See, that’s a good point about Batman’s brutality. He may not deliberately kill (any more) but he hands out some really vicious beatings.
Figure, in his typical encounters with petty criminals and supervillain henchmen, he’s going against armed opponents, quite often more than one at a time. So we see him take them down with martial arts, batarangs, etc. The thing is, he has to take each one down and keep him down quickly. That means each one must be attacked with maximum brutality in order to do as much incapacitating damage as possible in the least amount of time. The chump he doesn’t maim is the one who will backshoot him while he is dealing with the next one, and Batman knows this.
All those guys he knocked out over the years? Those were all concussions. Serious ones. Brain damage was inevitable, the only question was how much resulted. There were those who would never quite be the same afterward and (probably) those who died later. Blows to the head are very, very risky. We need not go into all the broken jaws, broken teeth, shattered eye sockets, etc. You don’t deliever crushing kicks and punches to a person’s face without doing that kind of damage…and remember Batsy wears reinforced boots and gloves. He needn’t hold back for fear of hurting himself.
Guano Boy cannot but have fractured numerous badguy spines over the years, with all the kicks, throws, knife hand blows, etc. Also tossing guys off rooftops, swinging on ropes and slamming into them feet first, and other Bat Tricks. Wonder how many mooks he permanently paralyzed? Does Wayne Enterprises pay for the care of all the paraplegics and quadraplegics he’s created?
He does love his chemical weapons, too. “Choking gas” in the early days, followed by various others that were friendlier sounding. How many small fry do you suppose he permanently blinded? How many had lifelong respiratory damage? How many just plain died? Those kinds of weapons are called “less lethal” IRL precisely because they are life threateningly dangerous and unpredictable in their results.
How many have stiff arms or walk with a limp? Many of those fancy martial arts moves destroy joints, and joints don’t heal very well at all.
Now that I think about it, Bats was actually a BIGGER psycho back when he laughingly did all this while trading quips with Robin. Who else but a psycho could be so lighthearted about it?
But-but-but they were BAD guys!
+1
You know, on re-reading this post, I have to wonder: Even if Batman won’t knock off The Joker, why hasn’t some Alphabet Agency that handles wet work done it? It isn’t like he’s hiding in the mountains of Pakistan or anything. He’s almost always in or near Gotham City, often right there in Arkham Asylum. It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate or high tech either. A bullet (or a whole magazine) through the skull and no more Mr. J.
Joker, for a reason not mentioned - If crime were to stop in Gotham, crazy violent Batman would stop beating the crap out of people. By contrast, nothing will ever stop the Joker.
Bat’s crazier. Who else in their right mind would think that they could save the world from itself? :dubious:
Actually – as per DKR – if Batman ever quit, the Joker would quietly shuffle around in a mental hospital without ever so much as breaking into a broad grin, just watching TV and taking it easy until and unless the big guy came out of retirement.
Joker. Batman is, certainly, obsessive, often lacking in empathy, arrogant, a loner, and generally pretty mentally damaged, but if you took out the “leaping around rooftops” bit, then all of those things aren’t to the extent that a real person would be locked up, and within the DC universe the whole superheroing front is a lot less of an irrational choice. Too, he has some amount of self-awareness of his nutjobbery; he understands that he’s pretty crazy himself, he’s taken steps, at times, to ensure he doesn’t go off the deep end himself, including his “no guns, no killing” rule; and he’s able to play the part of Bruce Wayne, a normal and gregarious person, with apparent complete success. He does appear at least to understand normality, even if he doesn’t have it. The Joker does have some self-awareness at times, but often not. He too is capable of playing a “normal” role at times, but even then it’s not certain whether that’s his choice. He does have empathy, because he clearly understands Batman as well as the public at large; he just doesn’t often care about that. And i’d say that last piece is probably the most damning bit that makes Joker the kookiest. When Batman loses, he’s annoyed, he’s upset, he’s angry, he vows to do better, he angsts. In short, he reacts as a person would. When Joker loses, sometimes he cares, sometimes he doesn’t. He does have up and down periods, but you can’t necessarily link them to outside causes.
Sure he would. That’s what he wants you to think. heh. hehe hehehe Ha He HA ha HA HAHAHAHAHAHHHAAHAHA
I haven’t read superhero comics in years, but I’ve been having some fun with the graphic novel section of my local public library. For the most part, I’ve been enjoying the Superman and Batman story collections with stories I remember from my childhood in the 1960s. But curiosity has got the better of me, and I’ve been exploring the later stories as well.
In terms of relatively recent Batman stories, I’ve so far made my way through various books but am really enjoying Batman: No Man’s Land. Holy vendetta, Batman! This rivalry is nothing like I remember.* My reading of the more recent Batman stories has been a small sample, but compared to what I remember from my childhood, I can see that Batman is crazy, but Joker is downright psychopathic. In response to the OP, I’d have to say Joker is the crazier one.
- And when did Penguin become such a cultured businessman? (Albeit one whose legitimacy is questionable.)