Stolen Pixels #172: Gotham's Latest Superhero
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
I personally find Batman's morality to be pretty stupid. In a game like Arkham Asylum he has no problem pretty much breaking every other bone in the inmate's bodies (I mean seriously look at some of the take downs, there is no way some of those goons aren't bleeding internally or having skull fractures. And because he doesn't kill you pretty much find a slew a asylum personnel and guards dead throughout the island. You know what you don't find? The convicts, because they all get up after a while and go to cheer/taunt you on while wearing party hats before you fight the Joker. Seriously wtf kind of logic is that?
If I was a guard on the island I'd be like to hell with the batman I'm going with shoot the bad guy in the face man.
If I was a guard on the island I'd be like to hell with the batman I'm going with shoot the bad guy in the face man.
See, this is why I thought the idea behind Marvel's "Civil War" was so stupid.
Your problem isn't unregistered superheroes, dickweeds, it's that you keep letting lunatic mass murderers back onto the street after they've been captured by those unregistered superheroes two-three hundred times.
The real solution in Civil War would have been an automatic death penalty for any act of supervillany.
Your problem isn't unregistered superheroes, dickweeds, it's that you keep letting lunatic mass murderers back onto the street after they've been captured by those unregistered superheroes two-three hundred times.
The real solution in Civil War would have been an automatic death penalty for any act of supervillany.
When Joker was first introduced, he got stabbed in the chest and died.
Then he got "Phoenix Down'd" and became the famous villain everyone loves.
So yes, Joker can even escape death.
Then he got "Phoenix Down'd" and became the famous villain everyone loves.
So yes, Joker can even escape death.
Batman whipped up some dart-firing machine guns for "The Cult [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Cult]" so he and Robin could tackle the Deacon Blackfire's crazed masses.
Non-lethal, sure, but they got the job done (though I can imagine even a non-lethal dart could kill if it hit in the right spot.)
He built a badass monster truck Batmobile but that's beside the point.
Non-lethal, sure, but they got the job done (though I can imagine even a non-lethal dart could kill if it hit in the right spot.)
He built a badass monster truck Batmobile but that's beside the point.
I can accept that Batman is psychologically an eight year old in a grown up body and has a pathological need to never see anyone die again, thus his inability to kill, and the only reason anyone doesn't realise that he's a mental case is that there's a bunch of other silly bastards in tights running around.
Where I have difficulty is the notion that no one else has killed the Joker. Serriously, even if all the heroes in the DCU are constrained by the simple-minded moral code that Superman and Batman seem to share, what about all the other crazies running around Gotham? Surely if some new villian was to roll into town and wanted to make his bones, killing the Joker and leaving his head jammed on a piece of rebar stuck outside police headquarters would be a good way to mark their territory. Nothing says, "Don't fuck with me," like decapitating the psychotic clown that makes everyone in town piss their pants.
To say nothing of all the average Joes and Joesphinas running around Gotham. Surely not every one of the Joker's victims has been a friendless loner with no family. If Arkham has the revolving door it's depicted as having, then how hard could it be for someone to bribe a gaurd to let them in to the Joker's cell in the middle of the night to cut his throat, or to posion his food?
Where I have difficulty is the notion that no one else has killed the Joker. Serriously, even if all the heroes in the DCU are constrained by the simple-minded moral code that Superman and Batman seem to share, what about all the other crazies running around Gotham? Surely if some new villian was to roll into town and wanted to make his bones, killing the Joker and leaving his head jammed on a piece of rebar stuck outside police headquarters would be a good way to mark their territory. Nothing says, "Don't fuck with me," like decapitating the psychotic clown that makes everyone in town piss their pants.
To say nothing of all the average Joes and Joesphinas running around Gotham. Surely not every one of the Joker's victims has been a friendless loner with no family. If Arkham has the revolving door it's depicted as having, then how hard could it be for someone to bribe a gaurd to let them in to the Joker's cell in the middle of the night to cut his throat, or to posion his food?
the iconic characters never die.PiercedMonk said:
being cynical - it's bad for business.
being critical - some douche like jeph loeb would just them back for kicks
for those of you that like jeph loeb, please read Ultimatum. I wouldn't wipe my ass with that comic book.
I suspect it has much to do with the Comics Code Authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority). Basically, in order to survive the censorship of the 50s superhero comics in the US moved away from realistic depictions of violence (i.e. men in tights). Before that, when you had your war comics and detective comics there was no such inhibition of course.
By the time the 70s and 80s rolled along and people were willing to accept that comics were not corrupting the young, the rules of the superhero genre had been ingrained in the audience. And so something that appears as non-sensical as "Batman doesn't just buy himself an army and take over the city in a staged coup which he is more than rich enough to afford" becomes the status quo.
Anyone looking for common sense in superhero comic books is bound to come up empty handed, if entertained.
By the time the 70s and 80s rolled along and people were willing to accept that comics were not corrupting the young, the rules of the superhero genre had been ingrained in the audience. And so something that appears as non-sensical as "Batman doesn't just buy himself an army and take over the city in a staged coup which he is more than rich enough to afford" becomes the status quo.
Anyone looking for common sense in superhero comic books is bound to come up empty handed, if entertained.
This thread finally encouraged me to make an account. I was in a small discussion thread about this on the Steam forums. Here's the gist of my point from there.
If Batman kills, Batman loses his argument. It's not a simple matter of what is pragmatic versus what is ideal: pragmatists in the Batman setting are nearly always thwarted and out-manoeuvred by the larger characters that symbolise things. Gary Oldman kind of sums it up vaguely at the end of Batman Begins- "escalation: we buy semi-automatics, they buy automatics. We wear kevlar, they start using armour piercing rounds.." . The symbolic, idealist characters are thinking with a lot more foresight than the short-term pragmatists.
If the Joker is right about everything, killing him is futile. If Batman is right, killing him is unnecessary. If Rah'as Al'Ghul is right: killing men like the Joker is not only necessary; it's insufficient, one must be prepared to do all that is necessary and even innocent people must die. Execution serves no defensible long-term purpose.
If Batman kills, Batman loses his argument. It's not a simple matter of what is pragmatic versus what is ideal: pragmatists in the Batman setting are nearly always thwarted and out-manoeuvred by the larger characters that symbolise things. Gary Oldman kind of sums it up vaguely at the end of Batman Begins- "escalation: we buy semi-automatics, they buy automatics. We wear kevlar, they start using armour piercing rounds.." . The symbolic, idealist characters are thinking with a lot more foresight than the short-term pragmatists.
If the Joker is right about everything, killing him is futile. If Batman is right, killing him is unnecessary. If Rah'as Al'Ghul is right: killing men like the Joker is not only necessary; it's insufficient, one must be prepared to do all that is necessary and even innocent people must die. Execution serves no defensible long-term purpose.
Batfred said:
I think in the 40's he used to shoot people. And then they thought it would be better if he spared them. The Punisher would have Gotham cleaned up in 1 night (probably a birthday party)
At least Frank Miller's Batman cripples people.
(Ahhh! DaMunky had the same idear)
I'm not at all sure about that, either, which is what makes it interesting to me. To simplify it further: you're presented with a person (Person X, let's say), and you know nothing about them except that they have the capacity to kill the entire human race in a way that nobody can prevent. I don't know what that person could ever say or do that would convince me that they would *never* use that power. Could they convince the authorities that they were safe to have around?Darkwolf9 said:
I can imagine some gut-wrenching comics about this: A young mutant discovers that their one and only power is to destroy all the oxygen around them when they get upset, and if they get mad enough they'll destroy all the O2 in the entire atmosphere. They're a cute young kid, never done anything to anybody ... but they could destroy the world. What to do? What would the military or the government want to do? (Given the sheer number of comics out there, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that such stories already exist.)
There's a book called "The Philosophy of Batman" that gives terms and reasons for all of Batman's behavior. I get his ideology, but it probably isn't the most practical things at the end of the day.
Actually, Prof. X could convince anyone that he wouldn't do it. Another part of his power (that he doesn't use) is the ability to control your thoughts!DaveMc said:
Very few people are immune to that. Magneto, maybe Juggernaut, and Apocolypse, off the top of my head...
By this logic, we should be killing everyone, then. Granted I don't have the means to kill the entire human race, but by your logic anyone with the ability to perform a crime should be punished for that crime. I mean after all, I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but I'd feel a lot safer knowing you're in jail so you can't rob my house.DaveMc said:
Also, awesome comic (and follow-up commentary) Shamus. Reminds me of an article Escapist posted a while back that talked about some of the things you really shouldn't think about when enjoying some Batman. This comic actually brushes along one of the points the article talked about: the fact that the villains in the comic should be subject to capital punishment and swiftly killed off, but they're kept around to wreak havoc on Gotham and/or Batman purely for the sake of keeping the comic going.