Has batman ever killed anyone?
I believe he has but my friend claims he hasnt.
I KNOW he has… can anyone give me specifics of when this happened?
Also with a cite if possible?
Thanks
I can’t give you a specific cite, but I read he killed people during some of the earliest stories. He machine gun’d people, if I recall. I read about it here a few months back so maybe I can dig it up for you.
A previous discussion on that subject.
The short version: in his earliest appearances, the first oh…12 or so (Detective #27-Detective #38) he, on occasion, was drawn carrying a handgun, and IIRC, he shot someone once (twice?) and (IIRC) staked a vampire (and let a few more fall to their deaths). I counted once but no longer remember the exact number, but, even including the “let them fall to their deaths when he coulda saved them”, it was less than 5 people. Once Robin appeared (Detective #38?) all killing stopped for good.
Fenris
Taking Fenris’ range of Detective #27- (first appearance of Robin), and discounting (human) deaths that Batman could have prevented but did not directly cause:
Detective #27 - punches a man, sending him falling into a tank of acid
Detective #28 - kicks a criminal, sending him falling off a roof
Detective #30 - snaps a criminal’s neck
Detective #33 - throws knock-out gas at a pilot, causing him to crash and die
Detective #35 - knocks a criminal out of a window, who falls to his death
Detective #37 - punches a man, causing him to fall on his own sword
Of course, none of these are in continuity. I think it’s fair to say that the current Batman has never killed anyone.
Nitpick: There was one or two examples more of his letting people fall of buildings, as I recall, one of which Robin took part in. We are not talking about a total whitewashing here, but a gradual decline from the Shadow’s (And his contemporary’s) method of gunning mobsters down.
I dont have any cites but, In Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns IIRC he kills a handfull of people. Its been years since I’ve read it though.
Frank Miller’s Batman is (thankfully) not canon.
I wish it was canon. However, does the line “Rubber bullets, honest.” ring a bell?
He’s probably killed a few vampires and sentient A.I.s, in current comic continuity. (I’ve seen him kill both in a couple of different animated shows.) Which, although not being “human,” I wouldn’t go so far as saying weren’t “people.”
I know this is a bit of a hijack, but I’m curious about this.
I collected comics as a child, so maybe my recollection is off, but I was unaware of any official canon. How is it determined?
Just last night, on Cartoon Network, I saw him kill Dracula.
A delicate balance between the vision of the current writer and editor of a series mixed with huge globs of fanwankery.
Canon is what fits in continuity; continuity changes monthly.
The Tim Burton Batman gleefully machine guns down the Joker’s henchmen, but then tries to save the Joker’s life…
He was conflicted.
DrFidelius’s snark aside… 
DC Comics is pretty decent about maintaining a ‘continuity’. When they want to change something of significance in the continuity, they tend to turn it into an epic crossover miniseries. As opposed to Marvel, where they call the days they change continuity ‘Wednesday.’
The last major continuity upheaval was Zero Hour, circa 1994-1995. All subsequent Batman stories not labelled as ‘Elseworlds’ should be in continuity. However, Batman wasn’t shaken up much by Zero Hour, and most of his stories between Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour (1985-1994) should also still be in continuity.
Yes, and isn’t there a scene where he straps explosives onto some guy and pushes him into a manhole? True, the guy was much bigger than Batman and even a roundhouse didn’t do anything to him, but still.
I’d agree, with the caveat that the fans are the ultimate determiners of what’s continuity and what isn’t.
If the writer/editor want to say that the Mopee origin of Flash is cannon (fer instance), if the fans don’t accept it, it’ll just change back.
As an example, who all remembers the (dreadful) Zatanna mini-series wherein Zatanna decides that speaking backwards is demeaning to her as a womyn and she needs to reinforce her grrrl-power by wearing ragged goth clothes, getting an attitude and reinforcing her womynhood/grrrrrrrrpower by doing her magyck by holding onto a big, long, hard staff…with a knob on the end ('cause that symbology is so grrrrl-empowering). The fans pretty much universally loathed it, and after the mini series came out, it showed up in two issues of Suicide Squad and then was never mentioned again…wasn’t retconned, wasn’t changed, it was just completely ignored. (And hooray for the fans on this one! 
)
No amout of writer/editorial effort can make something stick if the fans really, really hate it.
Except for the (IMO bad) retcon that Batman never caught Joe Chill, and thus every crook he captures is/represents his parent’s killer. IMO this damages the character by making his focus vengance on the guilty rather than protection of the innocent.
Eh… it’s not something that you see day to day in the Batbooks, and I wonder why they even bothered to do it.
Didn’t Batman brick the KGBeast up behind a wall and leave him to die?