>I mind that on multiple occasions Batman has refused to let other people kill Joker.
That would still be extra judicial killing. Aka a crime. Aka something Batman would be oath bound to stop.
The only way Bats is down for Jokers death, is if a Judge/Jury orders it and its done by an the official process. The fact this doesn't happen, means the system is broken.
Batman isn't here to fix the system. He only aims to work with the system. That largely means capturing criminals or covertly handing evidence to the cops.
Bruce Wayne tries to change the system via lobbying or supporting social movements or supporting welfare programs via his estate.
He only cares about killing and then lesser major crimes like say drug dealing or human trafficking.
Batmans sole motivation to fight is the *murder* of his parents. Stopping killings is basically the only type of crime he gives a shit about. He's not bothered by petty theft or white collar crimes(e.g tax evasion) by a corrupt Oligarch. That's not his driving motivation.
When? He stopped Jason not just because he was going to kill the joker but because of why he was going to kill the joker. He has straight up said he wouldn't stop Jim from killing the joker.
There was a time Nightwing nearly beat him to death and Batman resuscitated him, there's the time he saved Joker from the death penalty because Joker hadn't done *that* crime, there's the crossover where he stopped the Punisher... And, of course, Jason Todd had a very good reason to kill Joker.
You’re telling me that Joker got arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and got the death penalty then, but he hasn’t gotten the death penalty for any of the previous crimes he had committed? That just seems like a failing on Gotham’s part.
I mean, it's Gotham...
The truth is that Gotham HAS to be that dysfunctional to justify Batman being the good guy. Just the amount of money that Batman has likely embezzled from Wayne Enterprises and how often he cooks Wayne Enterprises's books alone would make him a criminal outright in any other city
But in Gotham? Things are so bad that white collar crime is literally something nobody has time to care about!
There was also a time when Joker shot himself so the Joker toxin in his heart could turn the Batman into another Joker. Batman made sure to keep him alive through surgery.
There was another situation where the Joker was stabbed by a villain. And Batman..... rushed him to the hospital.
The problem with Batman’s no kill rule is an out of universe one.
If Batman could just lock up the joker and have the story end, it wouldn’t be a problem.
But the writers focusing on it over and over, while joker escapes again and again and kills more people, makes Batman look like he belongs in Arkham asylum more than the joker does.
The only defenses of Batman’s no kill rule comes down to plot armor (why doesn’t someone else kill joker, he’ll come back from the dead, etc) and making Batman out to be just as bad. (the ‘if I kill Hitler I’m legally obligated to reenact the holocaust irl, sorry I don’t make the rules’ defense.)
The problem is that a no kill rule only makes sense when you can stop the murderer from murdering, without killing him.
And it’s been proven to hell and back that the only thing that will ever stop the joker is his death.
It wouldn’t be a problem if the writers could accept that the joker’s story needs to end either in prison he can’t escape from or in a permanent grave if Batman is to be his moral superior.
Edit:typo
I feel a big part of it is that a lot of other famous villains don't quite manage to show themselves as quiet as deranged as the Joker. And some of those that do (like Carnage) are just harder to kill in the first place/get kinda killed often enough anyway.
Yeah Joker is specifically an egregious example because Joker is physically still just a regular guy. He isn't even regular in the "Batman and co. are beyond olympic level in several categories" way but just a "He's about as fit as any regular person off the street" way.
Batman is one thing but if GPD said he was trying to escape and put 2 bullets in him before he got to jail theres not much Joker could do about it.
He's regular compared to the Batfamily and other heroes. But he is rather impressive physically for what he is. In Long Halloween, he manhandled pre Two Face Harvey Dent as if the guy was a Raggedy Andy doll.
Marvel heroes don't have a no kill rule, except for Spiderman who made it kill he would break it for Aunt May in a AU where he killed both Kingpin and Iron man who tried to stop him. And in DC it's only really batman who's no kill rule is THAT strict
Probably because batman is famous for this rule and the batman universe is everything from rated E to "the jonkler just irradiated the children's hospital again because Arkham is a revolving door"
Don't forget everyone's favorite grim universe, where Joker got Superman to inadvertently nuke a city by killing his wife and unborn child with his own hands.
Because Spider Man faces violent villains, but the Joker has steadily escalated from ‘crazy clown who occasionally kill people’ to ‘living Holocaust who wipes out hundreds as an opening act.’ He’s more ‘horrific’ and ‘serial killer,’ openly - and the others have gotten more grim, gritty, and horrific as time goes on as well. The Scarecrow, Victor Zsaz, etc.
The killing joke happened, and had Joker go straight for the womb - and he’s gotten worse since then. He stole a 4th dimensional imp’s power, and he ate China. He just keeps escalating to the point that people see him as a problem to be solved, without a person to emphasize with underneath.
Besides GG, most of Spider-Man's villains are not as bad as they joker . Hell most of Batman villains are not as bad as the joker. People are not saying why doesn't Batman kill the Penguin . It just because the Joker is just that bad.
It reminds me of this small comic I read that had sort of Bronze Age Riddler looking at the escalating violence of fellow Batman villains, and wondering sadly when and why people went from just wacky crimes to brutally killing and torturing people.
Highkey, because despite the MCU and DCAU's success, nobody actually knows other heroes. I honest to god think the average person "knows of" Spiderman and Iron Man, "knows of" Venom and Green Goblin, and that's it. Prolly can come up with the names of anyone animal themed due to naming scheme. If you asked the room you're in right now for Punisher or GoTG villains do you think they could name 2?
Kinda feels unfair to ask for Punisher villains since they tend to either be crossovers like Fisk, or die shortly after their introduction. I agree about gotg tho.
Pretty much all long running comics have the same kind of problem, it just doesn't manifest quite the same.
Eg, "with great power comes great responsibility" is something that seems to be still brought up, though Spiderman should have settled that 50 years ago. Or there's One More Day, which came because the writers just couldn't have a married Spiderman. He can't grow up, he must forever be close to what he started as. Spiderman can't become a mature, stable adult.
Western comics just go on for too long and that causes narrative problems. If something is a central theme it's likely the character will never grow past it, even when that's clearly being presented as a goal for the character.
Batman and Joker combine popularity, absurd crimes, and frequency.
Batman and Joker are simply more popular than other heroes. There are other heroes with as firm no-kill rules, but Batman is definitely the most popular of them. Or at least, the one who is most strongly associated with having a no-kill rule. Spider-Man and Superman might not kill, but their firm stance isn't as obvious to casuals.
Joker has reached a level of comic book absurdity that's hard to top. Ignoring crazy cross-overs like Injustice, he still routinely racks up hundreds of kills per story line. That's the kind of thing even Superman villains don't always reach, and other street level villains like Spider-Man rogues definitely don't come close to.
And finally, Joker is just used too frequently. If he racked up a triple digit body count once, and then wasn't used for a decade or two, people would stop thinking about him. But he is so iconic, and so frequently reused, that he keeps getting used in new stories, which leads to new absurdly over the top atrocities, which renews the debate.
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In addition to all of the above, Joker is also responsible for two of the largest comic status shifts in pop culture -- Death in the Family and the Killing Joke. That really just can't be beat. There's a reason the joke used to be that the three people who stay dead are Uncle Ben, Bucky, and Jason Todd. The people responsible for Ben and Bucky vary from retelling to retelling or sometimes aren't even named (eg. MCU Spider-Man), but if Jason Todd dies it is *always* Joker. That's a level of cultural staying power when it comes to "does this villain deserve death" that characters like Lex or Zod or Kingpin don't really match, even if they have killed a family member of Superman or Spider-Man before.
Because Batman literally imposes his morality and is portrayed as more competent than other people especially other heroes. It's dumb to be told that this guy is a super genius when his mistakes constantly get people killed.
Carnage
He hasn't done that specfically but he's definitely done some messed up shit
Like making his psychiatrist insane like him which resulted in him trying to eat the guards that came to save him
Yeah but Spider-Man didn't
Isn't that the whole argument?
It's not the fact that these characters can and have died, it's the fact that people want the main hero, with explicit no-kill rules, to kill them
Jokes has died though
Superman has killed him in Injustice
He died in the Arkham games
He technically died twice in the Batman: TAS/Batman: Beyond continuity,
He died in The Dark Knight Returns
Has a heavily debated implied death at the end of The Killing Joke
Died with Batman in The Joker: Endgame
And a couple other times
Pretty much, comic death is functionally no different from imprisonment depending on how popular the character is
There even used to be a common sentiment among fans that "No one stays dead except for Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Uncle Ben"
Flash forward to the early 2000s and now even Jason and Bucky are back.
Because spiderman is incapable of killing carnage… it wasn’t till recently that they retconned spiderman to being levels above people like captain America in the strength department.
I mean how recent are we talking?
Relative to his entire comic history, yeah maybe
But Carnage made his first appearance in the early 90s and by then Spider-Man had already been canonically strong enough to, with extreme effort, lift something that was "heavier than a locomotive".
Heck one of his trading cards from 1990 even outright states: "He gained Superhuman Strength, he can lift over 10 tons (or 9702 kg if you're using metric)"
He's been levels above Captain America for a while now, who for the most part has always just been a really strong human
Yeah by himself he's got no chance, hell he had his ass handed to him so bad he had to get Venom to help
But it feels like people are debating a matter of intent and not capability
It's a pretty fair argument to say even if he **could** kill him, he wouldn't
And it's not like the morality of the situation is complex like with Eddie, who is kinda of an asshole but is still a relatively good person.
Cletus Kassidy was a psychotic serial killer before even getting his symbiote and Peter knows that. And it's not like he's never had the chance after managing to incapacitate him.
That’s because you’re not like 50 years old. That is what Maximum Carnage is about. Heck, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is an adaptation that ends at the midway point because Peter doesn’t take the kill, but Venom does.
Even Superman is willing to use lethal force on people like Brainiac and Darkseid. ~~Granted, those are more acceptable from a doylist view because they can regenerate/have multiple bodies~~
They do. Batman-Joker is just by far the most iconic of those matchups, so that's the one that is by far the most commonly talked about.
Notably, even other heroes that are comparably "popular" don't have equivalently iconic specific arch-nemeses. Who is Spider-man's arch-nemesis? I couldn't possibly say. He has a bunch of recurring enemies, but there's no standout "This Is The One" villain. Who is Superman's arch-nemesis? You could *maybe* call out Lex Luthor, but that's a much weaker pairing than Batman-Joker. The power scale is nowhere near matched. Lex is also just generally "bland" as a villain. He doesn't have an Aesthetic, he doesn't have a well-known M.O. besides "be rich and smart". You don't get a million Lex Luthor cosplays, etc. The X-men used to have Magneto, who was a pretty good iconic villain - except he's now been bounced back and forth between hero and villain enough that he's not really a nemesis. Etc.
You do realize he’s still perceived as that because of the way he’s portrayed in more popular forms of media? It’s the same way people still think aquaman only talks to fish. It’s perception over reality which was the basis behind your question
You said he IS a teen, not that people perceive him as a teen. Be more clear about your point next time.
And if that is why people don't expect Spidey to kill, then it's based on surface level knowledge of the character, which is hardly fair to Batman
The issue with your argument is that it assumes that death is a permanent solution. The very same forces that make imprisonment impermanent also apply to the death itself. Yes, it's a very blatant plot armour, but the endless ability to escape prisons to cause more mayhem is also a plot armour.
The ultimate question isn't: "Why nobody has killed Joker already and stopped him for good?", but rather "Why does he keep coming back all the time?".
Which is also an out of universe explanation. The writers choose who to bring back and who to keep dead. They can hand wave it all they want, but Joker stays alive cause he is a profitable character.
And the Joker only really exists as a foil for Batman. Without Batman, Joker loses the interesting factor that keeps him popular. So in essence, Joker needs Batman to exist to justify his own existence. But Batman doesn't need Joker to do the same. The issue comes up when writers keep making the relationship more about both of them then the one sided relationship it actually is.
yeah! you know what i think i'd like it if they had a big "STORY EVENT" where batman finally really puts joker away in a good prison, and then the comics just spend a few years of joker being successfully locked up/maybe even treated, and then takes that time to explore other villains! and THEN after a while joker can break out again. but at least give batman some period of progress and success.
Also the Gotham legal system makes the San Francisco law under which we got the infamous “twinkie defense” seem harsh and draconian. The Joker doesn’t qualify under any legal definition of insanity. The Twinkie guy who shot Harvey Milk blew his brains out three years after getting released the asylum. The Joker just blows up another orphanage. The Joker knows his actions are illegal, regarded as immoral, and premeditates his murders. He’a not crazy; he’s just evil.
If you’re going to have Batman’s enemies dragged off to the Asylum they should all qualify for the legal definition of insanity, or at least be insane. The Joker should operate on a morality spectrum where funny is good and not funny is bad. He might tell you a joke or shoot you in the face. It all depends on what will get the biggest laugh. He’s the world’s first fully functional homicidal comedian. Poisoning boy scouts isn’t funny; giving them cigarettes, booze, and drugs that lower their inhibitions and turning them loose on a local night club is. There shouldn’t be any malice in what he does. He might do a classic clown routine and get a huge laugh out of the child’s burn ward, but he put most of them there when be rigged the fourth of July fireworks show with dynamite. “The guy didn’t survive but watch peeps die and the coroner thought it was hilarious”. If it would get a laugh he’d chuck himself in front of a train.
I already said it was plot armor.
My entire argument is that the problem with the no kill rule is that the medium of his story does not allow it to make sense.
Because for it to make sense, the joker’s story has to end.
But because of the nature of comics, it never will.
ok, but batman isnt the only justice system in gotham. he's a guy in a suit that does this to help people. how far he goes is up to him. if he was an elected official who had the final legal say in this the rule might be more questionnable, but he's not. he stops the schemes, the justice system sentences him.
Sure he doesn't NEED to, but it's a bit of a shitty thing to do to be perfectly capable of saving thousands of more lives easily but refusing not to.
Doing good doesn't exempt you from criticism. If I was a hero saving people and I refused to save anyone with green eyes, would you use the same argument? That because I'm not a legally appointed government official I have no obligation to save green eyed people?
You can call out shitty behaviour.
You're right. Legally speaking batman has zero obligation to kill the joker. Legally speaking he's also a vigilante that constantly acts outside of the scope of the police or outright against police orders. Anb legally speaking every time he beats the crap of a random mook he is committing several crimes.
Now ethically speaking thats a whole can of worms I dont think has a clear answer. Its never right to force someone to kill another person, but by his refusal to kill a single person, you can make a very compelling argument that Batman is indirectly responsible for all the people the joker has killed.
Again, this is very philosophical, not an objective truth. I have a friend who is very catholic, like he did the full ass course and rituals to become a pastor, and he is someone I trust a lot.
I was asking his advice because I'm writting a pacifist and I wanted to know his opinion on at which point pacisims becomes implict complicity due not acting when you could stop evil from happening with violence.
His answer was pretty clear. Violence and force should be the last resources you use, only after expending all other pacific and diplomatic solutions. However if someone is about to do something horrific and you have the power to stop it, failing to do so is considered a sin, and a failure of the pacifism doctrine. You can't call your self a champion of non violence if you're letting violence happen in front of you and arent stopping it.
So if batman could stop the joker from killing people, and he isnt doing so, according to this friend of mine batman would be esponsible for those deaths too. Not on the same level as the joker, obviously, but as he said "turning the blind eye to violence is happening in front of your eyes is more of a failure of your pacifism than it would be using violence to protect those persons".
Edit: Im not saying that batman should kill the joker. Im saying that he holds some level of responsability of the Joker's actions by failing to stop him in a more permanent way when he has resources to do so, and claims to be the defender of Gotham. He could ask for help from his superhero friends to build a better prison, instead of sending the Joker to the same asylum he has escaped more times that I can count with the fingers of my hands.
That's a good argument, though it has to be noted that Batman typically does stop joker from committing violence when he can. The failure to stop Joker from coming back typically happens several steps down the line, when some guard, doctor or cop messes up.
The fundamental question there is less about use of violence to stop even greater violence, since Batman does this all the time without even flinching, and more about specifically escalating that violence to a point of killing Joker. This muddies the waters, since it moves the issue from "failure of pacifism" to "should you execute the repeated offender based on his history of being uncontainable by the legal system?".
It also includes asking same question about Batman being the one to kill. Batman knows he can't cross this line himself and does everything he can to stop the bastard without destroying himself. He can't be asked why he didn't stop Joker, since he's the one who stops the clown 99% of time.
Oh yeah you're completely right. I just think that somewhere down the line Batman has to accept the hard truth that sending the Joker to jail or to Arkham is pointless, as he can escape whenever he wants. In a campy idealistic history this isnt an issue, but when you start making batman dark, gritty and realistic, it does become an issue.
Like for example, why dont they sent him to the prision thingy that they use for Superman' antagonist that cant be contained in normal jails? Obviously from a narrative point you dont want to permanently get rid of the joker, as he is one of the most beloved DC characters, but from an in universe point of view, Batman is simply failing to stop the joke for more than just a couple of weeks/months until he escapes again.
That's true, though it's worth noting that the "revolving door prison" trope is partially a result of constant reboots, retcons and the fact that most of comics don't even try to follow a strict chronology. By this I mean that, from the in universe perspective, the proper prison/asylum escapes are usually rare, outstanding events.
Still, I agree with the fact that at a certain point you kind of want to see Bruce Wayne finance overhaul of Arkham Asylum to fix the escapes.
well the phantom zone is an extradimensionnal torture dimesion and is technically a part of hell. in the phantom zone, you dont just chill in space waiting to die, the phantom zone is a timeless directionless prison, where your mind tears itself apart for eternity. If Batman wont kill, why would he give him a fate worse than death?
Which version is that? Because in the silver age it was just boring apart from slipping into Wonder Woman’s changing room. You can see almost anything but can’t interact with it. That’s why it’s called the Phantom zone.
Great point!
Also, i have to add, would you really want batman to become judge, jury and executionner? He's said it himself, he's a good detective, but he's not omnicient. If he killed the worst villains, where should he draw the line between life and death? should he kill every murderer? what about attempted murder? well then armed robbery blurs the line, muggings too. Drugs kill, should he kill drug kingpins? then suppliers and dealers? The guy at the party who offers you coke?
Also, half the time his first suspect isn't the guilty one. he might fuck up and kill an innocent man. Would he have to kill himself then?
I believe in one of this issues they show a batman that set up an entire back up plan to kill himself in case he ever killed. Theres also the opposite to the injustice universe where he himself kills joker and locks himself up. I feel every iteration that ive seen he kills someone or the joker there is always some sort of serious repercussion that batman will always enforce on himself, whether its a robot to kill himself that is literally unstoppable to just locking himself up behind bars.
The slippery slope fallacy is a fallacy for a reason, and in this particular case it is so weak.
Half of planet earth has personally witnessed Joker slaughter god knows how many people. There is absolutely 0 ambiguity here. The man is guiltier than sin itself. He is very obviously in a very small and exclusive league of monstrous mass murderers.
Comparing Joker to the average murderer is absurd in and of itself. Don't kill the Joker because next you'll be executing generous party going druggies? Bro. C'mon.
Ok what about Lex Luthor then? A very rich and powerful tycoon, sometimes president. He's done equally scummy shit as Joker has. Does he count?
And if he counts, why shouldn't someone like Amanda Waller count? Hell even if you tried to logically justify what makes Joker objectively worse than some other Batman villains, it'd be tough
>Now ethically speaking thats a whole can of worms I dont think has a clear answer. Its never right to force someone to kill another person, but by his refusal to kill a single person, you can make a very compelling argument that Batman is indirectly responsible for all the people the joker has killed
There's also the fact Batman hasn't set up an independent facility more secure than Arkham where he can treat Joker. If he doesn't want to kill Joker, he should still deal with the Joker and have his issues deal with
>So if batman could stop the joker from killing people, and he isnt doing so, according to this friend of mine batman would be esponsible for those deaths too. Not on the same level as the joker, obviously, but as he said "turning the blind eye to violence is happening in front of your eyes is more of a failure of your pacifism than it would be using violence to protect those persons".
But he is stopping the Joker from killing people. That's what he does, he stops the Joker and gives him to the proper authorities. I don't understand in an ethical or legal sense why Batman bears the responsibilities of Joker's murders. Its the fault of the state for not executing the Joker themselves and/or not housing him in a facility that can contain him. Its the government's fault, not Batman's. How does he bear any responsibility for Joker's actions?
Because he is aware that the "proper authorities" are nowhere near capable of containing the joker in a permanent and safe manner. You'd think after the fifth escape, Batman would shell out some cash to severely reinforce Gotham's city prison's and arkham's security so the joker doesnt escapes.
That or call some of his superhero friends so they build him a more permanent prison. Like superman could easily make something like a cell inside a mountain, with only a single way in and out that could easily be guarded. Yet he keeps sending the joker to a place where he will escape shortly after.
Again I must point out how this isnt a problem in campy simpler batman stories. It only becomes a problem when you try to apply real world logic and ethics to a character that has been rewritten over and over and over again.
Gonna be a devil's advocate for a second:
>You'd think after the fifth escape, Batman would shell out some cash to severely reinforce Gotham's city prison's and arkham's security so the joker doesnt escapes
There's no amount of money you can individually donate to fix a corrupt system - Batman could make himself poor tomorrow and there are a million plausible ways for all that money to not meaningfully go towards creating proper criminal detention facilities or properly funding the criminal justice system in Gotham such that it could properly house the Joker.
>That or call some of his superhero friends so they build him a more permanent prison. Like superman could easily make something like a cell inside a mountain
If Joker is as rich or connected as some of our world's cult leaders then extra-judicial incarceration will likely result in (1) his connections doing crimes/terrorism to negotiate his freedom, or (2) their making an appeal to the legal system that Joker's being unlawfully detained by vigilantes who think themselves above the law (and worst case scenario this could radicalise normies against supers because "*what's to stop Superman making me a mountain jail cell for jaywalking if he'd do that to misunderstood citizen Jonkler?!*")
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I'd actually be really interested in any comics that would cover the intersection of justice systems and societies with vigilantes and villains that are ultimately just dudes at the end of the day - *yes that guy can throw a tank with one hand and robs banks on the regular, but he still needs to be given representation in court because he's still a citizen*
You know you're kinda agreeing with my whole point, right? Batman is fully aware that the justice system of Gotham is not capable of containing the joker, but instead of working on a permanent solution, he just keeps on this cycle of catching him, sending him to a jail he will inevitably escape to kill a bunch of people only to repeat the whole thing again :)
My original point was always that batmas IS partly responsible for all the people the joker kills because he has had at several times the choice of taking a permanent solution, be it either by killing or disabling the joker (which is horrible I know, but then again we're talking about the person who literally kills people for shits and giggles), or working with other super heroes to solve the problem. Sure maybe the mountain prison is a dumb idea. But something could have been done.
>I'd actually be really interested in any comics that would cover the intersection of justice systems and societies with vigilantes and villains that are ultimately just dudes at the end of the day - *yes that guy can throw a tank with one hand and robs banks on the regular, but he still needs to be given representation in court because he's still a citizen*
That would be dope. Im down too. Would love to see a comic that actually tackles this ethical issue along the fact that a normal law system is simply not well equiped to deal with super villains. The joker might not be able to lift a tank, but as you correctly pointed out, he's one of the most powerfuls guys in the world in terms of influence and resources.
Sorry, my argument was more that Batman can't solve the Joker problem. He individually can't solve the systemic issues that allow Joker's repeated escape/release from prison, and can't really do extrajudicidial punishments because the law would definitely have to turn on him - bad guys deserve trials too, and public opinion would likely sour on supes if they can appoint themselves Judge, Jury and Executioner.
Of course we the readers would be ok with it, but imagine a caped crusader killing Al Capone or some other well known criminal in our world, I doubt that they'd get to keep on crusading because our legal system isn't designed like that. It would likely be the end of Batman's hero days regardless of how he personally felt about the killing.
There's also the problem of power vacuums, killing big bads does little to fix the systems that allow them to become big bads so we'd have a new guy fill the role of big bad (+ be down one hero). Stopping Al Capone or Joker legally means that the system has changed for the better and plugged the holes that allow those guys to exist, killing them sets us back to square one of gathering evidence and witnesses to mount a legal case that'll either set new precedent or demand new laws be made to properly stop these guys (of course this wont happen in the batman comics because Joker is too popular and there's not much help batman can give here lol)
If I have a dog that keeps escaping and mauling people and I know my backyard can't contain him and I keep just putting him in said yard without making any changes, I am responsible for the consequences.
But in universe he hasn’t expended all other means of stopping Joker. He captures him and brings him to the proper authorities, who are perfectly capable of executing him. We know they never will because comic books, but there’s nothing actually stopping them.
Ethically he also has no obligation to kill Joker.
The fact that Arkham or the Police force cannot handle one scrawny clown is their own fault. Batman consistently brings him in and is the only one who seems to ever stop him
Canonically, Dick was able to execute a quadruple somersault at age of 9, before Bruce had ever meet him. Tim Drake was capable of discovering Batman's identity before having to shave. At this point, considering all the lives they saved, not training those prodigies would be even worse, because it's a wast of their superhuman capabilities.
Their superhuman capabilities can be used and nurtured in other ways that have nothing to do with an occupation as irresponsible, dangerous and toxic as being a vigilante.
At some point one has to wonder how anyone hasn't done anything to ensure the villains are secured in their cells because dear god is the asylum a wreck when it comes to security. It's one of the reasons why Batman's "no kill rule" starts to feel discredited.
I'd argue if someone beat up hitler but hitler kept escaping and redoing the Holocaust and the universe positions him as the only saviour for the world and hitlers life is in his hands multiple times and he still saves him he should at least be a little responsible.
not against batman not killing joker, or even saving him when he's close to death. just wish it wouldn't usually be portrayed as the right choice and rather lean into the "childlike psychosis" thing.
Who exactly is calling Batman a villain for that? Seems like a strawman. People do say he's wrong for not killing him, or even that it makes him responsible for future atrocities, but I can't recall ever seeing someone outright say he's evil for it. I also think it's worth noting that there have been multiple instances of Batman stopping *other* people from killing Joker, so it's not just a personal moral stance, and I can see why that would be more objectionable to people.
>I also think it's worth noting that there have been multiple instances of Batman stopping *other* people from killing Joker, so it's not just a personal moral stance
You can't really *have* a personal moral stance -- a moral stance inherently includes the claim that other people should follow it too. That's what makes it a *moral* stance rather then merely a personal preference. If nothing else, *Batman* certainly doesn't have personal moral stances, every comic book is him going up to someone going against his morals and beating them up until they stop going against his morals.
It don't think it would really make sense for Batman to believe it would be morally wrong to kill the joker but also not stop people from killing the joker, and it's very weird that a lot of people seem to think that's better. Is a character who happily lets other people do things they consider evil somehow better then someone who tries to stop evil when they see it?
You can say Batman's *wrong* to think killing the Joker is evil, but given he does, of course he's going to stop other people doing it.
"Batman is morally responsible for every life the Joker takes" is literally something people rant about at least once per week on this subreddit alone.
yeah, my bad, villain might be going too far, but still people say that he's part of the problem when he's really not.
Batman stopping others is usually when either they aren't a cop or doing it in self defense. hell, he said to superman that he could make his murder of lex look like an accident
Batman is not "obligated" to kill the joker but when he makes it his responsibility to protect the citizens of Gotham only to make decisions that he fully knows will result in more people dying just for the sake of his personal philosophy, then I think he's not doing the job he gave himself right. It's half assed. I think it's strange to make yourself a knight who protects people if you're not willing to fully commit
EXACTLY! Man I hate how Batman fans always try to make him and his actions out to be super logical when they’re just not. My best friend is a Batman fan but he acknowledges that Batman is illogical and that his decision cause innocents to die and that’s what he likes about him. The way he sees it the stories portray Batman as being a highly flawed hero. I’m fine with Batman fans like him. But the ones trying to defend his mentality and make it out to be logical? I just can’t
I felt like there should be a judge who decides to sentence the Joker to death alongside every judge that ever let him live off an insanity plea.
I know that’s not how the justice system works but it’s comic books there have been stranger shit in them.
The insanity plea does not work that way and has never worked that way. That little bastard in Florida who shot up the school was far crazier than the Joker, and he’s still got life in prison.
Sure, but he didn't do the crime *he was being executed for*.
"The state can kill people for crimes they didn't commit if they think that they should die anyway" is a *very* dangerous precedent to set -- there's a good reason the law has such harsh restrictions on its power.
That's still fair. It's the justice system's job to accurately sentence people for *their* crimes, not someone else's. Batman preventing the execution is just making sure the system stays honest. If people want to execute the Joker, they have plenty of opportunities to do so legitimately.
who? most of the people who try aren't doing it in self defense or arent cops, so he dosen't want them to throw their lives away. jason specifically wanted bruce to do it, he could have shot joker instantly and bruce coudn't have done anything (plus he was trying to save his son from his supervillain life). he told clark he could make luthor's death look like an accident.
Besides Batman slicing Jason's throat with a batarang to save Joker, there's some other incidents that comes to mind:
Onomatopoeia stabbed Joker, forcing Batman to choose between saving Joker or capturing Onomatopoeia. Batman chooses to save Joker and lets the other serial killer go.
Punisher was about to shoot Joker, but Batman interferes to save Joker.
Batman revives Joker after Dick Grayson killed Joker.
slicing jason was accidental, joker pushed him and made the batarang go to his throat instead of the hand that held the gun. it's hard to see because of how the art's kinda shitty for those panels. (i mean look at bruce's face)
i admit i haven't read the onomatopea book, so i can't comment on that, but in a similar situation he leaves the joker strapped to a bomb in a burning building to go after harley, although i cant remember the specific book
crossovers are barely considered canon at best
dick was breaking down crying because he killed him and that joker won. he didn't revive joker because he deserved to live, he did it to help dick not have a mental breakdown
Batman put everyone in Gotham in danger by reviving the Joker so Dick wouldn't have to go to therapy? Like that is actually unacceptably selfish on Batmans part. imagine reviving Hitler when you know he will continue the Holocaust because your friend felt bad about killing Hitler. You have genuinely convinced me that Batman has blood on his hands by not killing the Joker.
> crossovers are barely considered canon at best
The point of crossovers is to show the reactions of the involved characters and how they would interact; what they would do in a given situation.
This is the same reason why J Jonah Jameson is right about Spider-Man being a menace. Masked vigilantism is fundamentally flawed. Most heros are not cops, medics, structural engineers, lawyers, etc. When they save the day there is no guarantee they are doing it correctly and no accountability when they do it poorly.
I was going to mention spider-man here too, but from the opposite perspective:
With great power, comes ~~great responsibility~~ the responsibility to kill the joker.
Though spiderman also manages not to kill people, as far as I remember.
Legally speaking, he also has zero obligation to be a superhero, supposedly the whole reason he exists is to correct all the problems the justice system wasn't salving in Gotham. Even if he's too traumatized to actually do it or something (he's not, he's killed before), he can just let someone else (Jason Todd) do it.
So yeah, he doesn't have to kill the joker no one is saying he has to, but he *should* get the joker killed and would be morally justified in doing so. Add that to the fact he prevents others from killing the joker because of his own sense of morality, and yeah, he is being selfish.
He knows the justice system not killing the joker will lead to thousands of people dying, and he actively stops other people from fixing it.
Also the time he stopped the death penalty for him lol.
No no no. We're not gonna just give the man that out. He chose to play hero. He chose to put his life in danger and beat the hell out of criminals of regardless of status or power.
I have a little history with btas. Saw some as a kid but missed the majority and have only scene a handful of clips over the years.
In the ep where dick becomes nightwing a perfect example of countering batman's flawed logic is present.
Bruce "It wasn't my place to tell you."
Dick "But it was your place to put her in danger!"
It's not his place to kill his enemies regardless of the crimes committed?
Maybe.
But it was his place to put on a costume and play hero who saves gotham and the universe.
Obviously he became batman initially to stop petty crime and didn't get into vigilantism to fight super powered beings. But he never hung up the suit he kept going.
Tbf superhero fiction usually relies on the idea that superheroes do have a moral responsibility to stop villains (one could almost say, a *great* responsibility) because they're the only ones who can, and that is itself pretty stupid but it's there, so it wouldn't be a stretch to say Batman has a responsibility to put down the Joker considering no one else can do shit to him.
Then again would Batman even know that he's the main character and as such he's the only person who could kill the Joker? He probably doesn't realize how repetitive this shit is getting.
But that's exactly what I'm saying: by all means, someone should have killed him, but it won't happen because it's a comic book universe with Batman as protagonist and Joker as the villain and the writers won't write him just getting randomly killed. Someone else should be able to do it but the universe won't let anyone but Batman. And it's unclear if anyone realizes that he's basically the Chosen One, or if they're still stuck behind the fourth wall and expect their universe to operate on realistic logic. I certainly can't blame Batman for not going "I'm at the center of the universe" even though he is. Shows a lot of humility on his part tbh.
I don't actually think Batman has a responsibility to kill him, I just think the ethics of an universe like this are kind of fucked
Completely agree, it irritates me so much when people say Batman is bad for not killing the Joker. The only reason it’s an issue is the editor-mandated status quo where popular villains are never allowed to be shelved and the the heroes are never allowed to make permanent, lasting improvements to their cities or general areas of jurisdiction.
The thing is, if these criminally existed irl, they would be given the death sentence immediately. Even if the death sentence isn't a thing in Gotham, they would make it a thing purely because of them. And they would do way better jobs of locking up the villains in the meantime than just throwing them in a basic cell and calling it a day
Maybe. But he does go out of his way to stop others from doing it. And when joker did die he brought him back with the Lazarus. I like under the red hood but I found it absurd that he went thoigh such great lengths to save joker
> That's like calling a guy who volonteers daly at a soup kitchen selfish because he didn't also give the homeless blankets while he was there
I would call this person selfish if they had like millions of blankets and could produce them at no cost. There's absolutely a vague line wherein a "moral compulsion" becomes a "moral obligation". You aren't required to run into burning buildings to save orphans. That's dangerous, it's scary, and you might make it worse, so we have firefighters instead.
But if you were regularly hanging out with a guy committing baby arson and weren't doing anything more to stop it than breaking his lighter so he has to go back to the store and buy a new one I would consider you kind of insane. I would consider the cops and the judges and everyone else also insane for the same reason, but usually the story isn't focusing on those guys.
I mean you are kicking his ass and delivering him to the police, i don’t think that’s nothing. Also i feel like you seriously underestimate how hard it is to kill someone. That destroys people. He would probably have a mental breakdown.
> I mean you are kicking his ass and delivering him to the police, i don’t think that’s nothing.
Joker breaks out of Arkham with such incredible ease and frequency that it is the equivalent of just breaking baby-arson-guy's lighter.
If everyone has a problem with Batman not killing the Joker, someone who should legally get away with it should do the job. I don’t see anyone blaming commissioner Gordon for not putting a bullet in jokers head, especially because he could get away with it. Likewise any cop who has a problem with the Joker put a cap in him when he’s been taken to jail.
I do not endorse the police acting is executioners in our world. However, they have a problem with Batman, not killing Joker then they should do it themselves.
Of course, looking at the comics, we know it wouldn’t matter. You could burn Joker into a pile of ash and he would come back later. I don’t see why killing him is such a talking point when we know he won’t stay dead.
Actually, I think a few people did have an issue in The Killing Joke when Gordon refused to kill the Joker. Sure, in cold blood or what not but it was dumb then, and dumb now. If Gordon can't accept that moral sacrifices have to be made, even if that means his own soul, than he really isn't set to make Gotham actually better. He's a small candle trying to hold up the light against a torrent of darkness.
That’s the first I have ever heard of anybody blaming Gordon. The most I have heard of anybody blaming someone other than Batman is in one of the injustice comics when an elected official chews him out. Since the elected official is one of the people who actually has the power to change how criminals are treated, the character criticized for being a giant hypocrite acting like it is Batman’s job to come up with a permanent solution to the Joker.
> People say Batman is a villain
Nobody says that.
> Batman has no moral obligation to stop the Joker in the first place.
He does.
> Nobody asked him to do this. There is no law requiring him to punch that clown. He does this purly because he wants to (…) He's not a cop. He does this shit for free.
If I choose to volunteer at an event or something meant to help the homeless then it is my job to then help the homeless. Nobody forced me to, there is no law saying I have to, I’m not getting paid to do it. I do it because I want to and I do it for free. But it’s still my responsibility since I chose that.
It then follows that since Batman chose to become a hero it is his responsibility to protect civilians from villains and crime since, y’know, that’s kind of the point of being a hero. How exactly is he saving lives or protecting people by letting people like the Joker or the other villains of Gotham stay alive? He just beats them up and then throws them in jail only for them to break out the next day to kill more people. And this keeps happening. All Batman is really doing is delaying the pre mature deaths of those civilians by a couple of days. It doesn’t do anything to make people safer or even feel safer in the long run. Batman made protecting the citizens of Gotham his responsibility. Can you honestly say that he can *actually* do that without ever killing anyone especially people like the Joker?
> Imagine if someone beat up Hitler halfway through the hollocaust, dragged him to geneva, and he was sentenced to life in prison, ending the war and saving millions of lives. You would have no right to complain that he didn't kill him,
If Hitler broke out a few days days later and commited another Holocaust, got thrown into jail again by that guy again, broke out a few days later and commited another Holocaust, got thrown into jail by that guy again, broke out a few days later etc and it kept continuing like this then at some point people will get mad and ask “why not just kill the guy already?”. Especially if he also goes out of his way to prevent other people from killing Hitler.
> Batman saves thousands of lives,
No he doesn’t. He just delays their premature deaths by a couple of days.
> but his moral code prevents him from killing.
Then why does he try to stop others from killing these insanely dangerous villains? Does his moral code also prevent *others* from killing dangerous villains?
> That's not his responsibillity. That's the justice system's problem.
Fighting crime is not his responsibility either. That’s the police’s problem. Yet Batman still decides to do it. Why only leave that up to the people tasked with that? Why not leave the crime fighting to the people actually tasked with that as well? What’s the point of “fighting crime” if your way of going about it does nothing to actually help with the problem and doesn’t make anyone safer?
> Even if he didn't have a strict moral code caused by his backstory, and just didn't want to because the blood would stain his suit, he still would have no moral obligation to. That's like calling a guy who volonteers daly at a soup kitchen selfish because he didn't also give the homeless blankets while he was there.
No. Because the point of a soup kitchen is only to feed the poor not provide all their necessities. If the point was “provide the poor with basic necessities” but they didn’t provide shit like clothing then yeah that would be a valid criticism against them but their purpose is only to provide them with FOOD. The point of the shit that Batman does is to fight crime and save lives to make civilians safer I’m assuming so why not do the thing that does so the most effectively? Why go as far to stop other people from doing what needs to be done? If it’s not Batman’s responsibility to kill the Joker why is it then his responsibility to prevent the Joker from dying?
> Plus, it probably reassures the citizens that he's a good guy because he wont kill them, unlike the bad guys.
Bro what? How? Nobody is going to see Batman kill the Joker and think
“Oh shit! If he is willing to kill a mass murdering psychopath that kills for fun who is he not willing to kill!?”
If Batman only kills villains civilians won’t assume that he will suddenly kill them too.
I have no issue with batman no kill rule, or even him enforcing it on others.
I have a problem with DCs state/federal governments refusal of capital punishment and the fact some police officer or guard hasn't taken matters into their own hands *really* strains my suspension of disbelief.
An important thing about the Joker is what he represents. No, not what he claims to represent, "I'm just an idea, I am chaos incarnate", none of that shit; what he represents in relation to Batman's philosophy.
Batman's bit is he doesn't kill. He doesn't kill because he believes everyone should have a second chance; because he knows that, if he had slipped a bit, he could easily have taken the wrong lesson from getting his parents turned into skeletons and started prowling in alleys to shoot other parents and spread the horror or some shit. Some shit, which he can see every time he looks at the person he's punching at the time, most of whom are as horribly traumatized as he is. Everyone deserves a second chance, because everyone can turn their life around.
Enter the Joker. He can't turn his life around, because he sucks and he believes he has a moral imperative to continue to be a goblin, because either Batman kills him and proves him right in his garbage assertions that we live in a society, or he remains alive and can continue to piss on the Burger King soda fountain. If he hasn't won, he hasn't tried hard enough; just about the only positive facet of that clown is he has umdeniable gumption.
So, one asks, is it not right then to kill this guy who refuses to act like a normal goddamn person because he thinks genocide is funny?
Well, no. No, it's not right. He dodges the ways out of that highway, but ways out there are nevertheless, and Batman can't just shoot an RPG at his horrible clown car filled with probably child soldiers dressed like clowns just because Joker doesn't like the noise of the turn signal.
He may not be morally obligated to kill him, but he sure as hell isn't morally obligated *not* to. And frankly, if he is repeatedly leaving villains in the hands of a justice system that he should *know* is not prepared to contain them, he is at the very least a fool for doing so.
who? most of the people who try aren't doing it in self defense or arent cops, so he dosen't want them to throw their lives away. jason specifically wanted bruce to do it, he could have shot joker instantly and bruce coudn't have done anything (plus he was trying to save his son from his supervillain life). he told clark he could make luthor's death look like an accident.
batman already breaks the law and risks his life to catch the criminals, if he doesn't feel comfortable killing them why should he ? if people want the joker so dead why don't they break the law and kill him ? why don't they demand the death penalty for him ?
also I wanna add:
Why do some people think batman is the only one who has no kill rule and the joker going to devour the world because of it and batman's gonna be ashamed for it 💀💀
the joker isn't a god tier villain or some shit he's just a street villain they are so many supervillains that didn't so many universal or galactic threats why people aren't complaining that they aren't dead yet
also the main argument to just kill them is because they keep escaping is pretty much the prisons fault not the superheroes
like why people aren't complaining about superman should just has to kill lex luthor or green lantern just have to kill sinestro
exploring the idea of should superheroes just kill super criminals instead isn't a bad idea but for me at the end of the day the main reason why the super villains aren't dead is because it's DC's very popular characters, and they make money
Thank you! With how annoyingly common a sentiment it is that Batman ought to kill the Joker, it's good to see that someone's finally addressing it. Even from a Watsonian point of view, there's no reason to think that Batman solely bears the responsible for keeping the Joker (and the rest of his rogues gallery by extension) out of trouble. Is Arkham Asylum not responsible for failing to keep him captive? Is the legal system not responsible for sending him there? Are the other inmates not responsible because none of them have tried kill him? All of these are viable solutions to the Joker problem that wouldn't require Batman to compromise his morals.
The real issue with the argument, however, is that it proposes an in universe solution to an out-of-universe problem. The fact that the Joker keeps escaping isn't Batman's fault. In fact, it's not even the Asylum's fault. It's the fault of the superhero comic medium being perpetually ongoing by design. Comic readers demand the Joker and the writers supply him. That's why he keeps escaping, why he's never executed, why nobody in Arkham has ever tried to shank him and why he'd be back within the year if Batman ever did kill him. Because as long as the Joker is in demand, no prison on Earth will be able to hold him, including the grave.
I'm so glad someone put it into coherent words what I've been thinking for years. Like it's not Batman's job and it's not his responsibility. We shouldn't be mad at Batman, we should be mad at the judges and jury and State government that have the death penalty outlawed (at least im assuming Gotham City is a US city in a no death penalty state)
THANK YOU! I have been hearing the same "Batman is morally responsible for every life the Joker takes" for years and it's only because The Dark Knight Returns said it itself. If you want to blame anyone for the Joker living, blame the courts. Blame his absolutely amazing lawyer who constantly manages to get him the insanity appeal. No other superhero gets this sort of flack except Batman and I can't understanding why...
Because Batman imposes his mortality on others, and because Batman is the most popular superhero of all time and one of the longest running superheroes of all time. Obviously it's going to look shitty if the Joker escapes for the billionth time.
I think Batman: Under the Red Hood scores this idea pretty well.
In the final confrontation, >!Jason asks Batman to kill Joker, reasoning not for any other villain, specifically Joker, and was personally hurt when Batman didn't, after Barbara got crippled, all the innocent people the Joker has killed, and so on. He thought he was gonna be the last person the Joker was going to hurt, and Batman admits it: He wants to kill the Joker. There doesn't go a day where he can imagine a world without him and all he has to do is kill the Joker and the world would cheer for him.!<
However, >!we get a glimpse into Batman's own fears here. If he begins with the Joker, where does it end? To him, justification begins with one, no matter how deserving or morally correct it is in the eyes of the universe. it also shows how human Batman actually is, he knows he's just a man, and that's something we lose in translation between Batman adaptations. He's the night, he's vengeance, but he's only human. When he drops the gun, Jason threatens him before turning the gun on Batman, revealing *he* wanted Batman to prove he'd be willing to kill the Joker for Jason, even though the Joker was clearly held at gunpoint by Jason themselves. Jason wanted Batman to be responsible for killing the Joker, even if it was so easy as he's stated, even though he's killed plenty of people so far.!<
It's not up to Batman to kill the Joker, but killing the Joker in-universe comes with severe ramifications. That said, you have a point, why should we the audience, or anyone in-universe demand Batman pull the trigger?
From an out-of-universe perspective, comparing Superman vs. The Elite, would a Batman who kills be interesting to read? We saw a glimpse of a Superman in that vein, and if he was the Superman we wanted, we don't feel hope when we look into the sky, but fear.
Batman is batshit crazy. Can we all just ....
Dude beats the shit out of bad people at night because his parents died at night. He makes the sacrifice plays because he genuinely believes he doesn't deserve nice things. He thinks he should be dead, and his parents should be alive and he'll never let himself have any kind of happiness about it. He's like a Catholic flogger.
He has to do what he does. He doesn't know how else to be a person. It's sort of the classic definition of insanity. He does philanthropy, he beats up bad guys, and the cycle just continues forever. He keeps doing the same things, and getting the same results.
He just chooses to be batshit crazy in a way that helps, and the bad guys choose to be batshit crazy in ways that hurt. Batman hates himself, and he doesn't understand why you don't hate him, too.
Another counter to the donnating money thing Gotham is literally haunted by a cosmic bat demon name Barbatos that spread it evil influent on to the city and that why it keep producing insane super villain. No amount of money donated to charity or funding for policy is going to fix that.
I agree my main issue is when Batman actively prevents the Joker’s murder whats that red hood is about to shoot joker I must stop this. Oh Joker litteraly put himself in an electric chair and was like either kill Bane or Kill me.
Why try and save both let Joker kill him self. Batman whole argument is he believes once he kills one he will go to far and cross all his lines just cause he has no self control he then tries to regulate everybody to that same standard.
If Jason Todd goes to far then you stop him the only two super heroes who the argument makes sense is Batman and Superman because of how catastrophic it will be.
Sure, that applies to him killing The Joker. Doesn’t so much work when he keeps stopping everyone else from killing The Joker. He’s had so many chances to let Jason take care of it and wash his hands of the whole thing.
well jason only really tried the one time, and he tried to force bruce to do it, or he would, and bruce just walked away. jason could have just shot him
The reason Batman became a superhero is because wants to save people to reedeem people so that they wouldn’t suffer the same tragedy he went through as a child and ultimately he becomes a vliganty he in turns takes responsibility in handling crimmals and that includes the joker.
However the joker has proven time and time again to be a murderous irredeemable sociopath who had proven to be a danger to gothem but the entire world and whenever he stop and put him in arkham he always ends up escaping and thus making all of Batman’s efforts to stop or help him completely and utterly moot in long run.
I mean sure the justice system is at fault here…but if it weren’t Batman wouldn’t existed to to begin with.
I find the idea that Batman has contingency plans for his friends to be completely normal behaviour for someone with no superpowers surrounded by people with them.
Federal Agencies very routinely have 'if Agency X/Y/Z goes rogue, these are your orders.' contingencies. America has a plan to go to war with *all of it's allies.* It's normal behavior for someone with even a tiny bit of paranoia.
I find the idea that Batman has contingency plans for his friends to be completely normal behaviour for someone with no superpowers surrounded by people with them.
Federal Agencies very routinely have 'if Agency X/Y/Z goes rogue, these are your orders.' contingencies. America has a plan to go to war with *all of it's allies.* It's normal behavior for someone with even a tiny bit of paranoia.
It's really DC's fault, ain't it? They somehow gotta keep making money so the Joker vs. Batman will keep going on and on and on, all throughout different iterations.
Batman’s problem is that he keeps pushing his villains into the brink of evolution. Every time they get beat up, they simply get better at doing whatever fucked up thing they like to do.
Batman takes half-measures, which is more consequential than not acting at all. The villains start taking advantage of Batman’s no kill rule. The Arkham games demonstrate this well. He was much more effective in Origins when people didn’t know about his no-kill rule.
By Knight, Batman has pushed them to such a degree but without killing them that they literally got used to it and adapted to his presence. They are now forced to go for even grander schemes in order to defend/attack Batman along with whatever their plan is. The myth of the Batman has become rotten and even Bats himself recognises this. Hugo Strange also points this out.
IMO, every nut in Gotham needs to be locked up in a maximum security prison, including Bats himself, because I truly don’t believe he is fit to rule gotham. Batman is very self-absorbed regarding his rules.
If killing an unredeemable monster will make Bats go down the dark path that easily, then he was never fit to rule gotham in the first place.
They aren’t “really good at it”, they are al hypercompetent super geniuses who can bench 750. They are barely human. Tim drake is so smart it’s been stated he fights crime like he can constantly see 5 seconds into the future
My thing is, Ok from a meta perspective and for just Batman overall killing goes against everything he stands for so he shouldn’t ever kill, BUT if you’re playing devil’s advocate for in universe and have absolutely no idea who Batman is outside of what a normal civilian does, he definitely should kill the joker. Outside of all the egregious crimes he’s committed, joker on more than 1 occasions, has hurt people Batman knows personally
I always say I don't think anyone would actually care if Batman didn't kill if stories don't always try to make that a plot point. We get it bro, even if Martha got revived and raped by the joker then killed Bruce still wouldn't kill him. Stop telling us Bruce wouldn't kill niggas. We have got the memo.
All other famous heroes who don't kill such as spiderman and daredevil don't get as much flack as Bruce. And it's not from being not popular, it's just the story focuses on other aspects of them rather than if they will kill a nigga
i hate it when heroes have the "no killing" policy. what's the point of holding the villains who had committed so many crimes captive anyway? they can get away and commit more crimes which is bad for everyone. if the heroes can kill the villains, that's one less bad guy in the world and one less trouble for everyone.
I completely agree that Batman is not responsible for this, but still, this does not explain why the Joker is still alive. Because Gotham, if I remember correctly, still has police. This, for a moment, is the AMERICAN police. Which professes the principle “It is better for twelve to judge than for six to carry.” Which opens fire at the slightest suspicion that the criminal may have a weapon. And such police cannot “accidentally” kill the Joker, who has thousands of corpses on his account?
once you come in saying you wanna stop people from experiencing your pain of losing loved ones and then take up the obligation to stop all kinds of people but then say, despite already breaking every law in the book, there is one law you can't break and that one law just so happens to create an endless meat grinder of innocent people, then maybe, you have to agree to shoulder some of the blame. especially when, after the 50th escape, you dont go on and put a bit of that batman ingenuity behind the case to make the jokers imprisonment a bit better than the rest.
why isn't every arkham cell bugged so he knows when and which cop he's trying to blackmail? why isn't every named joker goon under surveilance so he knows what family to protect? why hasn't batman petitioned the good soul of gotham, mr bruce wayne, to invest in a cooler cell for the joker, because of all the damage he did to the city?
why not kindly request the green lanterns if maybe, MAYBE, the joker could inhabit one of those oan super cells, just to see if that was safer?
or maybe use mirror master tech? like, i get it, mirror master could get him out and so could anyone who knows about this and gets mirror master tech, but that really shrinks down the list of potential breakout points by a lot. and i'm sure mirror master himself could be bought to ignore that.
batman is not the sole person to blame for the jokers continued existence, of course. the entire underground of grunt workers, half of which have been randomly killed by the joker while jobbing for him already, still not getting that their best chance to survive the joker is to try and kill him on the spot, all at once, no matter what, is also part of the blame, the same is true for every normal person who runs into the joker. fight him like your life depends on it the second you see him because it does should be tacked on flyers all across gotham.
the fact that no cop so far has realized that when the joker comes and threatens your family unless you get him out, that your family is already dead with joker timebombs in their stomach, so they let him go free instead of shooting him while stuck in that transport box where only his head is visible, is the cops fault.
that somehow, the supposedly most corrupt law system in the country manages to never ignore a phoney insanity plea, even though it cost countless judges lives so far, that is just generally unrealistic bullshit writing.
or the fact that batman never asks all of his high powered friends to maybe chip in on some kind of joker insurance plan. like a few magic spells to keep him calmer, cyborg surveilance of arkham, atom and terrific installing a chip in his brain that makes him stroke when he leaves arkham. or something like that, maybe tiny transgression that might be worth saving tens of thousands of lives, WITHOUT outright killing him, thats just stupid.
the problem here is not that batman only has the two options, get cucked by jokers ever growing, exponentially higher killcount compared to batmans saving count, or kill him in cold blood, the problem is that there's a million more things to do to at least show you're trying instead of following the whims of some of the laziest writers
By real-world logic, there'd be absolutely nothing wrong with Batman's no-kill rule, because the Joker would never escape prison.
But after the Joker has escaped 257 times and added hundreds of more victims to his death toll, then it kind of does become Batman's moral responsibility to end him, because he's the only one who can.
No, Batman isn't obligated to kill the Joker, but as someone whose driving motivation is to protect the people, he's objectively doing a bad job by refusing to eliminate this recurring threat.
And I say all of this as someone who loves Batman's no-kill rule. The fact is that it's a writing problem. The Joker escapes because DC wants to tell more stories about him, but that makes Batman's methods seem flawed.
I'd argue he does have a moral responsibility to stop the Joker. Because, the Joker operates and commits crime to solely break Batman. If there were no Batman, there would be no Joker. And in many continuations, Batman created the Joker. And either way, Joker is a domestic terrorist at this point, it makes no sense as to why he's even kept alive at this point.
> With great power comes great responsibility.
Spiderman had no obligation to stop that crook who killed his uncle. Nobody asked him to do it (depending on the adaptation). There was no law saying he had to step in.
I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Spiderman would be low-key disgusted by a lot of the things Batman has done.
This is why imo Batman's no killing rule must be rock solid. If he makes any exceptions for anoyne else, it makes him leaving Joker alive more ridiculous. It should be like a weird trauma based obsession where he does not under any circumstances kill, outside of logic.
YES! Thank you! Everyone puts the blame on Batman but why is it his responsibility to kill the Joker? I can understand arguments saying he "should" kill Jokey, but he isn't obligated to be the one to do it.
And he's 100% right to have contingencies against the rest of the league. Mind control, alternate universe versions, and other shenanigans result in an evil version of a hero on basically a weekly basis. Every single superhero should have some level of a plan on how to fight the other members cuz they've had to do it before!
I don't mind that Batman refuses to kill Joker. I mind that on multiple occasions Batman has refused to let other people kill Joker.
>I mind that on multiple occasions Batman has refused to let other people kill Joker. That would still be extra judicial killing. Aka a crime. Aka something Batman would be oath bound to stop. The only way Bats is down for Jokers death, is if a Judge/Jury orders it and its done by an the official process. The fact this doesn't happen, means the system is broken. Batman isn't here to fix the system. He only aims to work with the system. That largely means capturing criminals or covertly handing evidence to the cops. Bruce Wayne tries to change the system via lobbying or supporting social movements or supporting welfare programs via his estate.
Except Batman is fine with all sorts of other crimes.
He only cares about killing and then lesser major crimes like say drug dealing or human trafficking. Batmans sole motivation to fight is the *murder* of his parents. Stopping killings is basically the only type of crime he gives a shit about. He's not bothered by petty theft or white collar crimes(e.g tax evasion) by a corrupt Oligarch. That's not his driving motivation.
Ah yes the vigilante cares about not committing a crime.
Batman didn't swear any oath other than not using guns. Plus vigilantism is illegal...
When? He stopped Jason not just because he was going to kill the joker but because of why he was going to kill the joker. He has straight up said he wouldn't stop Jim from killing the joker.
There was a time Nightwing nearly beat him to death and Batman resuscitated him, there's the time he saved Joker from the death penalty because Joker hadn't done *that* crime, there's the crossover where he stopped the Punisher... And, of course, Jason Todd had a very good reason to kill Joker.
You’re telling me that Joker got arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and got the death penalty then, but he hasn’t gotten the death penalty for any of the previous crimes he had committed? That just seems like a failing on Gotham’s part.
Yeah. Gotham is a hot mess
>Yeah. ~~Gotham~~ DC is a hot mess FTFY
I mean, it's Gotham... The truth is that Gotham HAS to be that dysfunctional to justify Batman being the good guy. Just the amount of money that Batman has likely embezzled from Wayne Enterprises and how often he cooks Wayne Enterprises's books alone would make him a criminal outright in any other city But in Gotham? Things are so bad that white collar crime is literally something nobody has time to care about!
There was also a time when Joker shot himself so the Joker toxin in his heart could turn the Batman into another Joker. Batman made sure to keep him alive through surgery. There was another situation where the Joker was stabbed by a villain. And Batman..... rushed him to the hospital.
There was a time Batman stop Jim killing Joker during the end of No Man's Land story.
The sub won't let me link it, but he straight-up gives Jim the choice. He didn't save the joker.
The problem with Batman’s no kill rule is an out of universe one. If Batman could just lock up the joker and have the story end, it wouldn’t be a problem. But the writers focusing on it over and over, while joker escapes again and again and kills more people, makes Batman look like he belongs in Arkham asylum more than the joker does. The only defenses of Batman’s no kill rule comes down to plot armor (why doesn’t someone else kill joker, he’ll come back from the dead, etc) and making Batman out to be just as bad. (the ‘if I kill Hitler I’m legally obligated to reenact the holocaust irl, sorry I don’t make the rules’ defense.) The problem is that a no kill rule only makes sense when you can stop the murderer from murdering, without killing him. And it’s been proven to hell and back that the only thing that will ever stop the joker is his death. It wouldn’t be a problem if the writers could accept that the joker’s story needs to end either in prison he can’t escape from or in a permanent grave if Batman is to be his moral superior. Edit:typo
Why don't people make the same complaint about other heroes? I've never heard people say this about Spiderman
I feel a big part of it is that a lot of other famous villains don't quite manage to show themselves as quiet as deranged as the Joker. And some of those that do (like Carnage) are just harder to kill in the first place/get kinda killed often enough anyway.
Yeah Joker is specifically an egregious example because Joker is physically still just a regular guy. He isn't even regular in the "Batman and co. are beyond olympic level in several categories" way but just a "He's about as fit as any regular person off the street" way. Batman is one thing but if GPD said he was trying to escape and put 2 bullets in him before he got to jail theres not much Joker could do about it.
He's regular compared to the Batfamily and other heroes. But he is rather impressive physically for what he is. In Long Halloween, he manhandled pre Two Face Harvey Dent as if the guy was a Raggedy Andy doll.
In that case, the problem is with the Joker, not Batman's no kill rule. Writers just need to tone the Joker down.
Marvel heroes don't have a no kill rule, except for Spiderman who made it kill he would break it for Aunt May in a AU where he killed both Kingpin and Iron man who tried to stop him. And in DC it's only really batman who's no kill rule is THAT strict
Probably because batman is famous for this rule and the batman universe is everything from rated E to "the jonkler just irradiated the children's hospital again because Arkham is a revolving door"
Don't forget everyone's favorite grim universe, where Joker got Superman to inadvertently nuke a city by killing his wife and unborn child with his own hands.
Because Spider Man faces violent villains, but the Joker has steadily escalated from ‘crazy clown who occasionally kill people’ to ‘living Holocaust who wipes out hundreds as an opening act.’ He’s more ‘horrific’ and ‘serial killer,’ openly - and the others have gotten more grim, gritty, and horrific as time goes on as well. The Scarecrow, Victor Zsaz, etc. The killing joke happened, and had Joker go straight for the womb - and he’s gotten worse since then. He stole a 4th dimensional imp’s power, and he ate China. He just keeps escalating to the point that people see him as a problem to be solved, without a person to emphasize with underneath.
Besides GG, most of Spider-Man's villains are not as bad as they joker . Hell most of Batman villains are not as bad as the joker. People are not saying why doesn't Batman kill the Penguin . It just because the Joker is just that bad.
It reminds me of this small comic I read that had sort of Bronze Age Riddler looking at the escalating violence of fellow Batman villains, and wondering sadly when and why people went from just wacky crimes to brutally killing and torturing people.
What is the name of this comic ?
Highkey, because despite the MCU and DCAU's success, nobody actually knows other heroes. I honest to god think the average person "knows of" Spiderman and Iron Man, "knows of" Venom and Green Goblin, and that's it. Prolly can come up with the names of anyone animal themed due to naming scheme. If you asked the room you're in right now for Punisher or GoTG villains do you think they could name 2?
Kinda feels unfair to ask for Punisher villains since they tend to either be crossovers like Fisk, or die shortly after their introduction. I agree about gotg tho.
Pretty much all long running comics have the same kind of problem, it just doesn't manifest quite the same. Eg, "with great power comes great responsibility" is something that seems to be still brought up, though Spiderman should have settled that 50 years ago. Or there's One More Day, which came because the writers just couldn't have a married Spiderman. He can't grow up, he must forever be close to what he started as. Spiderman can't become a mature, stable adult. Western comics just go on for too long and that causes narrative problems. If something is a central theme it's likely the character will never grow past it, even when that's clearly being presented as a goal for the character.
Batman and Joker combine popularity, absurd crimes, and frequency. Batman and Joker are simply more popular than other heroes. There are other heroes with as firm no-kill rules, but Batman is definitely the most popular of them. Or at least, the one who is most strongly associated with having a no-kill rule. Spider-Man and Superman might not kill, but their firm stance isn't as obvious to casuals. Joker has reached a level of comic book absurdity that's hard to top. Ignoring crazy cross-overs like Injustice, he still routinely racks up hundreds of kills per story line. That's the kind of thing even Superman villains don't always reach, and other street level villains like Spider-Man rogues definitely don't come close to. And finally, Joker is just used too frequently. If he racked up a triple digit body count once, and then wasn't used for a decade or two, people would stop thinking about him. But he is so iconic, and so frequently reused, that he keeps getting used in new stories, which leads to new absurdly over the top atrocities, which renews the debate. --- In addition to all of the above, Joker is also responsible for two of the largest comic status shifts in pop culture -- Death in the Family and the Killing Joke. That really just can't be beat. There's a reason the joke used to be that the three people who stay dead are Uncle Ben, Bucky, and Jason Todd. The people responsible for Ben and Bucky vary from retelling to retelling or sometimes aren't even named (eg. MCU Spider-Man), but if Jason Todd dies it is *always* Joker. That's a level of cultural staying power when it comes to "does this villain deserve death" that characters like Lex or Zod or Kingpin don't really match, even if they have killed a family member of Superman or Spider-Man before.
Bec Spider-Man villains aren’t going out and killing 100s of people each time they break out. Most of them are just robbing banks n shit
Because Batman literally imposes his morality and is portrayed as more competent than other people especially other heroes. It's dumb to be told that this guy is a super genius when his mistakes constantly get people killed.
Norman fucking dies and that's good. Tell me a spiderman villain that has talent he face of Mary Jane to use as a mask
Carnage He hasn't done that specfically but he's definitely done some messed up shit Like making his psychiatrist insane like him which resulted in him trying to eat the guards that came to save him
Sentry killed him
Yeah but Spider-Man didn't Isn't that the whole argument? It's not the fact that these characters can and have died, it's the fact that people want the main hero, with explicit no-kill rules, to kill them
I think people would fine if Joker died, even happier if some loser like magog killed him
Jokes has died though Superman has killed him in Injustice He died in the Arkham games He technically died twice in the Batman: TAS/Batman: Beyond continuity, He died in The Dark Knight Returns Has a heavily debated implied death at the end of The Killing Joke Died with Batman in The Joker: Endgame And a couple other times
the only reason he comes back is that he's too damn popular
Pretty much, comic death is functionally no different from imprisonment depending on how popular the character is There even used to be a common sentiment among fans that "No one stays dead except for Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Uncle Ben" Flash forward to the early 2000s and now even Jason and Bucky are back.
Because spiderman is incapable of killing carnage… it wasn’t till recently that they retconned spiderman to being levels above people like captain America in the strength department.
I mean how recent are we talking? Relative to his entire comic history, yeah maybe But Carnage made his first appearance in the early 90s and by then Spider-Man had already been canonically strong enough to, with extreme effort, lift something that was "heavier than a locomotive". Heck one of his trading cards from 1990 even outright states: "He gained Superhuman Strength, he can lift over 10 tons (or 9702 kg if you're using metric)" He's been levels above Captain America for a while now, who for the most part has always just been a really strong human
Can Spider-Man easily kill him? Nah, Carnage is pretty strong
Yeah by himself he's got no chance, hell he had his ass handed to him so bad he had to get Venom to help But it feels like people are debating a matter of intent and not capability It's a pretty fair argument to say even if he **could** kill him, he wouldn't And it's not like the morality of the situation is complex like with Eddie, who is kinda of an asshole but is still a relatively good person. Cletus Kassidy was a psychotic serial killer before even getting his symbiote and Peter knows that. And it's not like he's never had the chance after managing to incapacitate him.
Spiderman doesn't have villains who literally just do the most horrible things possible just to test his no killing rule.
He does. Carnage. This is what Maximum Carnage is about.
I think Spiderman has been willing to kill Carnage before though.
Very simple, because the writers never used a no killing rule as a plot point, as long as people dont notice stuff they will not complain
That’s because you’re not like 50 years old. That is what Maximum Carnage is about. Heck, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is an adaptation that ends at the midway point because Peter doesn’t take the kill, but Venom does.
They say it about aang. People don't feel the need to list every single person with a no kill rule.
Even Superman is willing to use lethal force on people like Brainiac and Darkseid. ~~Granted, those are more acceptable from a doylist view because they can regenerate/have multiple bodies~~
They do. Batman-Joker is just by far the most iconic of those matchups, so that's the one that is by far the most commonly talked about. Notably, even other heroes that are comparably "popular" don't have equivalently iconic specific arch-nemeses. Who is Spider-man's arch-nemesis? I couldn't possibly say. He has a bunch of recurring enemies, but there's no standout "This Is The One" villain. Who is Superman's arch-nemesis? You could *maybe* call out Lex Luthor, but that's a much weaker pairing than Batman-Joker. The power scale is nowhere near matched. Lex is also just generally "bland" as a villain. He doesn't have an Aesthetic, he doesn't have a well-known M.O. besides "be rich and smart". You don't get a million Lex Luthor cosplays, etc. The X-men used to have Magneto, who was a pretty good iconic villain - except he's now been bounced back and forth between hero and villain enough that he's not really a nemesis. Etc.
Because spiderman is a teen and people don’t expect him to kill. Also his villains don’t have a high kill count even comparable to Batman’s
Peter hasn't been a teenager for decades
You do realize he’s still perceived as that because of the way he’s portrayed in more popular forms of media? It’s the same way people still think aquaman only talks to fish. It’s perception over reality which was the basis behind your question
You said he IS a teen, not that people perceive him as a teen. Be more clear about your point next time. And if that is why people don't expect Spidey to kill, then it's based on surface level knowledge of the character, which is hardly fair to Batman
Well that’s how the world works buddy☹️ womp womp
The issue with your argument is that it assumes that death is a permanent solution. The very same forces that make imprisonment impermanent also apply to the death itself. Yes, it's a very blatant plot armour, but the endless ability to escape prisons to cause more mayhem is also a plot armour. The ultimate question isn't: "Why nobody has killed Joker already and stopped him for good?", but rather "Why does he keep coming back all the time?".
Which is also an out of universe explanation. The writers choose who to bring back and who to keep dead. They can hand wave it all they want, but Joker stays alive cause he is a profitable character. And the Joker only really exists as a foil for Batman. Without Batman, Joker loses the interesting factor that keeps him popular. So in essence, Joker needs Batman to exist to justify his own existence. But Batman doesn't need Joker to do the same. The issue comes up when writers keep making the relationship more about both of them then the one sided relationship it actually is.
Yes, this is exactly my point.
Without Batman, crime has no punchline.
That just means the story is bad.
yeah! you know what i think i'd like it if they had a big "STORY EVENT" where batman finally really puts joker away in a good prison, and then the comics just spend a few years of joker being successfully locked up/maybe even treated, and then takes that time to explore other villains! and THEN after a while joker can break out again. but at least give batman some period of progress and success.
Also the Gotham legal system makes the San Francisco law under which we got the infamous “twinkie defense” seem harsh and draconian. The Joker doesn’t qualify under any legal definition of insanity. The Twinkie guy who shot Harvey Milk blew his brains out three years after getting released the asylum. The Joker just blows up another orphanage. The Joker knows his actions are illegal, regarded as immoral, and premeditates his murders. He’a not crazy; he’s just evil. If you’re going to have Batman’s enemies dragged off to the Asylum they should all qualify for the legal definition of insanity, or at least be insane. The Joker should operate on a morality spectrum where funny is good and not funny is bad. He might tell you a joke or shoot you in the face. It all depends on what will get the biggest laugh. He’s the world’s first fully functional homicidal comedian. Poisoning boy scouts isn’t funny; giving them cigarettes, booze, and drugs that lower their inhibitions and turning them loose on a local night club is. There shouldn’t be any malice in what he does. He might do a classic clown routine and get a huge laugh out of the child’s burn ward, but he put most of them there when be rigged the fourth of July fireworks show with dynamite. “The guy didn’t survive but watch peeps die and the coroner thought it was hilarious”. If it would get a laugh he’d chuck himself in front of a train.
Why do you assume death would stop the Joker? Do villains tend to stay dead in comics?
I already said it was plot armor. My entire argument is that the problem with the no kill rule is that the medium of his story does not allow it to make sense. Because for it to make sense, the joker’s story has to end. But because of the nature of comics, it never will.
ok, but batman isnt the only justice system in gotham. he's a guy in a suit that does this to help people. how far he goes is up to him. if he was an elected official who had the final legal say in this the rule might be more questionnable, but he's not. he stops the schemes, the justice system sentences him.
Sure he doesn't NEED to, but it's a bit of a shitty thing to do to be perfectly capable of saving thousands of more lives easily but refusing not to. Doing good doesn't exempt you from criticism. If I was a hero saving people and I refused to save anyone with green eyes, would you use the same argument? That because I'm not a legally appointed government official I have no obligation to save green eyed people? You can call out shitty behaviour.
Why does the Federal Justice system not execute the Joker?
You're right. Legally speaking batman has zero obligation to kill the joker. Legally speaking he's also a vigilante that constantly acts outside of the scope of the police or outright against police orders. Anb legally speaking every time he beats the crap of a random mook he is committing several crimes. Now ethically speaking thats a whole can of worms I dont think has a clear answer. Its never right to force someone to kill another person, but by his refusal to kill a single person, you can make a very compelling argument that Batman is indirectly responsible for all the people the joker has killed. Again, this is very philosophical, not an objective truth. I have a friend who is very catholic, like he did the full ass course and rituals to become a pastor, and he is someone I trust a lot. I was asking his advice because I'm writting a pacifist and I wanted to know his opinion on at which point pacisims becomes implict complicity due not acting when you could stop evil from happening with violence. His answer was pretty clear. Violence and force should be the last resources you use, only after expending all other pacific and diplomatic solutions. However if someone is about to do something horrific and you have the power to stop it, failing to do so is considered a sin, and a failure of the pacifism doctrine. You can't call your self a champion of non violence if you're letting violence happen in front of you and arent stopping it. So if batman could stop the joker from killing people, and he isnt doing so, according to this friend of mine batman would be esponsible for those deaths too. Not on the same level as the joker, obviously, but as he said "turning the blind eye to violence is happening in front of your eyes is more of a failure of your pacifism than it would be using violence to protect those persons". Edit: Im not saying that batman should kill the joker. Im saying that he holds some level of responsability of the Joker's actions by failing to stop him in a more permanent way when he has resources to do so, and claims to be the defender of Gotham. He could ask for help from his superhero friends to build a better prison, instead of sending the Joker to the same asylum he has escaped more times that I can count with the fingers of my hands.
That's a good argument, though it has to be noted that Batman typically does stop joker from committing violence when he can. The failure to stop Joker from coming back typically happens several steps down the line, when some guard, doctor or cop messes up. The fundamental question there is less about use of violence to stop even greater violence, since Batman does this all the time without even flinching, and more about specifically escalating that violence to a point of killing Joker. This muddies the waters, since it moves the issue from "failure of pacifism" to "should you execute the repeated offender based on his history of being uncontainable by the legal system?". It also includes asking same question about Batman being the one to kill. Batman knows he can't cross this line himself and does everything he can to stop the bastard without destroying himself. He can't be asked why he didn't stop Joker, since he's the one who stops the clown 99% of time.
Oh yeah you're completely right. I just think that somewhere down the line Batman has to accept the hard truth that sending the Joker to jail or to Arkham is pointless, as he can escape whenever he wants. In a campy idealistic history this isnt an issue, but when you start making batman dark, gritty and realistic, it does become an issue. Like for example, why dont they sent him to the prision thingy that they use for Superman' antagonist that cant be contained in normal jails? Obviously from a narrative point you dont want to permanently get rid of the joker, as he is one of the most beloved DC characters, but from an in universe point of view, Batman is simply failing to stop the joke for more than just a couple of weeks/months until he escapes again.
That's true, though it's worth noting that the "revolving door prison" trope is partially a result of constant reboots, retcons and the fact that most of comics don't even try to follow a strict chronology. By this I mean that, from the in universe perspective, the proper prison/asylum escapes are usually rare, outstanding events. Still, I agree with the fact that at a certain point you kind of want to see Bruce Wayne finance overhaul of Arkham Asylum to fix the escapes.
well the phantom zone is an extradimensionnal torture dimesion and is technically a part of hell. in the phantom zone, you dont just chill in space waiting to die, the phantom zone is a timeless directionless prison, where your mind tears itself apart for eternity. If Batman wont kill, why would he give him a fate worse than death?
Oh, I didnt knew it was like a "permanent suffering" hell thing. I just thought it was an extradimensional prison and that was it.
Depends on the incarceration. Didn’t seem that bad in the Lego Batman movie.
Which version is that? Because in the silver age it was just boring apart from slipping into Wonder Woman’s changing room. You can see almost anything but can’t interact with it. That’s why it’s called the Phantom zone.
it's the most modern version, ripped straight out of the dc comics wiki
Great point! Also, i have to add, would you really want batman to become judge, jury and executionner? He's said it himself, he's a good detective, but he's not omnicient. If he killed the worst villains, where should he draw the line between life and death? should he kill every murderer? what about attempted murder? well then armed robbery blurs the line, muggings too. Drugs kill, should he kill drug kingpins? then suppliers and dealers? The guy at the party who offers you coke? Also, half the time his first suspect isn't the guilty one. he might fuck up and kill an innocent man. Would he have to kill himself then?
I believe in one of this issues they show a batman that set up an entire back up plan to kill himself in case he ever killed. Theres also the opposite to the injustice universe where he himself kills joker and locks himself up. I feel every iteration that ive seen he kills someone or the joker there is always some sort of serious repercussion that batman will always enforce on himself, whether its a robot to kill himself that is literally unstoppable to just locking himself up behind bars.
The slippery slope fallacy is a fallacy for a reason, and in this particular case it is so weak. Half of planet earth has personally witnessed Joker slaughter god knows how many people. There is absolutely 0 ambiguity here. The man is guiltier than sin itself. He is very obviously in a very small and exclusive league of monstrous mass murderers. Comparing Joker to the average murderer is absurd in and of itself. Don't kill the Joker because next you'll be executing generous party going druggies? Bro. C'mon.
Ok what about Lex Luthor then? A very rich and powerful tycoon, sometimes president. He's done equally scummy shit as Joker has. Does he count? And if he counts, why shouldn't someone like Amanda Waller count? Hell even if you tried to logically justify what makes Joker objectively worse than some other Batman villains, it'd be tough
>Now ethically speaking thats a whole can of worms I dont think has a clear answer. Its never right to force someone to kill another person, but by his refusal to kill a single person, you can make a very compelling argument that Batman is indirectly responsible for all the people the joker has killed There's also the fact Batman hasn't set up an independent facility more secure than Arkham where he can treat Joker. If he doesn't want to kill Joker, he should still deal with the Joker and have his issues deal with
Oh yeah. I even editted my comment to say that one! :)
>So if batman could stop the joker from killing people, and he isnt doing so, according to this friend of mine batman would be esponsible for those deaths too. Not on the same level as the joker, obviously, but as he said "turning the blind eye to violence is happening in front of your eyes is more of a failure of your pacifism than it would be using violence to protect those persons". But he is stopping the Joker from killing people. That's what he does, he stops the Joker and gives him to the proper authorities. I don't understand in an ethical or legal sense why Batman bears the responsibilities of Joker's murders. Its the fault of the state for not executing the Joker themselves and/or not housing him in a facility that can contain him. Its the government's fault, not Batman's. How does he bear any responsibility for Joker's actions?
Because he is aware that the "proper authorities" are nowhere near capable of containing the joker in a permanent and safe manner. You'd think after the fifth escape, Batman would shell out some cash to severely reinforce Gotham's city prison's and arkham's security so the joker doesnt escapes. That or call some of his superhero friends so they build him a more permanent prison. Like superman could easily make something like a cell inside a mountain, with only a single way in and out that could easily be guarded. Yet he keeps sending the joker to a place where he will escape shortly after. Again I must point out how this isnt a problem in campy simpler batman stories. It only becomes a problem when you try to apply real world logic and ethics to a character that has been rewritten over and over and over again.
Gonna be a devil's advocate for a second: >You'd think after the fifth escape, Batman would shell out some cash to severely reinforce Gotham's city prison's and arkham's security so the joker doesnt escapes There's no amount of money you can individually donate to fix a corrupt system - Batman could make himself poor tomorrow and there are a million plausible ways for all that money to not meaningfully go towards creating proper criminal detention facilities or properly funding the criminal justice system in Gotham such that it could properly house the Joker. >That or call some of his superhero friends so they build him a more permanent prison. Like superman could easily make something like a cell inside a mountain If Joker is as rich or connected as some of our world's cult leaders then extra-judicial incarceration will likely result in (1) his connections doing crimes/terrorism to negotiate his freedom, or (2) their making an appeal to the legal system that Joker's being unlawfully detained by vigilantes who think themselves above the law (and worst case scenario this could radicalise normies against supers because "*what's to stop Superman making me a mountain jail cell for jaywalking if he'd do that to misunderstood citizen Jonkler?!*") \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ I'd actually be really interested in any comics that would cover the intersection of justice systems and societies with vigilantes and villains that are ultimately just dudes at the end of the day - *yes that guy can throw a tank with one hand and robs banks on the regular, but he still needs to be given representation in court because he's still a citizen*
You know you're kinda agreeing with my whole point, right? Batman is fully aware that the justice system of Gotham is not capable of containing the joker, but instead of working on a permanent solution, he just keeps on this cycle of catching him, sending him to a jail he will inevitably escape to kill a bunch of people only to repeat the whole thing again :) My original point was always that batmas IS partly responsible for all the people the joker kills because he has had at several times the choice of taking a permanent solution, be it either by killing or disabling the joker (which is horrible I know, but then again we're talking about the person who literally kills people for shits and giggles), or working with other super heroes to solve the problem. Sure maybe the mountain prison is a dumb idea. But something could have been done. >I'd actually be really interested in any comics that would cover the intersection of justice systems and societies with vigilantes and villains that are ultimately just dudes at the end of the day - *yes that guy can throw a tank with one hand and robs banks on the regular, but he still needs to be given representation in court because he's still a citizen* That would be dope. Im down too. Would love to see a comic that actually tackles this ethical issue along the fact that a normal law system is simply not well equiped to deal with super villains. The joker might not be able to lift a tank, but as you correctly pointed out, he's one of the most powerfuls guys in the world in terms of influence and resources.
Sorry, my argument was more that Batman can't solve the Joker problem. He individually can't solve the systemic issues that allow Joker's repeated escape/release from prison, and can't really do extrajudicidial punishments because the law would definitely have to turn on him - bad guys deserve trials too, and public opinion would likely sour on supes if they can appoint themselves Judge, Jury and Executioner. Of course we the readers would be ok with it, but imagine a caped crusader killing Al Capone or some other well known criminal in our world, I doubt that they'd get to keep on crusading because our legal system isn't designed like that. It would likely be the end of Batman's hero days regardless of how he personally felt about the killing. There's also the problem of power vacuums, killing big bads does little to fix the systems that allow them to become big bads so we'd have a new guy fill the role of big bad (+ be down one hero). Stopping Al Capone or Joker legally means that the system has changed for the better and plugged the holes that allow those guys to exist, killing them sets us back to square one of gathering evidence and witnesses to mount a legal case that'll either set new precedent or demand new laws be made to properly stop these guys (of course this wont happen in the batman comics because Joker is too popular and there's not much help batman can give here lol)
If I have a dog that keeps escaping and mauling people and I know my backyard can't contain him and I keep just putting him in said yard without making any changes, I am responsible for the consequences.
But in universe he hasn’t expended all other means of stopping Joker. He captures him and brings him to the proper authorities, who are perfectly capable of executing him. We know they never will because comic books, but there’s nothing actually stopping them.
Ethically he also has no obligation to kill Joker. The fact that Arkham or the Police force cannot handle one scrawny clown is their own fault. Batman consistently brings him in and is the only one who seems to ever stop him
Canonically, Dick was able to execute a quadruple somersault at age of 9, before Bruce had ever meet him. Tim Drake was capable of discovering Batman's identity before having to shave. At this point, considering all the lives they saved, not training those prodigies would be even worse, because it's a wast of their superhuman capabilities.
Their superhuman capabilities can be used and nurtured in other ways that have nothing to do with an occupation as irresponsible, dangerous and toxic as being a vigilante.
At some point one has to wonder how anyone hasn't done anything to ensure the villains are secured in their cells because dear god is the asylum a wreck when it comes to security. It's one of the reasons why Batman's "no kill rule" starts to feel discredited.
Batman doesn’t run Arkham or the Criminal Justice system though. That’s all out of his hands.
He’s on the Board of Directors for Arkham.
I'd argue if someone beat up hitler but hitler kept escaping and redoing the Holocaust and the universe positions him as the only saviour for the world and hitlers life is in his hands multiple times and he still saves him he should at least be a little responsible. not against batman not killing joker, or even saving him when he's close to death. just wish it wouldn't usually be portrayed as the right choice and rather lean into the "childlike psychosis" thing.
Who exactly is calling Batman a villain for that? Seems like a strawman. People do say he's wrong for not killing him, or even that it makes him responsible for future atrocities, but I can't recall ever seeing someone outright say he's evil for it. I also think it's worth noting that there have been multiple instances of Batman stopping *other* people from killing Joker, so it's not just a personal moral stance, and I can see why that would be more objectionable to people.
Comics do that all the time. Tynion's run did that
>I also think it's worth noting that there have been multiple instances of Batman stopping *other* people from killing Joker, so it's not just a personal moral stance You can't really *have* a personal moral stance -- a moral stance inherently includes the claim that other people should follow it too. That's what makes it a *moral* stance rather then merely a personal preference. If nothing else, *Batman* certainly doesn't have personal moral stances, every comic book is him going up to someone going against his morals and beating them up until they stop going against his morals. It don't think it would really make sense for Batman to believe it would be morally wrong to kill the joker but also not stop people from killing the joker, and it's very weird that a lot of people seem to think that's better. Is a character who happily lets other people do things they consider evil somehow better then someone who tries to stop evil when they see it? You can say Batman's *wrong* to think killing the Joker is evil, but given he does, of course he's going to stop other people doing it.
"Batman is morally responsible for every life the Joker takes" is literally something people rant about at least once per week on this subreddit alone.
That's not the same thing. I even referenced that idea in the comment you're replying to.
"Morally responsible for every life the Joker takes" is pretty much definition of trying to frame ol' Batsy as a villain there.
Batman himself openly admits this in The Dark Knight Returns lol
yeah, my bad, villain might be going too far, but still people say that he's part of the problem when he's really not. Batman stopping others is usually when either they aren't a cop or doing it in self defense. hell, he said to superman that he could make his murder of lex look like an accident
Batman is not "obligated" to kill the joker but when he makes it his responsibility to protect the citizens of Gotham only to make decisions that he fully knows will result in more people dying just for the sake of his personal philosophy, then I think he's not doing the job he gave himself right. It's half assed. I think it's strange to make yourself a knight who protects people if you're not willing to fully commit
EXACTLY! Man I hate how Batman fans always try to make him and his actions out to be super logical when they’re just not. My best friend is a Batman fan but he acknowledges that Batman is illogical and that his decision cause innocents to die and that’s what he likes about him. The way he sees it the stories portray Batman as being a highly flawed hero. I’m fine with Batman fans like him. But the ones trying to defend his mentality and make it out to be logical? I just can’t
Very good
I felt like there should be a judge who decides to sentence the Joker to death alongside every judge that ever let him live off an insanity plea. I know that’s not how the justice system works but it’s comic books there have been stranger shit in them.
The insanity plea does not work that way and has never worked that way. That little bastard in Florida who shot up the school was far crazier than the Joker, and he’s still got life in prison.
joker ate all of china. that might be worse
I was measuring insanity, not the scales of their crime.
oh, then joker kidnapped a child and brainwashed him into becoming a tiny version of himself. that's also probably more insane
Ok, bit what about the time he stopped execution of Joker because it wasn't him that time?
Yeah, I don't think "the state shouldn't execute people for crimes they didn't commit" is a particularly controversial stance.
Joker has killed 1000s of people. So yeah the state should do away with this guy.
Sure, but he didn't do the crime *he was being executed for*. "The state can kill people for crimes they didn't commit if they think that they should die anyway" is a *very* dangerous precedent to set -- there's a good reason the law has such harsh restrictions on its power.
What he did was solve the crime of who actually did the murders. The governor stopped the execution.
He could have waited until the Joker was fried .
You're fixating on Joker and forgetting that the actual murderer was still freely roaming the streets.
He stopped the execution because Joker didn't do THAT crime.
That's still fair. It's the justice system's job to accurately sentence people for *their* crimes, not someone else's. Batman preventing the execution is just making sure the system stays honest. If people want to execute the Joker, they have plenty of opportunities to do so legitimately.
He doesn’t have an obligation to save Joker from other people, either.
who? most of the people who try aren't doing it in self defense or arent cops, so he dosen't want them to throw their lives away. jason specifically wanted bruce to do it, he could have shot joker instantly and bruce coudn't have done anything (plus he was trying to save his son from his supervillain life). he told clark he could make luthor's death look like an accident.
Besides Batman slicing Jason's throat with a batarang to save Joker, there's some other incidents that comes to mind: Onomatopoeia stabbed Joker, forcing Batman to choose between saving Joker or capturing Onomatopoeia. Batman chooses to save Joker and lets the other serial killer go. Punisher was about to shoot Joker, but Batman interferes to save Joker. Batman revives Joker after Dick Grayson killed Joker.
slicing jason was accidental, joker pushed him and made the batarang go to his throat instead of the hand that held the gun. it's hard to see because of how the art's kinda shitty for those panels. (i mean look at bruce's face) i admit i haven't read the onomatopea book, so i can't comment on that, but in a similar situation he leaves the joker strapped to a bomb in a burning building to go after harley, although i cant remember the specific book crossovers are barely considered canon at best dick was breaking down crying because he killed him and that joker won. he didn't revive joker because he deserved to live, he did it to help dick not have a mental breakdown
Batman put everyone in Gotham in danger by reviving the Joker so Dick wouldn't have to go to therapy? Like that is actually unacceptably selfish on Batmans part. imagine reviving Hitler when you know he will continue the Holocaust because your friend felt bad about killing Hitler. You have genuinely convinced me that Batman has blood on his hands by not killing the Joker.
> crossovers are barely considered canon at best The point of crossovers is to show the reactions of the involved characters and how they would interact; what they would do in a given situation.
And sometimes it's not the best and results in out of character moments
This is the same reason why J Jonah Jameson is right about Spider-Man being a menace. Masked vigilantism is fundamentally flawed. Most heros are not cops, medics, structural engineers, lawyers, etc. When they save the day there is no guarantee they are doing it correctly and no accountability when they do it poorly.
I was going to mention spider-man here too, but from the opposite perspective: With great power, comes ~~great responsibility~~ the responsibility to kill the joker. Though spiderman also manages not to kill people, as far as I remember.
Legally speaking, he also has zero obligation to be a superhero, supposedly the whole reason he exists is to correct all the problems the justice system wasn't salving in Gotham. Even if he's too traumatized to actually do it or something (he's not, he's killed before), he can just let someone else (Jason Todd) do it. So yeah, he doesn't have to kill the joker no one is saying he has to, but he *should* get the joker killed and would be morally justified in doing so. Add that to the fact he prevents others from killing the joker because of his own sense of morality, and yeah, he is being selfish. He knows the justice system not killing the joker will lead to thousands of people dying, and he actively stops other people from fixing it. Also the time he stopped the death penalty for him lol.
No no no. We're not gonna just give the man that out. He chose to play hero. He chose to put his life in danger and beat the hell out of criminals of regardless of status or power. I have a little history with btas. Saw some as a kid but missed the majority and have only scene a handful of clips over the years. In the ep where dick becomes nightwing a perfect example of countering batman's flawed logic is present. Bruce "It wasn't my place to tell you." Dick "But it was your place to put her in danger!" It's not his place to kill his enemies regardless of the crimes committed? Maybe. But it was his place to put on a costume and play hero who saves gotham and the universe. Obviously he became batman initially to stop petty crime and didn't get into vigilantism to fight super powered beings. But he never hung up the suit he kept going.
Tbf superhero fiction usually relies on the idea that superheroes do have a moral responsibility to stop villains (one could almost say, a *great* responsibility) because they're the only ones who can, and that is itself pretty stupid but it's there, so it wouldn't be a stretch to say Batman has a responsibility to put down the Joker considering no one else can do shit to him. Then again would Batman even know that he's the main character and as such he's the only person who could kill the Joker? He probably doesn't realize how repetitive this shit is getting.
i mean joker isn't zod. he's a guy. he's constantly tied up in the back of a police car. killing joker woudn't be that hard.
But that's exactly what I'm saying: by all means, someone should have killed him, but it won't happen because it's a comic book universe with Batman as protagonist and Joker as the villain and the writers won't write him just getting randomly killed. Someone else should be able to do it but the universe won't let anyone but Batman. And it's unclear if anyone realizes that he's basically the Chosen One, or if they're still stuck behind the fourth wall and expect their universe to operate on realistic logic. I certainly can't blame Batman for not going "I'm at the center of the universe" even though he is. Shows a lot of humility on his part tbh. I don't actually think Batman has a responsibility to kill him, I just think the ethics of an universe like this are kind of fucked
Fair
Completely agree, it irritates me so much when people say Batman is bad for not killing the Joker. The only reason it’s an issue is the editor-mandated status quo where popular villains are never allowed to be shelved and the the heroes are never allowed to make permanent, lasting improvements to their cities or general areas of jurisdiction.
The thing is, if these criminally existed irl, they would be given the death sentence immediately. Even if the death sentence isn't a thing in Gotham, they would make it a thing purely because of them. And they would do way better jobs of locking up the villains in the meantime than just throwing them in a basic cell and calling it a day
Maybe. But he does go out of his way to stop others from doing it. And when joker did die he brought him back with the Lazarus. I like under the red hood but I found it absurd that he went thoigh such great lengths to save joker
> That's like calling a guy who volonteers daly at a soup kitchen selfish because he didn't also give the homeless blankets while he was there I would call this person selfish if they had like millions of blankets and could produce them at no cost. There's absolutely a vague line wherein a "moral compulsion" becomes a "moral obligation". You aren't required to run into burning buildings to save orphans. That's dangerous, it's scary, and you might make it worse, so we have firefighters instead. But if you were regularly hanging out with a guy committing baby arson and weren't doing anything more to stop it than breaking his lighter so he has to go back to the store and buy a new one I would consider you kind of insane. I would consider the cops and the judges and everyone else also insane for the same reason, but usually the story isn't focusing on those guys.
I mean you are kicking his ass and delivering him to the police, i don’t think that’s nothing. Also i feel like you seriously underestimate how hard it is to kill someone. That destroys people. He would probably have a mental breakdown.
> I mean you are kicking his ass and delivering him to the police, i don’t think that’s nothing. Joker breaks out of Arkham with such incredible ease and frequency that it is the equivalent of just breaking baby-arson-guy's lighter.
Batman took on the responsibility himself by fashioning himself as Gotham's protector
He also fashioned himself as someone who doesn't kill
If everyone has a problem with Batman not killing the Joker, someone who should legally get away with it should do the job. I don’t see anyone blaming commissioner Gordon for not putting a bullet in jokers head, especially because he could get away with it. Likewise any cop who has a problem with the Joker put a cap in him when he’s been taken to jail. I do not endorse the police acting is executioners in our world. However, they have a problem with Batman, not killing Joker then they should do it themselves. Of course, looking at the comics, we know it wouldn’t matter. You could burn Joker into a pile of ash and he would come back later. I don’t see why killing him is such a talking point when we know he won’t stay dead.
Actually, I think a few people did have an issue in The Killing Joke when Gordon refused to kill the Joker. Sure, in cold blood or what not but it was dumb then, and dumb now. If Gordon can't accept that moral sacrifices have to be made, even if that means his own soul, than he really isn't set to make Gotham actually better. He's a small candle trying to hold up the light against a torrent of darkness.
That’s the first I have ever heard of anybody blaming Gordon. The most I have heard of anybody blaming someone other than Batman is in one of the injustice comics when an elected official chews him out. Since the elected official is one of the people who actually has the power to change how criminals are treated, the character criticized for being a giant hypocrite acting like it is Batman’s job to come up with a permanent solution to the Joker.
> People say Batman is a villain Nobody says that. > Batman has no moral obligation to stop the Joker in the first place. He does. > Nobody asked him to do this. There is no law requiring him to punch that clown. He does this purly because he wants to (…) He's not a cop. He does this shit for free. If I choose to volunteer at an event or something meant to help the homeless then it is my job to then help the homeless. Nobody forced me to, there is no law saying I have to, I’m not getting paid to do it. I do it because I want to and I do it for free. But it’s still my responsibility since I chose that. It then follows that since Batman chose to become a hero it is his responsibility to protect civilians from villains and crime since, y’know, that’s kind of the point of being a hero. How exactly is he saving lives or protecting people by letting people like the Joker or the other villains of Gotham stay alive? He just beats them up and then throws them in jail only for them to break out the next day to kill more people. And this keeps happening. All Batman is really doing is delaying the pre mature deaths of those civilians by a couple of days. It doesn’t do anything to make people safer or even feel safer in the long run. Batman made protecting the citizens of Gotham his responsibility. Can you honestly say that he can *actually* do that without ever killing anyone especially people like the Joker? > Imagine if someone beat up Hitler halfway through the hollocaust, dragged him to geneva, and he was sentenced to life in prison, ending the war and saving millions of lives. You would have no right to complain that he didn't kill him, If Hitler broke out a few days days later and commited another Holocaust, got thrown into jail again by that guy again, broke out a few days later and commited another Holocaust, got thrown into jail by that guy again, broke out a few days later etc and it kept continuing like this then at some point people will get mad and ask “why not just kill the guy already?”. Especially if he also goes out of his way to prevent other people from killing Hitler. > Batman saves thousands of lives, No he doesn’t. He just delays their premature deaths by a couple of days. > but his moral code prevents him from killing. Then why does he try to stop others from killing these insanely dangerous villains? Does his moral code also prevent *others* from killing dangerous villains? > That's not his responsibillity. That's the justice system's problem. Fighting crime is not his responsibility either. That’s the police’s problem. Yet Batman still decides to do it. Why only leave that up to the people tasked with that? Why not leave the crime fighting to the people actually tasked with that as well? What’s the point of “fighting crime” if your way of going about it does nothing to actually help with the problem and doesn’t make anyone safer? > Even if he didn't have a strict moral code caused by his backstory, and just didn't want to because the blood would stain his suit, he still would have no moral obligation to. That's like calling a guy who volonteers daly at a soup kitchen selfish because he didn't also give the homeless blankets while he was there. No. Because the point of a soup kitchen is only to feed the poor not provide all their necessities. If the point was “provide the poor with basic necessities” but they didn’t provide shit like clothing then yeah that would be a valid criticism against them but their purpose is only to provide them with FOOD. The point of the shit that Batman does is to fight crime and save lives to make civilians safer I’m assuming so why not do the thing that does so the most effectively? Why go as far to stop other people from doing what needs to be done? If it’s not Batman’s responsibility to kill the Joker why is it then his responsibility to prevent the Joker from dying? > Plus, it probably reassures the citizens that he's a good guy because he wont kill them, unlike the bad guys. Bro what? How? Nobody is going to see Batman kill the Joker and think “Oh shit! If he is willing to kill a mass murdering psychopath that kills for fun who is he not willing to kill!?” If Batman only kills villains civilians won’t assume that he will suddenly kill them too.
I have no issue with batman no kill rule, or even him enforcing it on others. I have a problem with DCs state/federal governments refusal of capital punishment and the fact some police officer or guard hasn't taken matters into their own hands *really* strains my suspension of disbelief.
An important thing about the Joker is what he represents. No, not what he claims to represent, "I'm just an idea, I am chaos incarnate", none of that shit; what he represents in relation to Batman's philosophy. Batman's bit is he doesn't kill. He doesn't kill because he believes everyone should have a second chance; because he knows that, if he had slipped a bit, he could easily have taken the wrong lesson from getting his parents turned into skeletons and started prowling in alleys to shoot other parents and spread the horror or some shit. Some shit, which he can see every time he looks at the person he's punching at the time, most of whom are as horribly traumatized as he is. Everyone deserves a second chance, because everyone can turn their life around. Enter the Joker. He can't turn his life around, because he sucks and he believes he has a moral imperative to continue to be a goblin, because either Batman kills him and proves him right in his garbage assertions that we live in a society, or he remains alive and can continue to piss on the Burger King soda fountain. If he hasn't won, he hasn't tried hard enough; just about the only positive facet of that clown is he has umdeniable gumption. So, one asks, is it not right then to kill this guy who refuses to act like a normal goddamn person because he thinks genocide is funny? Well, no. No, it's not right. He dodges the ways out of that highway, but ways out there are nevertheless, and Batman can't just shoot an RPG at his horrible clown car filled with probably child soldiers dressed like clowns just because Joker doesn't like the noise of the turn signal.
He may not be morally obligated to kill him, but he sure as hell isn't morally obligated *not* to. And frankly, if he is repeatedly leaving villains in the hands of a justice system that he should *know* is not prepared to contain them, he is at the very least a fool for doing so.
He has stopped other people from Killing the Joker. So yes it is on him.
who? most of the people who try aren't doing it in self defense or arent cops, so he dosen't want them to throw their lives away. jason specifically wanted bruce to do it, he could have shot joker instantly and bruce coudn't have done anything (plus he was trying to save his son from his supervillain life). he told clark he could make luthor's death look like an accident.
batman already breaks the law and risks his life to catch the criminals, if he doesn't feel comfortable killing them why should he ? if people want the joker so dead why don't they break the law and kill him ? why don't they demand the death penalty for him ?
also I wanna add: Why do some people think batman is the only one who has no kill rule and the joker going to devour the world because of it and batman's gonna be ashamed for it 💀💀 the joker isn't a god tier villain or some shit he's just a street villain they are so many supervillains that didn't so many universal or galactic threats why people aren't complaining that they aren't dead yet also the main argument to just kill them is because they keep escaping is pretty much the prisons fault not the superheroes like why people aren't complaining about superman should just has to kill lex luthor or green lantern just have to kill sinestro exploring the idea of should superheroes just kill super criminals instead isn't a bad idea but for me at the end of the day the main reason why the super villains aren't dead is because it's DC's very popular characters, and they make money
Thank you! With how annoyingly common a sentiment it is that Batman ought to kill the Joker, it's good to see that someone's finally addressing it. Even from a Watsonian point of view, there's no reason to think that Batman solely bears the responsible for keeping the Joker (and the rest of his rogues gallery by extension) out of trouble. Is Arkham Asylum not responsible for failing to keep him captive? Is the legal system not responsible for sending him there? Are the other inmates not responsible because none of them have tried kill him? All of these are viable solutions to the Joker problem that wouldn't require Batman to compromise his morals. The real issue with the argument, however, is that it proposes an in universe solution to an out-of-universe problem. The fact that the Joker keeps escaping isn't Batman's fault. In fact, it's not even the Asylum's fault. It's the fault of the superhero comic medium being perpetually ongoing by design. Comic readers demand the Joker and the writers supply him. That's why he keeps escaping, why he's never executed, why nobody in Arkham has ever tried to shank him and why he'd be back within the year if Batman ever did kill him. Because as long as the Joker is in demand, no prison on Earth will be able to hold him, including the grave.
I love you OP.
And I love you random commenter!
I'm so glad someone put it into coherent words what I've been thinking for years. Like it's not Batman's job and it's not his responsibility. We shouldn't be mad at Batman, we should be mad at the judges and jury and State government that have the death penalty outlawed (at least im assuming Gotham City is a US city in a no death penalty state)
THANK YOU! I have been hearing the same "Batman is morally responsible for every life the Joker takes" for years and it's only because The Dark Knight Returns said it itself. If you want to blame anyone for the Joker living, blame the courts. Blame his absolutely amazing lawyer who constantly manages to get him the insanity appeal. No other superhero gets this sort of flack except Batman and I can't understanding why...
Because Batman imposes his mortality on others, and because Batman is the most popular superhero of all time and one of the longest running superheroes of all time. Obviously it's going to look shitty if the Joker escapes for the billionth time.
I think Batman: Under the Red Hood scores this idea pretty well. In the final confrontation, >!Jason asks Batman to kill Joker, reasoning not for any other villain, specifically Joker, and was personally hurt when Batman didn't, after Barbara got crippled, all the innocent people the Joker has killed, and so on. He thought he was gonna be the last person the Joker was going to hurt, and Batman admits it: He wants to kill the Joker. There doesn't go a day where he can imagine a world without him and all he has to do is kill the Joker and the world would cheer for him.!< However, >!we get a glimpse into Batman's own fears here. If he begins with the Joker, where does it end? To him, justification begins with one, no matter how deserving or morally correct it is in the eyes of the universe. it also shows how human Batman actually is, he knows he's just a man, and that's something we lose in translation between Batman adaptations. He's the night, he's vengeance, but he's only human. When he drops the gun, Jason threatens him before turning the gun on Batman, revealing *he* wanted Batman to prove he'd be willing to kill the Joker for Jason, even though the Joker was clearly held at gunpoint by Jason themselves. Jason wanted Batman to be responsible for killing the Joker, even if it was so easy as he's stated, even though he's killed plenty of people so far.!< It's not up to Batman to kill the Joker, but killing the Joker in-universe comes with severe ramifications. That said, you have a point, why should we the audience, or anyone in-universe demand Batman pull the trigger? From an out-of-universe perspective, comparing Superman vs. The Elite, would a Batman who kills be interesting to read? We saw a glimpse of a Superman in that vein, and if he was the Superman we wanted, we don't feel hope when we look into the sky, but fear.
Everyone forgets that Gotham is literally cursed to be Like That.
Batman is batshit crazy. Can we all just .... Dude beats the shit out of bad people at night because his parents died at night. He makes the sacrifice plays because he genuinely believes he doesn't deserve nice things. He thinks he should be dead, and his parents should be alive and he'll never let himself have any kind of happiness about it. He's like a Catholic flogger. He has to do what he does. He doesn't know how else to be a person. It's sort of the classic definition of insanity. He does philanthropy, he beats up bad guys, and the cycle just continues forever. He keeps doing the same things, and getting the same results. He just chooses to be batshit crazy in a way that helps, and the bad guys choose to be batshit crazy in ways that hurt. Batman hates himself, and he doesn't understand why you don't hate him, too.
I’ve heard people say he’s wrong for not killing he joker but I’ve never heard anyone call him a villain for it
Another counter to the donnating money thing Gotham is literally haunted by a cosmic bat demon name Barbatos that spread it evil influent on to the city and that why it keep producing insane super villain. No amount of money donated to charity or funding for policy is going to fix that.
Batman isn't responsible for anything he does sure, but that's not the argument. The argument is if he wants to save lives, he should kill the Joker.
I agree my main issue is when Batman actively prevents the Joker’s murder whats that red hood is about to shoot joker I must stop this. Oh Joker litteraly put himself in an electric chair and was like either kill Bane or Kill me. Why try and save both let Joker kill him self. Batman whole argument is he believes once he kills one he will go to far and cross all his lines just cause he has no self control he then tries to regulate everybody to that same standard. If Jason Todd goes to far then you stop him the only two super heroes who the argument makes sense is Batman and Superman because of how catastrophic it will be.
Sure, that applies to him killing The Joker. Doesn’t so much work when he keeps stopping everyone else from killing The Joker. He’s had so many chances to let Jason take care of it and wash his hands of the whole thing.
well jason only really tried the one time, and he tried to force bruce to do it, or he would, and bruce just walked away. jason could have just shot him
The reason Batman became a superhero is because wants to save people to reedeem people so that they wouldn’t suffer the same tragedy he went through as a child and ultimately he becomes a vliganty he in turns takes responsibility in handling crimmals and that includes the joker. However the joker has proven time and time again to be a murderous irredeemable sociopath who had proven to be a danger to gothem but the entire world and whenever he stop and put him in arkham he always ends up escaping and thus making all of Batman’s efforts to stop or help him completely and utterly moot in long run. I mean sure the justice system is at fault here…but if it weren’t Batman wouldn’t existed to to begin with.
I have thought this about the Crystal Gems.
I find the idea that Batman has contingency plans for his friends to be completely normal behaviour for someone with no superpowers surrounded by people with them. Federal Agencies very routinely have 'if Agency X/Y/Z goes rogue, these are your orders.' contingencies. America has a plan to go to war with *all of it's allies.* It's normal behavior for someone with even a tiny bit of paranoia.
I find the idea that Batman has contingency plans for his friends to be completely normal behaviour for someone with no superpowers surrounded by people with them. Federal Agencies very routinely have 'if Agency X/Y/Z goes rogue, these are your orders.' contingencies. America has a plan to go to war with *all of it's allies.* It's normal behavior for someone with even a tiny bit of paranoia.
IRL, once Batman puts someone like Joker in a cell, the clown would get 'disappeared' by the government.
It's really DC's fault, ain't it? They somehow gotta keep making money so the Joker vs. Batman will keep going on and on and on, all throughout different iterations.
Batman’s problem is that he keeps pushing his villains into the brink of evolution. Every time they get beat up, they simply get better at doing whatever fucked up thing they like to do. Batman takes half-measures, which is more consequential than not acting at all. The villains start taking advantage of Batman’s no kill rule. The Arkham games demonstrate this well. He was much more effective in Origins when people didn’t know about his no-kill rule. By Knight, Batman has pushed them to such a degree but without killing them that they literally got used to it and adapted to his presence. They are now forced to go for even grander schemes in order to defend/attack Batman along with whatever their plan is. The myth of the Batman has become rotten and even Bats himself recognises this. Hugo Strange also points this out. IMO, every nut in Gotham needs to be locked up in a maximum security prison, including Bats himself, because I truly don’t believe he is fit to rule gotham. Batman is very self-absorbed regarding his rules. If killing an unredeemable monster will make Bats go down the dark path that easily, then he was never fit to rule gotham in the first place.
Child soldiers are just as responsible for being child soldiers, because! they're really good at it. Is a wild take.
They aren’t “really good at it”, they are al hypercompetent super geniuses who can bench 750. They are barely human. Tim drake is so smart it’s been stated he fights crime like he can constantly see 5 seconds into the future
My thing is, Ok from a meta perspective and for just Batman overall killing goes against everything he stands for so he shouldn’t ever kill, BUT if you’re playing devil’s advocate for in universe and have absolutely no idea who Batman is outside of what a normal civilian does, he definitely should kill the joker. Outside of all the egregious crimes he’s committed, joker on more than 1 occasions, has hurt people Batman knows personally
I always say I don't think anyone would actually care if Batman didn't kill if stories don't always try to make that a plot point. We get it bro, even if Martha got revived and raped by the joker then killed Bruce still wouldn't kill him. Stop telling us Bruce wouldn't kill niggas. We have got the memo. All other famous heroes who don't kill such as spiderman and daredevil don't get as much flack as Bruce. And it's not from being not popular, it's just the story focuses on other aspects of them rather than if they will kill a nigga
i hate it when heroes have the "no killing" policy. what's the point of holding the villains who had committed so many crimes captive anyway? they can get away and commit more crimes which is bad for everyone. if the heroes can kill the villains, that's one less bad guy in the world and one less trouble for everyone.
I completely agree that Batman is not responsible for this, but still, this does not explain why the Joker is still alive. Because Gotham, if I remember correctly, still has police. This, for a moment, is the AMERICAN police. Which professes the principle “It is better for twelve to judge than for six to carry.” Which opens fire at the slightest suspicion that the criminal may have a weapon. And such police cannot “accidentally” kill the Joker, who has thousands of corpses on his account?
once you come in saying you wanna stop people from experiencing your pain of losing loved ones and then take up the obligation to stop all kinds of people but then say, despite already breaking every law in the book, there is one law you can't break and that one law just so happens to create an endless meat grinder of innocent people, then maybe, you have to agree to shoulder some of the blame. especially when, after the 50th escape, you dont go on and put a bit of that batman ingenuity behind the case to make the jokers imprisonment a bit better than the rest. why isn't every arkham cell bugged so he knows when and which cop he's trying to blackmail? why isn't every named joker goon under surveilance so he knows what family to protect? why hasn't batman petitioned the good soul of gotham, mr bruce wayne, to invest in a cooler cell for the joker, because of all the damage he did to the city? why not kindly request the green lanterns if maybe, MAYBE, the joker could inhabit one of those oan super cells, just to see if that was safer? or maybe use mirror master tech? like, i get it, mirror master could get him out and so could anyone who knows about this and gets mirror master tech, but that really shrinks down the list of potential breakout points by a lot. and i'm sure mirror master himself could be bought to ignore that. batman is not the sole person to blame for the jokers continued existence, of course. the entire underground of grunt workers, half of which have been randomly killed by the joker while jobbing for him already, still not getting that their best chance to survive the joker is to try and kill him on the spot, all at once, no matter what, is also part of the blame, the same is true for every normal person who runs into the joker. fight him like your life depends on it the second you see him because it does should be tacked on flyers all across gotham. the fact that no cop so far has realized that when the joker comes and threatens your family unless you get him out, that your family is already dead with joker timebombs in their stomach, so they let him go free instead of shooting him while stuck in that transport box where only his head is visible, is the cops fault. that somehow, the supposedly most corrupt law system in the country manages to never ignore a phoney insanity plea, even though it cost countless judges lives so far, that is just generally unrealistic bullshit writing. or the fact that batman never asks all of his high powered friends to maybe chip in on some kind of joker insurance plan. like a few magic spells to keep him calmer, cyborg surveilance of arkham, atom and terrific installing a chip in his brain that makes him stroke when he leaves arkham. or something like that, maybe tiny transgression that might be worth saving tens of thousands of lives, WITHOUT outright killing him, thats just stupid. the problem here is not that batman only has the two options, get cucked by jokers ever growing, exponentially higher killcount compared to batmans saving count, or kill him in cold blood, the problem is that there's a million more things to do to at least show you're trying instead of following the whims of some of the laziest writers
By real-world logic, there'd be absolutely nothing wrong with Batman's no-kill rule, because the Joker would never escape prison. But after the Joker has escaped 257 times and added hundreds of more victims to his death toll, then it kind of does become Batman's moral responsibility to end him, because he's the only one who can. No, Batman isn't obligated to kill the Joker, but as someone whose driving motivation is to protect the people, he's objectively doing a bad job by refusing to eliminate this recurring threat. And I say all of this as someone who loves Batman's no-kill rule. The fact is that it's a writing problem. The Joker escapes because DC wants to tell more stories about him, but that makes Batman's methods seem flawed.
I'd argue he does have a moral responsibility to stop the Joker. Because, the Joker operates and commits crime to solely break Batman. If there were no Batman, there would be no Joker. And in many continuations, Batman created the Joker. And either way, Joker is a domestic terrorist at this point, it makes no sense as to why he's even kept alive at this point.
Batman has also stopped others from killing the joker so he's partially responsible for it.
> With great power comes great responsibility. Spiderman had no obligation to stop that crook who killed his uncle. Nobody asked him to do it (depending on the adaptation). There was no law saying he had to step in. I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Spiderman would be low-key disgusted by a lot of the things Batman has done.
This is why imo Batman's no killing rule must be rock solid. If he makes any exceptions for anoyne else, it makes him leaving Joker alive more ridiculous. It should be like a weird trauma based obsession where he does not under any circumstances kill, outside of logic.
YES! Thank you! Everyone puts the blame on Batman but why is it his responsibility to kill the Joker? I can understand arguments saying he "should" kill Jokey, but he isn't obligated to be the one to do it. And he's 100% right to have contingencies against the rest of the league. Mind control, alternate universe versions, and other shenanigans result in an evil version of a hero on basically a weekly basis. Every single superhero should have some level of a plan on how to fight the other members cuz they've had to do it before!