I’ve explained before why I don’t think Batman should use firearms. Given how much attention the gun debate has been getting of late, however, perhaps it is a good time to take a closer look at how strongly the Dark Knight feels about this issue.
Batman hates guns. It’s not just that he objects to lethal force… He passionately loathes handguns and the people who carry them, especially when they’re pointing the darn things at him:
The Untold Legend of the Batman #2
Detective Comics #457
Given Batman’s origin, this hatred is a key aspect built into the blueprint of the character. After all, here is someone who is above all motivated by the tragedy of seeing his parents gunned down in front of him. Every time the Caped Crusader punches out a crook with a gun, you can tell he is somehow also fighting back against the man who shot his parents.
One writer who is particularly fond of using Batman’s trauma as subtext is the reliably great Ty Templeton:
Batman & Robin Adventures #4
Batman & Robin Adventures #7
Batman & Robin Adventures #14
Batman & Robin Adventures #20
These are pure Batman moments. And that’s the thing: I can root for cowboys and vigilantes who shoot everyone that get in their way (more on this next week!) and I sure can get a huge kick out of a grim crime flick like the original Get Carter, with its relentlessly violent, gun-wielding anti-hero… But when I’m reading Batman comics, I want to see the protagonist rise above his enemies and prove that he is way cooler than some jerks who assert their power with deadly weapons.
Most of all, like I said, this stuff works because it is true to the character. Indeed, after hinting at it for years during his peerless run on the Adventure books, Ty Templeton finally delved into the guns’ deeper meaning for the Dark Knight in an issue where Batgirl decided to start carrying a pistol. (Oh Barbara, if only you knew what happened to your counterpart in the regular DC Universe…)
Gotham Adventures #9
This is such a powerful scene, not only because Templeton nails Batman’s intense tone, but also because of the close-up on his somber expression (by the artistic dream team of Rick Burchett and Terry Beatty) and the super-moody coloring (by Lee Loughridge and Zylonol).
John Ostrander also wrote a similar scene in Seduction of the Gun, a deftly handled slice of agitprop focusing specifically on gun violence (with looser art, by Vince Giarrano):
Seduction of the Gun
To be fair, one of the reasons the Dark Knight doesn’t use firearms is because he doesn’t really need them anyway. After all, he is a scary, virtually infallible badass ninja! Also, he has a whole arsenal of sci-fi gadgets at his disposal… So yeah, I’m willing to admit it’s a bit disingenuous to say that Batman ‘uses only the decent weapons of outrage and indignation,’ even if it does make for a pretty neat line:
Detective Comics #417
Still, this doesn’t erase the fact that a dyed-in-the-wool aversion to guns is an important dimension of the Caped Crusader.
In the mid-1980s, Michael Fleisher built on that side of the character in a fascinating way. The completely unhinged series Hex told the wild exploits of bounty hunter Jonah Hex after he traveled from the 19th to the 21st century, landing smack in the middle of a post-apocalyptic dystopia. This version of New York City was home to a new Batman who didn’t allow firearms of any kind in his town… He fought a local crime syndicate called the Combine and you bet your ass his headquarters were in the goddamned Statue of Liberty:
Hex #11
The new Batman had been a world-class gymnast and a doctoral candidate in criminology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who idolized the original Caped Crusader and had been researching a thesis on his career when thermonuclear war broke out (he was actually doing research down in the Batcave when the bombs went off, killing one hundred and fifty million people). Readers didn’t learn his full name, but it was clear that his last name was Cohen and he was Jewish.
Cohen’s mother had been a rabbi who campaigned tirelessly for handgun control and his father had served as a top-level disarmament negotiator. They had been killed by an organization of fanatics – the National Reconstruction Alliance (yep, NRA) – who had focused their hatred on advocates of gun control and Jews. So their son had taken the mantle of Batman ‘to help bring back the civilized values they’d believed in.’
Hex #11
When doing alternate versions of the Dark Knight, creators such as Brian Azzarello or Zack Snyder have gone with the uninspired twist of making him a gun-packing mean bastard, but Michael Fleisher went in the opposite direction, giving us a Batman that not only hated guns, but was thoroughly defined by that hatred. Sadly, Fleisher never got around to telling us much about this Batman’s adventures, although at least we got to see him team up with Jonah Hex to fight gargantuan killer robots in a futuristic New York City…
And speaking of comics that are totally bonkers, let me finish by saying that, while the sight of Batman holding a gun can often suck the fun out of a comic, I’m obviously willing to open an exception for old school goofy covers. In my book, those can get away with anything….
I’m new to your blog — Ty sent me.
This is going to consume hours and hours and hours of my life, isn’t it? Thank you, I love the perspectives.
IMO, no matter how many panels one can find to support it (I’m sure there are enough for a multivolume series) the Batman-hates-guns thing is always a little undercut by the fact that in 99% of those panels, Batman is growling it to people pointing (if not *firing*) guns *at him*. I’m pretty sure *anyone* would be pissed off by that, including the most gung-ho gun fanatic on Earth.
Batman’s reactions to gun-owners (or sellers) who aren’t bothering anybody are considerably rarer – for instance, I’ve never seen him get on the police’s case for packing heat (except for that one issue of Nightwing where Dick brought his service pistol into the Batcave). And doesn’t he openly allow Alfred to pack a shotgun for defending the Manor against invaders?
I should hasten to add that I’m no big fan of guns IRL – I don’t plan on ever buying one, and the NRA frankly scares me – but as written, Batman is a fairly poor vehicle to explore gun politics through. He personally won’t use guns, fair enough. He won’t let unlicensed people (i.e. other vigilantes as well as supervillains) run around with them, great. But I can count on one hand the number of times he’s acted against guns on general principle, not just as a tool of crime.
By the by – have you any thoughts on Batman being saved by gun-wielders? I recall Chris Sims calling such an instance the low point of Batman: Earth One, though I also remember it happening in “Dark Knight, Dark City” and I found it inoffensive enough there…
There are plenty of instances of Batman lashing out at gun-selling criminals and other people who are not pointing guns at him, even cops (for example, Batman & Robin Adventures #20 and Chase #7 come to mind, and above all Seduction of the Gun), but it’s true that he grumpily accepts that some of his closest friends carry firearms, namely Alfred and Gordon.
It’s precisely because of this ambiguity that I think Batman comics can be a fairly interesting vehicle to explore gun politics – because there are so many likable characters with different views (and views beyond full-on anti-gun or pro-gun stances), the stories can afford a relative level of nuance and pragmatism, raising questions about different contexts, illustrating the paradoxes or limitations of the various perspectives… in fact, this is such a rich running motif throughout the decades that I’m planning another post about it eventually. While I don’t expect Batman comics to present a sophisticated discussion of any political topic, I love the way they create odd images and situations that play with real life issues, often framing them in the form of eccentric thematic villains.
That said, even if I don’t think a story’s politics have to reflect the politics of its hero (or that I have to agree with them to enjoy it), I tend to be annoyed by plot resolutions that rely on Batman being saved by gun-wielders, Earth One and Dark Knight Rises being the worst offenders. I don’t recall it happening in “Dark Knight, Dark City”, but it definitely happens in other comics I like (such as “The Striped Pants War!”). I guess some can get away with it, if it plays into the logic or themes of the story, but it usually strikes me as lazy writing… If you have an awesome character who is partly defined by going out of his way to resolve things without resorting to gun violence, it seems lame to just have someone else step in and shoot the baddies for him!