j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
It's the principle Malygris. It's like in The Killing Joke- the Joker captures Jim Gordon, locks him up and shoots/paralyses his daughter. However, when Batman comes to rescue him, Gordon tells him to get the Joker by the book. "Show him that our way works".
But by now, somebody - Batman, Robin, Alfred,
somebody - should have figured out that it doesn't work. It's gone way beyond principle: By refusing to do what so obviously needs to be done, Batman has become an active part of the problem, almost as responsible for the murder of innocents as the Joker himself. In that crossover with the Punisher, all he had to do after coming upon the showdown between the Joker and Castle was to hold back for just a second. Check to make sure he didn't lock the keys in the Batmobile. Tighten his utility belt. Get that goddamn pebble that's been driving him crazy all day long out of his boot. Whatever. Five seconds hesitation and countless lives are saved.
But he doesn't. It's not principle, it's not morality. It's complicity - or it's a character so utterly lacking in depth that he responds to the same situation in the exact same predictable way every single time, without fail and no matter how horrible it may be, simply because there's nothing more to it.
Now, if you want Bat-complexity, we can talk about The Dark Knight Returns, and yeah, I'll grant you that Bruce Wayne and Frank Castle suddenly have an awful lot in common. Much like Ennis with the Max imprint, The Dark Knight featured an uncommonly-talented writer given free reign with an established but underused character; but whereas the Punisher Max is (I'm assuming) generally considered "canon" these days (and god, I hate that term), The Dark Knight Returns isn't. Which is a shame, because that's the kind of Batman that makes interesting reading: Complex, conflicted and deeply human.