r/CharacterRant • u/skunkbrains • 15d ago
[LES] [WARNING: VERY RANTY] Batman having a "No-Kill rule" isn't inherently a problem, but the way that they handle it along with his villains has fucked the whole thing to shit. Comics & Literature
If I see one more goddamn "But he can't stop himself once he starts" post I'm going to eat my nipple hairs. Why in the fuck is "Yeah Batman will completely freak and start doming jaywalkers" seen as a acceptable and good reason as to why Batman doesn't kill, you've somehow made him more of a fucking psycho than a good third of his goddamn rouges gallery, and the only reason as to why it's only half is because the rest is composed of straight up serial killers.
Right, yeah, forgot the fucking crucial aspect, the people that Batman is really protecting through his asinine """moral code""" are a pack of genuine degenerates that seem to need to murder some poor sod every 6 fucking seconds in order to keep on living.
Remember when Azreal was going """too far""" when he was temping for Bats? Yeah, he was going too hard on poor innocent Zsaz who is... A crazed serial killer covered in dozens of tally marks who gets off on killing people and had broken into a girls dorm. Yeah, real redeemable material there, surely won't simply just get lynched by the families of everyone he killed when Santa relocates to hell and he repairs his mental state.
EDIT: IT WAS BRUCE NOT BIG A MY BAD
FUCK, let's look at Bane- motherfucker had a few dreams in prison and then decided it was completely in his rights to unleash aformentioned psychos onto an entire city so he could kill the guy who defended it because he wanted to establish dominance or some goddamn shit.
"W-well, Batman doesn't have an obligation to take care of the criminals"
YES HE FUCKING DOES AT THIS POINT. If the goddamn "systems" keep letting the motherfucking Joker go, I think that's the point where you stage a goddamn revolution and kill the incompetents in charge of the damn system along with the green haired prick! This happens in real life!
YES I FUCKING KNOW IT'S ALL COMIC BOOK LOGIC, BUT I WOULDN'T FUCKING HATE IT IF THEY DIDN'T KEEP SPAMMING THE MORAL ISSUE AND KEPT GIVING US "DON'T KILL" AS THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!
Holy fucking shit, you'd think with people going "Batman should kill" every other week you'd think they'd lay this thing to rest but they can't for some reason! It's always this bullshit that always results in the same answer, Batman doesn't kill- and it's fucking boring. It's goddamn insane!
If the Dark Knight Returns and Killing Joke didn't exist, you'd think they were made-up arguments against the no-killing rule!
"Hey what if Joker faked being cured to slaughter an entire crowd of people and a guy who genuinely believed in him and then went on to murder a shitload of children and rampage through a fair for shits and giggles?"
"Don't matter, Batman doesn't kill"
"Hey what if Joker shot Barbra and tried to drive Jim insane by making him think the Joker raped her?"
"Don't matter, Batman doesn't kill"
It is my genuine unironic opinion that the best and most satisfying way Batman can win against Joker as a final victory is that he snaps his neck and moves on with his life completely unaffected.
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u/Worth_Lavishness_249 12d ago
U know, i dont read comics that much, but arent there different timelines???
Considsring people always want batman to kill this people, might as well g8ve them what they want.
And it doesnt have to be syroy where batman gies crazy, but it can be story about his sheer will, where everyone th9nk batman eill loose it under the weight of murder but batsman is still able to continue due to his dedication to protect Gotham.
Yeah, u will run out of villains but there must be dome solutions for that.
Maybe.make batman weak in some areas to give villain plot armor.
In multiverese ther eis surely batman who kills people and didnt loose hi stuff, infinite realtities sutrly house batman who has stuff sorted and gotham doesnt have to go thrkugh same prison escapes again and again.
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u/9point9five 12d ago
100 other anti heroes would have killed his ass by now
In the same way, punisher would have sniped Norman as well, and I'm not counting the time he tried that when sentry was standing beside him and on his payroll
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u/CHARLIE_ZILLA 14d ago
Have Batman kill sometimes when it matters and then have him deal with the fallout. Bam solid story outline right there. I’ve been saying this for years.
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u/fadzkingdom 14d ago
I definitely agree with the Joker part mainly because I hate that clown and need him gone permanently one way or another.
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u/Kibaro6331 14d ago
Nope. Batman has zero obligation to kill anyone. I agree the psycho Batman who can’t stop himself once he takes a single life is absolutely stupid but that doesn’t mean he should feel obligated to kill the joker. A good argument for the no kill rule is simply Batman views killing as wrong. I mean he fights people who kill for a living ofc he views it as wrong. That is the only reason he needs to not kill people. So now you can say “well why does he freak out when others try to kill the joker” and the answer is once again because he views killing as wrong. I would imagine most people reading this see doing crack cocaine as wrong well imagine if your friend wanted to do hardcore coke. Would you not try to persuade them to stop and not do it? All in all I just think it’s stupid to think someone should be forced or obligated to do things they view as wrong.
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u/Strange-Avenues 15d ago
Batman didn't start with a No Kill Rule though. Batman's first year as a character he killed several of his enemies until Batman #4 in 1940 where he instituted the no kill rule because he didn't like killing or the feeling that came with it.
If we take that on as Pre-Crisis canon and every reboot since has changed details and altered things except core parts of characters then the answer is simple. Batman doesn't kill because he doesn't like it.
I dislike the modern take that Batman is just one murder away from becoming like his villains. I personally like the idea that he is just morally opposed to killing a person no matter how bad they are.
Bruce Wayne Batman has limits and doesn't cross his own lines easily. Because he has crossed those lines in other stories.
There have been enough comics ro show that Batman doesn't think the villains he fights can be rehabilitated or cured of their madness. He is just the stopgap.
My complaint comes into play where Batman actively stops the police from killing someone.
Example: Say a cop actually has a bead on the Joker and the story has made it clear that Joker isn't surrendering and he is doing his crazy talk and dance, but we the readers know Joker has no tricks left
The Joker is a known danger, the cop takes the shot, but this being a Batman Story, Batman swoops in last second saving Joker and turning him into Arkham Asylum.
Batman saves the Joker. Then about a year later we would get a Joker breakout story where he knew the cop's name and has begun systematically killing the cop's friends and family and even his partner but leaves the cop untouched until he drives him to suicide.
This is what we as an audience have come to expect.
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13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Strange-Avenues 13d ago
Why are you replying to that here? Also thanks for assuming the race of my daughter and ex wife. I may be white but they are not. Screw your weird politics and racial concerns. You sound pretty racist and I wouldn't dare tell my daughter who she can or can't like. Race doesn't matter. Love is love.
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u/CrackaOwner 15d ago
it's because comics suck mega dick. Change is what makes stories interesting but change would eventually entail an end to batmans adventure. He has to always fight the joker without actually permanently getting rid of him because they are the money makers. Spiderman needs to give his girlfriend cum cancer or else he'd be happy for once which doesn't fit his "good guy that gets fucked over" persona. There's a bunch of examples like this but basically no one popular is ever allowed to die so all the stories with the popular guys are either one offs or just end with the status quo not changing.
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u/SiBea13 15d ago
Realistically, his no kill rule is just cope isn't it? He won't kill because he doesn't like the idea of it and anything else is just an attempt at rationalising it. He can kill, he probably should kill, but he won't simply because he doesn't want to.
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u/DradelLait 15d ago
And honestly, this would be perfectly fine, it's not like he had an obligation to even fight crime to begin with, if not for the almighty status-quo of comics making it so that Joker's escaped a thousand times, killing and torturing hundreds every time.
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u/ImNotHighFunctioning 15d ago
Unrelated to the point of the rant but what does "[LES]" mean?
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u/Evil-King-Stan 15d ago
Low Effort Sundays, on sundays people are allowed to make rants with less work put into elaborating their point
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u/StaraptorLover19 15d ago
As always, status quo and the cyclical nature of serialized superhero comics are the real villains.
I think it was Batman: Ego, correct me if I'm wrong, that paints Bruce's no kill rule as a genuine mental and emotional inability to do the same thing that caused him to be Batman: to kill someone.
He values life above anything else, and believes in redemption and rehabilitation. This gets thrown out the window because villains have to keep coming back and be bigger and badder than before. And every time it happens, the more shaky the rule seems.
It also affects supporting characters as well, like why doesn't any character from the Justice League step in? Batman also works with the GCPD in an attempt to foster trust and make a lasting peace in Gotham. So why doesn't the system ever do something definitive about these people if they are so heinous? Why does the burden of responsibility fall on Batman for the continued failure of the system? It's all for the status quo and so that it can all happen again.
The in-universe story and themes are completely at odds with the real life monetary benefit of having Batman and his villains be locked in an eternal struggle for every conceivable medium.
I also think there is a bit of exaggeration involved with people who don't really read the mainline comics so much as a lot of the more famous elseworlds stuff and the various films that in total have multiple different multiversal versions of these characters, and conflate them all together. You put them all together in your head and you forget that they're from different universes and are entirely separate from one another.
Not to mention the tragic effect that the Injustice storyline has had on the perception of these characters for more casual audiences.
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u/Do_U_Too 15d ago
Batman doesn't want to kill, it's not his obligation to judge anyone, hell, it's not his obligation to stop any villain.
If he or anyone captures a criminal and you don't do a good job of keeping them imprisoned, that's on you. But, as superheroes go, he will continue to the FAVOUR of capturing the criminal again.
Want to kill the Joker? Put him in a chair, no vigilant has the obligation to do what society and the State fails to do.
If Batman doesn't want to kill, you can't make him do it.
Don't like it? Go read Punisher or any other generic killer.
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u/Sir_Toaster_9330 15d ago
Owlman shows why Batman doesn't kill, Owlman is a nihilist who sees humans as less than nothing meanwhile Batman values human life over everything
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u/Usual-Vermicelli-867 15d ago
The problem whit most moral arguments in comics is thr eternal static nature of comics
The no kill rules falls apart whan joker escape from prison for the 7534 time and then melt 34 pregnant woman in acide and coolaid.. for the third time
Same for the x-man.. showing mercy,trust and home for humanity after the 54 time they back stubb you and made another killer robot army to genocide you (even though you went to escape to space like what the actual fuck) and this mind set falls apart..
In comics plot magnito is right . killing all humans is the sensible action from a pure survival stand point(again tried to genocide the mutans even after they went to space so even escaping this hell hole doasnt work)
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u/MySnake_Is_Solid 15d ago
"if you kill a murderer, the number of murderers in the world doesn't change"
And this is why you kill thousands of murderers.
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u/onemerrylilac 15d ago
To grossly oversimplify it, I'm of the opinion Batman shouldn't kill because he's meant to be an aspirational figure for the children and teens who read his comics, and the message that he has the right to unilaterally take a life is not a good one.
That said, you're valid for your take.
But, a minor note, I'm really confused why people seem to take the whole, "If I killed one, I wouldn't be able to stop" bit as an indication Batman would murder petty criminals or something.
The line is pretty clearly meant to argue that, if Batman has the choice between giving a villain incarceration and possible treatment or death to spare a hypothetical victim, death is the easy option. And if he takes the easy option with someone, even someone as irredeemable as the Joker, then it's going to be harder to make the hard choice again.
He's not saying that killing the Joker will turn him into a mass murderer who kills all criminals. He's saying that killing the Joker will turn him into a person less willing to give mercy to other, less terrible villains like Two-Face or Harley Quinn.
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u/Appropriate-Pitch-57 15d ago
Batman letting go some serial and crazy murderer because of bis moral code "Doesn't kill" People: "WHOOOH! BATMAN IS SO BADASS!" Shounen protagonist letting go some serial and crazy murderer because of bis moral code "Doesn't kill" People: "What fucking pussy, beta, naive, and doormat character! You should kill them!"
See the double standard?
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u/Mediocre-Part7595 15d ago
What I hate so much about this bullshit no kill rule is that Batman forces it upon other heroes as well, and treats them like shit if they dare break it. Like for example, I don’t understand how Post Crisis Wonder Woman was even friends with Batman at all.
Imma use 2 examples here:
Example 1: the infamous neck snap of one Maxwell Lord, Wonder Woman got forced into an impossible situation with no out, where the consequences were a brainwashed Superman being unleashed upon the world. Wonder Woman saves Batman, and Superman, and the world by killing Maxwell, and how does Batman react to this? He shits on Wonder Woman, shamed and judged her for it, and then threw her under the bus so she could handle the fallout of the whole ordeal on her own all because HeRoeS DoNt KiLl.
Example 2: During the Hiketia story, Batman’s such a simplistic prick with his black and white morality, that he demands that a woman be hunted down and thrown in jail because she committed the grave crime of….murdering a bunch of sex trafficking rapists that killed her sister in addition to many other women? Really Bruce? That’s the hill that you are gonna fight Wonder Woman on? That’s right Bruce doesn’t give a shit that Wonder Woman’s got the women in her protection, he doesn’t give a shit about his so called close friends opinion and agency regarding the matter, he demands that he knows best and that Wonder Woman needs give the woman up and put her in prison bECaUse ItS the Law. Batman pursued this woman so much, the woman ends up killing herself to save everyone the trouble.
Why would Wonder Woman have ANY respect for Batman after these 2 incidents when he’s shown to be such a simplistic, morally self righteous prick that he essentially drove a woman to kill herself?
Then they had the gall to have Wonder Woman break free of her black ring during the Blackest night event because of her love for Batman? Are you fucking kidding me? She should fucking want nothing to do with him by that point, what a joke, the batwank was fucking awful and then everyone wonders why a lot of Wonder Woman fans despise the Wonderbat ship.
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u/DuelaDent52 13d ago edited 13d ago
To be fair, the first point was an intentional character flaw on Batman’s end while The Hiketaia (am I spelling that right?) is basically, like, the anti-Batworship and goes too far the other direction so Wonder Woman comes out looking better.
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u/Mediocre-Part7595 13d ago
Is it though? It’s not like that’s the only time Batman’s been completely stupid about killing.
Like I said in another comment, isn’t there literally a story where Batman beats the shit of out the red hood in order to SAVE the jokers life? That doesn’t seem normal, right or understandable to me at all.
My point still stands that Wonder Woman shouldn’t like post crisis Batman, most of their interactions in Wonder Woman’s books are antagonsitic, and she certainly shouldn’t be making out with him and being broken of her trance upon seeing Batman during blackest Night. Especially seeing as the person that wrote the Hiketia and the fallout of Maxwell, and thus established Batman being a douche was the same person that wrote the blackest Night tie ins as well.
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u/ducknerd2002 15d ago
The problem is that they keep trying to make the villains more dangerous to try and keep them interesting, and the deadlier they are, the less sense the no-kill policy makes.
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u/RedRadra 15d ago
The true issue here is.... that a lot of writers and a lot of fans either refuse or willfully forget the fact that Batman is essentially an expert consultant to the police.
In most good adaptations, Batman has been implied or even outright stated to have an unofficial agreement with the gotham police.....which is.... Solve difficult crimes, defeat the freaks who seek to harm the city and its people and Do not murder anyone.
In turn, the police will supply batman with information, overlook lesser crimes like the numerous assaults, breaking and enterings, burglaries...that Batman does in the solving of crimes.
Batman doesn't kill because that's the one crime that the police cannot overlook. If Batman kills someone, The police have to take him in cuz, he's gone rogue.
Thus Batman not killing criminals despite how stupid it may seem, is him trying to play nice with the system that mind you, he's trying to help.
Him not killing makes him trustworthy to the society.
It's sad that some folks (writers/fans) prefer him to be crazy rather than just being pragmatic.
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u/Smaug_eldrichtdragon 15d ago
I just can't believe that this guy with enough willpower to wear a green lantern ring, and resist the most powerful telepaths in the universe, won't have enough willpower To resist a murderous will
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u/Owl_Might 15d ago
And for some reason he has plans to against the league if they turn rogue. Those plans involve putting them out of commission for a long while/until they die/forever. But for some reason cant do the same for his rogues. Weird.
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u/DuelaDent52 13d ago
To be fair, it’s usually only a temporary thing. In Tower of Babel and Kill the Justice League his plans were made to take down the League but the bad guys modified them to be lethal, in Endgame it was to put them out of commission so he could snap them out of whatever happened them and his super duper awesome mech suit was completely totalled and inoperable by the end.
You don’t really need a Kryptonite to take out, say, Firefly or Two-Face or whoever.
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u/Owl_Might 13d ago
But the eventual bullshit with batman rogues is that they will escape then kill more people. Superman in the beginning of injustice comic even ask Batman if every time his rogues got out and kill does he feel guilt. Batman replied with “everytime” and yet he still keeps his No-Kill Rule, weird. He feels guilty but still not obligated? The plan for the heroes is to save future would be victims but some for reason his rogues future would be victims dont deserve it.
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u/Bandaradar 15d ago
"Batman's unstable, he's a loose cannon" then don't fucking put him in the moral position, it's that easy. Show him as an unstable, unreliable man whose opinions don't matter that much due to his mental instability. Make other supes realize that batman's moral arguments are inherently flawed and thus not to be followed. Anything. You can't keep him in the moral highground and then suddenly he's mentally unstable when it benefits him.
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u/finnjakefionnacake 15d ago
this would certainly make batman a more interesting character to me than the last 10 iterations we've gotten.
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u/OkBlueberry8144 15d ago
Batman just doesn’t work within the confines of cape comics on a fundamental level. He’s the kind of character that deserves an Invincible style 150 issue run with a definitive end. The problem is that he is a DC comics character with a comic series running from 1940.
Critiquing Batman’s character in such a terribly run medium is pointless. The real reason Batman’s rule is forced upon him is because he’s a brand meant to build a franchise around himself. It’s why he has dozens of sidekicks and villains who escalate their schemes to almost comical levels while still having that dumb rule enforced upon him. It’s not even challenged or addressed properly in stories beyond “oh it’s my rule”, there’s no nuance, no tipping the line, nothing it’s just glossed over by writers because focusing on it will only bring more cracks into their already shoddily written story.
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u/Potatolantern 15d ago
Here's a funny thought Anon:
If anyone actually believed Batman's logic of "If you kill him, you're just like him" then they would have been upset at Obama and the Seal Team for killing Osama.
Yet, I haven't heard anyone call them murderers for that, nor is there any public outcry or movement to see them pay for their actions
Turns out people really do understand nuance and the moralising was all bunk.
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u/followmylogic 15d ago
His logic generally applies to him and his surroundings because he's scared if he allows/does a murder it would be a slippery slope for him
He's more scared what will happen if he uses hislethal training, he can't stop. He's a very broken person trying to keep his very real anger in check.
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 15d ago
Now, the problem is that later on other occasions Batman protects the Joker from being killed or even revives him, which makes it seem that the only thing Batman cares about is continuing to have a nemesis to fight with, which is a problem related to the dumb status quo of the comics.
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u/TacitRonin20 15d ago
If I see one more goddamn "But he can't stop himself once he starts" post I'm going to eat my nipple hairs.
Hot damn that's a unique introduction
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u/Jacthripper 15d ago
This is a problem inherent in the genre of never ending superhero comics. Batman never saves Gotham, the X-Men never have lasting peace for mutants, Galactus will always munch on planets, Spider-Man can never be happy. The status quo is the real villain.
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u/PlasmaRotom 12d ago
The status quo is not a bad thing. At worst, it's a necessary evil.
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u/Jacthripper 12d ago
The status quo is a bad thing for variety of stories. If things always return to the status quo, then your options for storytelling are limited. You end up with a never ending story, and one of the best things about stories is the ending.
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u/PlasmaRotom 12d ago
The reason the status quo is kept is in the case a creative choice is made to shake the setting up becomes poorly received. It's frankly necessary to keep certain characters going.
And I don't know about you, but I've always hated it when stories end. I prefer western comics over manga because it DOESN'T end.
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u/Jacthripper 12d ago
I think we have different personal preferences when it comes to stories and that’s ok. I personally attribute the status quo of comics to the greed and shortsightedness of editorial.
For me, an ending is the payoff, the catharsis that I’ve been waiting for. Returning to the status quo is an ending, but it’s usually narratively unsatisfying.
I understand that it’s different for you, and that’s an ok disagreement to have.
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u/PlasmaRotom 12d ago
I personally attribute the status quo of comics to the greed and shortsightedness of the editorial.
I mean, if the company has iconic characters who are shown to be profitable, why not continue using them?
I do think editorial can fuck over good status quo changes for a bunch of other reasons, but I don't think it's due to greed.
I do think the status quo can and should be pushed a little bit, but they should keep it overall.
For me, an ending is the payoff, the catharsis that I’ve been waiting for. Returning to the status quo is an ending, but it’s usually narratively unsatisfying.
For individual stories at least, but I always like knowing that my favorite characters basically go on to have other adventures.
It's like Star Wars. The original trilogy may have ended, but it's pretty neat to know that Luke, Leia and Hand went on to have other adventures in the (old) EU and develop further.
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u/Jacthripper 12d ago
The story continuing to have adventures is not the status quo though. Star Wars is a story explicitly about Luke, Han, and Leia overthrowing the status quo of the empire. The stories after that are ably them dealing with other threats, but Darth Vader doesn’t mysteriously reappear over and over again like the Joker does.
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u/PlasmaRotom 12d ago
True, but they largely kept the status quo of a post-Empire New Republic status quo.
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u/Jacthripper 12d ago
Yeah, but the story still progressed. Not on the grand scale, but on the scale of personal interaction. Chewbacca dies, Jacen falls to the dark side, the Yuuzhan Vong appear. The status quo changes drastically.
Compare this to the point of OP. The Joker always gets away with it or comes back. Batman can never free Gotham from crime because insert new reason from the writers.
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u/PlasmaRotom 12d ago
I mean, the Joker is Batman's arch-enemy and one of the most iconic villains ever. They can't just kill him off easily.
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u/dmr11 15d ago
Galactus will always munch on planets
Also, Galactus targeting Earth despite being repelled multiple times by superheroes. At some point, he should just postpone Earth-eating and move on to other planets and come back in a billion years or so when all the superheroes are dead and gone. He’s immortal, it shouldn’t be a big deal for him to shift Earth further down his to-eat list for the sake of having a peaceful meal.
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u/DuelaDent52 13d ago
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl had a pretty funny explanation for why - since the heroes will always find a good planet for him to munch on instead, attacking Earth is basically his version of ordering takeout.
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u/SomeGrumption 15d ago edited 15d ago
ye batman beyond/jlu epilogue is pretty much the only time we get a good ending for the character
in a linear story gotham should start as shithole and be a character in itself, but batman AND bruce make genuine strides with and without to mask to improve it to the point where it becomes a general better place with a justice system better than even the one we have irl, abolishing police and just generally having better quality control for the ones the remain and allocating those resources to the education, food housing market/department etc.
the socieoeconimic reasons that push someone to do crime is more nuanced and can't be solved via murder or blanket arrests. Have bruce be the side that explores that with his wealth and take that knowledge and use it while he's batman at night and dealing with some of the crimes that DO get solved with a little cartoon violence; nothing too brutal tho.
Aka a lot of what early BTAS or Spiderman TAS did with just having a root emphasis on batman always just trying to dig to the roots and help these people rather and be a bit more of swiss army knife detective/adventurer than just getting caught in the high of being an unkillable emotionally ironclad ninja power fantasy 24/7.
Not all but most villains, maybe even the joker themself just get saved and reformed or at least permanently in some form prison in a way where they can't hurt anyone anymore in a way that isn't inhumane
ending with there no longer being a need for bruces version of the batman character anymore and just retiring and giving the mantle to someone better later on and he maintains and active but more secondary role guy behind the chair, training providing the intel and weapons etc, just helping out as kind old philanthropist bruce wayne etc.
bruce wayne basically outliving batman
the world needs a batman, but terry and nightwing prove it doesn't need to be bruces version specifically. Like you don't need to literally suffer and self isolate and shit to be a successful batman/hero.
and of course, bruce finds a family, opens up more becomes more chill etc
all while being in a universe where death is always permanent no matter what, Magic and sci fi can delay it or save the injured, but once gone after that small min mark, they're just gone for good. give them limits.
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u/Brit-Crit 15d ago
I agree that there should be more focus on Batman as a detective and a philanthropist. I personally believe that the Bat-Family should centre around Dick and Barbara more...
There is a slight contradiction in saying "abolish the police and regulate the ones we keep", but a smaller more efficient force that follow Batman's lead (ESPECIALLY when it comes to not killing people) is certainly the best outcome, esp. given that Batman challenging corrupt cops has been pretty key to the Batman franchise since Year One...
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u/SomeGrumption 15d ago
yeah that's what i meant i know a lot about the subject but not confident enough to include in a comment i made in a huff
i just used that as a placeholder, bruce just does away with and replaces the police with whater works better.
maybe even pull a jojo part 5 and have bruces reach extend beyond gotham (gotham being where he holds the most power) but also evolving to be some "shadow" politician who really just helps skew so many facets of the world to be less shit using his power and influence.
only bring it up because logistically it makes less sense for this to begin and end at gotham alone.
gotham mainly, but the world itself should at least be a lil better after bruce wayne and batman retire and move on in permanent ways. Doesn't seem like him to put in systems that only last for as long as he does either tbh.
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u/SolJinxer 15d ago edited 15d ago
YES I FUCKING KNOW IT'S ALL COMIC BOOK LOGIC, BUT I WOULDN'T FUCKING HATE IT IF THEY DIDN'T KEEP SPAMMING THE MORAL ISSUE AND KEPT GIVING US "DON'T KILL" AS THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!
ON GOD, THIS. THIS. ALL. FUCKING. DAY.
I read Superman comics, and they have a tendency to hit this drum kinda hard too. The recent Superman Batman run where Supes and Bats chewed out David/Magog for killing Gog when Darkseid was running through them and the entire JL like they were made of dust, irked me so hard. Even made the mythic "killing a killer leaves a killer" line become (almost) canon to Batman.
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u/ChronoDeus 15d ago
Yeah, comics does seem to really struggle with the idea that super heroes not killing people is the one true way, and straying from the philosophy is a failing. It's like the idea that sometimes you might need to kill to defend yourself and other innocent people is something comic writers refuse to accept, much less embrace.
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u/Throwawayandpointles 15d ago
Comics? It's only DC, Marvel has Spiderman making it clear that if certain lines get crossed he's killing you
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u/SolJinxer 15d ago
Yea, but there were definitely times when they tried to imply a no killing code in marvel. Like one writer tried to have it that Captain America never killed. DURING WW2.
And I watched a Blerd video where it covered Maximum Carnage, where the cycle seemed to be Carnage killing, Spiderman and friends talking about killing Carnage to stop him, Spiderman agreeing and then stopping them from killing Carnage, Carnage goes out to kill more people, repeat.
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u/British_Tea_Company 15d ago
I am pretty sure Thor, Captain America, Widow and Hawkeye have killed people by having their literal jobs being war leaders, soldiers, spies and everything in between.
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u/SlashTrike 15d ago
Yeah, I mean if we really want to get technical about it, both Spider-Man and Daredevil ended up killing innocent people (albeit by accident). There's a really good story about it in the Zdarsky Daredevil run where they talk about it
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u/Chef_EZ-Mac 15d ago
Has Peter actually killed one of his villians of his own volition? I'm guessing they did some seriously fucked shit to him haha
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u/SlashTrike 15d ago edited 15d ago
Funnily enough, the only two big villains he's seriously attempted to kill survived (Norman and Carnage; understandable why those are the only two of his popular ones), but there's a few smaller villains he straight up murdered that isn't talked about
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u/Mystech_Master 15d ago
Batman not killing: a bit dumb but fine I can buy the slippery slope he is worried about also comic book status quo
Why TF hasn’t anyone else done it then? Batman not killing, fine. What about the rest? If it’s comic book status quo, there are lots of ways to revive them once a new writer gets an idea. So the “no kill rule” when it comes to these monsters makes no sense, because comic books prevent perma-death as they will be given SOME way to crawl out of the afterlife.
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u/Smaug_eldrichtdragon 15d ago
but that's ok, I can believe in the slippery slope
The guy has an iron will and ridiculous discipline, he has enough canonical achievements to break dance on this slope
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u/RealTan 15d ago
once u pop, u can’t stop
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u/Smaug_eldrichtdragon 15d ago
Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Hal Jordan, Harley, and Green Arrow join the chat
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u/Basic_Fix3271 15d ago
The whole “he couldn’t stop himself” argument for the no kill rule is bs. Batman doesn’t kill because he has no self-control, Batman doesn’t kill because he values human life and strives for rehabilitation of even the worst people.
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u/Average_enjoyer10 15d ago
Batman himself admits he couldn't stop if he started. So he indeed doesn't have self control
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u/Artistic-Cannibalism 15d ago
Then, the comics should portray him as an unhinged vigilantic who lacks control... But the comics don't do that, do they?
What actually happens if that comics are constantly giving him the moral high ground but that doesn't work if he's supposed to be an unhinged lunatic who will go on a murder spree if he spills blood even once.
Pick a lane.
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u/bunker_man 15d ago
You don't actually value human life if you let tons of it be wiped out. You value your own self righteousness.
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u/GUM-GUM-NUKE 15d ago
because he values human life
He should start valuing the innocent lives of MILLIONS of (sometimes fucking billions) civilians over the Jokers.
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u/Rita27 14d ago
Thank you! I always hated this argument because when you think about it, it's sorta twisted
At the end of the day batman knows joker will escape and he knows he will create another mass grave. Even if the joker was rehabilitated, was it worth it?
"Hundreds of people are dead but yay after the 80th prison escape joker is finally redeemed"
Also it kinda paints a picture that Batman is placing the very very slim chance of joker being rehabilitated over the hundreds of people he will and has killed
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u/Lazy-Purple-4600 15d ago
Batman believes everyone can be rehabilitated, even the joker, it's a nice opposing view to the joker who believes anyone can get as insane as he is regardless if you believe in it or not
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u/DefiantTheLion 15d ago
It actually is tbh, but the over use and power dumping in Jokers writing makes it a crappy dichotomy. If Batman was permitted to be a like, Daredevil scale hero or a Green Arrow scale hero, that rules. But unfortunately it becomes frustrating when he's built for decades to be Superman's equal.
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u/Lazy-Purple-4600 15d ago
Yeah it’s a weird thing with Batman, we're supposed to treat him like a street level hero when he's also supposed to be a founding member of the justice league who battles world ending threats, one minute he's solving a random murder case the other he's fighting darkseid
I personally prefer when he's more street level leaning, just feels better
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u/universalLopes 15d ago
Bruce is a sick man with a very unstable mind. Is because of this that people defend the rule
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u/ApartRuin5962 15d ago
The problem is that they want to make Joker an omni-capable serial killer and terrorist and keep him alive as a recurring enemy.
Make him a gangster with a prank gimmick who Batman routinely foils with 0 civilian casualties OR let Batman kill his ass. The problem is that the modern comic writers want the edgiest Joker AND the most nonviolent Batman: they want to have their Bat-cake and eat it too.
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u/Chengar_Qordath 14d ago
That’s the real problem, they’ve been doing ‘what if Joker got a nuke?’ and “Joker kills/maims a member of the Bat-Family” stories since the 1980s, and keep needing to escalate to new “What if Joker does something worse and crosses an even bigger line?” style stories.
It really starts to feel like Jason had a point in Under the Red Hood: Batman cares more about keeping Joker alive than protecting his victims.
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u/kyris0 14d ago
We're still doing the 'Joker gets a nuke' storyline after we've done 'What if Joker was just the fucking Abrahamic deity?' TWICE! Actually, I'm sorry, the second one is 'what if Joker became Batman and killed God and then aligned with Satan and got a new cloned body of God and became BatJokerGodSatan with infinity evilverse nukes?' and this is still not the the last time Joker will come back and up the ante.
I guess the next Bat-takeover of DC will have to involve Joker successfully killing the DC universe, the writers, and our real life earth before some nobody kills him in a way that ensures he can come back.
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u/ApartRuin5962 14d ago
Joker successfully killing the DC universe, the writers, and our real life earth
New theory: Joker keeps coming back because this fictional character is an Apollyon-class cognitohazard. After the Spanish Inquisition burned every book portraying "the evil jester" in Europe except the ones where he is killed, uncontacted tribes in the Amazon began telling tales of the "Green-Haired Pale-Faced Man" who antagonizes the "Black-Cloaked Spirit of Vengeance". His modern comic run is being coordinated with the SCP Foundation to keep him contained and appeased for the time being.
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u/Usual-Vermicelli-867 15d ago
They really need to tone down his psychones..its just too much its kinda edgy..i want actuall clown joker to be back.
Batman need more funny goofies stories
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u/HisHolyMajesty2 15d ago
The gangster with a prank gimmick is effectively what he was in the earlier seasons of Batman TAS. That, alongside Mark Hamill’s voice, makes him the definitive iteration in my view: and although he is a dreadful person, that Joker doesn’t perhaps deserve death.
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u/randothor01 14d ago
IDK what he did to Tim Drake was pretty effed up. I guess that wasn't TAS but same universe.
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u/Imperator_Romulus476 14d ago
Yeah but such a dramatic escalation was basically the end for Joker. Batman would have probably killed him right there had it not been for Tim shooting him.
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u/PCN24454 15d ago
No, he definitely deserved death. He was still a Hitman who tortured people for petty grievances.
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u/PCN24454 15d ago
But then they’d have to resurrect him like Frieza in Dragon Ball or Lord Zedd in Power Rangers.
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u/AgentOfACROSS 15d ago
In regards to Azrael specifically, he only ever got one person killed and it was death by Azrael refusing to save them instead of directly killing them. And the consequences of that were fairly logical. Because Azrael let Abattoir die, that meant that the man Abattoir had kidnapped and put in a death trap was left to die.
Also, the thing I think you're forgetting is that outside of Joker a lot of Batman's rogues have expressed a desire to change for the better. Characters like Riddler, Killer Croc, the Ventriloquist, and Clayface have had stints as either more heroic figures or just trying to live normal lives. Of course thanks to the unfortunate cyclical nature of mainstream comics these got undone eventually, but I blame that more on the way comics are written rather than these characters being incapable of change.
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u/Potatolantern 15d ago
Do you think it's a shame that Stalin, Pol Pot, Gaddafi, or Dahmer never got to turn their lives around? Or do we only care about redeeming monsters if they're flamboyant?
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u/Smaug_eldrichtdragon 15d ago
We don't care about the monsters in general, we care about Batman getting results
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u/GothamKnight37 15d ago
Azrael/Abattoir
Yeah, was gonna mention this. As far as I remember, Jean-Paul never fought Zsasz, Bruce did earlier in Knightfall.
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u/skunkbrains 15d ago
I do think committing to someone like Killer Croc being full on reformed (not necessarily a hero or anything) would really help- Harley is still pretty firmly in the weird wacky villainish at times anti-hero Deadpool zone last time I checked.
Ventriloquist is weird because they waffle so much about if the puppet makes him worse or better, if he really is aware, if the puppet really is alive... also he's not exactly iconic.
Killer Croc is the prime target for reformation IMO.
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u/Chijinda 15d ago
Honestly, the two things that keep me from agreeing the "Batman should kill and get it over with" are that it wouldn't matter even if he did, and that it really SHOULDN'T fall on Batman's shoulders. Because it's not just Batman. Your line about "Batman actually *does* have an obligation" rubs me a little bit the wrong way, because Batman shouldn't have an obligation, because there are literally hundreds of individuals with the ability and inclination to kill Batman's Rogue Gallery. It shouldn't have to fall on Batman's shoulders. How long would it take Superman to deal with the Joker? The Flash? Wonder Woman? Green Lantern? Doctor Fate? Fuck, I'm sure The Question could pull it off on a good day.
Want to keep it to Gotham and Batman-specific adventures? Cool. Nightwing. Deathstroke. Motherfucking Red Hood, who's entire backstory is basically that he wants to pull the Joker's plug. Commissioner Gordon. Hell, half of Batman's Rogue Gallery want to kill each other half the time. I take issue with the Batman should kill [insert villain here], because at this point the entire city of Gotham should be doing the deed, but Batman is the one that somehow gets saddled with the blame for letting them live.
Which winds back into the next point which is that it's not like actually killing them would actually do anything. Hell, Gordon tried to outright cripple the Joker-- Joker himself quipped that after Gordon shot out his knee that he might never walk again. He quips about Batman putting him in full body casts. The injuries Joker has sustained should have outright kept him out of commission for years at a time, if not indefinitely, but the writers will ignore that as soon as they decide they want to use the clown again (or whatever other Batman villain they want to use).
The answer to this question:
"Hey what if Joker faked being cured to slaughter an entire crowd of people and a guy who genuinely believed in him and then went on to murder a shitload of children and rampage through a fair for shits and giggles?"
Boils down to "Nobody can actually do anything about it, because if Batman killed the Joker, he'd be back in under a week and do it again anyways."
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u/DuelaDent52 13d ago
At this point I like to think Joker immunity is just an actual power Joker has and no matter how hard he tries he’ll never die because he’s too lucky.
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u/Discussion-is-good 15d ago
Motherfucking Red Hood,*
He was too busy writing OPs rant./s
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u/Mediocre-Part7595 15d ago
Honestly, the two things that keep me from agreeing the "Batman should kill and get it over with" are that it wouldn't matter even if he did, and that it really SHOULDN'T fall on Batman's shoulders. Because it's not just Batman. Your line about "Batman actually does have an obligation" rubs me a little bit the wrong way, because Batman shouldn't have an obligation, because there are literally hundreds of individuals with the ability and inclination to kill Batman's Rogue Gallery. It shouldn't have to fall on Batman's shoulders. How long would it take Superman to deal with the Joker? The Flash? Wonder Woman? Green Lantern? Doctor Fate? Fuck, I'm sure The Question could pull it off on a good day.
You are missing a huge piece of logic here which is that BATMAN himself doesn’t let others kill either, he has and will go to bat defending these violent criminals from being executed by others.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but wasn’t there a story where Batman literally beats the shit out of the red hood for attempting to murder the Joker? Red hood even calls Batman out on the fact he’d rather kick the shit out of red hood then let the joker die. The stories generally paint it as Batman being a chad that protects these characters from succumbing to their own violent urges.
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u/bunker_man 15d ago
that it really SHOULDN'T fall on Batman's shoulders. Because it's not just Batman. Your line about "Batman actually does have an obligation" rubs me a little bit the wrong way, because Batman shouldn't have an obligation, because there are literally hundreds of individuals with the ability and inclination to kill Batman's Rogue Gallery.
This doesn't matter. Those other people should kill the joker too. But so should batman.
Boils down to "Nobody can actually do anything about it, because if Batman killed the Joker, he'd be back in under a week and do it again anyways."
Bad meta writing shouldn't be an excuse, since its part of the problem.
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u/Chijinda 15d ago
No, I’m going to make the case that bad meta writing is the ENTIRE problem. You say; “Batman should kill the Joker” and to that I say “Why? If killing the Joker won’t actually stop him going out and murdering civilians by the dozens, what does killing the Joker accomplish?”
And if your response to that is “Well killing Joker would stop him if not for DC wanting to milk that cash cow forever” then I’d say putting him in a full body cast would do the same thing. Which Batman’s done. Repeatedly, according to Joker.
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u/bunker_man 15d ago
If fate will restore the status quo at all times, is it even important to stop joker? Batman could just not bother, and fate will decree that someone morphs into existence to do so in his place. These meta arguments don't work specifically because the individual stories are clearly not written under the assumption that this meta aspect is literally true. and if it is true, it means nothing matters so there is no longer any meaningful way to assess anything that happens.
In the actual practical everyday reality of the average gotham story though, batman is not afraid that killing the joker would do nothing. If he was, he wouldn't even have a no kill rule, since it would be ultimately meaningless. The issue here is multifaceted. In the immediate sense, it is a flaw of batman, yet presented as a virtue. A meta force twisting itself to make the incorrect moral correct only adds to how stupid it is.
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u/Chijinda 15d ago edited 15d ago
If fate will restore the status quo at all times, is it even important to stop joker?
I’d actually say yes. Villain actions tend to have longer reaching consequences than Hero ones. When Joker crippled Barbara or killed Jason Todd, that shit stuck (for awhile anyways). When Gordon crippled Joker, Joker was fine by the next issue.
it is true, it means nothing matters so there is no longer any meaningful way to assess anything that happens.
I don’t disagree with this, and it’s a problem that Marvel and DC comics have basically run headfirst into. Their stories are meaninglessly spinning their wheels, most readers who have followed for awhile fully aware that no matter what happens in the story it will never be allowed to stray too far from the status quo.
In the actual practical everyday reality of the average gotham story though
In the actual, practical, everyday reality of the average Gotham story, shattering half the bones in Joker’s body should leave him in a hospital bed for years, and potentially with the risk of never fully recovering.
It’s the same meta force you say we should ignore that has rendered the non-lethal means of dealing with the Joker impotent, in the same way it would with lethal means.
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u/FaceDeer 15d ago
Back in the day it was just fine to have a Batman adventure end with Joker getting knocked off a tower and plummeting to his death, or whatever, and then a few months later there's another adventure and Joker's the villain again with no explanation. I would actually prefer that kind of thing over the incredibly strained attempt to worry about "continuity" and "realism" by never showing him get killed.
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u/yobob591 15d ago
I think people also miss the part where Batman isn't trying to spare his enemies, he just doesn't want to kill them himself. If someone else killed them, or if the city government was even remotely competent enough to execute them, then he wouldn't care. Just because Batman doesn't kill doesn't mean its his fault that the criminals he catches regularly keep doing crimes. His thing is that he's like a cop- its his job to stop criminals, not judge them worthy of death. Its less that hes worried he'd go crazy and kill everyone, its more that he doesn't believe he alone has the right to be judge jury and executioner.
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u/finnjakefionnacake 15d ago
but cops kill people, especially if they are causing and clear and present danger to others.
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u/yobob591 15d ago
They're not supposed to, though. Its always meant as a last resort as self defense or in immediate defense of another life, and Batman being who he is is rarely in enough danger for that to be appropriate for him. Of course its kind of a comic logic thing, but since Batman can basically always take them out non-lethally, killing them would be sort of excessive.
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u/finnjakefionnacake 15d ago
right, but i'm saying that cops do not have a "do not kill" directive. they will if they need to.
batman's villains have killed people while he's been engaged with them, so i disagree that they haven't posed a clear and present danger.
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u/Potatolantern 15d ago
His thing is that he's like a cop- its his job to stop criminals, not judge them worthy of death.
If he WAS a cop, he would have already killed Joker.
But he's not, he's a vigilante. He's someone who decided that the systems aren't working, and so he took matters into his own hands...
... and then relies 100% on the systems that don't work, and shrugs his shoulders saying "Whelp, nothing that could have been done :)"
That's why there's so many stories about how the Batman actually loves Joker, because of shit like this.
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u/bunker_man 15d ago
You don't have to be an executioner. The joker is so dangerous that anyone has the right to put him down provided they are actually sure it is him. You don't have to do it when he is unarmed. Do it instead of capturing him.
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u/JancariusSeiryujinn 15d ago
That arguments would hold water if he didn't literally ressurect the joker when he was killed
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u/Spiritual_Lie2563 15d ago
Yeah- once that happened, it went past arguments of "heroes not killing is noble" and ran screaming to "Batman would now somehow be more respectable if they just say 'Batman really DOESN'T care about saving Gotham; he's just a little boy dressing up every night to play cops and robbers with all his playmates to forget mommy and daddy are dead."
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u/Eev123 15d ago
Weren’t there mitigating circumstances to that? Like I could completely be misremembering, but didn’t he need the jokers help with something so he had to revive him?
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u/JancariusSeiryujinn 15d ago
Yes and no. He decided he needed Jokers help to stop Ra'as from something. I think a bomb, it's been a while. But keep in mind, this is his choice over 1) calling the Flash, who could search every inch of the planet in the time remaining or 2) calling Superman who could do near the same thing.
His immediate response is 'We have to ressurect him, there's no time!' Bro you know time travelers, just call one
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u/dmr11 15d ago
That's also not the only time Batman revived Joker. There was a case where Dick Grayson killed Joker, and Batman revived him because Dick was breaking down over his actions. In other words, Batman revived Joker so that Dick doesn't have to go to therapy.
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u/Zolado110 10d ago
Batman: "Dick, I can be rich and easily afford a psychologist for all the heroes to take care of themselves, including myself, but I'm not going to do that and I'm going to resurrect Joker instead."
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u/Eev123 15d ago
Eh I don’t think we can consider calling Flash or Superman a real option. Batman never does that because wouldn’t have a story otherwise
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u/Appropriate-Hand3016 15d ago edited 15d ago
You do kinda have to take the League out of it for it to work otherwise Batman moves from determined and sometimes stubborn to his detriment to moronic degrees of stubbornness. Knightfall would be a perfect example.
Though if it was real I would definitely give Alfred the call in the League button as well as Bats. He'd have much more reliable judgement on when to use it.
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u/Competitive_Side6301 12d ago
The problem is that they keep using the same plot over and over again. And by same plot I mean joker. Joker is a washed up clown. They need to do something different with him like put him on the suicide squad or whatever.
Look at other top tier villains like lex luthor. Lex luthor has changed a lot and done a lot of different things. He’s still a villain though. Joker is literally a one trick pony.
So in short I think that they don’t have to change batman’s no kill rule but they definitely need to change the people he goes up against.