Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="PaulGreystoke" data-source="post: 971777" data-attributes="member: 10810">Batman a Killer?What comics were you reading in '39? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Batman was never a killer, right from the very start.  He used a gun in precisely 1 issue - & that was against the undead, not against criminals.  Now I absolutely agree with you that the original Bob Kane Batman was inspired by the pulps, but it is unsupportable to suggest that the character was as cavalier about human life as was the Shadow in waging his one man war on crime.  Bob Kane didn't mention a code against killing in the stories, but the character lived by it.  Then it became a written code once (as you noted) National realized how popular & influential these comic books were becoming.  But that just made explicit what was already implicit in the early run of stories - Bruce Wayne was not a killer.Now as to the alignment issue, there is of course no good answer because no 2 people can agree on what the Good/Evil & Law/Chaos axes actually represent.  I would argue that the Batman is Good because he is willing to make immense personal sacrifices in order to combat evil & protect the innocent.  I think that is indisputable, & yet people dispute it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />  As to Law/Chaos, I would go with Neutral.  The Batman seeks Justice - & works outside the system in order to perfect it.  A Lawful character would work within the system & would tend to feel that vigilantism only weakens the system.  A Chaotic character would feel that the system was part of the problem & wouldn't go the lengths that Bruce Wayne does to support it. *shrugs*  But I think a case can be made for either Lawful or Chaotic given the fuzziness about D&D alignment & the long tortured history of the character under various writers in various media over the past 64 years.I won't even enter the discussion on the Batman's stats.  My flameproof Batsuit is at the cleaners... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /></blockquote>

Verification