10 Superheroes Who Broke Their Own Rules

The Golden Age version of Batman used a gun. Everyone knows this because there's always that one guy who has to go "but he used guns before!" when someone talks about the times that Batman broke this special rule of his.

At the time, he was more akin to the pulp heroes of the time like The Shadow or the Spider (not to be confused with Peter Parker going by The Spider during the 90s) but that isn't the iconic version of the character that everyone knows. It's the Earth-1 version, so using that as an example of him using guns is a cheat in the same way that using Elseworlds, films and cartoon versions of him would be.

Rather, there's two very specific times, outside of mind control, that the definitive Batman has used a gun. The most well-known is in the event Final Crisis. Darkseid's forces have taken over Earth, enslaving 99.999% of the population, everything is going to pot.

With very little hope left, Batman takes matters into his own hand. Using the bullet that killed the New God, Orion, that kicked off the official Final Crisis miniseries, he gives a small speech about never breaking his No Gun rule, before drawing a gun and firing it into the reincarnated Darkseid.

While the shot doesn't kill Darkseid, leading to Batman being "killed" by his Omega Beam, it is the most prominent example of him addressing and breaking his top rule.