You know, people keep telling me Batman should kill people because

>>94932124
He uses the threat of dropping people off rooftops or torture to get people to talk. He never actually does it in most portrayals. It works because they think he'll do it, because of rumors and urban legends about him among criminals that are mostly if not entirely untrue. Every thug in Gotham knows somebody that knows somebody whose second cousin saw the Bat murder a guy. Batman uses that fear factor to his advantage all the time.

I just fell for pasta didn't I?

>>94932639
How is that pasta?

File: bats cape flow.gif (563KB, 500x213px) Image search: [Google]

563KB, 500x213px

>>94932124
>You're the world's greatest detective. Shouldn't you be able to find out what you want to know through investigation rather than torture?
Investigations often include interviews and interrogations. Torture is just an interrogation with consequences.

The whole premise of Batman is that the justice system in Gotham is broken. If police detectives can't get info or keep getting false info from their suspects they can't exactly threaten them with anything other than jail time.

So for example Rupert Thorn is well connected and any time he goes to jail he seems to get out just a few months down the road on "good behavior". When he gets out he resumes smuggling guns or drugs into Gotham. Police investigate but Thorn's not only no longer afraid of being in jail, he knows he won't be locked up for long and so going to jail for a month or two becomes part of the cost of doing business for him. He doesn't care. So when police come knocking he gives them false info to buy time and get them off his back - now by the time Police discover they'd been had it's too late; Thorn got his goods into the city and already made and laundered his money.

Enter: Batman and his " torture" methods. Thorn may not be afraid of jail but EVERYONE is afraid of pain and death.

>>94932124
Because actual detective work is mostly interviews and I don't think anyone would really want to read a Batman story that spends four issues showing him knocking on doors asking people if they saw anything at 3am last night only to have the story resolve when one of the Riddler's mooks posts a picture himself surrounded by stolen loot on Facebook. Batman's actually the World's Greatest Forensic Technician, and by "world's greatest" I mean he's not using equipment old enough to attend high school and dealing with a 6 month backlog.

Reminder that the best excuse for Batman not killing has always been Jim Gordon. He and the few non-corrupt cops (and even the bulk of the crooked ones) are too valuable an asset to lose.

>>94932124
Batman shouldn't kill, writers should make villains stay in prison and get deatb sentences and all that so Bruce doesn't look like a weenie with all the revolving door jails

Well, Batman is pretty used to excessive use of force. Just look at how often he and the Bat family break bones while fighting goons.
The guy is this super martial artist, master of every technics and he can't neutralize an average human being without breaking arms and/or legs?

>>94933359
>he can't neutralize an average human being without breaking arms and/or legs?
I like to think he can, but...

>"He's young, he'll walk again...but you'll stay scared, won't you?"

>>94933319
This. Playing judge, jury and executioner being too much power for any one man is enough justification for Batman, and superheroes in general, not killing. Writers should just stop trying to come up with some pretencious "moral" "reasons" for Batman not killing Joker.

>>94934307
This. If you must have a recurring Joker make them copycats or something - not the same guy over and over.

But I don't think the Joker needs to be recurring. He could work as a one-off villain that presents the biggest challenge for Batman and so he becomes Bats's barometer for subsequent villains.

Here's a good question - say I wanted to read Batman books but in a way that would give each mainstream villain one story while maintaining hints of continuity. Which books would tell the story of the best Batman career?

The stories should cover:
Batman origin
vs. The Mob
vs. Zasz
vs. Scarecrow
vs. Two-Face
vs. Joker
vs. Penguin
vs. Riddler
vs. Catwoman
vs. Freeze

>>94934466
>But I don't think the Joker needs to be recurring.
What he needs to be is not an unstoppable murder machine that sets out to intentially do every depraved and inhuman act possible whenever he shows up so that Batman doesn't look like a complete hypocrite for saying he wants to keep people safe from criminals while allowing a mass murderer to continue breathing.

Joker used to have standards, it used to be about showmanship and spectacle, making himself the center of attention using the threat of death. Nowadays, he would sodomize a newborn puppy and smoke his own feces and it wouldn't be out of character at all.

Because Joker is now, literally, the worst of humanity in every sense of the word.

>>94932124
Why does the torture work all the time?
People who get tortured or threatened with torture would probably confess to killing J.F.K if it got the torturer to go away, shouldn't Batman get a lot of false confessions from people, who didn't know anything, but made something up, to make him?

>>94933319
You'd think the citizens would start a campaign to change the law and get the Joker executed the 50th time he's broken out and killed people.

>>94934466
>Origin + vs. The Mob
Year One covers this.

>>94934677
>Why does the torture work all the time?
>People who get tortured or threatened with torture would probably confess to killing J.F.K if it got the torturer to go away, shouldn't Batman get a lot of false confessions from people, who didn't know anything, but made something up, to make him?
Short answer, yes. Long answer, maybe. Realistically, you're right. But remember - this is a comic book so if it helps develop the story then it works. When you torture someone in real life they're usually an inmate, so the threat of being tortured again because your first story didn't check out is there. Bats usually let's his torture victim go, or hands them over to police so what you said about victims giving false info would be much more likely if it were a real vigilante working with police.

>>94934677
I think that's more true when you're torturing for a confession, whereas Batman is torturing for information. But I could be totally wrong.

>>94935001
Might be onto something here

>>94935001
The idea is the same in both situations.
You try to come up with an answer the madman that stands in front of you wants to hear.
It's easier with confessions, because the answer in that case is simply: yes I did it. But even then you usually have to describe what exactly you did.
Same when asked for information. The threatened tries to come up with the information the torturer wants to hear. Which is bad when the victim either doesn't know anything, or knows something, and the vigilanty is not interested in the information the captive has.

>>94932124
I like to think hanging crooks off rooftops is kind of his last resort, when there's that one thing he just can't figure out, but he's sure one of Penguin or Riddler's men know.