"Another theory," O'Neil added, "is that Vin Sullivan, who was the editor, didn't want Batman to carry firearms. He's certainly got enough weapons, he certainly scares people, and he does all these things that Batman needs to do – why does he pull out a gun and plug somebody?"
"I can't go back in time, and I can't speculate on it, but I would have agreed if I were there at that time. Why is Batman a stone killer? It just seemed uncomfortable for everybody at that time. "There was a discussion, I'm told, a discussion around the office about the idea of Batman not carrying a gun," Adams said. "The conversation in the comic was, yeah, we don't carry guns."Īdams said he believes the decision was made by Whitney Ellsworth, an early DC editor.
"They not only decided to do it, but they codified it," Adams said. There's no definitive source for the reason Batman stopped carrying guns, but the important thing to note about the decision is that an editorial note in Batman specifically stated that "The Batman never carries or kills with a gun," according to Adams and O'Neil. And for another, the story is somewhat notorious as it ends with Batman discovering that the Monk is a vampire - and shooting him with a silver bullet in his sleep, killing him. the Monk that's keeping it from being widely available in either of its forms.įor one thing, both Detective Comics #30 and #32, the previous and subsequent issues, are on the app. However, there are two notable clues that suggest there's something or other in the story of Batman vs. There are plenty of other comics in which Batman uses a gun in some capacity, including Final Crisis #7 (more on that shortly), so that may not be why the story isn't available.
#Battman water gun series
Neither the original story in Detective Comics #31 nor Matt Wagner's early '00s limited series telling an updated version of the tale are on the service. Oddly enough, the story of Batman's fight with the vampiric villain known as the Monk, one of Batman's most famous gun-toting adventures, doesn't seem to be available on the DC Infinite digital comic reading service in either of its forms. So he was still carrying a gun for a couple of years at the beginning." "But that was 20 issues into Detective Comics because Batman started there. "But in Batman, I believe, issue #4, they discontinued Batman carrying a gun and I think Batman even commented that he doesn't carry guns," Adams said. One of the reasons that the character has lasted is that he has changed with the times." "The character was very much in intensive evolution mode, for about the first year. And I think what that's about is that they didn't really know what they had," O'Neil said. "I think once or twice in that first year, he was shown with a firearm. "In another story, on the splash page, he's carrying an automatic, but it does not show up in the story itself," O'Neil said, adding that there were several other instances of Batman either carrying or firing a gun during the first couple years of his existence, though rarely at actual human beings.
"And Batman has some dialogue in that panel that's like, 'I hate to do this, but it's necessary.'" "There's an incident where a bad guy is escaping and Batman dives on him with an airplane and machine guns him," O'Neil said. In fact, O'Neil said he saw evidence that "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," the first Batman story, "was lifted pretty directly from a Theodore Tinsley Shadow story that appeared a couple of years before."ĭuring 19, in both Detective Comics and later his own title, Batman, the character was shown carrying and using a gun. "And of course, as Jim Steranko once said, The Shadow didn't believe in the death penalty The Shadow was the death penalty. "Bill Finger openly admitted that his main source of inspiration was The Shadow," O'Neil explained. O'Neil told Newsarama at the this article's original publication that although the character was introduced May 1939 in Detective Comics #27, his origins can be traced to earlier pulp heroes. The idea of Batman as a pulp hero was echoed by the late Dennis O'Neil, who wrote and edited Batman from the '60s through the '90s. Other than wearing a cowl, that character was a pulp character." "What a lot of people forget is that Batman originally had guns," explained Brian Azzarello, who's written Batman for comic books and film and co-wrote Batman with Frank Miller for Dark Knight III: The Master Race.
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