Let's face it: nobody is ever going to call Batman well-adjusted.
He dresses up like a rodent and fights crime.
He hangs out in a cave with an old man and a rotating bunch of kids.
He picks fights with Superman.
Oh, and he's got a serious ego problem, too: everything has to be a bat-mobile, a bat-plane,
or a bat-signal.
Even his dog is a bat-hound—and not, say, just a regular dog.
Still, there's a difference between charmingly eccentric and outright crazy.
And every now and then, Batman crosses that line.
Here are some of the most terrible things Batman's ever done.
"Oh! Are you here for some..."
He left a villain to starve
The late-'80s villain the KGBeast has become a fan favorite thanks to his ridiculous name
and delightfully dated Cold War gimmick.
But his first appearance ends in one of Batman's all-time cruelest acts.
In Batman #420, KGBeast attempts to assassinate President Reagan, so Batman chases him through
Gotham's sewers, clobbers him with a soggy corpse he finds there — which seriously
raises questions about Gotham's toilets — and herds the Beast into an empty room.
When KGBeast sees that he's cornered, he turns and challenges Batman to a fight… but Batman
just closes the door and blocks it off, making it impossible to open, leaving KGBeast to
die in a rat-infested tomb.
Justifying his actions, Batman thinks, "I'm not in this business to protect the rules.
I serve justice."
It's just too bad that the rule that Batman is breaking is the one about, y'know, not
killing people.
Even later writers were horrified.
To make him less of a murderous maniac, eventually they wrote a story where Batman revealed that
he'd actually called the cops after trapping the Beast — who managed to escape anyhow.
He re-orphaned Robin
You could argue that subjecting troubled teens to dangerous training exercises, and then
sending them out to fight psychopaths is terrible all on its own — and, well, you wouldn't
be wrong.
Yet, that's hardly the worst thing Batman has done to his Robins.
For example, in the Silver Age comic book World's Finest #153 — billed on the cover
as an "imaginary novel," as though all the other comic books actually happened — Bruce
Wayne becomes convinced that Superboy killed his parents and plots his revenge against
the Last Son of Krypton.
When Robin protests, Batman slaps him so viciously that the smack traveled through time and became
an Internet meme in the future.
When Robin won't relent, Batman sits him in chair and uses a villain's hypnosis machine
to erase all of Dick Grayson's memories, before dropping him off at an orphanage so he won't
get in the way.
Of course, Superboy didn't kill the Waynes, and a guilt-stricken Batman sacrifices his
life to save Superman.
But nobody tells Robin, who presumably languishes in the orphanage until he's old enough to
live on his own and become an accountant or something.
Even in regular comic continuity, Robins get a raw deal.
Batman doesn't intervene in time when Robin number two, Jason Todd, is beaten half to
death with a crowbar by the Joker — and then killed in an explosion.
Later, Batman admits Jason was too young and impulsive to be Robin, but that didn't stop
Bruce from slapping a mask on him anyway.
It happened again in 2013, when an assassin killed the fifth Robin, Damian Wayne.
You'd think that a smart guy like Batman could get it together...but it actually gets worse.
He got Robin's girlfriend killed
In 2004, the third Robin, Tim Drake, hung up his cape after his father discovered his
secret identity.
In Robin #126, Stephanie Brown, Robin's long-term girlfriend and a vigilante herself, sews her
own Robin costume and sneaks into the Batcave, hoping to gank Tim's old gig.
Batman hires her on the spot: not because Stephanie's qualified for the position or
anything, but so he can make Tim jealous.
Stephanie does the best she can, but her career as Robin ends just two issues later when Batman
fires her for disobeying orders.
In order to earn back Batman's trust, Stephanie sets one of Bruce's top-secret agendas into
motion, starting a gang war that's supposed to unite all of Gotham's criminals under the
control of Matches Malone, one of Batman's undercover aliases.
It doesn't work, and violence consumes the city.
For her mistakes, Stephanie is captured by the Black Mask, one of Gotham's gang leaders,
and fatally tortured.
All for the love of Batman.
He became a drug addict on purpose
What happens when Batman can't get the job done?
He resorts to substance abuse.
In Legends of the Dark Knight #16, a young girl drowns when Batman can't lift a boulder
that traps her in a flooded tunnel.
He decides he isn't strong enough, and when a few extra hours of Crossfit don't cut it,
he starts taking steroids to enhance his strength.
The problem — other than the fact that drugs are, y'know, usually kinda terrible — is
that the stuff Batman takes is the same junk that gives Bane his super-strength.
And that…. doesn't always end well.
Batman juices himself enough to throw a refrigerator through a brick wall, but he also develops
nasty mean streak.
Once Batman is totally addicted, the scientist providing him with Venom tells says that he'll
need to kill Commissioner Gordon if he wants any more pills.
Gordon lives, obviously, and Alfred locks Batman in the Batcave for a month while he
detoxes using sheer Bat-willpower and the power of the Bat-beard.
Now recovered, Batman eventually tracks down the scientist to shut the operation down,
no drugs required, and arrests him fair and square.
He sent a guy to die in space
Lord Death Man, as the name kind of implies, always comes back from the dead.
"Batman and Robin once again triumphed over their archenemy, Lord Death Man, after he
returned from the grave!"
Given that Batman doesn't usually kill, that shouldn't be a problem.
Most of the time, he just locks his villains away in Arkham Asylum and prays they won't
get out.
But for some reason, Batman decides to deal with Lord Death Man in a much more permanent
manner in Batman Incorporated #2.
He seals the villain in a rocket and launches him into space, where he'll spend the rest
of time completely alone.
Lord Death Man's casually cruel fate is made especially weird in the comic's final panels,
when Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle calmly share a drink while Lord Death Man's ship twinkles
in the sky above, beginning its long journey towards absolutely nowhere.
Or until it runs into one of the billions and billions of aliens that populate the DC
Universe.
Which it does.
Nice job, Batman.
He made plans to kill his teammates
JLA's Tower of Babel arc shows what happens when a supervillain discovers Batman's plans
for beating his Justice League teammates, and the results aren't pretty.
After some bad guys temporarily switch bodies with the Justice League, Batman decides to
keep detailed files about every League member, including ways to bring them down.
Unfortunately, those files fall into the hands of Ra's al Ghul, who promptly uses them in
a bid to take over the world.
Things go bad pretty quickly.
Aquaman receives a custom dose of the Scarecrow's fear gas, making him terrified of water, which
he needs to survive.
Hypnotic suggestion blinds Green Lantern, robbing him of the ability to control his
power ring.
Superman's skin turns translucent thanks to some Red Kryptonite, which kicks his solar
receptors into overdrive, causing unimaginable pain.
A custom-made bullet gives Flash paralyzing seizures.
Understandably, everyone gets pretty mad at ol' Batman.
They hold a vote about keeping him on the team… and Batman just cuts out before they
get to make the choice.
"If you people can't see the potential danger of an out of control Justice League, I don't
need to wait for a vote.
I don't belong here."
He punks out
Batman needs Gotham City, and Gotham City needs Batman.
Just look at what happens when he's not around.
In Batman Beyond, Bruce Wayne hangs up the cape and cowl after having a heart attack
mid-fight and being forced to aim a gun at a criminal to prevent his death.
Decades after Bruce Wayne's retirement from the nightlife, Gotham City falls into the
hands of a clown-themed street gang called the Jokerz.
Fortunately, Amanda Waller made a secret contingency plan for the Caped Crusader, insuring that
a new, younger hero would inherit the mantle of Batman.
And then there's The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller's infamous take on Batman's ultimate
future.
Batman gives up after Jason Todd's death, and in his absence a gang called the Mutants
transform Gotham City into a war-torn dystopia.
With old man Bruce brooding in Wayne Manor for a decade, Superman becomes a pawn of the
government, superherodom gets outlawed, and — as expected — crime is on the rise everywhere.
You know who could've stopped all of this from happening?
Batman.
Bruce Wayne dedicated his life to keeping Gotham City safe, and spent years protecting
the city.
It's hardly a surprise that Gotham came to rely on him.
It's even arguable that Batman's presence in Gotham entices supervillains looking for
a challenge.
Suddenly disappearing isn't just irresponsible — retiring is, quite literally, the worst
thing that Batman could possibly do.
Well, retiring, or doing more of this in public:
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