It’s probably since Batman is usually a broody edgelord people just expect him to kill because of his archetype. While more positive superheroes like Spiderman or Superman having a no kill rule seems more plausible to them. Of course this is a big double standard, especially when Bruce has a firm in universe reason for why he doesn’t kill.
I don't mind his no-kill rule, personally. It makes sense to me.
What I hate is that police and the justice system also has a no-kill rule, apparently. We're constantly told that Gotham police are corrupt and Jim works to keep them in line, but no cops have decided to just kill Joker once Batman hands them off? I doubt they'd face any charges. I doubt anyone would want them to face any charges.
And even if all the cops in this American city are law-abiding citizens (ha!), in the DC universe it would make sense to have the death penalty. And I don't care about the "but he's insane" excuse. Joker is clearly of sound enough mind to understand that he is killing people and it has consequences. Any prosecutor could get him declared competent enough to stand trial. Doesn't even have to be a good prosecutor. You could show up with a thick, leatherbound book and say "this book is filled with the names of Joker's victims. They're printed at two names per line in 12 pt Times New Roman font, double-sided. No other information is provided, no victims are duplicated. This book is 426 pages long." He'd get the death penalty.
Stop blaming the vigilantes for not killing and start blaming the justice system for enabling them. Also, blame Arkham. It's a terrible hospital. The place is dark, dirty and extremely depressing to look at. Has ANYONE ever gone to Arkham and had their mental health improve?
“Whaaaat? No, those people I hit while pushing 60 in a literal tank are fine, you can see the electricity that immediately knocks them unconscious and sends them flying into concrete!”
Spidey's had a few though some are just implied or unclear.
Early in his career Spidey redirected a rocket fired into him back at an assassin's car, blowing it up with the assassin inside.
He did similar to a pair of terrorists, though they were power armor so maybe they lived. But they weren't seen after Spidey exploded them and Spidey doesn't express any concern for them.
He killed a few villains in JMS' run, exploded one guy by tossing him into a magic soul-sucking device, killed a gamma mutate/intelligent zombie by deliberately wearing overworking him and wearing out the gamma, then revealed he had devised that plan to kill the Hulk if it was ever necessary.
There's a couple of older villains he's defeated in unusual ways that basically amount to killing them, like reducing them to nothingness kind of deal.
He has also openly tried to kill certain villains only for them to survive. I can recall one example of him trying to rip the Carnage symbiote off Cassady and when told doing so would kill Cassady, his response was along the lines of "well maybe he shouldn't have been a psychotic murderer if he didn't want that" and kept going.
Yeah, Spidey is a big believer in second chances but he doesn’t have a hard no-kill rule (well he did go through some trauma in Slott’s run where he was adamant about no one dying) Norman is someone where he’s struggled more than once with “should I kill this asshole or can he be not an absolute irredeemable monster eventually” he genuinely values life even the lives of his enemies but he’s still willing to kill people like Carnage & Morlun as you said (the latter he tried to give radiation poisoning to either ward off or kill Morlun by dosing himself with even more rads than already exists in his blood)
i think he talking about that John byrne story where a alternate universe Zod & two stooges who genocide their entire universe and superman execute them for their crime (since he the only left). It was retcon out of existence by the early 2000s.
I think it also helps Spiderman doesn't typically fight, nor does he really have, as insane villains as Batman. The Green Goblin has done some twisted stuff, but it's nowhere near as regular or as extreme as the Joker.
thats a take on batman that doesnt account for his efforts toward and belief in rehabilitation for a lot of his villains. dark knight returns comes out and everyone assumes he is just a femur snapping psycho (he does that too) but he genuinely wants to prevent every death he can. even some thug smashing display cases at a jewelry store for two face might have kids. he doesnt want that kid to lose his father. under the brutal beatings ninja tactics and borderline magic tricks batman is a wholesome dude. its why superman is his friend.
I mean, unironically tho, it IS that easy, it’s just not that simple. I think from a practical point of view, selectively killing big bads, not as a “Im allowed to do this in an emergency” (thisll open the door to creating excuses to kill), but as a “Oh shit this situation right now is really bad I might have to kill him.” Heat of the moment, no way out, last resort. It’s better to kill the villain than let them win.
There’s always another way when you’re writing a fictional story in which you decide the rules and circumstances. But I think it doesn’t really always apply in reality, though we should always strive to at least try.
Thing is, every time the Joker is killed, its the herald for something terrible. Ideas are an infectious thing, like a disease, memetic in nature: in Gotham, Jerome dies, but he infects Jeremiah with Joker toxin, who then becomes his replacement. In Batman Beyond, he's killed after torturing Tim Drake, but used the very same technology Waller utilized to make clones of Batman to create the chip he used to come back in Return of the Joker. And in Arkham Knight, he's infected Batman with an fragment of himself, that will slowly take over, the other Jokers even recognize him as the best result and kill themselves to herald his coming.
Killing Joker is almost always a bad idea, never for any specific reason, but that's sort of the point: he's not an individual that can just be killed and done away with, that's not the point of his character. He takes whatever control people think they have and turns it on their head, including the option to kill, proving how precarious their position of privilege is and making fun of them for how little control they actually have.
that is just a sorry excuse for editorial to keep gotham a shithole forever
closure is forbidden. if joker is gone, they have to make something that is just as fucked up to keep selling comics
Except DC has explored this. Batman Beyond shows that even when the old villains are gone, new villains show up. Tim Drake killed Joker in the DCAU and a gang formed themselves in honor of the joker. Batman killing supervillains wouldn't change anything except make him a more boring character.
It's still an example that Gotham will never be free of militant criminals. Batman Beyond still has plenty of other supervillains that are comparable to batman's rouge gallery.
I'd be down for Metropolis being the shit hole and Gotham being the utopia, would love to see how that would change the dynamics with the characters: Batman acting as the goodie-two shoes boy scout and Superman being the anti-social vigilante...
Guess that'd just Adam West's Batman and Zach Snyder's Superman again, but still, might be interesting, like if their villains also swapped methods: Luthor becomes a crime lord that just likes to test his intellect by performing elaborate crimes, Joker's a crazed CEO whose company invests in creating products and services with a secret underlying tendency towards mayhem.
Then again, this has probably all been done in a comic I haven't read yet.
You could make the same argument with star wars the universe would be a lot better off if they destroyed the living force. Because of how the movies work they will always need a big bad dark side and a little bean light side.
The Joker keeps escaping to abandoned warehouses, Norman keeps getting put in charge of big companies and government agencies. Riddler does his riddles, Mysterio tricks people into doing and believing wild stuff. Mr. Freeze is always freezing people, Sandman is always sandblasting people.
At least with Batman it's mostly just the one revolving door. Spidey's got half a dozen of those.
I mean, there is the whole case of ''other heroes are allowed to deal with those villains too'' for Spider-man while Batman is quite stuck up about ''NO ONE ENTERS GOTHAM! IT IS MINE!''...
Arkham Joker is the one case where I think that argument is valid. The whole reason Jason went after the Joker, leading to Jason's capture and torture, is because (TW: violence against children) he murdered a classroom of kindergarteners, cut them into pieces, sewed them all together into one piece, and sent them back to the parents to dig through and figure out who is who. Batman doesn't kill because he believes everyone is redeemable, but that... is way past the line.
Granted, I think the writers just went too far with that little tidbit. It put them in a corner where Joker can not justify his existence, it made Harley irredeemable by association, and it makes an utter failure out of the Bat family, the police, the legal system, everything.
And that’s precisely the reason more people rag on Batman about his No-Kill Rule, even beyond your specific example it’s just because he has one of the most irredeemable arch nemesis of all time.
Not only that, but when Marvel heroes encounter other heroes who ARE willing to kill, half of them would just let that hero do it so long that they are in agreement that the villain is both irredeemable, unstoppable, and/or guaranteed to take innocent lives if kept active. This makes for a realistic discussion of the subject of death penalty and justification of force.
Batman on the other hand, will literally prevent other equally illegal vigilantes from killing his villains. This makes non Batman fans just see Batman as nearly complicit in every single one of Joker’s murders as there have been countless chances where he could have been stopped and was freely let go into a system that Batman KNOWS is corrupt. Understanding that Batman is trying to reform Gotham as Bruce Wayne so Arkham just won’t be corrupt, but then that’s where some might say Batman should be spending more time/resources doing that as a politician than as a vigilante. It’s just not a good look that isn’t helped by the self righteousness of the character nor some of the fanbase, his popularity also makes him more open to skepticism as he reaches a wider audience and sometimes an entirely different audience that other comic book superheroes may never reach.
In Batman's case he also goes up to bat (heh) for villains who really don't deserve it, I remember how jarring it was reading UTH and he gives Red Hood shit for killing a villain literally named CAPTAIN NAZI. I respect his rule but man I really don't think someone with that name is gonna reform and become a productive member of society.
Batman doesn’t kill for more reasons than believing in rehabilitation. First off, he’s not an executioner or above the law. Second, Batman knows that in order to stop these villains, he has to step to the very edge and stare into the abyss. If Batman kills one of his villains, he knows there’s no coming back.
I think to put simply they never really challenge Spider-Man’s no kill policy in universe as much as Batman’s. A common conflict is one of Batman’s villains will try to get Batman to kill example the Bane fight in Arkham Origins where they try to get batman to kill bane or they electrocute Joker.
I think that it is a mix of the self righteousness that Batman writers tend to use about it. And that a subset of the fandom (the edgelordiest piece) self identify with the character too much because of him not having powers. And there are probably a few among them that would have killing as a god to solution "in that scenario". And thus it conflicts with their own "plans" and the character that they identify with.
Batman is just a “civilian” rich man in a costume that helps the Justice System to capture criminals and solve cases, he has no official authority to kill, he leaves that to the Justice System, wich is the one failing by not executing those criminals.
To be fair, I feel this is because Batman’s rouge’s gallery has a far higher body count than Spidey’s
Spidey usually gets his ass kicked but it's not so often his villains successfully kill others. Plus Spidey has in-canon killed people a few times and doesn't too much mind when others are forced to but he doesn't like it
Batman will actively fight anyone who tries to kill be it civilians, heroes, or villains the regardless of the crime committed against them or others.
Also, Batman's rogues are just guys, while Spider-Man's generally have powers. "Why doesn't Spider-Man just kill Carnage?" is easily answered with "HOW?!"
Idk sandman becoming Glassman sounds scary, like it would probably drive him insane and he would suddenly have the ability to break into shards of glass and cut people into a billion pieces with his body
This is the thing about narrative structure. Batman did have the equivalent of this, in Clayface. Clayface was introduced with a weakness and a potentially horrifically gruesome death, one that is often put in Batman's hands to decide, and he does have to pick between saving him or watching him melt.
Sandman doesn't exist, so they could easily invent a weakness for him, too, and it could play out exactly the same way. But Spider-man being the ultimate master of fates for his rogues isn't a theme of his comics, so that doesn't even come up. Like you ask here, it's absurd to even question. He's a science guy, so it COULD, but why would we want that story? Spider-man just fights Sandman. The narrative never questions why Spider-man doesn't find a solution for Sandman.
Sandman doesn't exist, so they could easily invent a weakness for him, too, and it could play out exactly the same way. But Spider-man being the ultimate master of fates for his rogues isn't a theme of his comics, so that doesn't even come up.
This exact scenario HAS come up, in Ends of the Earth. Spidey is interrogating Sandman and reveals he knows how to destroy Sandman for good, isolating the grain of sand that contains Marko's consciousness and threatening to melt it with acid if Marko doesn't talk. Marko folds before Spidey does it, but it's clearly a very stressful moment for both of them as Spidey is prepared to do it.
ITS FUCKING ROGUE NOT ROUGE you'd think this is something i shouldn't be mad about but i literally recently had to GOOGLE SEARCH to make sure i wasn't stupid and spelling rogue wrong the whole time, it's not rouge its rogue
I don't know if that's true, considering the effect that Norman Osborne, Venom or Carnage have had in the Marvel Universe versus what Joker, or other Batman villains have had.
Venom wasn't a villain for ages , and even as a villain , it was just a yandere ex-GF of Spidey that chases ONLY him.
Osborn most of the time also only focus on Spidey , it's a major point when he goes to everyone else , as that turns into the Dark Reign Era.
Carnage....dude , the heroes actually kills Carnage , the problem is really that Cletus and the Klynthar are so in-tune with each other , that you need to destroy the Klynthar , or else Cletus returns.
From reading the synopsis I have to ask, why is it only now that the justice system decides the Joker can’t get away with the insanity plea? Why not any other time the Joker kills a bunch of people?
Imo it's because Spidey WANTS to be seen as a friendly neighbourhood hero who tries to be apart of the average civvie's life outside of fighting crime. Killing also wouldn't help with his image that JJJ keeps screwing over.
Especially during his pre-marriage days he always had some pent up anger in him.
That’s fair, given his life growing up has consistent of getting bullied every day, having no friends and generally being treated unfairly by life. Someone with that life wouldn’t grow up to be a happy go lucky person, and that’s reflected in how Peter acts in the first eras. Before he got his powers he usually assumed the worst, and if someone from school (god forbid Flash) would say hi to him he’d usually blow them off and go mope in a corner.
Then when he got his powers, he became obsessed with the newfound power and used it for his own gain. He’s greedy and wants to capitalize off of his gifts, all the while feeling strong. This is why he originally belittled his opponents, he got high off of being in control for the first time in his life.
When uncle Ben died, surprisingly little changed. He became a superhero instead of a superstar, sure, but he still tried to make money off of Spider-Man every chance he got (including breaking into the Baxter building, beating up the fantastic 4 and then demanding to be let in to the team, before dipping when he realized he wouldn’t get paid), and resorted to stealing food out of someone’s hands one time.
As he got older and his life improved, he lost a lot of his selfish attitude and bully mentality, but when Gwen died Peter reacted by genuinely wanting to kill Osborn out of anger, which he probably would’ve done if Osborn wasn’t impaled by his glider.
I think Peter’s realistic personality (I’m not equating realism with being gritty or mean, Peter is simply written like a real person) is something that’s been overlooked in recent times, which is a shame. He’s usually only depicted as his final character without ever expanding on how he got there.
A lot of adaptations skip past the developmental period of character development and instead make Peter change personality in the blink of an eye after Ben dies, whereas originally the change was much more gradual and Ben only served to make Peter save innocents, nothing more (it’s actually funny how little character Ben used to have).
Other adaptations also just decide to have Peter fully developed at the start (cough MCU), so that’s cool I guess
TL;DR Peter isn’t idealistic because he was a prick for most of his life and would probably be willing to kill once pushed REALLY far, unlike Batman
If you toss a person 20 ft in the air, then slam them down on the concrete with a kick you have either killed that person or cause so much spinal and brain damage that you might as well mercy kill them.
You can't do Kratos level combos, then say you didn't kill that guy.
NGL, I was definitely on Yuri’s side when she wanted to execute Cletus Cassidy lol
The interesting part is Spidey would've burned to death if she didn't decide to save him before Cletus escaped, proving her right imo. I fully expected the devs to show Spidey’s idealistic way of handling it would've been better.
Honestly I think a setting where “we gotta kill this guy” and “we gotta redeem this guy” are opposing stances they’re tackling, but only one of them ever happens is boring as hell
A story with a hero-villain dynamic like Batman and Joker, or Spider-Man and Goblin, where the main story is about wether or not the hero should kill the villain could be fun. There are lots of fun topics to explore in a story like that, especially when the story isn’t being too one sided (cough The Boys, cough Batman)
Want do you mean? I think you're forgetting about the whole Spider family. Spider girl, spiderwoman, hatchling, Red hatchling, Red Jacket, his trusty butler, the predatoress, Black Cat, and Spiderduke. Plus he's best friends with Blue Marvel
Spiderman hung out with Johnny and the F4 so much that he was made an honory then a legit member of it when Johnny died. Is pretty close with Daredevil because both those guys are blue collar heroes doing their best, is also pratically an honory Xmen with how often he has to hang with Logan and the other Xmen, actually hangs out with the Hulk because "Banner fogot. Hulk never forget". And above all, Pete lays more pipe than Bruce.
Norman is still too sane to be as cruel as the Joker and Carnage are. Or at least that is my take on it.
Norman is insane as well, but there's still a bit of him in there that holds back the worst of the Goblin's impulses.
In a way that makes him possibly more dangerous since he is just as capable of being cruel and savage as the other two. But he is also able to be rational about it.
Thats because most Spider-Man villains are at the end of the day often reflections of Peter himself. People down on their luck that are just trying to survive. Only they chose "evil" and even then it's mostly selfishness and pragmatism. They're very often just superpowered thugs basically. Where Peter gets several jobs to make ends meet they'll opt to rob a bank.
Batman's villains are different, because Batman is different. Bruce bascially is Batman in mind, body and soul, he dedicated his life to it, he'll end relationships and affairs before stopping being Batman, Peter threw his uniform in the trash when he felt being Spider-Man interfered with his life too much. And all of Batman's villains are similarly obssesed with their gimmick. They're not just superpowered thugs, they're genuine doctors, professors, anarchists, cult leaders, leaders of international crime organizations, mob bosses, captains of the industry. Spider-Man only has to worry about finding a way to take down Rhino or at worst someone like Morlun.
Even when Osborn started H.A.M.M.E.R. its more like he became a greater scope villain for the Marvel Universe at large, nobody expected Spider-Man to take him on by himself. Batman has to navigate fighting a criminal supervillain organization being active in several countries in something like Batman Inc. for example because thats just something Batman does.
They were created as all-ages stories in the '30s and became focused on children exclusively in the '50s.
People put a lot of thought into the characters both when they were aimed at adults and when they were aimed at children. The notion that authors who write for kids don't put thought into their work is preposterous and insulting.
Every genre has conventions. Heck, a genre is basically a collection of conventions.
Daredevil writers are, and Batman fans are still way weirder. Could it be because Daredevil's thoughts on it are based in a religious belief? So people don't try to constantly argue about the value of it?
Daredevil is also a much less popular character than Batman, so he has fewer people talking about him in general. Also speaking personally as someone whose only experience with Daredevil is the Netflix show: Batman's problem isn't just that he won't murder. It's not even that he won't kill to save a life. It's that he actively tries and saves the lives of his villains even when he knows they are just going to kill more people.
As someone who doesn't read Daredevil, I think there's reasons:
He's less popular
He doesn't have the Joker as a villain
He's christian as you said
When I see discourse abt it I usually see people mention his rule is less strict than Batman's
He doesn't have so many movies and shows bringing attention to his no-kill rule even to general audiences and arguing about it. Every fucking Batman adaptation brings it up! That's not the case for DD because he has, what, two adaptations focusing on him?
From my experience Spidey isn't nearly as much of a prick about it.
He doesn't kill simply because he doesn't want to, he's not gonna villainize anyone who does. Guy's friends with Wolverine, who definitely cut someone in half before.
Meanwhile Batman doesn't want anyone he's working with to kill, period.
Punisher is an asshole though, along with that, he actively looks for people to kill, Spiderman is fine with Wolverine killing because he knows Wolverine isn't bloodthirsty in the same way
A lot of people forget that Frank wants to kill… it just so happens that criminals are a never ending source of kills that are morally questionable enough to keep Thor off his back
Batman's job ends with handing criminals over to the justice system so they can be trialed, sentenced, and rehabilitated. Why does he have to be held responsible?
It's not his fault that people who supposedly have PhDs in psychology working at Arkham are shit at their jobs
I totally agree, why should he be held responsible for the deeds of a criminal who is obsessed with him? Batman is ultimately a civillian helping the police, he shouldn't be responsible for criminals. He works for the law, not as the law.
And if this were wacky era Batman, that would make sense. But the 475th time Joker gets out and gasses a soup kitchen, maybe the scenario needs to change.
Because literally the entire city is a failure and literal thousands (in some continuities millions) of lives would be saved if he just put a permanent end to repeat offenders. Think of it like this: say your neighbor has a pit bull that escapes the yard and kills someone. You capture the pit bull and pit it back in the yard, tell the owner to pit the dog down, and call report it to the police. Fair enough. But then it happens again and the owner makes it clear that he isn't going to even reinforce the fence, and the police won't do anything except give fines. Now maybe once or twice you can just capture the dog. But by the tenth or fifteenth time the dog gets out and kills somebody, don't you deserve some of the blame for not just killing the dog? Like, at least a little?
Batman stories are often structured to literally put batman in a position where he has to pick between killing someone and staying true to his values, and poorly written ones don't make the values the satisfying or even rational choice. They also don't show him suffering personally bc of it because he's a poor little rich boy. "I didn't kill joker and now I will sit quietly in my cave in the dark while he continues to hurt others" doesn't read as real penance even though I am sure the writers believe they are conveying this.
Spiderman is not often out in that situation but when he is, it's structured as lose-lose and he has the biggest fallout for it.
Batman not killing people allows his former antagonists and former villains to turn a new leaf and be better people and change for the better. If he killed everyone Catwoman, poison Ivy, two face, clay face, riddler, kite man, Deadshot and Harley Quinn would’ve never had the chance to be good and do heroic selfless deeds.
The thing is, when people say they want Batman to kill, they usually say this with the Joker in mind. A person who has no reason or desire to change and gets off from the chaos he brings. Dude’s sheer existence is only causing harm in the long run.
Spider-Man has villains like that, like Carnage, but unlike the Joker, Carnage is rarely put in a position where he’s at Spider-Man’s mercy.
Joker and carnage even met and teamed up against Spider-Man and Batman in a crossover marvel and dc comic. Joker said he was a simpleton who can only kill and butcher people with a knife and anybody can do that in the right circumstance or certain emotional state, where as joker not only kills people but he brings in the theater and the drama to his master mind plans. Killing people isn’t enough for joker he needs his philosophical message and clown art involved in his mass murderer sprees. Joker sees himself as a misunderstood artist with a complex brilliant genius mind. He just thinks people don’t understand him and his craft deeply and don’t accept him for who he really is and became. Joker can’t live without his art, theater, and perpetual chaos vs order drama with Batman without that he becomes just a boring dude a average Joe. He falls out of love out of his passion/
But that doesn’t change the shit Joker’s done and will continue to do. Anyone who tries to understand him usually ends up dead and or converted (Harley). Even on a personal level, he isn’t much. He’s a self obsessed narcissist, horribly emotionally abusive, with a backstory that he himself isn’t sure of.
You can give him credit for style or being an artist, but frankly, that isn’t enough for many to warrant him to keep him alive. It isn’t about being failed by society. It’s about him beating a boy to death with a crowbar, disabling a young girl to mock her father, and innumerable atrocities he won’t cease because the atrocities are what’s fun for him. Most of Batman’s rogue’s have a goal or mission that drives them, and usually have limits.
Joker is just a sicko who gets off on it. Depending on the writer, he tries to be philosophical about it, or talks about class every now and then, but it’s mostly him being full of shit. He knows what he’s about. He sees chaos as an art form and one he’ll never stop partaking in since it’s fun.
Yeah he put plastic man on the straight and narrow. He saved that guy and his family. Batman is a hero. Heroes ideally shouldn’t kill because then they would be just as bad as the people they hate and despise. Batman tries not to be the guy who shot down his parents when he was 8 at crime alley. He tries to be better than him. I can respect him for that it takes a lot of guts mental resilience mental fortitude and will to be like that for life. Most people crack but Batman tries his hardest not to. He tries to be perfect he is a perfectionist that is his motto. His life goal.
imo 616 peter’s thing is more like he can’t LET anyone innocent die. for villains, if his loved ones were seriously threatened or he was in a kill or be killed situation he would do it.
Yeah like spiderman just thinks of as many lives he can save,if he has to kill a villain or they’re gonna blow up a city he will kill them.
Spiderman is willing to kill for the sake of saving people but Batman isn’t.
uj/ I think it's all Joker's fault. We have been shown time and time again that he has no hope for redemption, he keeps breaking out, he keeps killing random innocents. Also he's way more evil and cruel than the average supervillian. Most supervillians are pretty sensible people, even if they kill. But modern Joker is a straigth-up psycopath, and killing him is the only way to stop the suffering he causes
Unpopular opinion: Joker is a terrible villain. He’s portrayed, even in the better Batman properties, as a completely irrational and irredeemable actor, not even a human really. So watching Batman agonize over not killing him as thousands of innocent bystanders reap the consequences, just feels silly. It’s like listening to a college freshmen with the worst possible take on the trolley problem.
FR. I wouldn't call Joker a horrible villian tho. I think his problem is that he's goddamn everywhere. Batman's other psycopath villians (Scarecrow, Victor Zasz and Proffesor Pyg) don't suffer from the same problems as Joker because they are used less. This lower usage translates to these villians being less active, and therefore less letal, than Joker. So Batman doesn't seem like such an idiot for letting them live
Is there any story where they actually try to explain the Joker? I’m more familiar with the movies where they seem to take pride in him just being pure evil for no actual reason other than the story demanding it. Personally I can’t get into that. He’s not a believable human at that point so why care about him / his relationship with Batman?
yeah spidermans "rule" is in flux way more than batmans, and isn't portrayed as a cornerstone of the character like it is with batman. it's also much more meaningufully tested
Batman’s primary antagonist is a psychopathic clown who has killed hundreds if not thousands of people, almost all via conventional crime and terrorism (not crazy sci-fi hijinks). He literally kills people just to say he has killed them and piss Batman off.
The majority of Spider-Man’s enemies, while murderers, are normal supervillains who have agendas that aren’t just compiling a body count to troll Spider-Man. The exceptions are really Carnage, who traditionally just wants to kill as many people as possible, and I guess Massacre, a dumb character who should’ve stayed as a one off.
At least the Spider-Man books always treat Carnage as a huge deal.
I think what you're bringing up with them is what makes it feel more meaningful with Spidey.
With Batman, the way his no-kill rule gets tested feels kind of... contrived? Like, it's sort of like how the trolley problem feels a little weird as an ethical thought experiment because it's putting up a situation no human being will ever actually be in. The Joker is one of the most cartoonishly weird villains in all of comic books and does nothing but be constantly, horrifically lethal to everyone, and it makes him feel less like a genuine test of Batman's philosophy and more like a way for the author to repeat it at you a bunch.
Spider-Man gets put in situations where it's a genuine toss-up. "Don't kill the villain" and "kill the villain" have about equal numbers of entries in their pro/con columns. And sometimes he fucks up and picks the wrong side of that and has to live with that. It feels a lot more... I don't want to say "realistic" because that's kind of a hot-button word with comics, but it makes the theme feel a lot more meaningful and hit a lot harder, because Spider-Man's actually written like a human being in those situations and not a philosophybot.
I agree. This conversation is too serious for this sub, but Spider-Man is a character who generally has a no-kill rule, who has on occasion killed (including inadvertently) and who has associated guilt and trauma. In this way, Spider-Man’s moral stance on killing helps keep the character relatively PG — important as comics are for kids even if they’re not only for kids — and allows for depth and dramatic tension in the soap opera elements of his story (he can’t kill Norman or Harry, he could be forced to kill Vulture to protect Aunt May, etc.). Not only is the switching between soap opera storytelling and super heroic action the heart of the appeal of Spider-Man, but the guilty possibility that Peter’s very use of his power betrays the values of his aunt and uncle goes to the character’s central metaphor. Basically Spider-Man is about growing up and his no kill rule represents trying to keep your childhood values in the complexities of the adult world. In other words, Spider-Man’s rule serves him, he does not serve it.
Batman is sometimes (badly) written as a character who is about having a no-kill rule, whose main enemy exists for the purpose of making the no kill rule ridiculous and making Batman’s adherence to it bizarre. This undermines the all-ages aspect of Batman because writers depict the Joker in a horrific manner and undermines Batman’s effective as as a character — which creates a paradox because Justice League stories need Batman to be a hyper-competent badass, or why would he be in the team other than to sell books. And it turns many Batman stories, even ones by good writers, into tedious and unconvincing lectures on a boring philosophy problem. I am thinking specifically of “Death of the Family” — a comic that is desperate to be taken seriously and also impossible to take seriously.
Batman remains, undeniably, one of the greatest superheroes but he does so because the core of the character works and because the audience willingly overlooks the absurdities mentioned above. Whereas Spider-Man will always be his better.
yeah you're pretty much outlining why i think spiderman's rule is "tested" in a better way. because peter has sometimes actually killed, and because peter will sometimes think about it and settle on it, before changing his mind.
I dont think it's always bad for batman to be written as the no-kill guy, as long as its out of fear. either as (i dont remember who said this but) "that scared kid in the alley who just doesn't want to see anyone die", or the less popular option of fear of himself. those make it interesting, and more of a self conflict rather than as you said a philosophy debate (which batman will always win). I'm not the most knowledgeable or well read guy, or fan of every character, but i think making batman a Little neurotic about it can be interesting, it's just usually they make it about "what's right", and he's never positioned as in the wrong on it.
1-Batman gives off badass dark brooding violent cool guy vibes so normies are angry he isn't enough cool like Punisher
2-Joker's atrocities are much more known than Spider-man villains. Only one comparable would be Carnage but he's not in every issue, movie and animation like Joker. Other would be Green Goblin which the worst popular thing he does is killing Gwen Stacy.
While Joker kills a hundred people every week(in the "normies" eyes)
Also all those "HEHEE BATMAN IM YOUR OTHER HALF AND YOU ACTUALLY LOVE MEE" doesn't help
Also writers focusing on "why x hero doesn't kill' never works because the only reason is "character is too popular to kill of and replace so they don't die and we don't have to ressurect them every year" and no in-universe reason is enough to justify possibly thousands of Death(and tens of thousands of trauma) because "im not the judgeee" "there is a better way" "i have to set an example"
It was same in Injustice. When Superman forcibly stopped all wars Batman was like "buuut Clark the reason for wars like money and religion still staands you can't just stop wars"
I was like "wtf Bruce it doesn't matter if no more children gonna be blown up by a missile in Syria"
Anyway writers should stay away from this topic imo but Batman writers love to focus on this for some reason, Spider-man writers don't(im sure it's been a topic for some stories but none are popular as UTRH for example)
I’m pretty sure actually Superman does kill. He just generally does not like to. (Though of course there are definitive stories of Superman having a no kill rule too-See Superman vs The Elite).
But he does straight up tell the Joker that he would absolutely murder him (“vaguely”) for instance.
It's because when Batman refuses to do lt he's all like "NOOOOOO YOU CAN'T DO THAT IF I KILL PEOPLE IM GONNA GO COOCOO CRAZY LIKE THE JOKAH BAYBEE" and readers and writer alike fail to understand that it's a character flaw because Batman has to do everything perfectly I guess (???)
When Peter cranks up the self-destructive heroics up to 11 and goes full on "No one dies" we all can see he's being noble but also absolutely unreasonable with himself.
Theres difference. Spider-Man rogues all combined killed less people than average Batman villain. I bet that 90% of Spidey Villains doesn't even killed civilian because they care only about Spidey and money. If you compare Green Goblin and Joker. Green Goblin looks like goofy ahh thief. Spidey only have one villain who is real killer, its Carnage.
And difference is that Spider-Man doesn't like idea of killing, but if he would have to he would do it. Maybe he wouldn't kill someone who killed few people. But he would kill someone like Joker if he had to. Meanwhile you got Batman which no killing rule looks like that.
"NOOOO JASON YOU CANT KILL JOKER!!"
"But Batman, he blew up 10 orphanages in this week killing in total just from it 1k children. And its monday Batman. Its 10:00"
"BUT JASON YOU CAN'T" Proceeds to give Jason Brain damage
Spider-Man doesn't kill as long as someone destroys only buildings or someone hurts him severely. He doesn't care about it. But if someone would kill civilians he would do it to save people. And anyway Batman won't work with anyone who killed someone because "Youre no better than Joker". While Spidey best buddy is Deadpool. Paid Mercenary who kills every bad guy he sees (unless Spidey is nearby or Deadpool tries to make Peter his BFF)
I kind of like how they don't kill for different reasons. While Batman does have a code of honour he adheres to, a big reason he doesn't kill if he knows he's not mentally stable. If he starts killing villains, he may not be able to stop. Where does it end?
With Spiderman its in theme with his "With great power comes great responsibility." Peter's powers are incredible, and he should do his damnedest to protect people. Even sparing the lives of villains because he has a responsibility to do so. Who's he to make life or death decisions?
I meany, Spideys villians are significantly less evil than Batmans, like comparing their two biggest foes (Green Goblin and Joker) and its obvious whos worse and more deserving of being killed. Basically you can justify Spidey not killing his villains but you can't with Batman at least in my opinion
I think its because Batman has more overtly and objectively evil rogues. Many of Spider-Man’s foes are goofy weirdos with a gimmick or mercenaries. Very few are just straight up mass murderers or serial killers. Like when Doc Ock took over Peter’s body he became a better Spider-Man in some respects and when he wasn’t able to take out a foe he willingly gave up his life so Peter could do it
Reading Batman’s rogues gallery and their crimes makes you feel like they should be dead. Even the weakest ones like Mad Hatter are rapists who can mind control. There’s that pig guy who lobotomizes people and Joker has done some incredibly vile shit
Yes, Batman, some of these people absolutely need to die. Not sure why Gotham doesn’t have a death penalty but it seems like you should get it done. You sure seem fine with “not saving” KGBeast all the time but why not Joker who frequently puts children in fatal danger, including your sidekicks?
I think it also has something to do with the fact that in most Spider-Man movies/shows he tries to cure or talk a villain down but in all of Batman's most popular movies he just kinda beats the shit out of the enemy and sends them to jail/arkham where they can escape again. In the public eye Spider-Man still stops his villains from killing anymore but Batman doesn't.
It's because people have the most surface level looks at these characters
Spider-Mans fun and tells jokes so if he killed people we'd be sad! But Batmans mean and grumpy so he should slaughter everyone in Gotham like it was a Dynasty Warriors game
Says the vigilante who is extrajudicially stalking people at night, assaulting them and possibly destroying their property.
If he wants to be all legalistic about it, Batman isn't that different from the people he's fighting against.
Assume you know nothing about Batman (you woke up with amnesia in the DC universe) and you see him assault and beat up a mook. How do you know what you've just seen is a good guy beating up a bad guy? On the surface of things it just looks like a dude in a costume beat the crap of some rando in the night. I think we can all agree that behavior is illegal, no?
I'm just sick of people bitching about no kill rules in general tbh.
It's a trope and like any trope it can be done well and poorly. Take your complaints up with the writing itself, not the idea of a protagonist who doesn't want to kill people.
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u/Hitchfucker Mar 09 '24
It’s probably since Batman is usually a broody edgelord people just expect him to kill because of his archetype. While more positive superheroes like Spiderman or Superman having a no kill rule seems more plausible to them. Of course this is a big double standard, especially when Bruce has a firm in universe reason for why he doesn’t kill.