Batman, mass murderer.

Michael Barnes wrote: Like Jesus, Batman is open to interpretation and there have been many different interpretations over the character's history. Some of which have had lasting impact and have become part of canonical identity. Others- including a lot of earlier work where Batman was hanging crooks and blowing up "Japs"- have been largely jettisoned.

haha. Old testament bible message=Golden Age vs. new testament/jesus=modern no guns?

Speaking of heroes using guns vs. not killing people, I watched the first three episodes of Daredevil season 2 and it was excellent.

Don't forget that kids will also be growing up with this version of Batman.

Superman as a character has never really interested me. I tried watching Man of Steel and fell asleep halfway through. The premise of the movie sounds silly as well. Combined with an inevitable comparison to the Nolan Batman character, plus Zack Snyder - whose batting average is mixed at best. What the hell was DC thinking of using all this to launch a superhero franchise ??? Predictably the early reviews are not good.

Josh Look wrote: Look, I'm kind of an authority on Bats, and I'm pretty sure most people here would stand behind my claim. That article is, frankly, completely full of shit. Not entirely wrong, but most of it falls into the "doesn't count" category.

"When it comes to Batman, I'm kind of a big deal"

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Yes, he's killed a lot of people and he used to gun down mobsters with Tommy guns, but that didn't really count because he's a reformed Bat. The kinder, gentler bat."

What a load of horse shit. If Jeffrey Dahmer reformed, chose to never eat people again, and repented for his predilection for human brain, fava beans, and Chianti, he's no less a fucking murderous cannibal. Same goes for Bats. In his inception (yes, he was a Shadow knockoff to a large degree) he was a murderous guy. This was AFTER his debut, where his backstory was developed, he was still gunning motherfuckers down.

The Nolan Trilogy had him fucking people up with machineguns on his cars, planes, and bikes. The Keaton Batmobile had missiles.

WHAT.THE.FUCK do you mean it's "non-canon"??? Why? Because it doesn't fit your version of him?

What a load of horse shit, I say again.











(not only a gun, but with a POISON BULLET NO LESS)






But the Bat would never use a gun. Because an "Expert" on Batman says so, despite most people's interactions with the Bat are via the silver screen, where he's a murderous fuck.

I'm guessing that Nolan's Batman is who people (except the most hardcore comic nuts) is who people identify Batman with....

Obviously, those things on the front are peto pipes, or maybe bubble machines.

<Having way too much fun with this>

Yeah, he's definitely not a murderer.


NOW...to be fair, I'm just fucking with you, Josh. That said, it's a valid point to note that most people don't read comics, don't know the "don't use guns" rule, because the vast, overwhelming majority of people know Batman as who he has become - a murderous vigilante who kills left and right, with or without a gun, and whose technologies are almost all devoted to killing bad guys deader than Elvis.

If you have to be an "authority" on Batman to know that he's not a fucking butcher, then the reality is that the "authority" doesn't mean dick, because he is identified as precisely what he is now: a brutal executioner who has always been a fugitive from justice, a man who operates outside of the law, and who acts as judge, jury, and executioner.

I always thought Captain America was also a definite non-lethal hero, and was surprised to see him wielding a pistol in The First Avenger movie. Granted, he was using it right on the front lines against the German war machine, but it still stuck with me.

Batman has appeared in a lot of comic books over the years. As a very conservative estimate, I would say more than 2,500 issues, including his two regular monthly titles (Batman and Detective Comics), The Brave and The Bold, World's Finest, Batman and the Outsiders, and various incarnations of the Justice League comic. While Batman has also appeared in several movies, a live-action tv show, and several cartoon runs, they are all based to some degree on the comic book character. Aside from a couple of gun-toting years at the beginning, way back in 1939 and 1940, Batman has very, very rarely been depicted as a killer. This is not a trivial stylistic point, it goes right to the core of the character, who as a child saw his parents murdered in cold blood.

The decision to not kill is fundamental to how Batman operates. First and foremost, Batman is known as a brilliant detective. He catches criminals and turns them over to the proper authorities, which is why he has generally worked so well with the Gotham PD, and Commissioner Gordon in particular. There is no possible way that Gordon could hold onto his job if he had a reputation for working with a vigilante killer. Second, when Batman is out fighting crime, he is very stealthy. And he doesn't use his stealth to maneuver into an ideal sniper's nest, he uses his stealth to get really close to the criminals that he is fighting, which leads to my next point. Batman is one of the top HTH fighters in the DC Universe. If he was trying to kill people, Batman would need to use guns, or at the minimum blades or a bow and arrow or some kind of serious weapon, because many of the criminals will be using guns. So what kind of gun does Batman carry? None. His intent is to beat the criminals so he can turn them over to the authorities, who will conduct a proper trial.

If I'm wrong and Batman is really a killer, then explain the fact that the Joker is still alive in the comics. The Joker has consistently been depicted as a murderous psychopath who won't stay in jail. Logically, the only way for a murderous Batman to really stop the Joker would be to kill him. And yet the Joker lives. And it's not like the Joker would be terribly hard to kill. He's just a human being with severe mental illness, not an indestructible superhuman.

The Nolan movies were reasonably entertaining, but they don't do a great job of portraying Batman. The jumpy editing of the fight scenes undersells Batman's HTH prowess. The Nolan depiction of the Batmobile as a tank is grotesque, inspired by The Dark Knight Returns but taken out of context. Nolan Batman almost never does any detective work, and he repeatedly quits, which would be unthinkable to the comic book Batman who is frankly obsessed with protecting Gotham City.

Burton doesn't know jack fuck all about the character. He was there for the villains, totally obvious when you watch them.

The Nolan movies made a misstep in the first one, when he decides to "not save" Ras. Aside from that, he is non-lethal. Collateral damage? That's another story. Besides, what is that "one rule" Joker is trying to get him to break?

Regardless of how he's portrayed in movies, the character in the source material for the OVERWHELMING portion of his existence does not kill or use guns in the "core" DC universe. DC loves alternate reality stories, many of which you found in your Google image search, but aside from the Golden Age stuff which has been dismissed at large, not just by me, and in Final Crisis, he does not kill. Period. It is against the spirit of the character and what makes him great.

I liked this review a lot.

"Batman vs. Superman is an unerring pastiche of who we are at this moment in time: scared, angry, violent, disjointed, poisoned by hiraeth [Welsh, "homesick longing"], driven by emotion rather than logic, by ideologies rather than reason. It's polarized, xenophobic, hyper-sexualized, hyper-desensitized, and, in the final analysis, more than a little psychotic. BVS is the inmates running the studio. And it's going to make a billion dollars. Maybe a billion-six."

Here's an interview with Snyder where he goes through some crazy mental gymnastics to justify Batman killing people.



Man, that guy ahs a face that you just want to punch.

Holy shit. I do want to hit him. A few times even. Maybe a dozen.

Not shoot him, mind you.

Just hit him. A lot.

Nah man, just shoot the gas tank he's standing by, it'll be OK.

What a jackass.

I like the part where he talks about "all the guys he's with," saying they're "a bunch of comics guys."

Because he clearly isn't.

Well, he claims that Batman is just rampantly killing people in DKR and that the Tim Burton movies are where people get the no killing thing...dude knows comics. I mean, look at the way he looks down his nose the whole time, that is master level comic book fandom.