A vociferous minority of fans were outraged when star Robert Pattinson stated that his Dark Knight does not kill, despite the fact that such a restriction has existed in the comics for decades.
“Keep in mind that we never kill with any form of weapon!” The Caped Crusader’s comments to his companion, Robin, in Batman No. 4 (1940), marked the beginning of Batman’s “no-kill rule,” a facet of the hero that has become nearly as basic a character characteristic as his cape and cowl… at least in the comics. The cinema adaptations, on the other hand, have played fast and loose with that rule, with it appearing as a suggestion at times, a matter of semantics at others, and even not appearing at all at times.
Every new Batman picture raises the question of Batman’s no-killing policy, as well as the expansion of that policy: Batman doesn’t use firearms (save on all his cars, tanks, motorbikes, and aircraft, of course). Oh, and the shark-killing spear guns.
Also, as release date of Matt Reeves’ highly anticipated remake, The Batman, approaches, the topic of Batman’s dominance is once again discussed, and, as with most things in the superhero movie fandom, lines are drawn in the sand, albeit some are admittedly deeper than others. It’s more intriguing to analyses what it means when Batman kills, and what it means when he doesn’t, and why audiences react the way they do in the aftermath, rather than repeat the same old debates about what constitutes killing, or make sweeping claims like “Batman never kills.”
The much more notable occasion Batman murdered — and I mean genuinely killed, not merely let a villain to face the repercussions of their own trap — was in Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis, when Batman uses a Radion bullet to kill Darkseid shortly before being slain by Darkseid’s Omega Beams. It doesn’t get much more poetic than this: in order to rescue the world and vanquish the devil, Batman must break his own rule, and he dies as a result of doing so.
In two prior series, we’ve seen Batman lose his way and witnessed just how low the role can lead him, whether it’s the depths of the Lazarus Pit or the death of Superman. Now it’s time to create a better Batman and watch him avoid the dangers that might bring his reign to a premature end.
