Batman’s damn guns

Batman #301

We can all agree that Batman is not exactly a pacifist. After all, the Dark Knight does beat up crooks on a nightly basis and he has been known to resort to torture. However, there is a line, as ambiguous and hypocritical as you may find it. The rule is that Batman doesn’t kill, he doesn’t maim, and he sure as hell doesn’t shoot people.

Admittedly, the Caped Crusader has a complicated relationship with guns and his no-shooting policy wasn’t clear from the *very* beginning…

Batman #1

…but it’s fair to say that by now Batman’s refusal to pack heat has been pretty much established. It’s so established, in fact, that the mere sight of the Dark Knight holding a gun is enough to provide a WTF cover:

When Bruce Wayne picks up a gun, this is supposed to be a big deal – an intentionally outrageous stunt!

As much shit as Mike W. Barr gets for having armed the Dark Knight in Year Two, at least Barr seemed aware of the implications of what he was doing… In that story, when Batman decides to start carrying a gun, this is treated as a shocking moment (a cliffhanger even), not least because Bruce doesn’t use just any old gun:

Detective Comics #575

Now, I admit that not all creators have displayed this much self-consciousness… Moreover, some fans are quite vocal against Batman’s refusal to use guns. Perhaps they’re reacting against the politics of it, or maybe they just think this makes the Dark Knight less conventionally cool by making him too much of a goody two-shoes (although I’ve never seen anyone upset over the fact that Bruce also refuses to drink alcohol). Either way, that’s a silly attitude: Batman is already tough-as-nails and, if you really need to see bullets flying in order to respect your hero, you can always go and read The Punisher. Or, you know, just watch pretty much any damn action movie!

Not that there haven’t been plenty of exceptions:

Cosmic Odyssey #1

Legends of the Dark Knight #84

Final Crisis #6

This begs the question of how many times you can open once-in-a-lifetime exceptions before it becomes officially ridiculous. Hell, Batman has even shot dolphins!

Detective Comics #405

Frank Miller made his contribution to the debate, with The Dark Knight Returns. In this mega-classic tale, Miller vividly painted Gotham City as a quasi-war zone, like the Los Angeles of Predator 2, with streets roamed by gangs of neo-Nazis and urban savages. He then played with the readers’ expectations by showing Batman with a shotgun in what at first appeared to be an uncritical move:

The Dark Knight Returns #1

Some pages later, it is revealed that this is in fact a grapple-gun, which the Dark Knight uses to grapple a helicopter rather than to shoot it down…

Next issue, though, we actually see Batman firing a huge-ass weapon, precisely so that Frank Miller can establish that this isn’t your average Caped Crusader anymore:

The Dark Knight Returns #2

That said, towards the end, The Dark Knight Returns famously features what is by far one of Batman’s most powerful and iconic anti-gun panels:

The Dark Knight Returns #4

The thing is that this stance is not just a whim or a concession to political correctness, but integral to the character and his in-story origin. Given that the whole purpose of Batman is to prevent tragedies like the ones that happened to Bruce Wayne, who saw his parents gunned down in front of him, using a firearm should be the last thing the Dark Knight would do… The first episode of Batman Beyond really nails this – the day that a desperate Bruce feels the need to point a gun to scare off a criminal is literally the day he decides to stop being Batman.

Now, as in everything, writers have different takes on how far to take this stance… Bob Haney once opened a story of The Brave and the Bold with Batman charging against a bunch of dudes with a blazing gun:

The Brave and the Bold #104

Haney then had Commissioner Gordon explain that the gun was loaded with blanks, thus humoring what Gordon angrily called Batman’s  ‘idiotic code’ – which is to say his ‘personal prejudice against killing… and using a gun!’

I guess both the gritty visuals (courtesy of Jim Aparo) and Gordon’s cop-on-the-edge attitude were in line with the times, since the early 1970s spit out a tidal wave of hard-hitting cop flicks – The French Connection, Across 110th Street, The Seven-Ups, Serpico.

In any case, the point is that, for Bob Haney, the Caped Crusader didn’t have a serious problem with guns themselves, just with lethal ammunition. You can see this again issues later, when he shoots tear gas at a group of suicide bombers:

The Brave and the Bold #112

Jim Starlin used a similar logic, having an armed Batman shoot tranquilizer darts in The Cult:

The Cult #4

On the opposite end of the spectrum, David V. Reed took Bruce’s phobia to a hilarious extreme. According to Reed, the Dark Knight was barely able to physically touch a gun in any context, not even to fire it into the floor:

Detective Comics #452

So, is it never OK for the Caped Crusader to fire a weapon? Well, perhaps it’s possible to get away with it if it’s done ingeniously… I like the sequence in ‘Target Practice’ (Batman #369) where the assassin Deadshot is on top of a tree about to shoot Julia Pennyworth, herself holding a gun, and Batman intervenes in a neat way:

Batman #369

At the end of the day, while I’m certainly not adverse to blood-soaked comics, for me the point of Batman stories is the nuttiness of it all, not boring yet realistic violence.

Overall, good writers will come up with ways for Batman to save the day without having to resort to guns. And no, I don’t mean cheating by having someone else conveniently shoot the villain, like in Batman: Earth One or in Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises!

A great part of the Batman mythos is the fact that the Caped Crusader always prepares for every scenario – he has a backup plan or something in his utility belt to help him get out of trouble. Or, at the very least, a truly badass Dark Knight should be able to improvise by using whatever he has at hand, whether he’s in a junkyard…

Batman #425

…or in the freaking Amazon jungle:

Gotham Adventures #53

Indeed, I love stories in which Batman has to face something unexpected and pulls it off by adapting to new circumstances in clever ways. Some of the most awesome moments in the Brave and the Bold cartoon involved the Dark Knight undergoing sudden transformations yet quickly bouncing back into the fight, whether having just become an orangutan (‘Terror on Dinosaur Island!’), an elastic blob (‘Long Arm of the Law!’), Captain America (‘Cry Freedom Fighters!’), or a woman (‘The Criss Cross Conspiracy!’, complete with a final nod to Some Like It Hot).

My favorite moment of this kind takes place in a comic where Batman inadvertently gets thrown into the 31^st century. As soon as he gets there, the Dark Knight starts assessing his surroundings…

The Brave and the Bold (v3) #5

And just a few pages later, without breaking a sweat (or pulling a firearm), Batman is already kicking the local superhero team’s ass:

The Brave and the Bold (v3) #5

NEXT: Batman vs Hitler.