Post by Lorendiac on Jun 4, 2004 20:40:08 GMT -5
Just how many times have we seen Batman get shot? To simplify the list a little, let's set a few ground rules.
1. It had to be a case of being shot with a real bullet fired from a gun. Never mind tranquilizer darts, arrows, or villains blasting at him with their built-in superpowers.
2. The bullet had to actually penetrate his flesh and draw blood. If the shot was stopped cold by an armored plate behind the bat-symbol on his chest, then it doesn't count as really getting shot.
3. It had to happen in a comic book that appeared to be part of his continuity at the time it was published. So don't worry about anything from the movies or TV shows he's had over the years. And don't worry about Elseworlds. On the other hand, Pre-Crisis stories are fair game because they seemed to have "really happened" at the time they were published. I don't care if they were later retconned out of existence.
I'll just mention a few really old cases (20 years ago or more) to start the ball rolling.
#1. In the old miniseries "Untold Legends of the Batman," the pre-Crisis Alfred reminisces about a previous occasion (probably published as its own story many years earlier?) where he first learned the secrets of Bruce and Dick when they staggered home in costume one night, Batman bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his torso.
#2. In what may have been the first Batman comic I ever bought with my own money (as opposed to a few gifts from my parents) in 1982, Batman #347, a man recounts a story he heard about a prison breakout where Batman started stalking a bunch of escaped convicts in the woods and one of them got off a lucky shot that wounded him, but didn't seem to stop him. (The convicts ended up getting all nervous in the darkness that night and shooting each other full of holes - it's not clear to me if Batman deliberately triggered that somehow, or just took advantage of it when it happened.)
#3. Several months later, in Batman #354, there is a stark moment when Batman is on a "Wanted Poster" and has just had words with the current police commisioner, a slimy political hack named Pauling, and then is shot in the back by a police sergeant with a rifle, acting on Pauling's orders, as he tries to leave the Gotham Police Headquarters compound. Batman still gets away somehow (probably motivated to superhuman exertion by the suspicion that if Pauling caught him, his life expectancy could then be measured in minutes), but was out of action for the remainder of the story.
1. It had to be a case of being shot with a real bullet fired from a gun. Never mind tranquilizer darts, arrows, or villains blasting at him with their built-in superpowers.
2. The bullet had to actually penetrate his flesh and draw blood. If the shot was stopped cold by an armored plate behind the bat-symbol on his chest, then it doesn't count as really getting shot.
3. It had to happen in a comic book that appeared to be part of his continuity at the time it was published. So don't worry about anything from the movies or TV shows he's had over the years. And don't worry about Elseworlds. On the other hand, Pre-Crisis stories are fair game because they seemed to have "really happened" at the time they were published. I don't care if they were later retconned out of existence.
I'll just mention a few really old cases (20 years ago or more) to start the ball rolling.
#1. In the old miniseries "Untold Legends of the Batman," the pre-Crisis Alfred reminisces about a previous occasion (probably published as its own story many years earlier?) where he first learned the secrets of Bruce and Dick when they staggered home in costume one night, Batman bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his torso.
#2. In what may have been the first Batman comic I ever bought with my own money (as opposed to a few gifts from my parents) in 1982, Batman #347, a man recounts a story he heard about a prison breakout where Batman started stalking a bunch of escaped convicts in the woods and one of them got off a lucky shot that wounded him, but didn't seem to stop him. (The convicts ended up getting all nervous in the darkness that night and shooting each other full of holes - it's not clear to me if Batman deliberately triggered that somehow, or just took advantage of it when it happened.)
#3. Several months later, in Batman #354, there is a stark moment when Batman is on a "Wanted Poster" and has just had words with the current police commisioner, a slimy political hack named Pauling, and then is shot in the back by a police sergeant with a rifle, acting on Pauling's orders, as he tries to leave the Gotham Police Headquarters compound. Batman still gets away somehow (probably motivated to superhuman exertion by the suspicion that if Pauling caught him, his life expectancy could then be measured in minutes), but was out of action for the remainder of the story.