Comics in which Batman kills

[Travesty]

Thanks for fixing, and I love the new examples.

[Catwoman]

You should totally go for it with the Elseworlds examples, Silver. They're comics and he's Batman so it fits, right?

who the hell is skeeter and why the hell did batman stab her? good lord she looks like me and the only way him or supes could beat her was impalement? wtf?

lol I remember asking this. Got the answer a couple pages later that she was a vampire so it all made sense but when I first scrolled past the image it freaked me out. Of course as god awful annoying as I was way back then (2010! damn!) I think Batman would have stabbed me in the back even if I hadn't been a vampire.

"Master Bruce, might I inquire about this, ahem, new addition to the trophy room?" "It's my ode to bitches who just won't shut up, Alfred." "Very good sir."

[Silver Nemesis]

Thanks for fixing, and I love the new examples.

Happy to oblige. We certainly are a bloodthirsty lot here on Batman-Online, aren't we?

You should totally go for it with the Elseworlds examples, Silver. They're comics and he's Batman so it fits, right?

Agreed. The Dark Knight Returns books are technically Elseworlds stories anyway, so we may as well add more to the list.

To begin with, here are some examples of Batman killing from Batman: Dark Joker - the Wild (1993). In this book Batman is portrayed as a mythical creature – half human, half beast. Early in the story he displays the low intelligence of an animal and is shown hunting and killing creatures in the woods. His level of intelligence gradually increases to that of a human, at which point his sister teaches him the evils of taking life. However, unlike the mainstream comic book Batman, this version acknowledges that it is acceptable to kill beings of evil in order to protect the innocent.

He first kills in this manner when he destroys a group of the Dark Joker's airships that are attacking a town, thereby slaying the troll-like creatures on board.

Later he snaps the neck of a townsman named Tomlin, who had been driven insane by the Dark Joker's sorcery.

Towards the end of the book Batman masters the use of his late father's magical talisman. With this, he destroys more of the airships in the Dark Joker's fleet.

He also uses the talisman to directly kill some of the Dark Joker's soldiers.

The finale of this story is reminiscent of the denouement from the 1989 Batman film, with Batman and the Dark Joker fighting in the eyrie of a towering gothic citadel. Their confrontation concludes with Batman tearing out the Joker's throat with his teeth...

...and hurling him from the citadel so that his body is dashed upon the rocks far below.

[Azrael]

Since many of the comics listed in this thread aren't canon anyway, I wonder if it might be as well to start including examples from Elseworlds books. There are many, many examples of Batman killing in those stories. Their addition to this list would help keep the thread going. And with over 57,000 views (!) it does seem to be a popular subject.

What is canon?



Other than elseworlds where Batman is something blatantly different than a crimefighter (a demon, a vampire, a pirate etc.) or dream sequences/hallucinations, if the fatalities are from officially published comics which someone can pick up and read, well, they "exist". Miller's Batman is "elseworlds", but also a legitimate Batman (no matter how awful Strikes Again is).

[Silver Nemesis]

Someone on YouTube has made a video on this subject. Is it just my imagination, or does his list look identical to the first page in this thread?

Apparently he only looked at the first page, as there are many, many more examples of Batman killing listed elsewhere in this discussion. He also left out the examples of Batman killing in the 1943 film serial, Batman Forever and the Nolan films.

[thecolorsblend]

Someone on YouTube has made a video on this subject. Is it just my imagination, or does his list look identical to the first page in this thread?

Apparently he only looked at the first page, as there are many, many more examples of Batman killing listed elsewhere in this discussion. He also left out the examples of Batman killing in the 1943 film serial, Batman Forever and the Nolan films.

I've wondered about the originality of this YouTube channel for a while now. The videos of his which I've seen, particularly the one about Greg Land, seemed to lift directly from other sources with which I'm familiar.

In Land's case, making the argument that he traces and recycles is a matter of consensus and, logically, proving it will require using the same sources which others use to make a similar point. But I can't shake the idea that this YouTuber almost-plagiarizes some of his material... although doing a video about how Greg Land plagiarizes from other artists by plagiarizing the work of researchers is kind of meta or something.

Anyway, there's a plausible deniability with all this so I don't want to sound too accusatory. But I've wondered about Comic Tropes for quite some time now.

[Silver Nemesis]

There's a growing number of bloggers and YouTubers out there trying to pass themselves off as authorities on comic book history, but only a small number of them have the knowledge to back it up. Not that I mind people referencing information presented on this site. It would just be nice if they credited us when they did so. Especially if they're making money off our research. It bugs me when I stumble across a blog or message board where someone's copied and pasted something I've written on Batman-Online and tried to pass it off as their own. Like this guy:

I was just browsing the web and I came across this thread: http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1694257
Notice how the user djthefunkchris just copied and pasted the first post from this thread, then claimed that he came up with all those references himself.

Adam's right, I overdid it. I honestly didn't even realise how many I found.. I was just trying to find one per year, but it grew.

Must have been hard work finding all those references. 

And this guy:

Does anyone know who this blog belongs to?

http://batmannrobinonfilm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/batman-and-robin-was-actually-more.html

They've posted my analysis as their own work, editing it to remove the references to BatmAngelus and Gotham Alleys. They've even posted my avatar for some reason. I wouldn't mind too much, except it seems to be an anti-Nolan pro-Batman and Robin (1997) site

What ComicTropes did in that video isn't exactly plagiarism, but the research is clearly taken from the first page of this thread. The proof lies not only in the comics he lists, but in the comics he doesn't list. There are dozens of examples of Batman killing which aren't mentioned in his video. The examples he does mention just happen to correspond with the ones I listed in the OP.

Anyway, since I'm bumping this thread...

Robin kills a gangster during his debut story – 'Robin the Boy Wonder' (Detective Comics Vol 1 #38, April 1940) – by kicking him off a girder on a construction site.

In 'The Case of the Missing Link' (Batman Vol 1 #2, June 1940), Robin kills Goliath by knocking him off a circus girder with his slingshot.

In 'The Man Who Couldn't Remember' (World's Finest Vol 1 #2, June 1941), Batman kills Ambrose Taylor by punching him off a balcony and sending him plummeting to his death.

In 'Dark City Part V' (Batman Vol 2 #29, May 2014) – part of the Zero Year storyline – Batman rigs an explosive to a console aboard a dirigible and is soon after attacked by Doctor Death/Karl Helfern. Helfern is about to kill Batman, when the Dark Knight activates the bomb. Helfern is wounded by the blast and the shrapnel triggers his body's regenerative powers, causing his bones to mutate and crush his internal organs, thereby killing him.

[thecolorsblend]

At the risk of going off-topic, should we arrange for index/reference threads like this to be visible only to members? Seems like that might be the only way to slow down the thieves.

I recognize the viral nature of information, especially images (like comics). But what some of these people are doing is way over the line.

[Silver Nemesis]

We could limit access to site members, but I'd prefer to leave them open if possible. This thread in particular is one of the most highly viewed and brings in a lot of site traffic. The good thing is that we're constantly revisiting old discussions like these and updating them, so even if someone does rip off an earlier version they're only getting part of the overall picture.

[Travesty]

It's a small YT channel, so what are you gonna do? But if he did lift from this thread(which I don't know if he did or not), he should credit Silver Nemesis. I know I basically copy/pasted this thread over to SHH a few years ago, but I asked permission from Silver Nemesis beforehand, and I clearly credited him at the top of the thread, as well. Although, that thread devolved into people bickering about how BvS sucks, and how all the examples don't count for whatever reason. There's a certain member over there that is way too thickheaded about Batman killing. He's in this weird denial phase, where he denies most of the comic references and the Nolan movies, but uses it against certain comics or movies he hates. He's....weird.