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Batman: Entirely Ineffective Yet Glorified


When people think of a hero that is always prepared and able to overcome the odds they think of John Cena, then they think of Batman. Batman is a hero that people have cheered for and supported through the decades for always doing the right thing. It's great that he goes out and fights crime every night, but let's be honest. He's entirely ineffective and sometimes makes situations worse. I know that may be hard to swallow but it's just true.

Batman doesn't kill his rogues because he doesn't want to take away a parent from their child like his were taken from him, honor and all that jazz. The thing is, his rogues are different than say The Flash. The Flash doesn't kill his rogues, because he doesn't have to. Flash's villains have a code of honor. They don't kill women, they don't kill children, they don't kill men unless it's self defense and they don't kill law enforcement. At the end of the day with the exception of Grodd and Thawne, Flash's criminals are crooks.

Batman's villains are cut from a different cloth. Let's look at some of them for a second. Scarecrow releases biological weapons on the city regularly in attempts to bring it under his control through fear. Black Mask is a crime boss who climbed to the top through murder and mayhem who recently had a Superman clone unleashed on the city as well as sold a weapon of mass destruction to an unstable country. Then there's The Riddler who forces people to play his games where losing means losing your life as well. Finally we come to Joker, an international terrorist who has killed hundreds of thousands if not millions during his time. He's set off bombs, gassed the city, poisoned waters and children. The list goes on, his villains are not the same as Flash's and should not be treated as if they are.

That's not to say Batman needs to kill all his villains. That would be silly and over the top. Poison Ivy is a terrorist, but we've seen her take in and care for children off the streets before. Bane wants to rule crime in the city, but we've also seen him act as a hero in the city during Batman's absence as well. Two-Face has a split personality and has performed plenty of good deeds as well, if any of Batman's villains can be helped it's him. I think Jason Todd described the situation best:
Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled. You know, I thought... I thought I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it had been you that he beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would've done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, death-worshiping garbage and then send him off to hell! [...] your moral code just won't allow for that? It's too hard to cross that line [...]  I'm not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I'm talking about him (Joker), just him.
 Instead Batman decides that his villains need to be rehabilitated because everyone deserves a second chance, and a third, and a fourth and a fiftieth. It never ends with him and often times they have no intention of being rehabilitated because they don't feel there's anything wrong with them. On occasion he's even gone out of his way to save his villains from being murdered by other heroes. They respect him so they step aside and let it happen but Superman wanted to snap Joker's neck in half a long time ago, Jason wanted to shoot him in the head, Tim wanted to murder Captain Boomerang and even Dick was going to murder the man who killed his parents. But, Batman is always there to stop him. It goes beyond just refusing to kill, there's so much more wrong with Batman.

He's arrogant and that causes people to die and get hurt. When The Atom's wife was murdering the families of heroes Batman arrogantly assumed the families of his associates would be okay. Batman believed he was so much better than the standard Justice League security that there was nothing to worry about. When Tim Drake skipped out on several patrols to watch over his father Batman called him over and over again until he gave in and went on patrol. That very night Captain Boomerang shot Tim's father in their own home because Batman arrogantly assumed he had placed the ultimate protections. During Death of The Family Jason attempted to reconcile with Bruce. Bruce gave Jason his Red Hood helmet recovered from The Joker he never stopped to test it for traps so when Jason put it on, it blew up sending him into a coma. This was just after the entire Batfamily found out that Joker knew who they were because he got into the Batcave.

You may have heard of a story called Tower of Babel. Everyone knows Batman has contingency plans for just about every hero. However, he was arrogant and didn't keep them locked away safely. Ra's al Ghul grabbed copies of them and used them to take down the Justice League. The animated version was actually tame compared to what the comics plans were. In the animated version Magnesium was poured into Martian Manhunters drink which would burst into flames as he sweat, eventually it would wear off after it cleared his system. In the comics it actually turned his skin into Magnesium which burns on contact with the air, eternally because he would continue to regenerate skin. Batman actually invented Red Kryptonite, a new way to hurt Superman that would make his skin transparent causing him to absorb too much sunlight, overwhelming him with power and driving him insane. He just kept these in a regular folder on his computer.

Batman has been fighting crime in Gotham for decades. He proves every night that criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot every night. Yet, he's done absolutely nothing to actually stop crime in the city of Gotham overall. Heroes like Superman and Black Lightning cleaned up Metropolis of common criminals. There's no mob or gangs running around any more. Right across the river in Gotham, that's all you see. A city where bank robberies are common because there's only a 1/10 chance you be stopped by Batman or one of his accomplices. I say that, because he's run just about every other hero not associated with him out of Gotham. The only ones who remain are Creeper, Ragman and Alan Scott depending on the continuity you're following.

He could use some of his vigilante fund to help the citizens of Gotham, create some new jobs or homes for the homeless. He could eliminate poverty in Gotham or get very close at least. I know you're thinking he has the Wayne Foundation, but who has that ever truly helped? He runs a dozen or so clinics in the city. Not to help the people, but to have easy medical assistance as Batman. The Wayne Foundation building is just a front, so he can have a Batcave in the basement. Many of the charitable things he does have ulterior motives behind them and it's sad. The state of Utah reduced homelessness by 91% by building new homes and charging between $30 and $50 a month for rent, because it was cheaper than emergency room and jail visits. Bruce Wayne however, has no time for that shit. Instead homeless people live in the sewers of Gotham and form massive cults with plans of flooding the city. I'm not joking, look it up.

Then there's Arkham. He believes everyone should be rehabilitated or at least away from everyone else. Despite that, he's taken his billions of dollars and refused to create a more secure facility or even improve the current one. The staff remains too out numbered to control all of the inmates. The inmates are never rehabilitated because the staff is under qualified and often dangerous inmates are released time and time again because of overcrowding. He's done nothing to help Arkham, instead he simply drops criminals off there every night and never lifts a finger to care about what happens next when majority of them will be free before a trial date can even be set.

I don't hate Batman. It takes a lot of bravery and skill to go out there and do what he does. The problem is that he's a bad hero. He's not good at it. Prep time is not a solution to every problem. Instead of throwing money at solutions to stop crime and poverty in his city he throws it at new toys. He constantly brings teenage heroes into his small army putting their lives at risk and on some occasions causing them to die. He's not the hero that people have come to worship him as. While he fights crime for tonight he doesn't give a damn about tomorrow's future. He's done nothing to improve Gotham in the long term and only seeks to satisfy his own ego and provide him with him the thrill he needs to live comfortably.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim
Darrell S.

Hey, I write stuff, a lot of different stuff, that's all.

3 Comments

  1. To be honest, I'm a big fan of The Bat, but there is lots of truth here. Great read.

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    Replies
    1. Batman gets a lot of passes and it's time we ended that. No more passes for Batman.

      Delete
  2. Some good points. BUT this argument ignores the fact that Batman is a serialized comic.
    In other words the reason the Joker has killed THOUSANDS is because the comic has been putting out stories monthly for over 80 years!
    If Batman had put an end to the Joker after, say, his third escape from prison we wouldn’t have had a Joker story written after the ‘60’s!
    No Batman: The Killing Joke
    No Batman: The Long Halloween ...etc.
    Also a lot of these adventures take place in different mediums and “universes”
    The speech Jason Todd gives Batman takes place in THAT animated universe which is different than the universe where Batman gives him the Red helmet.

    I’ve made the point about Batman’s wealth being a better crime fighting tool than his fists too.
    If he can afford to hide the cost of the JLA Tower in the Wayne Enterprises budget then he could afford to put all the organized criminals in Gotham on his payroll and turn the city into a paradise.
    BUT that ignores that as Batman’s wealth has grown as writer after writer tries to “one up” the previous author, Batman has gone from being regular rich to having wealth as his real superpower.
    If we’re to believe that his money has grown then too we must understand that Gotham has grown As well, in size and criminal activity.
    So much so that he CANT just buy off the criminal element.
    So much so that he can’t just fund daycare and the school system for the entire city to end the criminal pipeline in less than a decade!

    The Tower of Babel was...fine. Looking BACK at it after two decades I can see the flaws but stories have to ...story! The fact that Batman worked on ways to stop the JLA is AWESOME!
    But for there to be a STORY of course a bad guy has to get his hands on them.
    Maybe it could have been executed better but not at the time of publication, comic fans weren’t digging in so deep back then.

    And Arkham is one of the coolest locals in all comics!
    Sure it’s security system is crap but that’s because the writes often get LAZY and write terrible ways the criminals escape.
    But Batman remanding criminals over to the authorities instead of EXECUTING them is in keeping with the character and the comic book genre.
    It was built for kids and some of the “kid” rules have transformed into “genre” rules.
    Batman doesn’t kill.
    Cause he’s the good guy.
    Maybe a really good writer will come along and find a way for him to PERMANENTLY end the Joker without killing him.
    But then we’ll likely miss out on the NEXT great Joker story that WOULD have been written.

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