Batman ain't perfect. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 20 Worst Things the Dark Knight Has Ever Done.
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00:00 What the hell are you doing?
00:03 The right thing.
00:05 Trust me.
00:06 You've gone crazy!
00:07 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 worst things
00:12 the Dark Knight has ever done.
00:14 We'll be looking at every version of Bruce Wayne.
00:17 Beware of spoilers ahead.
00:19 My actions don't require any defense.
00:21 In the same situation, I'd do it again.
00:23 Aw, come on!
00:26 Number 20, the Grim Knight implants a bomb in Alfred's neck.
00:30 We know Batman detests guns, but what if guns were all he cared about?
00:35 You'd basically get Punisher Batman.
00:37 In this alternate Earth, Bruce Wayne struck Joe Chill down with Chill's gun.
00:42 This action sent him down a very different path.
00:45 Joe!
00:46 Hey Joe!
00:47 Stop calling him hot!
00:50 As the Grim Knight, this Bruce kept Gotham City under a very tight watch and had eliminated
00:55 crime through extreme force.
00:57 He even put a bomb in his butler's neck.
01:00 When Alfred finally had enough of this Bruce's extreme ways, he decided to leave.
01:04 The butler knew Bruce could detonate the bomb he implanted into his neck, and he still walked
01:09 away, risking death.
01:11 But it might also mean saving your life.
01:16 And that is more important.
01:20 It's wild that Batman would do that to his own father figure.
01:24 Number 19, verbally abused a critically injured Victor Sage.
01:28 After Victor Sage, better known as The Question, was beaten and dumped into a river, it looks
01:33 certain that he was dead.
01:35 Through a convoluted explanation that ultimately screamed, "because the plot needs it," the
01:39 beaten vigilante actually survived.
01:42 The Question.
01:43 You reversed the generator's frequency, sent them back.
01:46 Had to go undercover on this for a while, but I knew you'd find some way to keep them
01:50 busy.
01:51 While the injured Vic is resting, Batman pays him a visit.
01:54 The Dark Knight lays into him, and basically says he needs to get serious about crime fighting.
02:03 We don't understand why he couldn't wait until after Vic was out of the hospital to berate
02:08 him.
02:09 If there's an HR union for superheroes, we'd recommend Question talk to them about this
02:13 hospital meeting.
02:15 Number 18, summon bats to disfigure an already defeated villain.
02:19 During the "on the outside" story arc of Detective Comics, a new villain named Karma arrived
02:25 looking for revenge against Batman and his allies.
02:28 Originally, a self-proclaimed Markovian freedom fighter named Fleet Delmar, the villain committed
02:33 several heinous attacks.
02:35 At one point, he was intercepted by Batman.
02:38 But Batman didn't just beat him.
02:40 He exposed Fleet to fear gas and summoned bats to attack him.
02:44 What is that?
02:45 Back up.
02:46 What's that?
02:47 The attack was alleged to be so bad that the bats permanently damaged the villain's eyes.
02:56 We're not siding with Karma or anything, but we can see why he has it out for Batman.
03:01 After all, Bruce knows exactly how scary bats can be.
03:05 Why bats, Master Wayne?
03:07 Bats frighten me.
03:08 It's time my enemies shared my dread.
03:12 Number 17, left a permanent boot print on a criminal.
03:16 Batman gives villains the boot on the regular, but this incident was a little more literal.
03:20 Originally, a measly thug working for Terminus, Bootface picked a fight with Batman and lost
03:26 horribly.
03:27 When the Dark Knight kicked the villain right in the face, it happened to be just as the
03:31 antagonist was trying to smoke Batman with a flamethrower.
03:35 Believe me, I'll do it!
03:40 I believe you.
03:43 I believe you.
03:49 This unfortunate timing caused Bootface's skin to be scarred with a now permanent boot
03:53 print on his face.
03:55 It's not Batman's fault that Bootface chose to operate a flamethrower at the time of the
03:59 incident.
04:00 However, the villain might be a lot less angry if the Dark Knight didn't go for the face.
04:08 Number 16, infected Cyborg with malware.
04:17 This particular offense takes place in a world in which Superman became a brutal tyrant following
04:22 the death of Lois Lane.
04:24 While Batman continues to maintain that some lines should not be crossed, what he did to
04:28 Cyborg was apparently fair game.
04:30 The Dark Knight reveals that he infected his technically enhanced ally Cyborg with a virus
04:35 the very week they met.
04:38 This gave Bruce an emergency on/off switch in case he ever needed to incapacitate the
04:42 powerful hero.
04:43 Even Killer Croc, who witnesses the reveal, can't help but call out the moot.
04:48 When that villain is calling you out for being brutal, you know you've crossed the line.
04:53 Number 15, erased Robin's memory and returned him to the orphanage.
05:03 The Golden Age of comics was the launching point for many iconic superheroes, but it
05:07 was also an era with some of the most ludicrous stories imaginable.
05:11 In the Out of Continuity issue 153 of The World's Finest, Batman thinks Superman is
05:16 responsible for the murder of his father.
05:19 Robin correctly points out how absurd that is and is rewarded with a slap for his troubles.
05:24 Oh, and yes, it's that iconic slap that all the memes are from.
05:28 This extremely unreasonable Batman then hypnotizes Robin to forget he knew him.
05:34 To follow up, the Dark Knight returns his sidekick to the orphanage he got him from.
05:38 It's no wonder Dick has issues with Batman later on in life.
05:51 Number 14, interrogating Penguin.
05:54 This interrogation quickly went south for the Penguin.
05:57 During Batman, The Dark Knight, the hero went to Penguin for information on Don Golden's
06:02 whereabouts.
06:03 And when he wasn't satisfied, he turned to violence.
06:07 Batman is no stranger to beating information out of people.
06:10 If anything, it's one of his hallmarks.
06:20 But this was a beatdown that got far too extreme.
06:23 He started breaking Penguin's limbs.
06:26 Although the villain begs and pleads, the Dark Knight doesn't stop.
06:30 It took Killer Croc knocking Batman out cold in order to finally put a stop to this brutality.
06:36 We never thought we'd say this, but thanks Croc.
06:46 Number 13, tried to force Robin to eat rats.
06:56 Frank Miller has hit a lot of home runs when it comes to Batman, but this was not one of
07:01 those times.
07:02 The extremely divisive all-star Batman and Robin revealed some horrible information in
07:07 regards to Dick Grayson.
07:09 Upon taking him in, Batman placed him inside of the Batcave as part of an insane training
07:14 regimen.
07:15 Robin was told to eat rats to survive.
07:18 Look, if you don't want to feed him with a silver spoon, that's fine.
07:21 But we think a billionaire crime fighter could physically and emotionally afford to order
07:26 a pizza for his sidekick.
07:33 Number 12, beat Mad Hatter and threw him into a lake.
07:44 Mad Hatter may have been due for a beating, but this was more like an execution.
07:49 After Jervis Tetch killed Batman's lover Natalia Trusovich, he sought revenge.
07:54 Bruce was consumed by his rage, and even smiled once he tracked Tetch down knowing full well
07:59 what he was planning to do.
08:01 He pummeled away at Mad Hatter so much that Alfred actually begs for Batman to stop.
08:07 The Dark Knight ends his assault by tossing the villain into a lake.
08:11 While Batman's grief was more than understandable, this was an especially brutal beatdown for
08:16 the relatively low tier Mad Hatter.
08:28 Number 11, becoming the Red Death.
08:31 What happens when you add a Dark Knight and the Flash together?
08:34 One gigantic mess.
08:43 After losing all his Robins, the Dark Multiverse Batman of Earth -52 decided to enter the Speed
08:50 Force.
08:51 He thought he could utilize super speed to finally eradicate crime.
08:55 In order to get there, he used the weapons of Flash's rogues against the speedy hero.
09:01 Batman then strapped the Scarlet Speedster to the hood of his Batmobile.
09:04 Through some pure comic book shenanigans, Bruce and Barry became fused together into
09:09 the Red Death.
09:10 If you thought Batman wasn't scary enough, him now having super speed and a killer instinct
09:15 meant game over for everyone.
09:32 Number 10, creating Brother Eye.
09:35 Where do we even begin with this one?
09:37 Maybe with the fact that Batman could have righted this error earlier had he not ignored
09:41 the warnings of his old colleague and friend, Blue Beetle.
09:45 The bug themed hero instead gets killed for Bruce's mistakes.
09:49 But we've gotten ahead of ourselves.
09:51 Taking his contingency planning to new heights, Batman once built a secret satellite called
09:56 Brother Eye to monitor superheroes.
09:59 Sure enough, it got compromised and a villain used it to try to kill all meta-humans.
10:04 It only got worse though, as Brother Eye later became sentient and tried to conquer and homogenize
10:10 the world.
10:12 Everyone would have been better off without this surveillance too.
10:16 Number 9, keeping records on his Justice Pals.
10:24 A master tactician who always plans for the worst, Batman's got contingencies in place
10:29 for seemingly every possibility, including his super friends turning on him.
10:34 The issue is, much like his peers, Batman himself is also not infallible.
10:39 In stories like JLA, Tower of Babel, and Justice League Doom, those plans aren't nearly as
10:45 safe as he would have you believe.
10:47 Both stories see supervillains get their hands on the contingencies and twist them so they
10:52 become fatal.
10:53 These altered plans nearly succeeded in ripping apart multiple versions of the Justice League.
10:59 Next time Batman, maybe just keep mental notes instead.
11:02 Whoever implemented my plans altered them.
11:05 It's still a completely unacceptable breach of our trust.
11:08 Number 8, passing on his sidekick to promote an unstable newcomer.
11:13 It always seemed pretty obvious that should the day come that Bruce Wayne needed to retire
11:17 as Batman, Dick Grayson, his first Robin, would take over.
11:22 And everyone assumed that would happen when Bruce Wayne was taken out of commission by
11:26 the devious and powerful Bane.
11:28 However, we were all proven wrong.
11:31 After dismissing Tim Drake's suggestion of contacting Nightwing, Bruce instead passes
11:35 his identity onto a new vigilante in town named Jean Paul Valli.
11:40 This particular candidate had a known history of instability and difficulties controlling
11:45 his extremely violent impulses.
11:47 But no, you're right Bruce, Dick is too busy.
11:51 Best to go with the complete wild card.
11:53 Number 7, mistreating his fiance.
11:56 In Batman, The Widening Gyre, serial bachelor and playboy Bruce Wayne finally meets his
12:02 match or rather reconnects with her in the shape of former flame Silver Saint Cloud.
12:07 The story sees the two lovers reunited and soon enough, they're on the fast track to
12:12 marriage.
12:13 Being Batman however, the happier Bruce is, the more conflicted and paranoid he becomes.
12:19 Almost immediately after becoming engaged, he runs her off the road.
12:24 Batman also roughly goes after her hair to make sure she's not a robot.
12:28 Although Silver soon forgives him, it's still hard to look at the Dark Knight the
12:32 same way after this.
12:34 Number 6, setting a Robin's girlfriend down the wrong path.
12:43 When you take a teenage sidekick under your wing, it comes with a certain level of responsibility.
12:48 Not only to keep them alive, but to set a good example.
12:52 And Batman played this all wrong.
12:54 When Tim Drake quits as Robin, Batman rebounds by hiring Tim's girlfriend, Stephanie Brown.
13:00 This was despite the fact that the Dark Knight previously expressed his doubts about her
13:04 abilities.
13:06 After a single mistake, he promptly fires her and forbids her from fighting crime, a
13:11 move that has made many fans suspect that he was simply trying to make Tim Drake jealous.
13:16 It's the fallout of Batman's actions that really hurt though.
13:20 Stephanie's attempts to prove herself eventually culminate in her apparent death.
13:25 Great job Batman!
13:34 Number 5, Batman gets intimate near burning villains.
13:38 Courtesy of Frank Miller, the much maligned all-star Batman and Robin is basically the
13:43 worst and most offensive take on Batman you'll ever read.
13:47 In this particular issue, Batman yells nonsensically aggressive banter at a group of armed thieves.
13:53 He uses the bleach they've stolen to make a Molotov cocktail and set them all on fire.
13:59 All the while, Black Canary is watching him work.
14:02 She gets so hot and bothered about all the carnage that she decides to start an intimate
14:07 encounter with Batman right at the scene of the crime.
14:11 The combination of sex and death here was way too much for most fans to handle.
14:16 Number 4, leaving a villain to starve underground.
14:20 In issue number 4 of Batman, the Caped Crusader can be seen telling Robin that they quote
14:26 "never kill with weapons of any kind," a philosophy that would evolve into a strict no-killing
14:31 rule over the years.
14:33 But it would seem that, decades later, Batman was still willing to toy with the definition
14:38 of "killing."
14:39 In 1988's Batman #420, realizing that he is incapable of besting the KG Beast, Batman
14:46 locks the man in the sewer and walks away in a panel that strongly insinuates that he
14:51 was leaving him to die.
14:53 It was retconned by a later writer.
14:56 However, if you look at in terms of how it originally went down, the Dark Knight gave
15:00 someone a slow and painful death sentence.
15:05 Number 3, a strange killing spree.
15:16 Once upon a time, Batman was a character without clear editorial guidelines, and by extension,
15:22 he was a hero without consistent moral guidelines.
15:25 Back in the early days, the Caped Crusader was what you might call "kill crazy."
15:30 After having made a name for himself in the pages of Detective Comics, the Dark Knight
15:34 got his very own eponymous title.
15:37 To celebrate, he went on a killing spree.
15:39 First, he dispatched of Hugo Strange by punching him out of a window to his apparent demise,
15:45 and then proceeds to deal with Strange's henchmen.
15:48 Despite them being asylum patients, the Dark Knight dispatches them with machine gun fire.
15:53 We thought Batman was about justice, not vengeance.
16:04 Number 2, letting Lord Deathman suffer for eternity.
16:08 The Dark Knight has played a little fast and loose with his definition of killing in the
16:12 past.
16:13 There was a time where Batman faced off against the obscure relic from 60s comics, Lord Deathman.
16:18 The Dark Knight once again creatively works his way around his own no-killing rule by
16:23 condemning this villain to "a fate worse than death."
16:27 Seriously, those are the words from Batman's own mouth.
16:30 Knowing that this villain frequently fakes his own death and is actually immortal, Batman
16:35 opts to lock him in a safe.
16:37 The "hero" then sentences the villain to exile in space to live eternally in confinement.
16:44 While Batman seems rather cavalier about the whole thing, it's super messed up.
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17:04 Number 1, killing the Joker and becoming the Darkest Knight.
17:08 In a reality where Batman loses his cool and kills the Joker, he also inhaled a toxin from
17:14 the clown that warps his mind.
17:16 "He was laughing.
17:18 He laughed at me because he won.
17:22 You and Barbara were right.
17:23 This whole game I should have stopped playing a long time ago."
17:27 From that point on, Bruce goes on to commit a series of horrible crimes.
17:32 He infects his own son with Joker venom, kills members of the Justice League, and makes Superman
17:37 and his son get into a fight to the death.
17:39 And that's just the crimes he committed in his home universe.
17:43 Now known as the Batman Who Laughs, this twisted Bruce journeyed into the multiverse to wreak
17:49 more havoc.
17:50 It's hard to quantify how much death and destruction he spread.
17:54 The Darkest Knight's rise would have never occurred if he had just let the Joker live.
17:59 "You are beneath us, Joker."
18:02 What's a moment that you think put the Dark in the Dark Knight?
18:05 Shine a bat signal towards it in the comments below.
18:08 "It was cruel, selfish, and had horrible consequences.
18:12 Oh, if you only meant it."
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