Why doesn't Batman kill Joker? Because this.

Which is a whole different level of stupid.

Even if it is ultimately temporary, death is still the best prison to contain the Joker.

@The Conductor

Let me guess: The Death Of The Family ? Jason Todd does have a point: nearly every person in spandex has that a ridiculous issue with killing.

"I don't give a rat's ass about going to hell. I guess it's because I feel like I'm already there." -Mugen

I've said before: the problem isn't superheroes. It's the state.

Superheroes should NOT be allowed to take matters into their own hands, unless there's imminent reason to (for example, Luther has his finger near the doomsday button, and Batman is standing next to a sniper rifle).

The thing that actually needs fixing is the state's inability to effectively deal with supercriminals.

@King Zeal

But how is that The Avengers are able to get away with it nowadays but still be considered heroes? IIRC they were planning on killing Wanda in the prologue of House Of M.

"I don't give a rat's ass about going to hell. I guess it's because I feel like I'm already there." -Mugen

In "Last Laugh" Batman didn't exactly want to bring Joker back, he just did because he didn't want Nightwing to have on his conscience that he was drawn in by Joker's mindgames and brought to the point where he nearly brutally killed someone out of rage.

It was enforced Joker Immunity by creating a situation where Batman chose between Joker's life or the mental well being of his son. A lot of Joker Immunity moments are like that - where he's just inches from biting the big one but the circumstance is such that the hero would rather save him than the alternative.

Still, I do think Batsy has decent reasons - that is to say, good/relatively reasonable for himself and his perspective - for not killing anyone. The real problem is why people like the cops haven't finished the guy by now, or why Gotham's legal system is so fucked up (at least it's canonically bad, as Living Hell shows).

edited 7th Jun '13 8:01:50 AM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Seems to me the best way to deal with the Joker is to hire one of DC's top assassins to kill him and make it look like an accident. A particularly humiliating accident.

Then superheroes can't be superheroes at all, because "taking matters into their own hands" is exactly what they do every time they decide that they have the right to be amateur law enforcers in the first place. Either their vigilantism is justified, in which case they have to be able to take it upon themselves to authorize lethal force when it becomes necessary because they have no chain of command to report to, or their vigilantism is not justified, in which case they cannot be superheroes at all.

I don't know where this mindset of, "It's okay to be a vigilante as long as you never kill anyone," came from.

edited 7th Jun '13 8:04:06 AM by TobiasDrake

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Here's two ways I can think of to look at it:

1) The mindset is more "Murder is an act of evil". So to a hero, especially one made back in the Silver Age where all heroes (DC especially) were walking paragons of virtue, that act is something that hangs at their conscience. They don't see it as "I did what I have to do". They see it as "I've committed a sin, I'm no better than the scum".

2) Most heroes, especially those from the Silver Age, are not trying to act as their own law enforcement. They're just trying to help the police with what the cops can't handle on their own. The hero is basically putting the villain under arrest so that he can be sent through the judicial process.

It's still vigilantism, even if you say you were just trying to help out the cops. In fact, since it's the police's job to handle exactly this, anyone who goes in front of a judge and says, "Well, I was just doing my part to step in because the police couldn't handle it," is going to get laughed out of the courtroom. If you really want to just help the police deal with threats beyond their ability to control...become a cop. It's that simple. I guarantee you that if you walked into a police precinct, shot yourself in the head three times, explained you are physically invulnerable, and then asked for a badge, you'd probably get one. That is a valuable skill in law enforcement.

Superheroes don't just "assist the cops"; they take it upon themselves to go above and around the law. If they just wanted to help the cops, they would be cops. They live in a world where the law just does not apply to them. Superman doesn't need a badge because he's Superman, and Superman is always right, and everyone worships Superman.

EDIT: The other problem with that is that while no, Batman shouldn't just be killing criminals left and right, there are circumstances that call for it. The police can authorize lethal force when the threat level escalates to a certain level for that very reason. If it comes down to a choice between putting a bullet between the Joker's eyes and letting him shoot the Mayor, the Joker dies. Any police officer will shoot you dead the moment you try to pull a gun on him. It's not murder when you are presently threatening the lives of others.

edited 7th Jun '13 9:23:45 AM by TobiasDrake

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edited 7th Jun '13 9:35:52 AM by kkhohoho

Aren't the Avengers backed by, and answerable to, SHIELD? They can do that because they are authorised by someone with legitimate authority.

Ukrainian Red Cross

In the comics the Avengers are basically a private organization currently working alongside SHIELD. Or, at least, that's the impression I got when The Heroic Age first kicked in. Not sure if it's currently accurate.

At first, the Avengers were a completely private organization, funded by Tony Stark. Later on though, they got access to a bunch of cool new tech, such as Quinjet's or their security system, among other things. These were paid by the Government, which eventually started playing a more active role in the activities of the Avengers, starting with Obstructive Bureaucrat Henry Gyrich. From then on, and up until New Avengers v1, the Avengres had a working-relationship with the Government, sometimes having some sort of liaison, and sometimes having to perform missions or even make membership-changes on the Government's behest. For a time in the 90's, they were actually on the payroll on the UN, but that didn't last, and they hooked up with the US Government once more. After New Avengers, they were once again a private organization, but things got complicated during Civil War, with one Avengers team now with the Goverment, and the other team on the lam. Starting with Heroes Reborn, the Avengers now worked with Shield, but not necessarily for them. They could do missions for them, but could also do their own thing. I'm not sure where they are now, though...

edited 7th Jun '13 9:28:53 PM by kkhohoho

I, for one, get why superheroes in general don't kill, particularly the more upstanding capes like Superman, the Flash or Captain Marvel. I also get the more violent vigilantes like the Punisher, who forego their own reputation and lawful standing for the sake of innocent people, basically doing what they have to do. And I note that while The Capes fight larger than life mutants and aliens, the Trenchcoat Brigade deals with the real monsters - people that would get the chair anyway.

Batman, on the other hand, just bugs me. For one, he's supposed to be scary, yet actually has nothing to scare criminals with. The interrogation scenes in The Dark Knight revealed very conclusively that The Cowl is utterly impotent against a non-cooperative suspect, only learning what they want to tell him anyway. His moral code is not just continually endangering innocent bystanders, but also ruins his supposedly vicious reputation, making him the ultimate Bad Butt.

Second, even if he fails in it, actively trying to use physical and psychological torture on his foes doesn't make him look good either, nor is it good for Gotham in general. He only succeeds in aggravating criminals, to the point they start turning into monstrous maniacs for him to fight. Nice job creating your own villains, hero.

As for his issue with the Joker, I think the worst part is that it's explicitly become an issue with him, rather than with his crimes. I get that nowadays It's Personal, but it's as if all those other people, y'know, the actual victims of the Joker's killing sprees, the ones that don't get Back from the Dead, are just meaningless extras. That neither the clown nor the cowl actually care for them, so long as they can have their own little fight.

edited 7th Jun '13 2:35:33 PM by indiana404

He only succeeds in aggravating criminals, to the point they start turning into monstrous maniacs for him to fight. Nice job creating your own villains, hero.

As pointed out in the Trial animated episode, most of those criminals would still be commiting crimes without Batman around. Batman didn't douse Matt Hagen with shapeshifting mud. He didn't have any hand in the ugly affair that turned Victor Fries into Mr. Freeze. He wasn't there when Jason Woodrue turned Pamela Isley into Poison Ivy. Riddler started taunting the police, not even believing Batman was real at first. Dent would have been either whacked by the mob with no Batman and Gordon at his side, or he'd still have been scarred. Penguin's turn to crime had absolutely nothing to do with Batman. Langstrom was just trying to experiment on himself without thinking of Batman (other than in The Batman). A huge majority of most Batman villain origins had nothing to do with him until he first showed up to fight them once they already had started.

While Batman doesn't kill anyone, what's his position on permanently crippling them? Certainly a lot of the damage he inflicts should cause long-lasting physical problems, but this is a universe where knocking someone unconscious never has any unforseen consequences, so I'm not sure.

This. Batman should at least try permanently breaking Joker's legs or some shit like that.

edited 7th Jun '13 5:24:59 PM by Couchpotato20

"I don't give a rat's ass about going to hell. I guess it's because I feel like I'm already there." -Mugen

Well, he finally thought of that in The Dark Knight Returns.

Funny trivia bit: Apparently, Greg Rucka intended Joker to have a permanently lame leg from the leg shot Gordon gave him at the end of No Man's Land, but the writers after him ignored that completely.

Again, the problem is at this side of the Fourth Wall. There's no long lasting consequence on keeping Joker down no matter what because every fucking writer who puts their hands on Batman wants to do their own Joker story.

edited 7th Jun '13 6:55:36 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Which could be solved easily if DC were as willing to put a kabosh on the Joker as they are to ignore the existence of people like Wally West and Stephanie Brown...

Yeah, I'm starting to feel that Batman's famed Rogues Gallery has basically turned into "Joker & friends" out of overuse. Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, the Riddler - what have they been doing lately? In the latest annual, the Penguin, Mad Hatter, and Scarecrow are taken out for the whole night by some Halloween notes - their threat level is little more than a joke these days.

And indeed, there's nothing stopping the Bat from at least crushing the clown's trachea in order to get rid of that annoying laugh. Not killing is one thing... but you'd be surprised what you can live through.

It also irks me that more or less the only story the writers use him for is the same "we're destined to do this forever" deal he's been pulling ever since The Killing Joke. I mean, can we stop putting the Necessary Weasel on display for a change? Yes, we, the readers, know that the clown and the cowl are going to fight each other as long as there's profit to be had. But the moment they start going about it, the in-universe conflict turns Sisyphean, and hence utterly pointless. The Bat might as well give him a cup of hot cocoa whenever he turns up, and call it a night.

edited 7th Jun '13 9:49:48 PM by indiana404

But life is a pointless, Sisyphean conflict. You work hard to put food on the table, but you're just gonna get hungry again later. You shovel snow off the sidewalk, but another snow storm will come along eventually. You put criminals in jail, but new criminals will take their place. You save someone's life, but they're still gonna die someday anyway. You stop the world from ending, but that's just buying time until entropy causes the heat-death of the universe.

If you want to ask "What's the point of arresting the Joker?" you might as well ask "What's the point of doing anything?"

edited 8th Jun '13 3:56:31 AM by RavenWilder

...wow. That is, by far, the most egregious*

abuse of the False Dichotomy I have ever seen.

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Which doesn't mean you should keep eating the same crap you just sent down the drain. Eating can be fun you know.

And this is what I'm talking about - comics should be fun. Comics should create a world to escape to, not escape from. And a world where a supposedly super-resourceful hero is utterly powerless against a remorseless killer, and all of this is Played for Drama, isn't what I'd call fun.

To contrast, Marvel is just as deep in Status Quo Is God and Joker Immunity, but doesn't make a plot point out of it. At worst, characters hang a lampshade and move along. If anything, knowing that Death Is Cheap actually makes it easier for guys like Deadpool or Wolverine to use lethal force. Moreover, unrepentant killers like the Joker (i.e. Carnage) are treated as C-listers at best, and usually are quickly killed off, with the heroes no worse for wear. Even Spider-Man's supposed archenemy took quite a long dirt-nap, without it ruining the web-slinger's sales.

So really, the Bat should just get over himself, punt the clown for at least a decade, and move on to greener pastures. Batman Beyond showed that a Joker-less Gotham can still be interesting, and that while there'll always be criminals, they can at least be more fun to watch than the washed up clown.

edited 8th Jun '13 8:49:41 AM by indiana404

@Space Jawa

Okay, Stephanie Brown should've stayed dead. Also the writer behind War Games had absolutely nothing to do with her returning from the game in such an obtuse manner. IMO, it's DC's chief editor Didio's fault. IIRC he even mentioned something about one of his "favorite" characters being killed. Also much of side bars of other Batman stories in OYL Dc storyline involving Robin was Stephanie Brown's return.

To put it short: we can't do the Stephanie Brown talk unless we speculate that it had something to do with him bring her back and in return making Cassandra Cain's life shit (well that's the belief among readers I speak to). Anyways, back to topic:

As Napoleon De Cheese said: Even if the Joker is eliminated Gotham is still just as fun. Bane can take up an antagonistic role like he did in The Dark Knight Rises, or have some mafia like baddies like Black Mask be more active.

"I don't give a rat's ass about going to hell. I guess it's because I feel like I'm already there." -Mugen

I would actually love to see Batman crash menacingly into a warehouse and shout, "Stop right there, Joker!"

And then a wheelchair spins around and we see paraplegic Joker, with two arms in casts, and he croaks out, "We meeurgh agaahhh Bammmnnnnn..." because all his teeth are broken, his jaw's in a sling, and his windpipe was crushed in his last encounter with Batman.

I mean seriously, he doesn't have to kill the Joker, but he can make him wish he were dead, or at least make it so he can't hurt anyone.

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