The many murders of golden age Batman

[glaurung]

In the beginning, Detective Comics was just cheap disposable entertainment. Nobody cared about what was in the stories in it. Then Batman became hugely popular, and, quite suddenly, people did care, and the decree came from on high that Batman needed to stop being so violent and dark and grim and gritty (the irony, there is so much of it). This post focuses on the period before that decree went into effect.

(ETA: Just a reminder that in the 30s and 40s, most comics were very, very racist. Lots of unpleasant stereotyping of various groups appears below)

(Below each image appears an excerpt, never before published, from Batman's Very Secret Diary.)



Detective #27:



"As a crime fighter, I fight criminals. An awful lot of these fights happen on rooftops for some reason, which means I get to knock people off of roofs to plunge to their deaths. Ha-ha, what fun!"



"I also love making people fall into vats of acid. Making people fall and die, it never gets old for me."

Detective #28:



"Sure, sometimes the criminals I fight on rooftops don't fall off the roof when I send them flying with a powerful punch or kick. But other times, they do, and gosh does it ever feel good knowing that I killed another criminal."



"You know what else I love? Torturing people to force them to confess to crimes. Best of all? Torturing them by threatening to send them falling to their deaths many floors below."

Detective #29:



"Strangling Turks? Not something I get to do very often, but golly did I ever enjoy doing it."

Detective #30:



"Kicking a guy in the head so hard his neck snaps? It's a really bracing way to start the day, I'll tell you that much."

Detective #35:



"I hadn't impaled anyone before, and I must say, while it wasn't as good as making somebody fall to his death, I still liked it. Must do again someday."



"Defenestrated someone today. I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to doing that. What a blast!"

Detective #37:



"Impalement: just as good the second time around."

Detective #38:



"Have adopted a young orphaned circus performer. We have a lot in common! He loves knocking people off high buildings and watching them thud on the sidewalk, just like me!"

Detective #39:



"Making something fall on people, causing them to be crushed to death. It's a different kind of death by falling. Falling, it's all about the falling for me, whether people or objects. As long as someone dies, it's all good."

Batman #1:



"Making someone fall into the ocean left me unsatisfied. It's not seeing the body, all crushed and broken at the end: without that, there's really no thrill."



"I've had a machine gun on the batplane for a long time now, and never used it before today. Must say, killing those giants and the drivers of the trucks they were in just didn't do it for me. Note to self: sell machine gun, don't think I will be using it again."





"I think killing giants is not really my thing."

Batman #2:





"Made somebody fall down the stairs today. They died, but not very quickly. Hearing their dying speech kind of took the wind out of my sails. Note to self: punch harder next time."











"Knocked a lot of African pygmies off a train yesterday. Then Robin helped me make a cave man fall to his death. Feeling a bit jaded now. Maybe too much murder for one day?"

Batman #3:



"Something that never gets old or boring: throwing people off of roofs."



Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, If batman is not a serial killer, then surely he must at least be a homicidal maniac. Either way, this dangerous individual needs to be removed from society. Weigh the evidence put before you, and I think you will agree with me that he must be found guilty.

Comments

[cygnia]

Also of note is Batman remembering to FINALLY wear gloves...

[icon_uk]

It was either that or cut the brake lines on ANOTHER police car so the fingerprint samples never made it back to HQ for checking.

[glaurung]

He's wearing ordinary gloves in his very first appearance, which are distinguished from bare hands only by a few subtle lines. I figure then the artist got lazy and neglected to draw in those lines, figuring the colourist would know to shade the hands to be gloves instead of skin. Oops, guess we have to make his gloves be a lot more visibly differentiated from bare hands. Ta-da, bat-gauntlets!

[cygnia]

If I recall correctly, that's another thing to give credit to Bill Finger for....

[joetuss]

This was the whole of Zack Snyder's research in preparation for BvS

[lilacsigil]

"They were short, but not short enough!" I'm astonished we haven't seen this immortal line on screen!

Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

Given the depiction of ethnic groups here, would you please add the "tw: racism" tag, and add a mention of same above the cut.

Re: Mod Note!

[glaurung]

Done. Thank you for reminding me that I needed to mention that. Golden Age comics can be very unpleasant reading in that way.

[icon_uk]

In my non-Mod capacity, I'm inclined sort of give a pass to those cases where the hero has to react within a few seconds to save their lives from a murderous villain, so possibly the guy falling out the wnidow because Batman threw something at him to stop himself being shot dead, and Robin saving himself from being killed by kicking the guy (who also murdered the Graysons) might be seen as justifiable homicide.

This Batman really DOES need therapy though.

[glaurung]

Before I realized that it would be more funny to mock up Batman's diary entries instead of writing commentary in my own voice, I wrote a comment on one page about how giving him a pass in those situations might have made sense if not for how incredibly often the criminals die after being punched and falling a long way. Once is self-defence, four or five times, and you're looking at something very different.

[owlbrigade1]

If you are going to fight on rooftops, gantries, balconies, and cliffs etc. Gravity has always been the number one killer of bad guys in fiction. At some point bad guys have to take responsibility for where they are bad guy-ing.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisneyVillainDeath

[ebailey140]

And the expert on the subject...

https://youtu.be/wRSHzenjiNA

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

"Also, impersonating the Commissioner is always fun on a bun. You should see how much free stuff you can get doing that."

[lucean]

I have so many questions about that grand Pygmi train heist. How did the get there? Why did they want the Giant? So many whys that I don't know where to even start. Yet I also realize that none of the answers would give me any more comfort.

[glaurung]

Batman sees pygmies swarming over the roof of a train and jumps on board the speeding train from a bridge. Because he is Batman, this does not kill or injure him in any way. After killing dozens of pygmies, he meets the professor and the professor's giant "missing link" cave man, Goliath.

Turns out the pygmies worshipped the giant as a god, and so when the prof, being a colonialist douchebag, kidnapped their deity, they chased after him, all the way to American and onto the train (don't interrupt the story with your logical questions, please, we only have 13 pages here).

Goliath, despite being kidnapped and treated like a prisoner, is friendly due to the professor using the Science! of psychology on him. Circus owners decide they are going to make a fortune exhibiting Goliath. When the professor does not agree to their proposal, being villains, they decide to murder him and steal Goliath.

Driven berserk by the sight of the villain who killed the professor, Goliath breaks out of his cage, kills the circus owner/head villain, and then rampages through the circus, requiring Batman and Robin to contain the damage (net the lion! stop the rampaging elephant!) and finally kill the poor guy because there's no controlling a "primitive" giant person who has gone berserk (ie, racism).

[ebailey140]

And don't forget the innocent, childlike, Captain Marvel...

https://youtu.be/VK9m8SHpCLk

Don't the Bats still dangle people from high places to get info?

[cygnia]

Still one of my favorite bits... :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w6pnWnqzWE

[super_fly]

Amazing, so many ethnic stereotypes and not one offensive accent among them.

I have to wonder, did Grant Morrison work in any of this during his run?