A YouTube Video Racks Up Batman's Body Count, and It's Way More than Zero

One of Batman’s defining principles as a vengeful hero is that he refuses to take a life. Except he totally has, in the comics and the movies, and YouTube user Mr Sunday Movies (great name) has proof.

Let’s finally agree that in Batman Begins, yes, he totally killed Ra’s Al-Ghul. “I’m not going to kill you, but I don’t have to save you” is horseshit. No, batshit. If I chain a puppy to a railroad track and a 260-ton old-timey steam engine from Industrial Revolution hell is approaching, and I look into those sweet eyes and say Batman’s dumb line, does that leave me scot-free from puppy murder? (Postscript: I don’t kill puppies.)

This just isn’t the summer of Batman. Ben Affleck is donning the cowl (I’m into it; most aren’t), Wonder Woman upstaged him in his own trailer, and Arkham Knight is an utter disaster on the PC. The coolness of Dark Elon Musk has waned and people have come to their senses that Batman would not last a second trading blows with Superman.

At one point, you wonder if Alfred has had enough of serving sandwiches to a total loon. A massively wealthy billionaire who fights crime would do more good for Gotham City investing in the city’s early education programs than being a street ninja. There’s probably a lot of Gotham public school dropouts among the corpses the Bat has been piling up, against his better intentions.