Should Batman kill the Joker?

[William300]

It's a questions that been around for as long as these characters have fought. Joker is the unstoppable force and Batman is the unmovable object, Joker won't stop killing and Batman refuses to kill. So should Batman kill the Joker in order to stop his killings. Do you think it's worth Batman compromising his morals in order to stop a monster. Should the unmovable object budge in order to stop the unstoppable force?

What do you think?

[Jeff Brady]

No.

Next ?

[Kid A]

It's a pointless question, because the Joker as a recurring villain is dumb on every level. Whether Batman kills him, whether the state gives death sentence, whether he's in an asylum, whether he's in prison, etc. Joker always finds a way to come back and kill millions of people in the latest hack job Batman story.

[JBatmanFan05]

No. Batman doesn't kill.

[Sacred Knight]

In the sense of reason and logic? He should have killed him a long time ago. In the context of an ongoing comics continuity? Of course not. You don't ever kill off a protagonist's arch-nemesis. Putting aside the fact that he's been written really bad for years now.

[The World]

I find Bruce's reason for not killing sort of compelling so personally no.

[Laevatein]

I'll go against the early trend yes.

(Although I realise DC will never let him die, no matter how sick I am of the Joker personally. I can stomach BTAS Joker, but that's about all)

Actually, I've been thinking that an interesting antagonist for Batman would be a relative of someone the Joker killed, who holds Batman partly responsible for the death.

[Naked Bat]

it's not up to batman to kill him. It's the state's job to kill him ^^

[Mighty Roman]

Should he? Yes, it would save thousands of lives.
Will he? Never. Batman could never kill The Joker. Out of his devotion to justice, and that the defining moment of his life involves 2 people dying, Batman couldn't kill anyone. And even if he tried, The Joker would mock him and say that he's 'becoming like him'. Which of course would stop Bruce from trying.

[Nite-Wing]

It's a pointless question, because the Joker as a recurring villain is dumb on every level. Whether Batman kills him, whether the state gives death sentence, whether he's in an asylum, whether he's in prison, etc. Joker always finds a way to come back and kill millions of people in the latest hack job Batman story.

And that makes him the same as every other villain in comics
I guess the only difference here is he is Batman's main villain and that elevates him above other villains that do the same thing.

Batman could kill the Joker he's more than capable of it but I doubt he'll keep being Batman after he does it.

[TheDarkNut]

I don't know, depends on how DC much hates money.

[AronPaul88]

I'd love to see a story where batmans in his early days and gets shown by some time travelling being how many lives the joker will take over the years and the pain he'd bring people including babs and Jason. It'd be interesting to see how batman would justify not killing him and preventing all of it from happening.

[MajorHoy]

No.

Next ?

No. Batman doesn't kill.

Unless he's poorly written or dealing with some non-human alien being, Batman doesn't kill.

[SmokeMonster]

No. He should put him in a better prison though.

[JLF]

I agree that its not Batman's job to kill criminals. He can fight and capture them but its up to the legal system within Gotham (ulp!) to decide and carry out the punishment.