# When did Batman kill?..EVER?!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-batman-kill-ever/328104>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [October 27, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-batman-kill-ever/328104 "2005-10-27T02:36:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2005, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-batman-kill-ever/328104/41 "2005-10-28T04:44:27Z")

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> [@astro](#):
>
> Here
> 
> [Batkill1](http://home.comcast.net/~cpeek001/batkill2.jpg)
> 
> [Batkill2](http://home.comcast.net/~cpeek001/batkill1.jpg)

Geez, they’ve sure come a long way with dialogue over the decades, haven’t they?

“They’ve killed each other as I hoped they would. They are now dead! Two still live. They’re on the trucks.”

Sounds like a scene in a text adventure.

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**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2005, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-batman-kill-ever/328104/42 "2005-10-28T07:12:56Z")

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> [@Number](#):
>
> I have the page right in front of me and I can’t tell one way or the other. In one frame Batman has the huge gun pointed and fires a single shot - BRAKKK. In the next frame we see the thug stunned, with his mouth open in an “o”. There’s a splashy kind of design on the wall behind him which could be a blood splatter but could also be some other stain – it’s a very messy apartment. The top half of the frame is shaded so you can’t distinguish the colors. There’s also a small black smudge on the wall above the thug’s shoulder. It could be a bullet hole or, again, just schmutz.

You might be right; I just looked at the scene again, and I realize I confabulated Bats’ gunplay with the Big Yellow Mutant blowing away the Scrawny Blue one.

Still, rather ambiguous in the art there…

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**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-batman-kill-ever/328104/43 "2005-10-28T14:50:14Z")

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> [@Ranchoth](#):
>
> Geez, they’ve sure come a long way with dialogue over the decades, haven’t they?
> 
> “They’ve killed each other as I hoped they would. They are now dead! Two still live. They’re on the trucks.”
> 
> Sounds like a scene in a text adventure.

I have a reprint of that story. It was the First encounter with Profesor Hugo Strange. Even in this one he laments having to kill but “this time it is necessary”  
There is a third batkill in that story where he takes on another giant monster on top of the Empire State building… (You can see where that went)

He also Offed the Joker in one of their first encounters. He flipped him into a bottomless pit.

I haven’t read much Batman since Crisis but I understand his character has changed a fair bit since the eighties. More of a bad ass less of a detective. Is this true?

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