Thanks to Zack Snyder’s recent comments, the comic world has once again asked the age old question of whether it’s time for Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, to kill his foes. It’s a question that even I myself have asked whenever I see Batman confront a particular villain that I felt was best dead.I’ll get right to the point. After giving it much thought and hearing both sides give their arguments, I find myself on the side of saying that Batman shouldn’t kill his foes. Trust me, for a while now I was on the side of asking why Batman doesn’t just kill the Joker or all the other baddies that have caused harm on a massive scale. If Batman were to just kill off the Joker after his second offense, approximately millions of lives would be saved. Gotham would be one less villain free and it would send a powerful message to the rest of the crooks and vile degenerates that Batman will show no mercy if he catches you.
However, that would to an extent strip away the very core essence of what makes Batman unique and separate from all other vigilantes out there in the comic book world. Batman’s strong moral values, philosophy and ethos is what makes the character interesting and frustrating at the same time. I mean, we all like to imagine ourselves as heroes, so let me ask you this. Are you willing to step over the line? To take a life? And if you say yes, what gives you that right? Who are you to decided who gets to live and you gets to die? These are the questions Batman answers while being Batman.
And it’s also what helps differentiate him from Superman. Superman is the embodiment of everything good. A pinnacle example for human beings to strive towards. Superman is light while Batman is darkness, yet Superman is more likely to kill if pushed than Batman, and has done so canonically.
So to conclude this, I get why Zack Synder would say that Batman has killed in his movies, because realistically, how else is he going to explain the shit that took place in his movies. Nevertheless, I believe that Batman should not kill. Comic book characters change and evolve over time and there’s many versions of our favorite cape crusader but if you take away his core philosophy, then he’s no longer Batman. That’s like taking away Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben moment, to some extent.
