Batman's methods are insane and counter-productive. He's a rich businessman. If he wanted to reduce crime in Gotham, he'd give people jobs. He'd hire them as security guards, or to work in the factories that he would build in Gotham.
Instead, he uses his money to build gadgets he can use to help him beat up poor people, sending them to prison and locking them into an eternal cycle of crime.
Batman isn't looking to eliminate crime. He's not looking for justice. He's looking for vengeance, pure and simple. He's a rich man who's managed to justify to himself hunting down and hurting poor people. He is, without a doubt, the single worst superhero in the world. He has the resources and the ability to vastly improve his city, but he uses those resources and abilities on a self-centred personal crusade.
"World's Greatest Detective." Trying detecting your head out of your ass. Kill the Joker and start creating some jobs, rich man.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
A very good point. Though I understand some comics versions of Bruce do try to give people jobs, as a way to fight crime on both ends.
edited 28th May '12 4:57:58 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!To be fair, killing the Joker in an universe where absolutely no one will stay dead is an exercise in futility, and Bruce Wayne already is the biggest employer in Gotham. And things like Batman's contributions to the JLA, which haved saved the whole world several times, or tracking Ra's al Ghul in ways no company could ever do operating within the boundaries of law, can't be achieved through Waynetech.
At least he isn't a Tony Stark, and his inventions don't cause an Armor War per week.
And the 'poor people' excuse for your bias is laughable. It isn't like Batman is falling on poor May down the street washing clothes to make a living, or he doesn't go after dirty handed tycoons regularly. Poverty isn't an excuse for crime, and I should know since I grew up in poverty myself.
edited 28th May '12 6:46:55 PM by NapoleonDeCheese
Poverty may not be an excuse for crime, but it does have a tendency to lead to crime. One of the most effective ways to combat crime is through poverty alleviation.
But Batman doesn't really want to reduce crime. He's living out a power fantasy. He's still an angry 10-year-old boy who thinks he can eliminate crime by punching it in the face.
And honestly, every time the Joker's captured, they should just put a bullet in his head. Just in the hope that he might actually stay dead at some point. The conversation should go: "We're sure this is the Joker?" "100% sure." BANG! "Throw him in a woodchipper, then incinerate the pulp. Then piss on the ashes and incinerate them again. Then put what's left in a flower pot."
I'd like to see a writer bring him back from that. The explanation would be hilarious.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
No, Batman has aknowledged several times he can't eliminate crime forever, or even in all of the city in any sort of permanent basis. Doesn't mean he won't try keeping, but sometimes, it's all people can do.
Also, comics. People keeps coming back even from complete and utter destruction, and the bigger the name is, the quicker the comeback.
I wonder why people sometimes seems to take the Joker issue so personally and with so much virulence. The standard description of a Joker death in the Internet is usually macabre enough to come from the Joker himself.
Well, to be fair, with some of the shit this guy has pulled, wanting to make sure he's not only merely dead, but truly most sincerely dead is perfectly understandable. People have gotten the Death Penalty for much less shit.
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I actually think the Joker is way cooler than Batman, who's so annoyingly perfect that I cannot give half a shit about him. Rich, handsome, brilliant, an expert in every form of martial arts and several scientific fields, able to speak a dozen languages . . . he's absolutely, totally perfect. And that shit is incredibly dull.
I just think the fact that Gotham PD doesn't put a bullet in the Joker's head every time they see him (and are sure it's him) is silly. Throwing him in the same asylum that he and every other criminal in Gotham have broken out of dozens of times is just a really bad idea. Not killing Two-Face, I can accept - he's a lunatic murderer, but hey, rule of law. With the Joker, though, he's just so over-the-top, so dangerous, that they really should just declare him OK to kill.
And you need to do it in a really extreme manner because it's the only way to be sure.
Also, the more ludicrous his death, the funnier it'll be when he pops up just fine later on. Seriously, if I wrote Batman, I would kill him in the most gloriously over-the-top manner I could think of, just to see how the next writer revives him.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.Batman actually has pretty good personal/philosophical reasons for not wanting to kill anyone, so I give him a pass on that one. The real issue is why the Gotham Police Force never shoots to kill any of the criminals in Gotham.
If you think of Batman solely on the subject of his abilites then you're kind of missing the point of character, probably the point of the entire series in the first place.
It's like the people who think of Superman as being defined only by the fact that he's a Flying Brick - they've either never picked up a comic in their lives or don't understand what they're reading.
edited 29th May '12 12:13:23 AM by KnownUnknown
I've read very few Batman comics, and I haven't read anything from DC in years, since the mid-'90s. I stopped reading comics in general at that point, and when I got back into comics a few years ago, I just didn't care about DC. I find their characters boring. They're meant as metaphors and shit, but that bores me. I don't want archetypes.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.I'm okay with Batman...I'm even okay with the fact that he's a rich guy who puts on a costume to beat up criminals. That in itself is fine, but there are a few things that ruin the character for me.
- Stop making him the "World's Best Everything" or using "Because he's Batman" as an excuse for all of his bullshit. When Superman is able to talk someone out of something by appealing to their sense of humanity and reason, he's considered "too perfect". But, tie Batman up, cover him in cement, lock him in a safe, put the safe in the trunk of a car, rig the car to explode, send it to the bottom of a lake, and freeze the lake just to be sure? Somehow, can make it out of that with no explanation other than "I'm Batman" and fans are fine with that.
- Patrolling. Why does Batman need to be out on patrol? I can understand him suiting up and going out to stop a heist or foil a kidnapping or track down a murderer. But why does he need to be on patrol? Every second he's doing that could be used for something more productive.
- Military-grade weaponry. So you mean to tell me that this guy who owns a billion-dollar company can smuggle cutting-edge military technology to operate within a single American city, and this doesn't backfire in any way? It's not like Batman works in multiple states or countries.
That would be solved by Retcon. The next writer would reveal that it wasn't the real Joker after all, but a clone, or some crazy admirer who dressed like and imitated him.
This is not my opinion. This is a statement of fact.
edited 29th May '12 7:07:49 AM by VampireBuddha
Ukrainian Red CrossI can understand your frustration with Batman being too good at everything, but the problem is that he's DC's only prominent Badass Normal. He has to be an omni-expert to keep up with the likes of Superman. Spiderman and Paperinik don't have this problem.
The issue with patroling is probably that writers think of him as operating like a police agent; they often patrol cities. What they don't realise is that this is not a way to actually stop crime as it happens. Instead, it's partly to spread out so that some will be in an area when a crime alert does happen, but mostly because being seen is an important of police activity. It pre-empts crime, reassures people, and they are available to passer-bys if they have questions or such. None of this applies to one man who stays in the shadows. So yes, it would be more plausible to have Batman prime himself every night to be ready to go where needed and listen in on any channels available.
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Of course, after a few rounds of that, as with Doctor Doom readers would wonder if the Joker had perhaps died unseen long ago, or not even existed in the first place.
I don't have a problem with him being good at things. I have a problem with him being pretty much a self-contained entity. Batman as an enterprise that requires a Chosen Many to sustain? That I can understand. Batman as one guy who can do anything, but somehow isn't "super"? Whatever.
If it helps, when they are not going ridiculously overboard with how awesome he is, they are acknowledging that while he is good at everything, each of his associates surpasses him in a different category: Dick in acrobatic skill, Tim in Detective work, Cassandra (before she was retconned) in fighting skill, Barbara in computers, etc. Not sure where that leaves Jason, Damien, and Huntress, or Steph, but there you go.
Or course, when done properly, Batman strength comes from his support group, as well as his skills.
One Strip! One Strip!"That would be solved by retcon. The next writer would reveal that it wasn't the real Joker after all, but a clone, or some crazy admirer who dressed like and imitated him."
It would be way more fun for the writer to come up with an equally-ridiculous explanation of how he's OK.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.If you come up with a final enough death for a popular villain, the next writer might not even bother with a retcon and have them show up just because.
Exibit A: Ridley, Exibit B: Half of Ghost Rider's Rogues Gallery. To really kill Joker Immunity, you have to make both readers and writers stop caring. Have Joker kill so many people he becomes numbed, bored of it, and kills himself, then all his fans, friends and general supporting characters all commit mass suicide out of grief leading to a special Batman one shot about introspection before he finally gets over it and moves on. That would do it.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack
That still wouldn't do it. Characters like the Joker will never go away. I imagine just about every comic reader has a Joker story they want to tell. I don't even give a shit about Batman, and I have a Joker story in my head. (He would reveal that he's known for years that Batman is Bruce Wayne, and would start dismantling his life, exposing all Batman's flaws, insanities, hypocrisies, and straight-up sins. Basically proving that Bruce himself has ruined more lives than the Joker ever could.) And writers are always going to bring him back, no matter what he does, and no matter what's done to him. The same goes for a lot of characters. Doom's the same way - he will always come back.
So I don't want the Joker killed in a horrific and definitive way because I don't like him, or want him to stop being used. I want it done because I think it would be fun, and it would fit the character.
And besides, Gotham PD really should just want to make the fuck sure. Strap him to a big fucking bomb, and watch on video as it goes off. Dissolve him in a vat of acid.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
It has been hinted he knows and just doesn't care cause he's more interested in Bat Man that who's behind the mask.
That story actually sounds interesting, even if it might be inspired by your clear burning hatred of Batman.
But hey, good things can come from anything.
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It wasn't really inspired by my hatred of Batman. It was actually because I wanted to see the Joker basically win. I wanted to see him break Batman. That victory would end up taking the form of Batman straight-up murdering the Joker, by shooting him in the head after the Joker was already defeated. And I think the only way to do that would be if Batman was convinced that nothing he's done has actually been worth it. If all his work had only made things worse. And that nothing he could ever do would ever actually make Gotham a better place.
Of course, I'm pretty sure turning Batman into a killer would never be allowed by DC editorial. On the other hand, since I don't actually read DC comics, I don't think I'd really want to write for them anyway. I want to write for Marvel, instead.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.So basically, you turn Joker into even more of a Villain Sue?
Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
edited 30th May '12 4:49:45 AM by KingZeal

I am, as of this post, watching Batman Under The Red Hood, and Jason's speech about how you can't stop crime is interesting. It's a good point, and it came to me, that with some refinement (and less killing, can't forget that), his plan and Bruce's methods could possibly go together.
Think about it. Bat's squeezes them with fear on one end, steering them in Jason's direction, and forcing them to do what he wants, perhaps weaning them off crime by giving them new options that keep Bat's off their backs.
Am I crazy for suggesting this or what?
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