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It looked cool in the trailers, where all the lethal bits were carefully cut out. Interesting how that happened, almost as if WB didn't want the backlash from Murder Batman to spark amongst audiences too early...
They knew it'd be hated, and probably didn't agree with what Snyder was doing from inception.
@Master_Dahark, you've hit on why I also don't like Burton's Batman, or at the very least wouldn't support his mission. It's not just the killing, it's how Batman reacts to it. When he smiles as he bombs up a guy, I seriously have doubts about the morality or sense of sanity in this man. He's not a hero at all if he doesn't respect human life or has no sense of the hell he's wreaking.
A killing Batman just doesn't have a logical or psychological truth to it, and Bob Kane never understood this either, which is why it took much better writers to change his inherent failure in the character's origin way back in the late 30s and early 40s. Why would a kid who'd lost his parents after they were gunned down in an alley grow up and gun other people down in the same way? The more likely reaction is that Bruce would get long-lasting trauma from the event, and would instead have a fear or hatred of the symbol of a gun instead of being someone who used them gleefully to wipe out the criminal classes as a masked adult. It's why the Batman of Dark Knight Returns (again, not the man who Snyder thinks Affleck's Batman is) called guns the tools of cowards and slow and stupid weapons; he despised the easy killing they afforded and even as a cynic valued stopping and not killing criminals like any other thug in the league of Chill. It's why the animated Batman from the 90s (to me, the definitive take on the character outside comics) eventually quits being the hero because he was tempted to pick up a gun and used it to turn criminals away; the touch of the thing in his hands and the malicious power of it revolted him and confirmed that he could no longer do his job the right way any longer.
These takes on Batman make far more sense, as they get the psychology of Batman correct and stay true to his traumatic origin. Writers like Miller, O'Neil, Loeb, Waid, Dini and on and on nailed who Batman is or should be as a man. It's no secret why Kane's version is completely forgotten, beyond the one page origin he drafted at the very beginning.
But all of this is perception and opinion. What bugs me about Snyder's continued involvement in Batman's screen presence in Justice League is his inherent lack of understanding as to who he is as a character, or how he should be developed or written. He couldn't tell the story of a fallen Batman at all intellectually or cohesively, and I worry how the backlash from BvS has driven him to use Batman in JL. This is a guy who took a panel from Dark Knight Returns where Batman holds up a gun, but instead of trying to save a baby as in the comic, he has him simply light a guy on fire and nearly risk taking Martha away in the fire with the guy. That's what I mean when I say that Snyder cares more about visuals than he does the meaning behind them; he's the kind of artist who can't actually manage to tell stories with images and has a child's sense of what is important to stress. To folks like him it's awesome to see Batman kill people and mow through them in a warehouse, and what isn't awesome is actually stopping to discuss why he's done this and what this means for his morality and who he once was; essentially, telling the story just isn't cool enough.
And that's my inherent issue here, as a Batman who kills could've been interesting if done correctly. I would've had a chance to sympathize with him if I knew the context of his actions and saw his old comrades gunning for him for how he'd changed, with a moment where he has a true revelation or moment of clarity to see the monster he'd become. We barely get any story or any impact, and all that is left is the visual of Batman the monster and not the story of Batman the fallen hero. And that's why I no longer valued his life and would've been pleased if Superman punched him to the moon and was done with him, doing Gotham a giant service by freeing them from their bloodthirsty tyrant of fear.
His take on the character is my least favorite. It also angers me that many of the best ideas from that era came from Bill Finger and not Kane, yet Kane and co. saw fit to make sure the man got as little credit as possible. Even to this day Batman is credited as being created by Kane WITH Finger, instead of them being labeled as a true creative pair. Not a fan, I must admit.
Finger gave us the Batman we know and love. He gave us multiple characters in the Batman universe everyone knows and loves too. He came up with some of the famous stories and even the name Bruce Wayne. But humble a man as he was, he virtually allowed Kane to run with the fame.
You see the same issue with the Kane and Finger debacle with Stan Lee and his work with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Two artists who had profound parts to play in the creation of so many of the things Stan seems to get sole credit for. This isn't to blame Stan, by the way, as I know he gets upset about Jack and Steve especially being lost in the halls of fame and has never seemed to be as much of a fame hound as Kane came off as. He often goes on record to shout both of the men up as his co-creators, and pushes for their recognition as well; I just wish there was more celebration of those two beyond him.
It just seems like in every creative pairing in comics it's always the more famous of the two, and usually the writer over the artist, who gets all the credit while the other is left on the wayside. People forget that it's people like Finger and Ditko who shaped character comprehensively; in the former case Finger was the one that truly defined the look of Batman as we know him (which looks nothing like Kane's original concept) and for the latter I don't think you'll be able to find as iconic a suit as Spider-Man's in the Marvel catalogue.
I don't think Marvel have as big a crediting issue as DC, as it was a long hard fight to get Finger's name out there, and even now he still doesn't get the full credit he deserves. At the very least Ditko got credits in all the Raimi Spider-Man films (not sure of the others), which is good because the man is so quiet and reclusive that he can easily to forgotten by some. To those of us who know comics history, however, these folks will never die.
@DarthDimi, Hulu also have a documentary out about Finger and his role in Batman's creation that I need to check out. Glad that veils are being torn away after all this time!
@DarthDimi, when people gawk at me when I say I have no respect for Kane, I now have something to show them. Cheers.
That man running all over the place in the hat and coat in the credits looks suspiciously like @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 to me...
This is exactly how I feel. Batman should never set out to kill, like how the Punisher does, but if he is forced to it shouldn't be frowned upon. If Batman does what he does every night and does kill then I call BS.
@QsAssistant, well, unlike Punisher Batman actually has accountability with the police department of his city, who entrust him to deal justice the right way, and not go on killing sprees that would never be sanctioned by the other cops. One of the many reasons a Batman who kills is a very nonsensical idea is that Gordon would go on a manhunt for him for crossing such a line. I'm fascinated how JL will deal with that big elephant in the room, as Gordon seems all too happy with Bruce despite his perpetration of vile acts in the city that the Gordon of the comics would hunt him down for and throw him in jail with his cape between his legs.
But we know that how the characters are and what Snyder thinks they are are two different things, part of why we're looking at a dud of a universe so far.
Not defending BvS. I haven't seen it and don't intend to cause I hated Man Of Steel. But I don't have a problem with the character killing. In fact I think it'd more interesting to see a guy with a more flexible moral code, not murdering every small time criminal out there but not being opposed to it when it's necessary. Totally morally black and white characters can be kind of boring imo.
Having said that, of course I also love to sit back and read a classic 'shine the Batsignal into the sky' romp where Batman poses with the police for a photo afterwards, lol! The former is just my preference, that's all
It's a fine line on how realistic we want to go, but if Batman was real, the police would be after him no matter how strict his no-kill rule was.
Bob Kane never wrote a page of Batman--Bill Finger was there from the start, and it's Finger who wrote the earliest Batman comics (along with Gardner Fox), including his origin. Batman, having been conceived as a superhero version of The Shadow, was not averse to occasionally taking lives. But editor Whitney Ellsworth, having realized that the primary audience for superhero comics was children, decided to avoid trouble by strictly prohibiting Batman from directly causing anyone's death. So there was no "inherent failure," but there was plenty of editorial conservatism. The early dark-and-shadowy Batman stories of 1939-40 were obviously inspired by the pulps--the post-1940 comics with Robin were just as obviously fun children's stories, and they stayed that way until the original audience grew up and began buying Marvel's more "adult" fare. Batman proved easy to Marvelize and returned to being a creature of the night, now with late 20th century angst.
Even in 1939 Batman never went around "gleefully" gunning down criminals. He rarely even used a gun, probably because fisticuffs were more exciting on the page. The sole occasion when he used a gun to kill someone (aside from pumping silver bullets into a vampire) was in Batman #1, when he swoops down in the bat-plane to machine-gun one of Hugo Strange's giants. “Much as I hate to take human life, I’m afraid this time it’s necessary!” he says, showing that it was possible for Batman to occasionally employ lethal force without being a trigger-happy Punisher clone.
Batman's raison d'etre is to prevent innocent people from suffering the way he did. That is what the tragedy instilled in him. While it is possible that he might have developed an irrational phobia of guns as a result, it would have been just as plausible--had the Batman comics been more adult-oriented--for Batman to swear revenge by destroying criminals with the same tool they used to destroy the innocent. He does neither in the first Batman comics, and instead regards the gun as a tool that can be used for good or evil. That strikes me as the most sensible attitude to take. After all, Batman would not look down on police officers for using guns, would he? So, first and foremost, the death of the Waynes made Bruce want to protect innocent people (like the Waynes) from criminals. It is a stretch to argue that it would also made him believe all life was sacred or that guns were evil. I have no more problem with Batman occasionally killing his worst enemies than I do with James Bond doing so. In the Burton films Batman's "victims" were all nasty, outright villains, just as Bond's are. Both heroes have an inner moral compass that limits their bloodlust. The real problem with Batman using lethal force is that his famous rogues gallery--a group of mass murderers who break out of jail/asylum with clockwork inevitability--would cease to exist if he did.
That view of morality just doesn't stand up, my friend. There's a reason why utilitarianism has no place in a structured and healthy society. If one acts to stop future negative eventualities proactively one can justify anything to oneself. Batman follows Kant, and does good no matter the end goal because it's the right thing to do. Batman shouldn't be the tool of anyone or be expected to kill just to make other people feel good or safe; that's asking a high moral and emotional price of a man, using him instead of respecting his own decisions.
There are people in society who can cause trouble but if we kill them before a crime or before another one which we haven't seen them commit yet, we're not really achieving a high moral standard. We could kill anyone with a record to make us feel better, but what does that say about us? Batman chooses to avoid punitive measures and actually tries to reach people from the divide to rehabilitate them the right way, because he respects humanity. And with that respect he'd never rob someone of life.
@Master_Dahark, I am sure that the cops would rather have someone on their side who captured criminals rather than one who ran around killing them like one of the criminals. Batman would only be giving his circle a reason to stand against him if he started killing. If he did that he'd not only piss on his parents' memory, who wanted to minimize the violence and despair of Gotham, but Alfred, the Bat family and the GCPD would all go against him and send him down the river for becoming a monster. He has more people depending on him than any other hero, and that stands for a lot, so he acts for them and himself.
Some heroes have a code, just like Spider-Man doesn't go out at night beating people up them shooting webbing down their throats to choke them dead. His life experience has taught him that killing isn't the answer and like Batman, that criminals can be reached through rehabilitation; if one kills a man, how do you reach him on any level to change him? Peter could kill Norman and get rid of the Goblin, but that kind of defeats the purpose of bringing a good man back from the brink.
I agree with everything you said. The people that get killed by the Joker, or any other criminal that Batman fights time and time again, is on Batman. You can't just let insane criminals live if they always find a way to get out of prison to harm or potentially kill. I'm not saying Batman needs to walk up to the Joker and put a bullet in his head but he's had numerous times where killing the Joker is justified.
True. He did in The Dark Knight Returns but that was one comic and it was a separate standalone universe.
He didn't kill Joker. He nearly did, but refused to. It was Joker that snapped his own neck with the last of his energy, to frame Batman for it.
I think "killing" can be a loose term in the Batman universe. Batman kills through inaction, which is what he does in BB with Ra's. "I don't have to save you." He kills through consequence, e.g. the fact that Batman never killed the Joker, allowing the death of Jason Todd instead. Villains bring out the big guns to fight Batman and many cops and innocent bystanders die as collateral damage. Batman inspires regular Joes to don a costume and go out there, either as failing vigilantes, who typically get killed, or as successful villains, who typically kill. The question of how many people Batman has indirectly killed is of course at least a difficult a question to answer as how many people have died because of climate change.
Personally, I don't think the struggle is the binary choice of killing or not killing; rather it is the challenge of how to stick to one's principles and deal with the consequences when they hit back hard, which is something Batman must do in TDK after Rachel has died. Of course I know it's a big deal that Batman, by default, will refrain from killing, but that really isn't the essence of the character for me. So when Batman took out a few thugs in BvS, I wasn't all too upset about that. Not killing is a character trait, and a relatively inflexible one, but not the ultimate point of the Batman. That said, BvS gave us very little of what defines Batman anyway, so I can't say it's an accomplished Batman film at all.
As far as Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is concerned, it is a cynical book, especially when one includes the sequel, and one which begins with Bruce Wayne contemplating that today is perhaps a good day to die. Going out there, facing the Mutants, is almost an act of suicide; perseverance and a little help from Carrie Kelley save him in the end. Fighting Superman just to prove a point is even more of a suicide job, and Supes ultimately holds back; Batman doesn't really win. The Joker snaps his own neck through some weird motion. Why? Because the Batman closed in on him? Or because he figured out that the one last chance he'd probably get of ever killing the Batman seemed wasted? Either way, reports of the Batman resurfacing got Joker to set up his elaborate return scheme. Cause and effect; had Bruce Wayne stayed low, Joker might not have come out of "retirement" at all. Difficult things. One thing leads to another, and so on. Batman's actions are ultimately links in large chains of events, many of which claim a certain amount of victims.
Debating whether or not the Batman kills, directly or indirectly, is interesting but ultimately a waste of time IMO. I think it's far more interesting to discuss Batman's principles and whether his sticking to them does more good than bad. And I will allow comic book authors and even filmmakers some degree of freedom in exploring that theme. (But in case you want to know, I too, intuitively draw the line somewhere. ;-))
Reminds me off how people would tweet President Obama to make him get them out of their petty crimes and mistakes with the law.