Comics / Spotlight

They Call it the Batman Shooting


By Hervé St-Louis
July 20, 2012 - 16:27

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On Friday night July 20, 2012, for the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in the city of Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado, masked man James Holmes threw a smoke bomb in a theatre packed with movie goers and then purposefully discharged firearms into the audience. As of this writing, twelve victims were killed in the tragedy and many more have been injured. ComicBookBin extends its sincere condolences to the families and friends of victims of the so-called Batman shooting.

But Batman is not about shooting. As every comic book nerd knows, Batman has a strict policy against using weapons in his fight against crime in Gotham City and elsewhere. Calling this sorry event the Batman shooting dirties the reputation of one the most anti-gun super hero in history. Again, the tie to comics and the violence within will attract eventual condemnation by the usual suspects. The contents within comics, which are no more violent than other media and their readers will make a lot of people pointing fingers at the world of comic books and its readers, instead of the real factors that influenced James Holmes. Attacks from the types who agree with The Seduction of the Innocent will soon attack the world of comics, because Batman is a comic book character. The fantasy he represents has long crossed to every other medium, but it doesn’t matter. Batman is a comic book, and comic books, according to many are at the root of a lot of evil.

They are not. Fans of comic books know that it’s a medium about imagination and possibilities and storytelling, where any type of story can be told, wretched or wholesome. I’m hoping that the attack in Colorado will not deter anyone from going to see Batman’s latest movie. The Dark Knight Rises deserves to succeed or fail on its own merit and not because of the actions of a lone madman.


Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12

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