Anghus Houvouras on Batman and the “no kill” policy…

At this point in my career, I’ve spent a few hundred thousand words devoted to analyzing movies and television and the fevered hyperbole of fandom that encompasses it. Truth be told, I find myself far more fascinated by the pop culture zeitgeist and fandom that surrounds the entertainment we consume than the actual artistic product causing such a fervor. For lack of a better phrase, I think I’ve somehow become a fandom fetishist. This is in no way a good thing.

Sometimes the the objects of our fascination can be detrimental to our enjoyment of life. The last few years have been eye-opening in terms of our society’s collective obsession with the lunatic fringe that populates both sides of the spectrum. A movie like Captain Marvel comes out and the discussion becomes not about the movie itself, but the two contrasting, polarized sides that argue nonsensical points about what the movie does or doesn’t represent. The artistic product becomes irrelevant as two sides with predetermined ideological arguments scream at each other until their attention is diverted to another pointless scrum in an ongoing culture war with no clear winner.

Like most things, there is a spectrum of fandom that ranges from ‘casual’ to ‘lunatic’. Comic book enthusiasts can often be found leading the charge into ridiculous arguments about which hero is more powerful or how a movie adaptation manages to mangle the character canon. Sometimes there are relevant points to be made. Other times they are ridiculous assertions made by people who have spent too much time coddling their inner child. The latter certainly seems to apply to the recent online discussion regarding the notion that Batman doesn’t kill.

This has been a sore spot for many hardcore Batman fans, ever since Tim Burton drove a remote controlled Batmobile into Axis chemical and blew up a dozen of Joker’s Henchman and any graveyard shift custodial staff that picked the wrong day to not call out sick (see Clerks for more perspective on this). ‘Batman never kills’, moaned some hardcore Dark Knight fans while the rest of us lined up to see our favorite superhero on the big screen for a second, third and fourth time.

The conversation came up again as Batman’s most notorious creative caretaker, Zack Snyder, spoke about the naive fan notion that ‘Batman never kills’ with the extremely blunt assertion that fans need to ‘Wake the Fuck Up and accept that Batman kills people’.

And the thing is, he’s right.

Even if you don’t like Snyder’s take on the Caped Crusader, the assertion that ‘Batman never kills’ is a childish notion. The product of overgrown children who seem to think of their heroes as pristine, infallible beings who can do no wrong. The same kind of blind fandom that allows people to look past the terrible behavior of politicians, entertainers and professional athletes. A normal, reasonable adult could look at the accusations of the documentary Leaving Neverland and have to consider that Michael Jackson allegedly had prolonged sexual relationships with children. While some of rthe more obsessed fans love his music so much that they wilfully ignore the evidence in front of them and are able to write off any criticisms. They consider Michael Jackson to be beyond reproach, holding a pristine view of a person they idolize. The same holds true for Batman fans who want to believe that Gotham’s masked vigilante would never take a life.

This continued bit of rabid fandom stems from long stretches of the character’s history where he has openly declared his resistance to using guns and indiscriminately taking lives. There are, of course, other stretches and stories where Batman has taken lives and even used guns. However, most comic book fans will tell you that Batman does not kill and that he takes an inconceivable number of precautions to prevent the loss of life… even of his enemies.

The movies have abandoned that premise. Basing things in reality will do that. It’s easy to have superheroes live by judicious moral codes in the world of comics, where fans find solace in the impossible standards they manage to maintain. Having a crime-fighting vigilante who never kills is as much of a reach as having a baby show up from another planet will grow up to shoot lasers from his eyes and can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Director Tim Burton was comfortable with the idea that Batman, at times, would have to kill. There were even moments where he seemed to enjoy it. Joel Schumacher’s Batman was responsible for a few deaths. I’m guessing there were a few dead bodies among the burned fuselage of the cars pursuing Batman as he escaped by driving up the side of the building. And Two-Face falling to his death at the end of Batman Forever was caused by the Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan devoted some time to Batman’s personal ideology of not taking the lives of criminals or using guns… unless those guns were mounted to a flying Batplane and blowing up people inside of Tumblers as he tried to prevent nuclear annihilation. Apparently the movie version of Batman is more comfortable with murder when piloting a vehicle.

Zack Snyder’s Batman was supposed to be an older, hardened Batman who had been pushed to the brink and was taking his frustration out of the criminal scum of Gotham. He had freed himself from fighting crime with one arm tied behind his back and was starting to become a cruel, vengeful vigilante. Even though Snyder’s particular Batman story had motivation behind the murder, people seemed more upset about the killing in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I’ve heard some people ask ‘why?’, and that answer is simple.

Like everything Snyder touches, there was no nuance to his version of Batman. All you have to do is watch the sequence where Batman chases down the kryptonite in the Batmobile to see the difference between seeing a Batman capable of killing and a malevolent, remorseless murder spree. Subtlety has never been Snyder’s strong suit. In this case, it should work in his favor. He has the characters flat out declare that his Batman has become dark and cruel. Anyone screaming ‘Batman doesn’t kill’ after a writer/director flatly states that this version of the character does is clinging to a childish concept that feels patently unrealistic when trying to bring these characters into a semi-realistic adaptation with serious themes.

The idea that Batman never kills even feels ridiculous in the modern interpretations of the comics where the character is forced to repeatedly deal with murderous psychopaths on a larger and more epic scale month after month. I don’t expect to see Batman dual wielding automatic machines guns (unless we’re talking the Grim Knight), but I have to consider the idea that Batman isn’t responsible for people dying to be chuckle-worthy. In a violent world the modern comic stories portray, a stop-gap measure like the Caped Crusader will inadvertently cause people to die. And trying to make me believe that Bruce Wayne is so smart and prepared that no one ever dies due to his actions (or inaction) makes the character feel laughably unrealistic. I realize that realism isn’t the goal for comic book characters, but any attempts at legitimate storytelling is undermined by the notion that Batman would never take a life.

Somewhere between an uncaring murder machine and a virtuous man incapable of taking a life is what Batman would truly have to be: a man fighting an endless war on crime who makes every effort to prevent the unnecessary loss of life while coming to terms with the reality that saving lives may result in criminals dying. It’s that kind of logic that Nolan presented in Batman Begins: He doesn’t need to take the life of the criminals threatening Gotham, but he doesn’t have to save them either. That means every so often a villain is going to end up dead.

To think otherwise is kind of ridiculous.

Anghus Houvouras