10 Things DC Comics Want You To Forget About Batman

5. He Wasn't Always So Anti-Guns

Once you get past all the obvious stuff - the costume, the motivation, the secret identity, the car - one of the most defining characteristics of Batman's character is that he doesn't kill and, more specifically, he doesn't use guns. That choice is directly informed by his parents' shooting, and it's been an important part of the way he approaches crime-fighting ever since (and exists as a nice excuse for the whole "why doesn't he just kill The Joker cos he always escapes from prison" thing). Every so often, though, the writers forget about this core part of Batman's character. Well, at first he didn't actually even have this particular quirk: he used guns a bunch of times in the early years, as did the pulp heroes the Dark Knight was inspired by; he wielded not just a gun, but the gun that killed his parents (how did he even get that?) in Year Two; oh, and he shot Dracula once, which doesn't count. All of those incidences are no longer part of continuity.