Does Batman Win?

[Jack]

We all know that we won't get to see a true ending to Batman's story, because that's not how it works. Batman keeps fighting crime and saving lives and generally being crazy like that, and time slips behind him, until eventually your childhood idol is half your age. But ignoring that for just a moment... does Batman ever win? Does he eradicate crime in Gotham? Does he cure his villains of their problems, or at least lock them away for good? Does he get to retire? Does he find true and lasting peace?

Or does he keep fighting until he dies? Does he get himself killed? Does he continue to drag innocents into darkness? Does he forever attract psychos and copycats? Does he accomplish anything at all?

Does he win? Or can the game itself never be won? Or is he just not the one to win it?

[Superboy-Prime]

Batman can never win nor can the rest of the heroes. Unl;ess they went all totalitarian(sp?) on eveyrone.

[Vidocq]

We all know that we won't get to see a true ending to Batman's story, because that's not how it works. Batman keeps fighting crime and saving lives and generally being crazy like that, and time slips behind him, until eventually your childhood idol is half your age. But ignoring that for just a moment... does Batman ever win? Does he eradicate crime in Gotham? Does he cure his villains of their problems, or at least lock them away for good? Does he get to retire? Does he find true and lasting peace?

Or does he keep fighting until he dies? Does he get himself killed? Does he continue to drag innocents into darkness? Does he forever attract psychos and copycats? Does he accomplish anything at all?

Does he win? Or can the game itself never be won? Or is he just not the one to win it?

Thinking Like that is what brough Dark Knight Returns, (Complete with the hero being half your age).

The Answer from DKR: No. He tried to but it sucked. THe only time that man would stop fighting is when his heart finally gives in and he becames worm food, maybe sometime after that. He may go to hell just to kick some devilish ass there.:biggrin:

And He could never win, because there will always be poverty in a capitalist society and ergo street crime.

So he is stucked with only the hope that at the end of the day things are better than they would be if he hadn't been there.

[fred10]

Sure. Wasn't there some improvement by the beginning of TDK? Then it gets bad again, but he turns it around (some time after the end of TDK). He continues to be vigilant in Gotham, maintaining surveillance, but the criminal element is just too scared to take on Batman in "his city".

By the time he has Gotham turned around, he's come so far, has so many tricks and is so ensconsced in his role as Batman that he finds a new avenue to pursue as a superhero, one with more global, even universal implications: he joins the JLA.

[Mia]

We all know that we won't get to see a true ending to Batman's story, because that's not how it works. Batman keeps fighting crime and saving lives and generally being crazy like that, and time slips behind him, until eventually your childhood idol is half your age. But ignoring that for just a moment... does Batman ever win? Does he eradicate crime in Gotham? Does he cure his villains of their problems, or at least lock them away for good? Does he get to retire? Does he find true and lasting peace?

Of course Batman won't win and he can't win.

There's evil in the world and there will always be criminals, and Batman knows that. He's just doing his bit to make the world a better place.



Or does he keep fighting until he dies? Does he get himself killed? Does he continue to drag innocents into darkness? Does he forever attract psychos and copycats? Does he accomplish anything at all?

Does he win? Or can the game itself never be won? Or is he just not the one to win it?



If by 'innocents' you mean Nightwing, Robin and Batgirl and Huntress. Well I wouldn't call any of them 'innocent'. Each one of these individuals know what they are doing and made a conscious choice to do what they do. They could quit being vigilantes anytime and Batman wouldn't stop them.

Batman keeps fighting--or at least going until he dies. Batman/Bruce Wayne has what I call the survival skills of a cockroach. He'll probably die in bed in his 80's with a bottle of champagne and the current Barbie twins.

[frostedone]

If we go by Batman Beyond, then no he does not win. He helps, but Gotham is still a cesspool of filth. The police seem to have gotten more SWAT like though, and most of the villains from the BTAS/STAS/JLU are gone. There is more street level crime than super villains, but even those exists too still. Bruce lives a very lonely and angry life in his old age.

In mainstream DCU, I cannot see Batman ultimate winning either. I can see him cleaning things up a little, and leaving a lasting impact, but the streets of Gotham will always have thugs in it. I'd imagine Batman would most likely die at the hands of the Joker, then someone else from his bat family will assume his mantle, and then their kids or others they bring into it and so on. Batman The Legend wouldn't die, but the mantle would get passed on.

[Libaax]

Batman isnt about winning.

He is fighting human nature in crime. He can only keep it under control in his own city.

He can only lose and not win. Lose in giving up and finally going crazy and executing The Joker and co.

[Monty_Cristo]

he's won my heart. :biggrin:

[humpa]

If there ever was an ending, I'd hope it was that all the villains he's been fighting for and giving them a 2nd chance over and over would finally pay off. That in the end they would thank him or something. Only talking about the arkham nutcases that is.

[InfiniteCombo]

Maybe the Joker could take over being Batman for awhile if he did ever kill him... Sort of like that comic "Switch."


Anyway Batman says what he's doing isn't a game in Hush, so its apparently not about winning and losing. Its about doing what is right.

[ZT4]

If Bats can muster up a legacy, then he's won.

TDKR and TDSA pretty much establishies one route where he could get certain heroes thinking his way or have an army of youth ever present as guardians of the city, even the world.

I've always thought of Bruce ultimatley going the route Ra's wanted for him all along, the empire that Talia wants to forge with him, but his pride at the moment won't permit any notion of surrendering to it.

[Jared]

If he could get Gotham to transform from a corrupt cess pool infested with sociopaths and into fairly nice, low-crime American city, that'd be a win in my book (though not Batman's). Of course, both Dark Knight Returns and Batman Beyond have him unable to even pull that off. Still, he does save lives, and everyone time he does, that's a victory.

[nepenthes]

I found an old 1995 Wizard issue the other day where they ask Alan Grant, Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench and Denny O'Neil about "the last Batman story" as they would write it. Grant says it would just be a regular story that ends with a classic skyline shot and a caption like "there are more stories out there, we're just not going to tell them" as a closer.

Moench: "Batman would have to die very heroically at the end. It would have to be a very tragic story, a story of ultimate sacrifice. It would represent everything that Batman has ever been, taken right over the edge.

O'Neil: "I know how it all ends. There's a little secret that writers have; we keep complete biographies of our characters in our heads. I know many little secrets about Batman that I've never revealed, but I know them because I've had to think about this one character for so long. So I have my own theory about how Batman will end up, and when. It's a rather benign theory: I don't think he's going to come to a particularly ugly end, although that's always a possibility. It's clear in my head that at some point he will stop doing this, and either pass it on or retire the cape and cowl; because he's human, he's very human. But I don't think that would be an end to his crime fighting, and certainly not his attempt to save the world. But at some point, if he survives, the way he does these things will have to change dramatically."

here's the kicker

"Once upon a time I wrote what was, in my mind, to be the final Batman story. When I left DC to go to Marvel in the 70's I thought to myself that the story I was doing was going to be the last Batman story I'd ever write, I knew damned well that Julie Schwartz would publish stories the month after I let, but I didn't care, I didn't have to read them. As far as I was concerned, this retired the character. In that story, I killed of Ra's Al Ghul, and Batman and Talia walked off into the sunset together. In my own little private mythology, that ended it."

the issue is Brave & the Bold 159.

[FreeFallin]

well there are more lives then there would be if he never started fighting. i think winning for a hero is inspiring enought heroes to take there place

[celticguy]

Batman isnt about winning.

He is fighting human nature in crime. He can only keep it under control in his own city.

He can only lose and not win. Lose in giving up and finally going crazy and executing The Joker and co.

I agree. He is not in it to win just to do what he can when he can to improve things.

[kane]

Batman wins battles but he will never win the war.

[Kiryu]

Batman will never win. And that is the best thing about his character.

"I'm fighting a war I can never win." That's why he is so heroic because he knows and he accepts that no matter how much he does, no matter how far he goes, he will never ever make as large and profound a difference as he wants or needs to. And despite that information, he still chooses to be Batman, every night. He's fighting to gain a world where his parents would never have been shot, where Batman would never have to exist.

But he does exist, his parents did die, and he can never ever change that, so he fights in defiance of that fact. He's not looking to just make things a little better and retire to go hook up with some girl. He is fighting the past he can never change and in a way, his career as Batman and the truth that absolute victory will never come is a metaphor for how helpless he was to stop his parent's murder and despite all he has done in becoming Batman he will always be helpless to stop it. But he still fights.

True hero.

[Neorama]

I agree with everyone who says Batman will never win the battle against crime. This is what makes him so likeable. He knows he will never win. But he also knows that it is not winning that matters, it's making the effort to win even if you know you will ultimately fail. That is why he wins everyday he dons the cape and cowl. He reminds me of King Leonidas, standing against the Persian army. He knows what the end will be, but still he fights.

[superattackpea]

Batman isnt about winning.

He is fighting human nature in crime. He can only keep it under control in his own city.

He can only lose and not win. Lose in giving up and finally going crazy and executing The Joker and co.

batman made the promise on his parents grave to rid the city of crime, he is clearly out there to win.

[Your Imaginary Pal]

he can win.
If he realizes he's not responsible for all the crime in gotham and decides to live a normal life waking up in a matress made of shredded hundred dollar bills and taking baths in champaign. I say gotham has given him enough pain and misery. Move to Paris Bruce, you left a few people there who can handle the situation, Gordon, Robin thay'll take care of the city. Live the dream Bruce, Live the Dream.

[Mr Blinky]

In D.C. One Million, the future Batman tells Bruce that Gotham eventually became (or would become - yeesh, time travel) a paradise, an ideal utopian city.

So, yeah, he does win - just not in his lifetime. :smile:

[Ghostman]

Of course Batman wont win...and he knows he wont win...but people act like this is batmans problem alone...ALL of them, from superman to flash to wonder woman to ambush bug all know that there will always be evil...

Me...I see Batman retiring one day, leaving the cowl to someone else while finding peace with either talia or selina

[Xybernauts]

In my take, Batman's true battle isn't with Gotham, it's with himself. Victory won't come from beating the evil around him, it'll come from beating the demons within himself. It's not up to one man to defeat evil for the whole city, but it's up to each individual in Gotham, each one of us; to defeat the evil within ourselves. Some of us win that battle, and others, like the Joker, lose that battle. All Batman can do is shape field of Gotham to make it easier for each player to believe that victory is possible and help them hold on to the part of themselves that's good. This is a theme in TDK. So the part of you that sees Batman has won is the part of you that's won. The part of you that sees that Batman can never win is the part of you that will never win. It's a matter of looking at the glass as half full or half empty. How Batman sees his life's work will determine whether he himself wins or looses. In the end will he defeat the demons or will the demons defeat him? I believe he's already won and he'll keep on winning cause the good guy always wins.

These are a few of the views I agree with.

If he could get Gotham to transform from a corrupt cess pool infested with sociopaths and into fairly nice, low-crime American city, that'd be a win in my book (though not Batman's). Of course, both Dark Knight Returns and Batman Beyond have him unable to even pull that off. Still, he does save lives, and everyone time he does, that's a victory.

If Bats can muster up a legacy, then he's won.

TDKR and TDSA pretty much establishies one route where he could get certain heroes thinking his way or have an army of youth ever present as guardians of the city, even the world.

I've always thought of Bruce ultimatley going the route Ra's wanted for him all along, the empire that Talia wants to forge with him, but his pride at the moment won't permit any notion of surrendering to it.

Batman isnt about winning.

He is fighting human nature in crime. He can only keep it under control in his own city.

He can only lose and not win. Lose in giving up and finally going crazy and executing The Joker and co.

he's won my heart. :biggrin:

he can win.
If he realizes he's not responsible for all the crime in gotham and decides to live a normal life waking up in a matress made of shredded hundred dollar bills and taking baths in champaign. I say gotham has given him enough pain and misery. Move to Paris Bruce, you left a few people there who can handle the situation, Gordon, Robin thay'll take care of the city. Live the dream Bruce, Live the Dream.