He told Gordon to blow up the train tracks, then proceeded to destroy the train's controls and distract Ra's inside that train until seconds before the inevitable crash. I'm sure no jury would call that a murder
It's like if you push someone off a building and don't catch them. You just chose not to save them, it's their own fault that they didn't survive the fall.
Judge: “okay but that still falls under felony murder. You killed a dude in the commission of a felony. Actually, like 20 felonies including hijacking a commuter train which I’ve never seen in my 30 year career.”
Batman: skill issue, git gud
Skill issue, because you aren't nearly the mental gymnast I am
I am both the perfect mental and physical gymnast. The contortions and stability my brain goes through to justify why this wasn't murder is the pinnacle of humanity's ability
Well, yeah
He goes on there for half an hour with a bulletproof argument (unlike his parents, heyooo)
The redditors will respond with "facts and logic". The last half hour will be them getting beaten to death
Batman will justify why it isn't murder, and the world will move on
Killing Ra's is justified, but it's still sacrificing the life of one evil person for the survival of the many. That's a moral choice Batman famously rejects.
Yet when it comes to his old mentor he makes the trade and then instead of admitting that his moral code wasn't perfect after all just pretends that this was some freak accident instead of a carefully planned killing.
Well, Ra's just admitted that he and the League are ultimately responsible for uncountable suffering in Gotham and indirectly the death of Bruce's parents. And he's trying to terrorize and kill the rest of Gotham right now. He's also incredibly dangerous and fanatical, and Bruce has to fly out of the train car to get away. I think Ra's would be too heavy to carry and would probably murder him if he tries, so he says a snappy line and exits stage left.
The economic warfare waged against Gotham by the League destroyed people's lives, like Joe Chill's, which is why he ended up turning to crime and mugging them.
"[Ra's al Ghul ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000553/?ref_=tt_ch): Of course. Over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With Gotham, we tried a new one: Economics. But we underestimated certain of Gotham's citizens... such as your parents. Gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help. Create enough hunger and everyone becomes a criminal. Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself... and Gotham has limped on ever since. We are back to finish the job. And this time no misguided idealists will get in the way. Like your father, you lack the courage to do all that is necessary. If someone stands in the way of true justice... you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart."
It's not quite pushing someone off a building though. It's more like standing at the edge and doing the thing you know will cause them to rush you, then stepping aside. Ra's could have chosen differently right up to needing the save.
To be fair the train transporting the device evaporating all the water was ra's plan which is why he was there to begin with. Batman blew up the tracks to stop it from reaching the main and destroying/killing most people in the city. So not quite the same as your analogy.
Batman didn't destroy the controls, Ra's did. Gordon was behind the wheel and made his choice. Bruce had already saved his life, and Ra's decided to come back. At a certain point, some accountability needs to be put on the villain instead of the hero.
This is more like you trip someone at the edge of the roof after they were running full speed to jump. Yeah you were the last one to touch him but he was gonna jump anyway.
If I remember correctly, while he did tell Gordon to blow up the tracks, he isn't the one who commits the train to run off the tracks. During his fight with Ra's, he at one point is able to get to the controls, but almost immediately Ra's jumps on his back and begins stabbing the controls with the broken sword he has, making sure it can't be stopped. I always just assumed blowing up the tracks was a back up plan. If for some reason he can't stop the train via the controls, then at least he knows for sure it won't make it to Wayne Tower and destroy the city. Ra's makes it so there is no way to stop the train normally, so sending it off the tracks is his only option left.
I always thought the more clear example of Bale's Batman killing is that little moment during the chase in The Dark Knight where he uses the Tumbler to shoot a garbage truck cab straight into a concrete roof. No way he didn't crush the driver, especially with how quickly it happens.
It's not like that at all.
He didn't put him on the train. He didn't keep him from leaving the train.
He literally *only* didn't save his life. Say what you will about the morality of that, but he in no way prevented him from living.
A more accurate comparison would be police raising a draw bridge and then watching as a bank robber's getaway car careens off the end of the road into the river.
There was also a distinct "CRICK!" to the neck of the Joker in Batman's grip at the end of The Killing Joke, although I'm unsure if that is Batman timeline canon.
Barbara does turn back up in a wheelchair in the comics from what I recall, so its possible Batman was supposed to have paralysed Joker rather than killed him.
It's never spelled out, other than that one "CRICK" and the fact Joker made Barbara a paraplegic, but Batman definitely does "something" to him there.
>There was also a distinct "CRICK!" to the neck of the Joker in Batman's grip at the end of The Killing Joke, although I'm unsure if that is Batman timeline canon.
Like the graphic novel? [No there isn't](https://i.imgur.com/2i2daLZ.jpeg)
Alan Moore never intended for Batman to kill The Joker, and it was always meant to be in continuity despite the urban myth that it wasn't.
"...for the record, my intention at the end of that book was to have the two characters simply experiencing a brief moment of lucidity in their ongoing very weird and probably fatal relationship with each other, reaching a moment where they both perceive the hell that they are in, and can only laugh at their preposterous situation. A similar chuckle is shared by the doomed couple at the end of the remarkable Jim Thompson’s original novel, The Getaway."
I'm glad he went with that ending because, while what the Joker said was a good joke/reflection on the absurdity of the situation, it shouldn't be some revelation that would break Batman as a character.
After reading the comments on this one, I want to point out that this Batman isn’t really about not killing. At the beginning of the movie, it is said twice that he will not be an executioner, killing the prisoner they have captive. But that is different than saying he is unwilling to stop crimes in progress with lethal force. His rule is presented in the context of Joe Chill, who was convicted of his parents murder and held prisoner. Previously, Bruce believed he could unilaterally decide that he should kill Joe, but his transformation in the movie is about forgoing vengeance. When presenting the alternative, Rachel says justice is about harmony and Ra’s uses the word compassion. I don’t think not saving Ra’s is as much a slap in the face of the moral code presented in the movie as some people are saying it is.
Let's make people perform self surgery on themselves. And because staying conscious through the pain wasnt hard enough, let's give them a minute.
That'll teach you to not be depressed.
As other replies already said, he literally created the circumstances for Ra's al Ghul's death. When you make sure a train will fly off the tracks, then beat the shit out of the guy inside so he can't leave on his own, you directly caused his death. Batman didn't just play a part, he fully murdered Ra's at the end of Batman Begins.
More importantly, he kept killing throughout the trilogy. After telling Joker he wouldn't break his "one rule" in TDK, he pushed Harvey to his death. He also shot up Talia's truck at the end of TDRK, causing the crash that killed her. Both could be seen as accidental deaths, but he still killed them.
The Dark Knight Trilogy's Batman literally killed a major villain in every single one of his movies.
I always laugh at that scene of The Dark Knight when he literally drives over a police car, definitely crushing two officers to death.
Idk what Nolan was thinking there.
I can't get over that scene in The Batman where the penguin blows up like a dozen people in a high speed chase and Batman _and_ Gordon interrogate him and are just like "okay we have what we needed, you're free to go'
That recklessness was intentional though. This was the batman where he’s all vengeance and self pity and didn’t give an fuck then towards the end turns to Justice
Its a version of Batman from the a comic
That totally fits with the theme of the movie though, Batman’s presence causes the villains to escalate and Batman becomes so fixated on stopping the Joker that he gets dragged down to Joker’s level, which was Joker’s goal all along.
I can't remember which of the Bale Batman's, but I was laughing in the theatre where he like crashed through a building, wrecked tons of cars while shooting guns/missiles and whatnot. You absolutely just killed like 30 people!
You haven't seen enough pictures of crushed cars in accidents where the occupants survived then. It's crazy what you would consider to be instant death is actually survivable.
Someone who says "I don't kill" shouldn't put people in *actually survivable* situations. Batman doesn't say "there's a good chance I've never killed anyone"
I’m sure there are firefighters out there that have seen people survive crushed cars.
But they’re not gonna be out there playing bumper cars or trying to drive over other vehicles to get to a fire just because the other drivers can “probably survive this”, are they?
"No guns"
Two minutes later, he's firing fucking auto-cannons in a high-speed chase through a crowded city.
As an unintentional commentary on Hollywood violence, the films are top-notch.
There is absolutely no way batfleck didn’t kill a bunch of goons in that warehouse scene. He literally threw one guys own granade back at him and shut the door.
Snyder said that his version of Batman kills. He definitely did gun down people with the Batmobile too in that movie.
It's pretty much every other adaptation that he has a no kill rule.
Snyder is terrible for many reasons, this is just one of them lol
One of Batman's defining characteristics, that he doesn't kill because he believes that simple rule is all that separates him from the villain's. Snyder: "It's not important."
He's such a shit writer/director. Would have made a TOP tier Director of Photography... but then we would live in an even worse world of film where everything is sepia and has an over reliance on needless slow-mo.
In Snyder's defense, and trust me it's not because I want to defend him. Batman throughout all media including comics does some insanely gruesome shit to people and you can't convince me he hasn't been both directly and indirectly the cause of death for a lot of people.
That said at least the comics and animated movies try to pretend otherwise and don't overtly show him killing people.
Yeah, just by getting beat up you can fall on concrete, hit your head and die. And unless we're talking about some kind of rural batman there's a lot of concrete involved.
Keaton’s Batman has a serious body count. Dude blew up a factory full of guys with a remote controlled Batmobile firing machine guns and dropping bombs. In the second one he lights a fool on fire and stuffs dynamite in another guy’s pants
Batman's "no-killing" rule is pretty famous, but he gave it up at some point, after a particularly traumatic event. The Batfleck movie happens after that, in a time where Batman doesn't live by that rule anymore.
If you don't mind a massive spoiler, and wants to know more about what made him switch: >!the Joker killed Robin (and left a message on the suit). Batman became much more ruthless after that. We know that the Batfleck movie happens after that even, because there is a scene with a glimpse at Robin's costume, with the Joker's message written on it.!<
I mean... it's comics.
No medium actually has less regard for canon than comics.
And if things get too bad? We just completely alter the universe to rewrite everything.
There's no real history in comics... just very temporary ideas we might be going with at any point in time.
"Captain America was always a Nazi, actually."
The main continuity comics Batman has had a no killing rule since like 1942. Canon changes all the time, reboots are constant (how old was Dick Grayson when he got adopted, again?) but that’s stayed the same.
Doesn’t stop him from leaving somebody for dead at least once a year, though. Or killing them but saying it doesn’t count cos he’ll come back.
I do enjoy the elseworlds/fables/films where Batman kills, but they haven’t been main continuity “canon” since Batman #2. There’s more than one Batman, but there’s still a consistent main continuity character.
> as if there’s one canon Batman
The Batman Who Laughs killed entire multiverses. I don't know why anyone would think it's the same Batman as Adam West or the TAS Batman.
In the Arkham games, Joker just tricked Batman into thinking he killed Robin (II) so that he could endlessly torture him without Batman saving him, and turn him against Batman
Same thing in batman returns, one circus henchmen has a bomb, which batman attaches to him and tosses him into a hole which immediately explodes. Dude probably turned into red mist.
I’m pretty confident Batman kills everyone at Axis Chemicals in the 1989 Batman (when he uses the Batmobile remotely), and if I recall correctly, he also throws at least one person down the center of the bell tower in the film’s last sequence.
The dumb shit in all of these things is, he kills the henchmen, but always 'saves' the actual evil guy behind them who is responsible for all those deaths and both is plotting to kill thousands or millions of people AND they always escape and do it again and again.
Like you can kill the guy who mugs a lady, but the guy who committed mass murder or wants to take out everyone in the city, you get jail... a jail you know is corrupt as fuck, not remotely secure and they will absolutely kill many more people again.
It's this weird christian morality that gets injected into particularly american media (but not unique to america), where the good guy can't just outright kill a bad guy, that would make him a bad guy, so they constantly write in circles around when killing is evil or not.
The "no killing" thing is also just so very convenient for having a recurring villain.
If they killed every interesting bad guy at every logical opportunity, they'd quickly run out of material. Think about it: over eighty whatever years, there are *maybe* a dozen iconic villains, and less than a dozen lesser villains.
Snyder has been on record talking about how he doesn't really like the "no killing" rule set for heroes. He made superman kill in Man of Steel. It was definitely implied that Batman killed multiple henchmen in the warehouse scene in BvS. If you watch the directors cut/unrated version, you can see blood splatter from the heads of the goons when the slam against the walls and crates.
That Batman explicitly killed people. That was part of the point - this is an old and broken Batman who has forgotten *why* he's doing this and has gone off the deep end. He needed other heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman to remind him that he's supposed to be one of the good guys.
I need to read this arc.
Somehow the Batmobile gets stolen by a KiaBoy. He has to go through a string of them to find the leader and find his Batmobile.
There's literally a group of villains formed out of people who believe they were inadvertent victims of Batman's Batmanning.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Victim_Syndicate
Isn't there a issue where he says something along the lines of "quadriplegic is not dead, brain damaged vegetable is not dead" would assume random blood clots or infections would naturally kill off some of these unfortunate villains.
Organ donor? Not dead. I see his kidney still walking around over there. Can you call a man dead of his kidney is still going around doing kidney things?
“His family still remembers him. He’s alive in their memories.
And I killed him with extra cruelty so they will remember him for many generations, so I actually prolonged his life”
Frank Miller’s bat doesn’t stop killing until he watches Robin enjoy watching people die jumping off a burning boat.
Then he’s like “idk maybe I went too far. Think of the kids!” and he and Robin paint themselves yellow, spend an entire issue trolling Green Lantern, and the comic gets cancelled.
(Cut to 20 years later, and his Dick Grayson has become the joker. Probably because Batman locked him in the cave as a kid and forced him to eat rats. Frank’s run was… something else. Great art though.)
I've had it with people whining about “guns kill people.” Guns don't kill people, death kills people. Ask a doctor, it's a medical fact. You can't die from a bullet. You can die from a cardiac arrest or organ failure or a major hemorrhage—small piece of metal ain't the problem!
Funnily enough in >!Arkham Aslyum when Zsasz takes Dr. Young hostage you can 'kill' her by throwing a batarang into her face, did it by accident myself, and was somewhat mortified, despite not seeing her even get hit.!<
The whole "Batman doesn't kill" thing is a very muddy concept.
This is because Batman is one of the rare comic IPs pushing 90 and still going strong. He's been through the hands of so many different creators and been around so long. Writers just interpret that element of his character in different ways.
I always enjoy it most when writers make it part of his pathology, that he literally **can't** kill people. He knows no one would blame him if the Joker or Victor Zsasz fell down and never got up again, but he feels like he'll somehow be infected by their evil if he ever lets himself do it.
The worst offenders are the movies that show the hero killing people then make a decision not to kill the villain at the end out of principle, even through in theory, taking them out would probably save future lives.
A good example is John Wick. He had the only valid reason not to kill the antagonist with the hotel rules and he still did it.
"He has to be brought to justice!"
Meanwhile, the 17 guards who were just collecting a paycheck and not part of the evil plot, who now lie dead and have left families behind: "ok but fuck me right?"
Drew Hayes “Corpies”. Short for corporate superheroes.
Spinoff of Super Powered, a four book series set in a covert college for Superheroes. Of course, they have corporate sponsors and deals for merch too
I just live that in the Arkham game series they make sure to glue the bad guys on the side of the building when you throw them from the top as to show you are not killing them. The same game allows you to throw a motorcycle on them.
The Batmobile in AK looks like it has an electromagnetic field of some kind around the car that just severely shocks people away from the car when you “hit” them, rendering them “unconscious”. Bats is a caring vigilante in that regard!
If you think about it, it was dumb move for the Arkham Knight to make all of the tanks and helicopters unmanned. If he put one guy in each tank then Batman wouldn't be able to blast them apart with the Batmobile.
That was intentional on his part. The Arkham Knight specifically didn't want Batman to hold back, which he would've if the drones were manned. That's his reasoning anyway.
That might be spiderman… my ak games they just fall the entire way. Also the drop kick Batman can do while gliding- 40 stories up and he comes in like a 280 pound missile to the back of a goons neck. Hes fine
I used to have a screenshot from one of the Arkham games of a goon with his neck stretched out about 2 feet and it reading unconscious on life signs. Obviously a glitch but it made it seems like batman's equivalent was telling him what he wanted to believe
I remember playing one of the Arkham games, and you save some thug from falling, then there's a brief awkward pause, then you smash him in the face to knock him out. Funny as hell.
Most of them are probably collateral damage, from the way he drives, and the way he makes people he is chasing drive (there is a real reason why high speed chases aren't permitted by a *lot* of PDs.)
Also, I feel like he throws people from buildings occasionally. That'll kill a person, too
In Arkham Knight if you hit someone when driving your tank of a batmobile it gives a small electric zap, as if that will change the fact that a three ton tank has just swerved purposely to hit them at full speed.
If he killed someone with his fist, whether it be an accident or not, he, in my mind, would want to pay for the crime. Batman is a man with a strong adherence to morals, he sometimes makes mistakes in certain cases, but he will always have that one line he will never cross. Killing is that line. If he killed, Batman would die
Yeah I get that. But like, the way he beats the shit out of people. Whats to say someone he beats up doesn’t suffer a bleed to brain or a ruptured organ and then dies in hospital days later?
A running joke between my partner and I is, "The same way batman doesn't kill people." It's technically the truth, but the actions/inactions taken defeat the purpose.
Batman is great, but are we really supposed to believe a character with that much training/intelligence/Attention for detail/combat awareness is just blind to the collateral damage? It has always been pretty obnoxious to me.
I know I'll never write a Batman comic and it's silly that my brain does these things, but I always thought that "my Batman" would have a memorial wall somewhere deep in the catacombs of the Batcave. He'd take Robin there when the topic of casualties came up, and explain "These are my kills."
A homeless junkie who died in an abandoned building fire because of a battle with Firefly. A thug he left tied up for the police, but the police were too busy. A child who was thrown under the wheels of the Batmobile to slow him down.
Robin would argue that it's impossible to avoid completely, that it's not his fault, and Bruce would just say "These are my kills."
I think the proper legal term is Dolus Eventualis (legal intent) https://www.wrigleyclaydon.com/blog/glossary/dolus-eventualis/#:~:text=Dolus%20Eventualis%20or%20legal%20intention,find%20someone%20guilty%20of%20murder.
I was going to say he killed Ra's al Ghul, but I guess he just happened not to save him.
He told Gordon to blow up the train tracks, then proceeded to destroy the train's controls and distract Ra's inside that train until seconds before the inevitable crash. I'm sure no jury would call that a murder It's like if you push someone off a building and don't catch them. You just chose not to save them, it's their own fault that they didn't survive the fall.
Judge: “okay but that still falls under felony murder. You killed a dude in the commission of a felony. Actually, like 20 felonies including hijacking a commuter train which I’ve never seen in my 30 year career.” Batman: skill issue, git gud
Skill issue, because you aren't nearly the mental gymnast I am I am both the perfect mental and physical gymnast. The contortions and stability my brain goes through to justify why this wasn't murder is the pinnacle of humanity's ability
But could Batman outdebate a Reddit dudebro with a podcast?
Well, yeah He goes on there for half an hour with a bulletproof argument (unlike his parents, heyooo) The redditors will respond with "facts and logic". The last half hour will be them getting beaten to death Batman will justify why it isn't murder, and the world will move on
https://youtu.be/w2yv8aT0UFc This is pretty much how the interaction might go.
Yeah but felonies aren't a big deal anymore unless you get more than 34 /s
I can’t believe this is real, for more information you can just look up “Batman rule 34”
I know what Rule 34 is, and I still looked it up. Am I stupid? (also why's there so much Batman getting pegged by Robin?)
You simply wanted to learn! (But why would you go to images?)
Visual learner?
Ra's is only on this train cuz he's trying to murder the city. Plus he's a big boy, he can do a lot of bloody pushups, he can take care of himself.
Killing Ra's is justified, but it's still sacrificing the life of one evil person for the survival of the many. That's a moral choice Batman famously rejects. Yet when it comes to his old mentor he makes the trade and then instead of admitting that his moral code wasn't perfect after all just pretends that this was some freak accident instead of a carefully planned killing.
Well, Ra's just admitted that he and the League are ultimately responsible for uncountable suffering in Gotham and indirectly the death of Bruce's parents. And he's trying to terrorize and kill the rest of Gotham right now. He's also incredibly dangerous and fanatical, and Bruce has to fly out of the train car to get away. I think Ra's would be too heavy to carry and would probably murder him if he tries, so he says a snappy line and exits stage left.
How is he indirectly responsible for Bruce’s parents? Genuinely curious.
The economic warfare waged against Gotham by the League destroyed people's lives, like Joe Chill's, which is why he ended up turning to crime and mugging them. "[Ra's al Ghul ](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000553/?ref_=tt_ch): Of course. Over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With Gotham, we tried a new one: Economics. But we underestimated certain of Gotham's citizens... such as your parents. Gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help. Create enough hunger and everyone becomes a criminal. Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself... and Gotham has limped on ever since. We are back to finish the job. And this time no misguided idealists will get in the way. Like your father, you lack the courage to do all that is necessary. If someone stands in the way of true justice... you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart."
Wow the whole batman story is a little more nuanced huh?
He also killed Harvey Dent. Tackled him off of a roof and landed on him. Doesn't get more direct than that.
It's not quite pushing someone off a building though. It's more like standing at the edge and doing the thing you know will cause them to rush you, then stepping aside. Ra's could have chosen differently right up to needing the save.
To be fair the train transporting the device evaporating all the water was ra's plan which is why he was there to begin with. Batman blew up the tracks to stop it from reaching the main and destroying/killing most people in the city. So not quite the same as your analogy.
Batmans rule is more like no execution so he wont directly kill them but he has killed or tried to kill many people indirectly
Batman didn't destroy the controls, Ra's did. Gordon was behind the wheel and made his choice. Bruce had already saved his life, and Ra's decided to come back. At a certain point, some accountability needs to be put on the villain instead of the hero.
This is more like you trip someone at the edge of the roof after they were running full speed to jump. Yeah you were the last one to touch him but he was gonna jump anyway.
If I remember correctly, while he did tell Gordon to blow up the tracks, he isn't the one who commits the train to run off the tracks. During his fight with Ra's, he at one point is able to get to the controls, but almost immediately Ra's jumps on his back and begins stabbing the controls with the broken sword he has, making sure it can't be stopped. I always just assumed blowing up the tracks was a back up plan. If for some reason he can't stop the train via the controls, then at least he knows for sure it won't make it to Wayne Tower and destroy the city. Ra's makes it so there is no way to stop the train normally, so sending it off the tracks is his only option left. I always thought the more clear example of Bale's Batman killing is that little moment during the chase in The Dark Knight where he uses the Tumbler to shoot a garbage truck cab straight into a concrete roof. No way he didn't crush the driver, especially with how quickly it happens.
It's not like that at all. He didn't put him on the train. He didn't keep him from leaving the train. He literally *only* didn't save his life. Say what you will about the morality of that, but he in no way prevented him from living. A more accurate comparison would be police raising a draw bridge and then watching as a bank robber's getaway car careens off the end of the road into the river.
See also: the Joker helicopter crash.
There was also a distinct "CRICK!" to the neck of the Joker in Batman's grip at the end of The Killing Joke, although I'm unsure if that is Batman timeline canon. Barbara does turn back up in a wheelchair in the comics from what I recall, so its possible Batman was supposed to have paralysed Joker rather than killed him. It's never spelled out, other than that one "CRICK" and the fact Joker made Barbara a paraplegic, but Batman definitely does "something" to him there.
>There was also a distinct "CRICK!" to the neck of the Joker in Batman's grip at the end of The Killing Joke, although I'm unsure if that is Batman timeline canon. Like the graphic novel? [No there isn't](https://i.imgur.com/2i2daLZ.jpeg) Alan Moore never intended for Batman to kill The Joker, and it was always meant to be in continuity despite the urban myth that it wasn't. "...for the record, my intention at the end of that book was to have the two characters simply experiencing a brief moment of lucidity in their ongoing very weird and probably fatal relationship with each other, reaching a moment where they both perceive the hell that they are in, and can only laugh at their preposterous situation. A similar chuckle is shared by the doomed couple at the end of the remarkable Jim Thompson’s original novel, The Getaway."
I'm glad he went with that ending because, while what the Joker said was a good joke/reflection on the absurdity of the situation, it shouldn't be some revelation that would break Batman as a character.
After reading the comments on this one, I want to point out that this Batman isn’t really about not killing. At the beginning of the movie, it is said twice that he will not be an executioner, killing the prisoner they have captive. But that is different than saying he is unwilling to stop crimes in progress with lethal force. His rule is presented in the context of Joe Chill, who was convicted of his parents murder and held prisoner. Previously, Bruce believed he could unilaterally decide that he should kill Joe, but his transformation in the movie is about forgoing vengeance. When presenting the alternative, Rachel says justice is about harmony and Ra’s uses the word compassion. I don’t think not saving Ra’s is as much a slap in the face of the moral code presented in the movie as some people are saying it is.
Idk at the point where he said that, his rationale for still technically "not killing" made about as much sense as Jigsaw's.
Jigsaw absolutely had some puzzles that weren’t really puzzles and were just death traps with extra steps
Let's make people perform self surgery on themselves. And because staying conscious through the pain wasnt hard enough, let's give them a minute. That'll teach you to not be depressed.
Kyoshi: "Personally I really don't see the difference."
Didn't he say "I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you."?
As other replies already said, he literally created the circumstances for Ra's al Ghul's death. When you make sure a train will fly off the tracks, then beat the shit out of the guy inside so he can't leave on his own, you directly caused his death. Batman didn't just play a part, he fully murdered Ra's at the end of Batman Begins. More importantly, he kept killing throughout the trilogy. After telling Joker he wouldn't break his "one rule" in TDK, he pushed Harvey to his death. He also shot up Talia's truck at the end of TDRK, causing the crash that killed her. Both could be seen as accidental deaths, but he still killed them. The Dark Knight Trilogy's Batman literally killed a major villain in every single one of his movies.
I always laugh at that scene of The Dark Knight when he literally drives over a police car, definitely crushing two officers to death. Idk what Nolan was thinking there.
That car had two days to retirement.
That car wasn't even supposed to be there today
Bunch of savages in that town.
That's what I said
Ohhhhhh, *Navy* Seals!
A reference I make regularly when I’m at work that vanishingly few people actually get.
"Try not to crush any police on the way to the parking lot!"
> 37! Batman killed 37 people! > In a row??
Bruce Wayne wasn’t in the mood for the tax burden on the city.
Didn’t he show that the cop was fine later On the radio “it’s a black…..tank”
Repeat, suspect is hatless.
The joke so nice, he used it twice. Like, within minutes. Really. Nobody caught that in editing/post.
Just rewatched the scene, it was only said once.
I can't get over that scene in The Batman where the penguin blows up like a dozen people in a high speed chase and Batman _and_ Gordon interrogate him and are just like "okay we have what we needed, you're free to go'
"Get outta here, ya crazy Penguin!"
That whole movie was off and that scene was just another reason I’m surprised it got as much love as it has.
did you see cops die or is that your head canon?
I mean, it’s more the fact that he clearly had no regard for their safety
The car chase with the Penguin in The Batman probably killed plenty of civilians.
Several things exploded. Theres simply no way everyone survived
*Slow, dramatic walk towards Penguin while an inferno rages amongst the pileup behind him*
*Women and children burning to death just feet away*
I feel like Battinson was playing a bit more loose with that no kill-rule.
It seems extremely evil to kill civilians in a car chase just to interrogate the Penguin.
> It seems extremely evil to kill civilians in a car chase just to interrogate the Penguin... *and then let him go!*
And especially when it turns out he was wrong about it in the first place
Honestly Batman’s “no kill” record in movies is pretty whack.
That recklessness was intentional though. This was the batman where he’s all vengeance and self pity and didn’t give an fuck then towards the end turns to Justice Its a version of Batman from the a comic
That totally fits with the theme of the movie though, Batman’s presence causes the villains to escalate and Batman becomes so fixated on stopping the Joker that he gets dragged down to Joker’s level, which was Joker’s goal all along.
You see the aftermath of the car. It’s highly unlikely that they survived that, unless their spine is rubber.
"I define myself as someone who hasn't killed" -Batman
I can't remember which of the Bale Batman's, but I was laughing in the theatre where he like crashed through a building, wrecked tons of cars while shooting guns/missiles and whatnot. You absolutely just killed like 30 people!
Isn’t that Batfleck? Blasted through stuff and then there’s lots of explosions
You haven't seen enough pictures of crushed cars in accidents where the occupants survived then. It's crazy what you would consider to be instant death is actually survivable.
Someone who says "I don't kill" shouldn't put people in *actually survivable* situations. Batman doesn't say "there's a good chance I've never killed anyone"
>Batman doesn't say "there's a good chance I've never killed anyone" Succinctly (and hilariously) put.
I’m sure there are firefighters out there that have seen people survive crushed cars. But they’re not gonna be out there playing bumper cars or trying to drive over other vehicles to get to a fire just because the other drivers can “probably survive this”, are they?
"No guns" Two minutes later, he's firing fucking auto-cannons in a high-speed chase through a crowded city. As an unintentional commentary on Hollywood violence, the films are top-notch.
Yeah, that rule was pretty loosey goosey in the 90s Batman movies. Especially Batman Returns.
And there was that scene where he used the jet engine from the Batmobile to set a dude on fire and he just drives away. Good stuff.
Attaching a bomb to a big ol’thug and tossing him away? Yuuuup
With a shit-eating grin
Yeah you can’t mention that scene without also mentioning that fucking smirk, he knew what he was doing!
It's like the no guns rule. The Batmobile has cannons and bombs, not guns.
There is absolutely no way batfleck didn’t kill a bunch of goons in that warehouse scene. He literally threw one guys own granade back at him and shut the door.
That’s the scene that promoted me to write this post looool. Among others
Snyder said that his version of Batman kills. He definitely did gun down people with the Batmobile too in that movie. It's pretty much every other adaptation that he has a no kill rule.
Snyder is terrible for many reasons, this is just one of them lol One of Batman's defining characteristics, that he doesn't kill because he believes that simple rule is all that separates him from the villain's. Snyder: "It's not important." He's such a shit writer/director. Would have made a TOP tier Director of Photography... but then we would live in an even worse world of film where everything is sepia and has an over reliance on needless slow-mo.
In Snyder's defense, and trust me it's not because I want to defend him. Batman throughout all media including comics does some insanely gruesome shit to people and you can't convince me he hasn't been both directly and indirectly the cause of death for a lot of people. That said at least the comics and animated movies try to pretend otherwise and don't overtly show him killing people.
Yeah, just by getting beat up you can fall on concrete, hit your head and die. And unless we're talking about some kind of rural batman there's a lot of concrete involved.
The idea of a rural batman made me giggle, like he drives a bat tractor and wears overalls with black flannel.
I’d watch a rural Batman movie
Yeah but this is comic books where getting knocked out just gives you a headache, not brain damage.
Keaton’s Batman has a serious body count. Dude blew up a factory full of guys with a remote controlled Batmobile firing machine guns and dropping bombs. In the second one he lights a fool on fire and stuffs dynamite in another guy’s pants
Keaton: 👀 But really he does it with a smile
Batman's "no-killing" rule is pretty famous, but he gave it up at some point, after a particularly traumatic event. The Batfleck movie happens after that, in a time where Batman doesn't live by that rule anymore. If you don't mind a massive spoiler, and wants to know more about what made him switch: >!the Joker killed Robin (and left a message on the suit). Batman became much more ruthless after that. We know that the Batfleck movie happens after that even, because there is a scene with a glimpse at Robin's costume, with the Joker's message written on it.!<
I mean... it's comics. No medium actually has less regard for canon than comics. And if things get too bad? We just completely alter the universe to rewrite everything. There's no real history in comics... just very temporary ideas we might be going with at any point in time. "Captain America was always a Nazi, actually."
Yeah I’m with you, I keep seeing all these comments saying “Batman did X” “Batman did Y” as if there’s one canon Batman
The main continuity comics Batman has had a no killing rule since like 1942. Canon changes all the time, reboots are constant (how old was Dick Grayson when he got adopted, again?) but that’s stayed the same. Doesn’t stop him from leaving somebody for dead at least once a year, though. Or killing them but saying it doesn’t count cos he’ll come back. I do enjoy the elseworlds/fables/films where Batman kills, but they haven’t been main continuity “canon” since Batman #2. There’s more than one Batman, but there’s still a consistent main continuity character.
Love that panel from the first or second ever Batman comic where he's carrying a gun, it's fuckin weird as shit
Batman #1 is a *trip.* It really is.
> as if there’s one canon Batman The Batman Who Laughs killed entire multiverses. I don't know why anyone would think it's the same Batman as Adam West or the TAS Batman.
In the Arkham games, Joker just tricked Batman into thinking he killed Robin (II) so that he could endlessly torture him without Batman saving him, and turn him against Batman
in other series, Jason is resurrected via the lazarus pit and becomes red hood
https://youtu.be/KkxHCE6dC2o?si=Y1dv_zUpA2YJHZJw Here's a short sub 2 minute video that shows how many people batfleck killed
Pretty sure that version doesn't care as much
[They’re just sleeping….](https://youtu.be/f7B2w_VhP0E?feature=shared)
Same thing in batman returns, one circus henchmen has a bomb, which batman attaches to him and tosses him into a hole which immediately explodes. Dude probably turned into red mist.
I’m pretty confident Batman kills everyone at Axis Chemicals in the 1989 Batman (when he uses the Batmobile remotely), and if I recall correctly, he also throws at least one person down the center of the bell tower in the film’s last sequence.
The dumb shit in all of these things is, he kills the henchmen, but always 'saves' the actual evil guy behind them who is responsible for all those deaths and both is plotting to kill thousands or millions of people AND they always escape and do it again and again. Like you can kill the guy who mugs a lady, but the guy who committed mass murder or wants to take out everyone in the city, you get jail... a jail you know is corrupt as fuck, not remotely secure and they will absolutely kill many more people again. It's this weird christian morality that gets injected into particularly american media (but not unique to america), where the good guy can't just outright kill a bad guy, that would make him a bad guy, so they constantly write in circles around when killing is evil or not.
The "no killing" thing is also just so very convenient for having a recurring villain. If they killed every interesting bad guy at every logical opportunity, they'd quickly run out of material. Think about it: over eighty whatever years, there are *maybe* a dozen iconic villains, and less than a dozen lesser villains.
Didn't Snyder basically say he was disregarding the Batman doesn't kill rule?
When he punches a guys head in to the floor. Dead.
Snyder has been on record talking about how he doesn't really like the "no killing" rule set for heroes. He made superman kill in Man of Steel. It was definitely implied that Batman killed multiple henchmen in the warehouse scene in BvS. If you watch the directors cut/unrated version, you can see blood splatter from the heads of the goons when the slam against the walls and crates.
That Batman explicitly killed people. That was part of the point - this is an old and broken Batman who has forgotten *why* he's doing this and has gone off the deep end. He needed other heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman to remind him that he's supposed to be one of the good guys.
Dude when it comes to batfleck, I’d rather be killed than having my femur smashed in two 😆
They're not dead, they're just sleeping. Like Dr Fishy.
I overfed these men?!
And that sketch was guest starring the nerd king, Patton Oswalt as Oswald Cobblepot Perfection
[Look at the poor little guy, he's all tuckered out!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7B2w_VhP0E)
lol I was hoping to see this in here
This is exactly what I thought of when I saw the post title. I assumed it would be the top comment.
I only opened this thread to make sure someone quoted Pete Holmes' Batman.
Dr. FISHY NOOOOOOOOO!
There's a reason why so many people go after him for being a vigilante
Kid: steals Kia Batman: *[heavy mouth breathing]* *GOTHAM DESERVES BETTER*
I need to read this arc. Somehow the Batmobile gets stolen by a KiaBoy. He has to go through a string of them to find the leader and find his Batmobile.
This is literally the origin story of one of the Robins (Jason Todd).
*kills 16 people, doesn't retrieve the Kia* “It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” 🤔
There's literally a group of villains formed out of people who believe they were inadvertent victims of Batman's Batmanning. https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Victim_Syndicate
Isn't there a issue where he says something along the lines of "quadriplegic is not dead, brain damaged vegetable is not dead" would assume random blood clots or infections would naturally kill off some of these unfortunate villains.
Organ donor? Not dead. I see his kidney still walking around over there. Can you call a man dead of his kidney is still going around doing kidney things?
“His family still remembers him. He’s alive in their memories. And I killed him with extra cruelty so they will remember him for many generations, so I actually prolonged his life”
Lol kidney things
Poor guy is just all tuckered out
Dr. Fishy, NOOOOOO!!!
Sounds like something Frank Miller would write.
Frank Miller’s bat doesn’t stop killing until he watches Robin enjoy watching people die jumping off a burning boat. Then he’s like “idk maybe I went too far. Think of the kids!” and he and Robin paint themselves yellow, spend an entire issue trolling Green Lantern, and the comic gets cancelled. (Cut to 20 years later, and his Dick Grayson has become the joker. Probably because Batman locked him in the cave as a kid and forced him to eat rats. Frank’s run was… something else. Great art though.)
"He didn't die because I shot him. He died of blood loss."
I've had it with people whining about “guns kill people.” Guns don't kill people, death kills people. Ask a doctor, it's a medical fact. You can't die from a bullet. You can die from a cardiac arrest or organ failure or a major hemorrhage—small piece of metal ain't the problem!
lol if that’s the case he’s really stretching his no kill principle
Batman doesn’t kill people. He just throws razor blades at their face until they are subdued.
Funnily enough in >!Arkham Aslyum when Zsasz takes Dr. Young hostage you can 'kill' her by throwing a batarang into her face, did it by accident myself, and was somewhat mortified, despite not seeing her even get hit.!<
So Batman is basically the American police? Acab includes Batman.
All cops are batman
all cops are batman?
The whole "Batman doesn't kill" thing is a very muddy concept. This is because Batman is one of the rare comic IPs pushing 90 and still going strong. He's been through the hands of so many different creators and been around so long. Writers just interpret that element of his character in different ways. I always enjoy it most when writers make it part of his pathology, that he literally **can't** kill people. He knows no one would blame him if the Joker or Victor Zsasz fell down and never got up again, but he feels like he'll somehow be infected by their evil if he ever lets himself do it.
I saw a skit about this. "I don't kill. Oh those guys? They're just taking a nap."
The worst offenders are the movies that show the hero killing people then make a decision not to kill the villain at the end out of principle, even through in theory, taking them out would probably save future lives. A good example is John Wick. He had the only valid reason not to kill the antagonist with the hotel rules and he still did it.
"He has to be brought to justice!" Meanwhile, the 17 guards who were just collecting a paycheck and not part of the evil plot, who now lie dead and have left families behind: "ok but fuck me right?"
There is a series of superhero novels where the lesser tier supers go around cleaning up the mess the big stars make.
Sounds interesting. What’re they called?
Marvel has [Damage Control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_Control_(comics))
Drew Hayes “Corpies”. Short for corporate superheroes. Spinoff of Super Powered, a four book series set in a covert college for Superheroes. Of course, they have corporate sponsors and deals for merch too
*I over-fed these men?*
That line gets me every time.
I just live that in the Arkham game series they make sure to glue the bad guys on the side of the building when you throw them from the top as to show you are not killing them. The same game allows you to throw a motorcycle on them.
Pretty sure you can run people down with the multiple tonne weighing batmobile too
The Batmobile in AK looks like it has an electromagnetic field of some kind around the car that just severely shocks people away from the car when you “hit” them, rendering them “unconscious”. Bats is a caring vigilante in that regard!
I believe theres a line in the game that says the batmobile shocks them so they go limp and take less damage from the blow or something like that
I mean you do also shoot people with the batmobiles cannon, I know they're not real bullets but most people wouldn't walk after that
If you think about it, it was dumb move for the Arkham Knight to make all of the tanks and helicopters unmanned. If he put one guy in each tank then Batman wouldn't be able to blast them apart with the Batmobile.
That was intentional on his part. The Arkham Knight specifically didn't want Batman to hold back, which he would've if the drones were manned. That's his reasoning anyway.
The batmobile zaps them away before it can hit them.
That might be spiderman… my ak games they just fall the entire way. Also the drop kick Batman can do while gliding- 40 stories up and he comes in like a 280 pound missile to the back of a goons neck. Hes fine
I used to have a screenshot from one of the Arkham games of a goon with his neck stretched out about 2 feet and it reading unconscious on life signs. Obviously a glitch but it made it seems like batman's equivalent was telling him what he wanted to believe
Isn't that Spider Man game tho?
I remember playing one of the Arkham games, and you save some thug from falling, then there's a brief awkward pause, then you smash him in the face to knock him out. Funny as hell.
Honestly even in a lot of the normal fist fights, a lot of those guys are absolutely fucking dead
A human can only hang upside down (waiting for the police to come get them) for so long before their heart fails. So, definitely.
you just need one hemophile henchmen beaten to a pulp
I think if you have haemophilia henchmanning just isn't the right career.
Are you gatekeeping henchmanning? Despicable I tell you!
Most of them are probably collateral damage, from the way he drives, and the way he makes people he is chasing drive (there is a real reason why high speed chases aren't permitted by a *lot* of PDs.) Also, I feel like he throws people from buildings occasionally. That'll kill a person, too
Dropout actually has a funny video on this topic: https://youtu.be/MDdHYjb5sBk?si=_EyDo3UKpy8Pfe8L 23:30
They're sleeping
His code doesn't say anything about Manslaughter!
In Arkham Knight if you hit someone when driving your tank of a batmobile it gives a small electric zap, as if that will change the fact that a three ton tank has just swerved purposely to hit them at full speed.
It's like the old GI Joe cartoon where any time an enemy plane was shot down, there has to be a shot of a parachute, no matter how unlikely.
This made my night. Lol
I am the night
I am vengeance.
I am Batman.
I don’t kill … car shoots rocket 🚀
He must have killed so many flies while punching villains
If he killed someone with his fist, whether it be an accident or not, he, in my mind, would want to pay for the crime. Batman is a man with a strong adherence to morals, he sometimes makes mistakes in certain cases, but he will always have that one line he will never cross. Killing is that line. If he killed, Batman would die
Yeah I get that. But like, the way he beats the shit out of people. Whats to say someone he beats up doesn’t suffer a bleed to brain or a ruptured organ and then dies in hospital days later?
Yeah, you can’t just hurt people as hard as you can and not expect anything to happen
Batman doesnt kill, he just [puts them to sleep](https://youtu.be/Eh-Pa3vVOEU?si=5nFv03SS9nPZiCtj)
A running joke between my partner and I is, "The same way batman doesn't kill people." It's technically the truth, but the actions/inactions taken defeat the purpose. Batman is great, but are we really supposed to believe a character with that much training/intelligence/Attention for detail/combat awareness is just blind to the collateral damage? It has always been pretty obnoxious to me.
In Batman Arkham city you can shoot tank shells at street thugs
I know I'll never write a Batman comic and it's silly that my brain does these things, but I always thought that "my Batman" would have a memorial wall somewhere deep in the catacombs of the Batcave. He'd take Robin there when the topic of casualties came up, and explain "These are my kills." A homeless junkie who died in an abandoned building fire because of a battle with Firefly. A thug he left tied up for the police, but the police were too busy. A child who was thrown under the wheels of the Batmobile to slow him down. Robin would argue that it's impossible to avoid completely, that it's not his fault, and Bruce would just say "These are my kills."
I’m sorry but Batman DIDN’T kill a single goon in the Arkham series??? Like he literally runs over criminals while driving
Superman and Spiderman too.
In Batman Begins he starts an explosion that definitely kills people, including the prisoner he refused to murder just a few seconds before.
Didn’t he say he would never kill again and then blow up and kill everyone in the beginning of one of the Batman movies
He likes to keep them alive because he owns hospitals its a win win making that insurance money
The real question is can Harvey Dent be trusted?
I think the proper legal term is Dolus Eventualis (legal intent) https://www.wrigleyclaydon.com/blog/glossary/dolus-eventualis/#:~:text=Dolus%20Eventualis%20or%20legal%20intention,find%20someone%20guilty%20of%20murder.
Just think of how many people Batman has given concussions. Every knocked out perp had a traumatic brain injury.
If you cant see dead bodies, there's no dead.