Why is it Batman's duty to forfeit his morals and kill the Joker and not on the state of New Jersey for their revolving door of crime in their penitentiaries like blackwater and appalling lack of proper facilities to deal with dangerous and deranged meta humans instead sticking them in a rotting facility made in the 20's.
Hell why isn't this on the federal government after so many years of chronic and sustained neglect. They have what amounts to a nightmare scenario for the department of defense and just let it sit like a festering wound.
Why do we blame a single crazy billionaire, instead of the horrendous circumstances surrounding them.
As an old friend of mine once said "If he killed em the writers would have to invent new enemies continuously. With that excuse they can put them in the Asylum and reuse them for new stories whenever they want."
I always think of Batman is a crazy person that he knows he's a crazy person. Which is why he has to strictly follow rules he set for himself.
If Batman broke his rule against killing, within a few years people of Gotham would have to worry about getting killed by the Batman for jaywalking. Batman knows that he has the potential of going this way so he has to follow his rules to prevent that from happening.
Am I the only one who finds it reassuring that the well-armed ninja billionaire who lives out a childhood revenge fantasy every night has a set of rules he follows?
The hyperfixation of modern Batman writers on Joker and the weird homoerotic overtones that come with it has become tiresome. There are much better villains in Batmans rouge gallery than some crazy clown
They always have excuses in the comics. I think the latest one of "the Joker has a super Joker toxin in his heart that's released when he dies to turn whomever kills him into an even worse Joker" to be quite forced.
By the way, the Batman Who Laughs really overstayed his welcome.
I never got how batman is so popular, he's just a crazy rich person with the most plot armor of any superhero. Also he could pretty much fix Gotham with his money but he instead spends it on gadgets to beat up mentally ill people.
Yes, this absolutely. But it's also one of the serious flaws of action films that show good/bad guys- you never see the aftermath.
Take this scene from Dark Knight. Batman is on his ARMED motorcycle thing, Joker's sitting there shooting at cars driven by innocent people. So at least 3-4 innocent people are now dead because Batman wouldn't take the shot.
But you don't see that- the cars windows are blacked out. You don't see the innocent people torn apart and splattered all over their cars. You don't see the little kid sitting in the back seat screaming as Mommy is torn to shreds by automatic rifle fire and the car crashes. You don't see the family that no longer has a mom or dad or son or daughter. And because you don't see that, our presentation of Batman's 'ethics' is fake.
Ask any one of those families if they'd trade the Joker's life to get their family member back. You won't find a single one that says 'I'm glad the Joker is alive, it was worth my daddy getting shot to avoid killing him'.
The fact is- Batman is selfish. He ALLOWS 3-4+ innocent people to die, to save his own conscience
Do you see him thinking about them in bed at night? The people he COULD have saved, that WOULD be alive if he just pulled the trigger? Of course not. Because the writers only show us half the story. They black out the car windows, so we don't see the consequences.
And if you're all 'Batman isn't a vigilante', well sure. But even for a civilian, there's rules of engagement. Even in the anti-gun state of California you're allowed to use deadly force to save the life of yourself or another from a violent psychopath posing an imminent threat. Especially after Joker shot up the first car and showed he was going to do it again.
Each time Batman beat, did not kill, and captured the Joker for arrest the judicial system ruled him insane and he was held in a high security psychiatric ward/prison vs killing him. So, using the same measure, you could blame the laws, judges, juries, doctors, etc for all of Jokers future crimes when he broke out agian.
There's a universe where Batman was basically the punisher and goes around killing people.
The Grim Knight kills all the corrupt cops, mob bosses and villains. He also blows up blackgate and Arkham. Gotham ends up super safe, but somehow more of a dystopia than regular Gotham. Everyone lives in fear, and Batman has a 1984 setup where he spies in everyone and uses Waynetech to kill people.
Commissioner Gordon ends up arresting him with the help of info given to him by Alfred.
Would it make sense for someone to kill the Joker? Yes. However Batman is, in addition to being an anally retentive genius perfectionist, somewhat emotionally unstable. Dude isn't the type of person who'd be able to kill the Joker and call it a day.
That being said I'm pretty sure the in universe reason right now is that killing the joker releases a gas that turns whoever is near it into another joker. If Batman killed the Joker, the gas would cause him to turn into a villain who can singlehandedly kill every other hero on earth. He would then continue to pull bullshit out of his ass until he gains the powers of Doctor Manhattan and almost destroys all of existence.