, in reading 1980s and 1990s comics, gotten the impression that Batman hasn’t killed anyone.

Maybe I’m just not in touch with my inner fanboy…

7

Did you misspell, or is someone actually agreeing with me. My head a splode.

8

As long as you’re seperating the comics from the fans, I guess? :cool: I thought by your advocating mature and kiddy comics that you wanted to darken them up a bit. Which…I wouldn’t mind if Batman killed again, but I’m not going to expend energy lobbying.

And welcome to the boards!

9

Next you’ll be telling us that the people in Star Wars aren’t human!

10

The current Batman has never killed in continuity.

This statement refers to the post-Crisis Earth 1.5 Batman. Not valid for previous Batmen, offer void in Utah.

11

Further, it is an important character point that the current Batman will not kill, and will not tolerate such behavior from his subordinates. He also doesn’t use guns except under the most unique of circumstances.

It’s called a retcon. And is inevitable for a 60 year old character.

Can a heroic character kill? Absolutely! But Batman doesn’t, and hasn’t for a very, very long time. Also, if Batman killed, then he’d burn through his rogues gallery in about a week, and the Joker is too cool to waste.

12

Huh! I could say I don’t like this other earth thing for pages on end, but instead I will just state my point like a four-year old. Batman is Batman. I would like to Retcon that Retcon. Grumble, Grumble, Grumble.

What are you looking at me like for? Seriously, I would love to. What did you think, that I meant it like, “That lousy son of a retcon”

No, what I mean is that after looking at the different explanations on multiple web pages of the “differences” between Earths, I noticed that it says that many events happened the exact same ways in many of the early stories of many superheroes. So why not have the current Batman reflect on the days he used to shoot thugs, and what made him change his ways? I would write a fanfiction of it, if I was any good at writing character descriptions.

13

This coming from someone with 8,000 + posts. :wink:

14

Slight quibble. According to the dictionary, retcon enforces continuity, rather than alters it. If Batman’s history post-Crisis is different than it is pre-Crisis, wouldn’t that be a reset?

Then again, this dictionary gives a Crisis-unique definition, so maybe it’s been co-opted for the fandom to mean the opposite of its original definition.

Ergh.

I’m sure there’s some out there. Start with FanFiction.net and fiddle with the Genre, Rating, and Character settings.

15

But why in the Pit?

Was this subject not considered suitable for CS?

Seriously, when I saw your thread title, I was afraid Adam West had been booked for running over a pedestrian or something.

16

Because no matter what the writers came up with, it wouldn’t be as psychologically convincing a motivation as “A gun killed my parents. I hate guns.”

Plus, if that didn’t turn him against them, it’d be hard to justify later events doing so.

17

Guns and killing are seperate acts. Batman will not kill. Even with his bare hands. That goes far beyond guns. You’re oversimplfying one very fucked-up dude, and yes, it’s all about his parents, but it’s not an object fetish.

18

Why is having Batman’s “no killing” rule change over time any more egregious than, say, Superman’s power levels changing over time?

Why, I remember when ol’ Supes could barely leap over a tall building, much less fly to space and juggle planets…

19

Batman has considered killing, in continuity. He hasn’t considered using a pistol.

Also, guns aren’t an ‘act’. They’re objects.

He doesn’t kill because of moral objections. He loathes guns because of what happened to his parents, and has a true psychological issue with them.

20

In my haste to make a point sppecifically about Batman, I missed this.
I really hope DC (and Marvel, and other mainstream publishers) continues to keep the vast majority of their superhero line PG rated. Because superheroes are for kids.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been “mature” superhero stuff written, some of it very high quality, or that adults are prohibited form enjoying “juvenile” literature, but the very notion of grown men solving the world’s problems by dressing up funny and using nonsensical powers is an absurd fantasy. It’s meant for kids, and should stay that way. That means we shouldn’t be too self-referential, and yes, we have to walk on eggshells around mature subject matters like sex or graphic violence, but what we do get will be a rip-roaring good time.

Thus, Batman does not kill, because as grim as he his, making him a killer too would push him over into psychopath territory, and we can’t make a book about a psychopath and sell it to kids.

There’s room for mature stuff, in other comic genres, and even the occasional exception to the rule. But superheroes are kid’s stuff and should remain so.