Why Doesn't Batman Kill?

[Fearless Heart]

You just compared murder to privacy violation after all. Its settled with in any Batman material if one bothers to read (or watch) it.

Also Batman doesn't torture either so your equivalency is false, Batman has never permanently crippled, disfigured or maimed any human being intentionally.

This.

I'm sorry Agent Z, but I find your argument very disturbing. With murder there is no hope for redemption. Batman wants justice and he wants to save everyone if he can.

[SiegePerilous02]

This.

I'm sorry Agent Z, but I find your argument very disturbing. With murder there is no hope for redemption. Batman wants justice and he wants to save everyone if he can.

This. He offers jobs to criminals who paid their debt to society and want to get back on their feet in an honest way. Like in TNBA when he gave that ex-Joker thug with a family a job as a security guard. Joker aside, he wants his villains to get better even if Arkham fails to actually deliver on that promise, but there's not much he can do about that. If the alternative is him throwing his villains into something like the Negative Zone gulag or just executing them, how is that not even worse? Like is the desire to make him more fascist or less here?

Another thing I'm starting to hate? The whole "Batman is a rich white dude who spends his time beating up minorities and the mentally ill" bullshit. Like...how often does the former at least actually happen? The villains he spends the majority of his time fighting are clearly not hurting for money if they can afford all their ridiculous hideouts and death traps. When he's not fighting them, he's battling almost exclusively very well dressed Caucasian gangsters, aliens and monsters. And then there is his aforementioned donations to social reform causes and providing jobs to people of all walks of life. It's not something that actually holds up if we look at the character's entire history. Hell, even TDKR Batman gave mentally ill Harvey Dent a sympathetic hug at the end of the first chapter.

[Batarang]

Because DC doesn't want to lose the villains gallery. Batman's such a hypocrite in most of his stories though... Damian kills, Jason kills and he doesn't give a crap, that's no different than killing yourself Batman, such a guy who doesn't give a crap about death of the people don't have any morals to not to kill actually. But since i don't look for anykind of smart writting, i don't care so i don't complain.

Actually, the new film is not even using the same excuse anymore. The killer Batman of BvS doesn't kill Joker... He just freaking shoots on people left and right with his plane and car's machine guns and kills them but Joker is still alive ? lol they don't even try to explain that lol

[Nite-Wing]

Because DC doesn't want to lose the villains gallery. Batman's such a hypocrite in most of his stories though... Damian kills, Jason kills and he doesn't give a crap, that's no different than killing yourself Batman, such a guy who doesn't give a crap about death of the people don't have any morals to not to kill actually. But since i don't look for anykind of smart writting, i don't care so i don't complain.

Actually, the new film is not even using the same excuse anymore. The killer Batman of BvS doesn't kill Joker... He just freaking shoots on people left and right with his plane and car's machine guns and kills them but Joker is still alive ? lol they don't even try to explain that lol

Yeah he literally saved Harley Quinn from drowning in suicide squad but random mooks watch out because batman will kill you

[Thor2014]

Batman doesn't kill because he's a wuss. He should just snap the Joker's neck and be done with it. I like the good old early days were Batman would not only wield a gun but he wouldn't be above throwing some baddie into a vat of acid.

[SiegePerilous02]

Actually, the new film is not even using the same excuse anymore. The killer Batman of BvS doesn't kill Joker... He just freaking shoots on people left and right with his plane and car's machine guns and kills them but Joker is still alive ? lol they don't even try to explain that lol

Yeah he literally saved Harley Quinn from drowning in suicide squad but random mooks watch out because batman will kill you

Actually they do. Batman's new brutality is a fairly recent thing, as noted by both Alfred, Bruce himself and many people Clark interviews in BvS. His encounters with Harley and the Joker presumably take place before this, and since the universe is cruel, Batman apparently never crossed paths with the Joker during this phase, and now he's transitioning away from it once again. So Mistah J is likely to retain his immunity when facing the new cuddly JL-era Batman.

And Harley has the reasoning that Bruce has always seen her as another of the Joker's victims, so even if Batman was willing to kill the Joker himself in that flashback scene, I still find it easy to buy that he'd save Harley.

[Batarang]

Yeah he literally saved Harley Quinn from drowning in suicide squad but random mooks watch out because batman will kill you

One good deed is all it takes for some of us readers, the other 1000 examples of not so good deeds don't matter... lol

Dude, you read what i wrote ? The writting is stupid. He saves even the villain's life in 1 issue and then he lets Damian kill everyone another... And when he lets Damian do that, the blood is on his hands too. And what stops Damian or Jason from killing Joker anyway, if Batman doesn't want to get his hands dirty lol That's another question...

And I even saw Batman use a gun to kill in comics too, he said he was ''improvising'' lol improvising to be a hypocrite that was lol

[Batarang]

Actually they do. Batman's new brutality is a fairly recent thing, as noted by both Alfred, Bruce himself and many people Clark interviews in BvS. His encounters with Harley and the Joker presumably take place before this, and since the universe is cruel, Batman apparently never crossed paths with the Joker during this phase, and now he's transitioning away from it once again. So Mistah J is likely to retain his immunity when facing the new cuddly JL-era Batman.

And Harley has the reasoning that Bruce has always seen her as another of the Joker's victims, so even if Batman was willing to kill the Joker himself in that flashback scene, I still find it easy to buy that he'd save Harley.

And you can always count on your fans to bring explanations... lol Batman and Joker never crossed paths in Batman's murderous stage huh lol How can you be so sure ? Isn't Joker obsessed with Batman ? how could he not cross paths with his favorite pass time guy for who knows how many years ? has Joker been a good boy for so long ? i don't think so.

[SiegePerilous02]

And you can always count on your fans to bring explanations... lol Batman and Joker never crossed paths in Batman's murderous stage huh lol How can you be so sure ? Isn't Joker obsessed with Batman ? how could he not cross paths with his favorite pass time guy for who knows how many years ? has Joker been a good boy for so long ? i don't think so.

It's pretty easy to surmise because they flat out tell us that the branding and other stuff are recent developments, and the flashback scene in SS takes place even earlier, before BvS. There's not much room for debate here when Alfred is telling the audience what's up.

What's so hard to believe about the Joker laying low for a bit or being notoriously difficult to kill? He's been known for those throughout his entire comic book history.

[Batarang]

It's pretty easy to surmise because they flat out tell us that the branding and other stuff are recent developments, and the flashback scene in SS takes place even earlier, before BvS. There's not much room for debate here when Alfred is telling the audience what's up.

What's so hard to believe about the Joker laying low for a bit or being notoriously difficult to kill? He's been known for those throughout his entire comic book history.

Right... Joker decides to lay low just when Batman starts to kill people and never show his face till Batman quit killing people lol eh... kind of forcing it but if they go like this, i won't be surprised since i don't expect anything smarter anyway.

Joker being hard to kill... lol how many times Batman defeted Joker and spared his life ? probably more than 50 times or something lol but when Batman starts to murder people, suddenly Joker becomes so hard to defeat lol Laying low is better but they are both crap acutally... lol I don't even talk about the rest of the villains... i mean none of them show their faces ? or are they all dead lol

[dancj]

Too busy shooting at unarmed young black men?

That's unfair. They don't restrict it to the young ones.

[dancj]

I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. Bruce explicitly took the blame for Two Face's actions to preserve Harvey's public image so that he could remain a beacon of hope and a symbol of change for Gotham. Why would he need to build up his "street cred" if he had every intention of retiring?

IIRC (and bear in mind that I only saw the film once) it was pretty much stated outright that at least part of the reason that he took the rap was because he needed criminals to believe he would kill.

The retiring thing goes against that, but that wasn't even mentioned until the next film, so I'm guessing that the retiring was never intended to happen straight after The Dark Knight (if at all) at the time they made the film,

[SiegePerilous02]

Right... Joker decides to lay low just when Batman starts to kill people and never show his face till Batman quit killing people lol eh... kind of forcing it but if they go like this, i won't be surprised since i don't expect anything smarter anyway.

Joker being hard to kill... lol how many times Batman defeted Joker and spared his life ? probably more than 50 times or something lol but when Batman starts to murder people, suddenly Joker becomes so hard to defeat lol Laying low is better but they are both crap acutally... lol I don't even talk about the rest of the villains... i mean none of them show their faces ? or are they all dead lol

The Joker has seemingly fallen from great heights, been shot, electrocuted, drowned and blown up, and survived every time. Even if Batman is actively trying to kill him, the Joker is not someone to be underestimated, and it's kind of insulting to his intellect to think he couldn't make an escape. We see him surviving a high speed car crash into the ocean and a helicopter crash in SS. Batman even went in for the kill in Death in the Family, and we all know how that worked out. I don't think the Joker could resist screwing with Batsy, but he's also not an idiot. If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be, and he won't go up against a lethal Batman without being sure he has some sort of advantage.

Remember how he went the entirety of NML not doing anything until the grand finale, a year later? Batman's more lethal period in the DCEU didn't last even that long. It's a recent thing according to BvS, and the film doesn't take place over an overly long period of time. I'm not saying the Joker has psychic powers or anything that let's him know what Batman's mood is, it just worked out that they didn't encounter each other. I'm honestly not seeing how it's a crap explanation. It's just common sense.

[okiedokiewo]

Dude, you read what i wrote ? The writting is stupid. He saves even the villain's life in 1 issue and then he lets Damian kill everyone another... And when he lets Damian do that, the blood is on his hands too. And what stops Damian or Jason from killing Joker anyway, if Batman doesn't want to get his hands dirty lol That's another question...

Well, in Jason's case, it's because he wants Batman to avenge him and kill the Joker. That's part of his whole issue with Batman.

But mainly the Joker will never die because he's the Joker and too popular of a character.

[NK1988]

Lol at privacy violation is on par with murder.

You single that out but not the guy who is defending torture?

Yeah it involves kissing and cuddling them until they give up the required info,puhlease. Even teen age fist cuffs end up with wall smashing and dangling someone with the intent of never killing them is so laughably pedestrian that I dont even know what to say.
Maybe you should do some research on actual torture.

You do not get to define what is and is not torture.

http://www.apt.ch/en/what-is-torture/

Some teenagers might beat each other silly but they are dumb kids who nobody cares about. Batman has significant influence and authority and is thus held to a higher standard than random kids.

There's no real way any of Batman's more framed methods of extracting info would ever fly in a real court room, I hope we all know that. I'm not here to tell you to stop enjoying the stories. You can even agree with his methods. But acknowledge it for what it is. It is absolutely torture. The use of force - physical or mental - to get information is torture. Period.