Tim, who had to watch Bruce skin a man alive like a piece of salmon with a batarang for saying something rude about his then deceased son, throw him in the back of the Batmobile, and drive him to the hospital just to beat him up again:

After Lex Luthor tried to ruin Clark's life:

The answer is not "because he's a superhero" and it has nothing to do with his parents either

Let's for a moment travel back to the 1930s. Batman is introduced in 1938. Between 1938 and 1939 Batman kills around 9 or 10 people. His first murder of pushing someone into a vat of acid was flashbacked to in the 2010s. It's still very canon.

In the early days of Detective Comics, there was a flashback to an 8-ish-year-old Bruce Wayne. He vowed, on a candle for the death of his parents, to commit war on all criminals. And so he did.

Yet in 1940 there was a shift in Detective Comics status quo. A needed change more necessary to the Batman mythos than the Joker or Catwoman... Dick Grayson. Without whom the Batman series would have likely never started.

And I say Dick Grayson and not Robin because it was the little boy who watched his parents die and decided to follow Batman instead of going to the police, which led to the next candlelight vow. A vow made before Robin was to fight crime and corruption but never swerve from the path of righteousness. Murder is not righteous.

And so, for the next 80s years, it was clear. Batman and Robin did not kill. They did not do anything but fight corruption.

So when you ask Bruce Wayne does he have exceptions to his rule of murder? and the answer always seems to point in the direction of the flickering light of a dying Dick Grayson, there is your answer.

When you see Dick Grayson nearly rabid in his defense that Bruce couldn't have killed tearing at him, there is your shadowed precedent for why it would have been so specifically egregious to Dick Grayson.

When you see Dick Grayson's horrible guilt about not protecting Blockbuster and crying he killed him and Bruce grabbing his jaw and saying there is a difference between firing a bullet and failing to step in front of one it's reaffirming that Dick never stepped off their path never.

And when you read the Crisis plotlines, you understand why Bruce and Dick keep talking about candles and who is lighting whose way. All on this path of the righteous.

So tl;dr:

Bruce: we need an expert marksman for this job

Oliver: *getting ready to stand up to fully accept Bruce’s praise*

strongest in DC but loose

to ADHD?