So.. Does Batman ever accidentally kill people?

"Does Batman ever kill people by accident?" I found myself thinking that while playing the new game and was surprised to hear the Beastcast bring up a similar question on the last podcast.

I got to admit I don't know enough about Batman's code of honor when it comes to this, but I cant imagine he is naive enough to think that every criminal he maims or beats the fuck up is going to be all fine and dandy. Some might even get killed on the spot. Plenty of people have been killed by a single punch before.. Well its not so much the punch, but the landing head first on the concrete, which happens to plenty of street scum in Rocksteady's Batman games. Not to mention the stomping, throwing, roundhouse kicking, baseball bats to the head, and running into criminals with your armored tank, that also happens. Some of them got to be dead, I mean they got to be.. right? I might be overthinking the whole virtual people violence thing that's going on my tv screen, but I just like to immerse myself in the world is all.

I like to think that Batman is okay with it all. As long as he is not deliberately trying to kill anyone. What do you think?

batman has failed to save people before.

also the bat-tank has a electric shield so people dont get run over in the game.

I mean the real answer is its a comic book or whatever but part of it is batman is an EXTREMELY talented martial artist so he knows the way to hurt people without killing people.

it should also be noted the arkham batman is a pretty brutal version of the character.

Batman killed a few people in the burton films included joker.

He won't kill you, only make you wish you were dead.

But yeah at least how they portray it in the arkham games with all the chaos and random elements i would be surprised if someone doesn't get seriously maimed. Pobody's nerfect. But for the sake of the fiction everyone is at most beaten to a pulp or dies from non-batman related things/batman's complete inaction.

Nolan Batman more or less murdered Harvey Dent, and DEFINITELY murders some random truck driver in Dark Knight Rises. But that was a specific permutation of the character. Not really to be taken as the ideal Batman.

You want to talk about plot armor, though. These Arkham street thugs have the best plot armor I've ever seen.

I think Batman does what is necessary to incapacitate an enemy, and when he is facing a possible city-wide catastrophe I don't think he cares too much if one or two terrible criminals end up getting paralysed or dying afterwards. Obviously he doesn't try to kill people but if he did things any differently he wouldn't be anywhere near as effective. I've never had a problem with his portrayal in these games and I feel that it lines up pretty well with the comic and movie versions of him.

Haha without a doubt! The combat is so brutal I find it hard to believe everyone is still breathing.

Also In my eyes the Nolan Batman is the ideal, since I like the universe gritty and semi realistic, but I understand that he is not exactly the standard Batman.

I've seen him kill people inadvertently, they being too close to an edge or something else.

Batman does not deal death with intent. But if it happens, ....

edit- can you imagine the number of paraplegics and quadriplegics left by a number of Batman fights?

I killed a dude in Arkham City once. I interrogated a riddler informant by holding him by the ankle over the ledge of a bridge and at the end of the interrogation batman just straight up dropped that dude on his head. It had to be at least 4 stories up and I went down and checked his status under detective mode and it read: diseased. I wish I had that recorded because it was crazy.

It's a tough conversation. Batman--like all superheroes, let's be honest--changes so much from creator to creator. The tricky part with Batman is that he has rules, guidelines, such a particular modus operandi, that writers can only bend him so far before he undermines the tenets he seems to adhere to. And that goes beyond Batman to the world in which he exists, as well.

The Nolanverse respects Batman's mythos in an extraordinarily specific way, filtering out some of the broader strokes of the Batman character to construct a complete-but-separate vision of Bruce Wayne. Nolan's is definitely a super cool approach, but there's a lot of cultural worth in identifying it as one way to look at Batman and not the way.

This is why I'm much more of a fan of The Punisher than Batman.

Probably. I feel like I killed about 50 people during Arkham Knight...

One thing for certain though, Nightwing is a murdering piece of shit!

It's been pointed out and beaten to death in the comics but Batman is also pretty messed up in the head as well and could very well be insane similar to alot of the bad guys in Gotham. The code to never kill may be the only thin lining that's preventing Bruce from crossing and find himself as one of the Arkham Asylum inmates. The guy also dresses up as a giant Bat for christ sakes.

Well whenever I take out a riddler informant by stomping on his neck, I call in the batmobile and get in right over top of him so i feel there's really no way anyone could survive that...

I remember a fight on a collapsed bridge in Batman: No Man's Land where Batman ducks an attack, which then hits the thug behind him, knocking that thug off the bridge where he fell and hits one of those sea mines sitting in the water.

That is messed up! No wonder he left to do his own thing, having all that pent up rage.

After which Batman threw his arms up and said "I didn't put that mine there! Not my fault!"

People die.

It the first arkham game you have to drop a thug into a bunch of joker gas, which is 100% lethal.

Yes, every time he chooses not to kill any of his rogue's gallery, only for them to escape from prison or Arkham or whatever and murder more people.

It's pretty much the whole reason the Batman character falls apart for me and how it feels impossible to see him as sympathetic or heroic.

Didn't batman shoot his grappling hook through some guys chin in one of the comics? I know in the comics people are dying all the time indirectly because of him. I liked how Daredevil the show addressed the whole not killing rule when he actually put some guy into a coma for an indefinite amount of time.

I'm still not too sure how I feel about hitting people in the batmobile in this game... it seems comical to hit people going full afterburner, but they're okay because the electrical shock pushed them away...? Just doesn't seem possible, but I guess it was the best way to address that problem rather than taking out pedestrians completely.

He dropped a statue on a bunch of Asian dudes once. I think he's knocked dudes into things that killed them on accident a few times, too.

I'm pretty sure the guards in Wonder tower in Arkham City that Batman incapacitated were killed in the explosion. Same thing happened with ACE chemical plant in Arkham Knight. If Batman didn't beat any of those guards into unconsciousness they probably would have escaped from their doom.

I think Batman's more of an "I don't have to save you," kind of guy.

Like if you're a serial killer and hanging over a pit of acid, he'll probably think twice if he even decides to help. He didn't throw you in so he's not directly responsible.

There's no way in hell that the Arkham Batman hasn't killed people. He might be under the delusion that he hasn't, but giving people concussions and shattered bones left and right like he does can definitely result in death.

Yeah, with his magical transforming guns and sick skull t-shirt!

No. He'll break bones, but no killing. I haven't read that many of (or any perhaps, I don't honestly remember) the comics, so I don't know if in the past he had or not, but I have seen, read, and heard enough about his character to know he doesn't like to kill, and if he ever has, it hasn't been that many at all. If he does by accident through some dudes concussion, I see that as irrelevant.

There's exception(s?) to the rule, but generally he does not kill folks. He does however not save people, or sometimes during a fight an opponent will cause their own death.

Nah, probably never killed anyone

@fleabeard: I believe thats the same story batman uses a gun in too

Batman used guns as standard equipment in most of the golden age, it was only after the Comics Code came in to effect he stopped killing.

If the physiology/anatomy of everyday normal humans in the DC universe is anything like that of real life humans, virtually certainly. The trauma batman inflicts on his enemies is rather extreme and the way they lie motionless after he hits them repeatedly in the head is alarming to say the least. How many subdural and epidural haematomas has batman caused? A lot going by the games, movies and comics. The amount of neurological damage he would inflict is pretty nasty as well - human bodies can be pretty fragile. You know how the thugs of the batman universe always shrug off broken bones? In reality, broken bones can be a serious health hazard. Broken bones can cause permanent disability due to nerve damage and fractures of the long bones can result in fatal internal bleeding without prompt medical attention.

No, Batman never kills, he just puts them to sleep...

One of Hollywood's - fiction in general really - greatest convenience-lies is unconsciousness. People do not pass out for hours when punched. Anything longer than a couple of minutes probably means you have severe brain damage.

This comic book is phony!

Batman as a rule does not kill people, that's pretty much as central to his character as him dressing up as a bat or his parents being dead. You could argue that beating up criminals the way he does leaves then as good as dead, but what you're missing there is that the batman universe isn't our universe, so the rules are different. I think it's safe to assume the physics that allow a 250 pound man to basically fly with a 6 foot wingspan could also allow him to be just so adept at martial arts that the criminals he faces and incapacitated painfully but non life threateningly.

That's not to say he's never killed people, but when he does its always by accident and always a pretty big deal. He will try to save everyone to a fault, including villains. Which inthinknis interesting in the classic would you kill one to save 100 sort of scenario.

Yes, only not with real intent.

Human body is relatively fragile. People can die if they misstep in a 2 stories stairs... It is only natural to assume if 300 pounds of muscle and combat armor hits a dozen people on top of a building, some of them are not walking up home afterwards. He never fights with the intention to kill, but he doesn't care much if people die as a consequence of fighting him.

Of course, that depends on the writer. Some versions of Batman would be deeply shocked if a gun aimed at him misfires and hit a random thug.

@fleabeard said:

Nah, probably never killed anyone

This was like 3 DC universe reboots ago so technically this never happened.

Also, most gases that make you sleep are dependent on weight. A does that woudl put a full grown 185 lb man to sleep would kill a child or an old person. Nearly everything Bat-man woudl use to subdue people woudl only work 50% of the time. He'd either no quite do 'the job' or kill someone 50% of the time.

"...There are seven working defenses from this position. Three of them disarm with minimal contact. Three of them kill. The other-- [KRAKK] -- OH SHIT! Well make that FOUR that kill....damn it why does that always happen when I'm so damn busy?!"

Also, how much more interesting would Bat-man be if he did what woudl logically really happen...kill a lot of people accidentally.

The real Batman has indeed killed people.

Robin don't care.

@dudeglove:

There's no doubt in my mind that batman kills at least 20% of the people he fights in the batman videogames.

Arkham-version Batman is pretty damn brutal. Even if he doesn't kill, he goes hard on whoever he's fighting. Actually... wait, doesn't he kill Ra's Al Ghul?

Animated Batman never does, though there is one time Deadman possessed him, grabs a gun and shoots Devil Ray who was about to kill someone else. Batman gains control of himself and is in absolute disbelief and shock.

Current comics Batman has failed to save people, but I don't think ever intentionally or accidentally killed criminals. Though I don't think the same rule applies to monsters/alien invaders. In a war-time setting, I'm pretty sure he's willing to kill. And there's other versions that kinda don't count like old 30's comics where he has a gun, or like that page posted where he makes some snide remark about the dude hanging from his plane. In Dark Knight Returns he straight up shoots someone threatening to kill a child.

Movie Batman is its own thing. Burton just made him a fucking cold-ass murderer, which completely misses the point. I mean he straps a bomb to a dude, smiles, then knocks him down a sewer. That's not fucking Batman to me. Nolan's version definitely tried to avoid it, but he will in situations where there's absolutely no way out (killing Dent to save Gordon's son, fighting alongside the police in a war against the League of Shadows). I feel like Nolan just wanted to avoid painting him as an executioner, but still acknowledged there are situations where it's unavoidable.

It's important to remember that when he was first starting out, in ye olde 40s, for a while Batman straight up used a fucking gun. So yes, he has accidentally killed people.

ED: Looks like @dudeglove and @onlykris beat me to it, emphasis and all.

The way I understand it, and it really depends on which source material you use (ie: Films, shows, cartoons, comics), but going by the comics...the key concept to Batman's code is basically intent. Having murder in your heart, and wanting to kill another person is primarily how Batman's code is defined.

Batman has inadvertently killed people in the comics before. I remember, specifically, a scene during Paul Dini's run on Detective Comics, before the New 52 relaunch, during his interesting self-contained single issues, that Batman tussled with a guy on a train platform and during the fight the guy had fallen over accidentally and went splat. I think a cynic would blame Batman, but I didn't view it as Batman having killed the guy.

Batman will also, without remorse, fucking cripple you. I seem to remember a side villain, someone from the mob that was the father of one of his love interests, having been confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life after a tussle with Batman. He'd met with Bats afterwards, tried to guilt trip him...but Bats was having none of that. I'd also point out 'The Dark Knight', where Batman dropped Maroni off a ledge and he was walking around with a cane for the rest of the film.

So, Batman won't murder your ass. But, you can die accidentally and you can get crippled...and it's kinda all fair game, really

I've never understood why DC comic heroes like Batman and Superman don't simply kill the bad guys. What's the point in locking them away if they keep escaping to kill more people? Surely an in universe thought must occur in their heads where they realize that they are responsible for the lives the bad guys take because they refuse to kill them. Right?

@golguin: you can say the same for the bad guys. Stop tying him up and leaving.

I'm not sure if he has accidentally killed anyone in game, but he certainly has failed to save people countless times.

I've always wondered about this as well. Why lock them up in Arkham Asylum where you know they can easily escape and cause more destruction (as have shown numerous times) when Batman can create a super prison within his own secured location?

@probablytuna said:

Real answer? They've built this entire mythology around certain characters, iconic, decade spanning names like the Joker and Lex Luthor, and you're just going to remove them completely? When Superman kills or Batman locks up every single recognizable villain, who would they have left to fight, and how long would it take for you to build them up to be at the level of a Zod or a Scarecrow? Could you imagine what the Batman franchise would look like if he shot and killed the Joker, Mr Freeze, the Riddler, Penguin, Two-Face, and Scarecrow the first time he fought them?

They could come up with a million in-universe reasons to bring these guys back, but it would ring just as hollow as every hero death. The bottom line is that creating new, unique characters that resonate with people (aka get them to buy comics) is hard, and you never kill off or remove a fan favorite for long. Comic sales are way down anyway, most new ventures haven't set the world on fire, and these deep rosters of villains are working well for making movies. It's just not a good business proposition to keep killing of major heroes/villains all of the time.

EDIT: TV Tropes actually has a great entry on this, called Joker Immunity.