Top 10 Worst Things Batman Has Ever Done

This particular offense takes place in the world of Injustice: Gods Among Us, in which Superman has snapped following the death of Lois Lane, but Batman continues to maintain that some lines should not be crossed. But apparently… infecting your computerized ally, Cyborg, with a virus, you know… “just in case” isn’t crossing the line in the Dark Knight’s rulebook. As revealed in Injustice: Gods Among Us #15, Batman uploaded Cyborg with a virus the very week they met, giving himself an on/off switch in case he ever judged it necessary to incapacitate the powerful hero. Even Killer Croc, who witnesses the reveal, can’t help but call out the move-.

While what Batman did to Cyborg was terrible and all, it’s not like it was out of character. A master tactician who always plans for the worst, he’s got contingencies in place for seemingly every possibility, including his superfriends turning on him. The issue is… much like his peers, Batman himself is also not infallible, and, as explored in the story JLA: Tower of Babel, those plans aren’t nearly as safe he would have you believe. When Ra’s al Ghul got his hands on them, he nearly succeeded in destroying the Justice League. Next time Batman, maybe just keep mental notes instead.

Perhaps it was never made explicit, but it always seemed pretty obvious that should the day come that Bruce Wayne needed to retire as Batman, Dick Grayson, his first Robin, would take over. And so, when Bruce Wayne was taken out of commission by the devious and powerful Bane, everyone assumed that Dick would be donning the cape and cowl, but… apparently not. Dismissing Tim Drake’s suggestion of contacting Nightwing, Bruce instead passes his identity and responsibility on to Jean-Paul Valley, a new vigilante in town, with a known history of mental instability and difficulties controlling his extremely violent impulses. But no… you’re right Bruce, Dick is too busy, better to go with the maniac.

Domestic abuse… it’s not a problem exclusive to Marvel and the Pym residence. In “Batman: The Widening Gyre”, serial bachelor and playboy Bruce Wayne finally meets his match, or rather, reconnects with her, in the shape of former flame Silver St. Cloud. The story sees the two lovers reunited, and soon enough, they’re on the fast-track to marriage. Being Batman, however, the happier Bruce is, the more conflicted and eventually, paranoid he becomes. Almost immediately after becoming engaged, he runs her off the road and grabs her by the hair, roughly tearing some out. Why? To make sure she’s not a robot. Silver soon forgives him… but she probably shouldn’t have.

When you take a teenage sidekick under your wing, it comes with a certain level of responsibility. Not only to keep them alive but to set a good example. And Batman played this all wrong. When Tim Drake quits as Robin, Batman basically platonically rebounds with Tim’s girlfriend, Stephanie Brown, despite having previously expressed his doubts about her abilities. After a single mistake, he promptly fires her and forbids her from fighting crime - a move that has made many fans suspect that he was simply trying to make Tim Drake jealous. It’s the fallout of Batman’s actions that really hurt though, as her attempts to prove herself culminates in her apparent death. Great job, Batman.

Nothing sets the mood like the smell of burning human flesh, right Bruce? Courtesy of Frank Miller, the much-maligned All-Star Batman and Robin is basically the worst and most offensive take on Batman you’ll ever read. In this particular issue, Batman yells nonsensically aggressive banter at a group of armed thieves, before using the bleach they’ve stolen to make a molotov cocktail and set them all on fire. Black Canary is watching him work and is apparently turned on by all the carnage, and so, with the unconscious thugs literally burning alive in heaps behind them, they have sex. Apart from the costume, this deplorable cringe-monster is unrecognizable as Batman.

Once upon a time, Batman was a character without clear editorial guidelines, and by extension, he was a hero without consistent moral guidelines. Back in the early days, the Caped Crusader was what you might call… kill crazy. After having made a name for himself in the pages of Detective Comics, the Dark Knight got his very own eponymous title, and to celebrate, he went on a killing spree! First, he dispatches of Hugo Strange by punching him out a window to his apparent demise and then proceeds to deal with Strange’s henchmen - made up of mentally ill asylum patients - with machine gun fire. Heck, he even hangs one from the Batplane!

In issue #4 of Batman, the Caped Crusader can be seen telling Robin that they “never kill with weapons of any kind” - a philosophy that would evolve into a strict no killing rule over the years. But it would seem that, decades later, Batman was still willing to toy with the definition of “killing”. In 1988’s Batman #420, realizing that he is incapable of besting the KGBeast, Batman locks the man in a sewer and walks away in a panel that strongly insinuates that he was leaving him to die. It was retconned by a later writer but in terms of how it originally went down? That was a slow and painful death sentence, plain and simple.

As we were saying… playing a little fast and loose with your definition of “killing” here, Batman! In this issue, in which Batman faces off against the obscure relic from ‘60s comics, “Lord Death Man”, he once again creatively works his way around his own no killing rule, by condemning this villain to “a fate worse than death”. Seriously… those are words from Batman’s own mouth! Knowing that this villain frequently fakes his own death and is actually immortal, Batman opts to lock him in a safe and then sentence him to exile in space to live eternally in confinement. Batman seems rather cavalier about the whole thing, but it’s super messed up.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions

Making Robin Eat Rats

Torturing Penguin

Cheating with Batgirl While She Was Dating Robin

Where do we even begin with this one? Maybe with the fact that Batman could have righted this error earlier had he not ignored the warnings of his old colleague and friend, Blue Beetle - who instead gets killed for Bruce’s mistakes. But we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Taking his contingency planning to new heights, Batman once built a secret satellite called Brother Eye to monitor superheroes. Sure enough, it got compromised, and a villain used it to try to kill all metahumans. It only got worse though, as Brother Eye later became sentient and tried to conquer and homogenize the world. And that’s how Batman almost ruined everything.