10 Reasons Why The Justice League Cartoon Is Better Than The Film

6. Batman Had A Proper No-Gun Rule

Justice League Batman Lex
Warner Bros.

At this point, it would probably be safe to start calling Bat-fleck Gun-fleck, because from BVS all the way through Justice League, it's become increasingly apparent that he's fond of firearms.

And yet, anyone who's ever picked up a Batman comic straight up knows that that isn't what the character's about. He hates the things, and again, that's made plain for all to see in Justice League's closing episodes, where Bats is forced to fend off an alien invasion with nothing but his nous and the scraps lying in his utility belt.

Immediately preceding this is a sequence where the Deadman (Boston Brand), possesses Batman to save a life. Forgoing Bats' no gun and no killing rule, Brand snatches a stray pistol and shoots Devil Ray, forcing him onto an exposed control panel where he's promptly electrocuted and never heard from again.

Batman, incensed by the intervention, reiterates his no-gun policy and proceeds to illustrate its salience when again, he rejects one of Luthor's weapons as Darkseid's Parademons show up. It's a character trait every adaptation, in theory, should be able to follow, and yet the DCEU continues to perplex in how it divests from that premise entirely.

Advertisement
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.