Protecting the innocent doesn’t necessarily have to overlap with the execution of bad guys, but don’t tell that to Batman. As the following supercut from YouTuber Mr Sunday Movies shows, the Caped Crusader doesn’t just occasionally end the life of a supervillain after extended fights and with great regret. No, he brings death and destruction down around anyone foolish enough to throw their hats in with the baddie in charge—and sometimes that includes the wholly gratuitous murder of a low-level goon. As the kill count in the video shows, Batman is responsible for dozens of executions.
Clearly, some of the following deaths were of the “it’s him or me” variety, such as causing Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face to plunge to his death or taking out the Joker’s henchmen who’s trying to kill him in the bell tower. But others just seem sadistic. The bomb he affixes to the front of his burly brawler of an antagonist? The fire-eater whom he burns alive? These are worryingly homicidal, the kind of impulses that Gotham’s masked hero might want to spend some time talking through with a good therapist. Then again, if Batman had had a solid shrink as a child, he likely never would’ve become Batman in the first place, so a mixed blessing, really.