Better method of fighting crime:

Please vote for which individual's style of fighting crime is better. Batman or The Punisher.

Batman does not believing in taking the life of another human being unless it's in immediate defense of himself, or others. Even then, he'd rather use less lethal methods, if possible. He studies his criminals, and does his best to ensure they're arrested, charged and convicted.

Pros: Humane. He doesn't believe in taking lives, and has morals. Gets the bad guy dealt with properly by the justice system. No legal or conscious backlash of taking a life when it may not have been necessary.

Cons: On many occasions, they're let go from lack of evidence, or an expired sentence/lenient sentence, and they're back to a life of crime, continuing to do wrong in society. It's happened before.

The Punisher also very closely studies his criminals, but does not have faith in the justice system, so he simply kills them. He knows many criminals fall through the cracks, get out of prison early, or buy their way out, so in his eyes, the only way to end that, is to eliminate them completely from society.

Pros: Eliminates re offenders. If you're dead, you can't buy your way out of prison, or kill someone else when you're released.

Cons: May be considered inhumane, and there's a small chance he could kill the wrong person, who would alternatively, never had a chance to defend himself in a court of law. It's happened before.

In a perfect world, the punisher... unfortunately this world ain't perfect....

To my knowledge, Punisher has NEVER killed an innocent in the books (he did in the second movie, though). In fact, Punisher once had a fan club of sorts who went around killing criminals, and there were three of them. Punisher eventually killed all of them - one was a nutcase who could not be controlled, one was killing people over minor crap like jaywalking, and one was really good at taking out high level corporate pricks who were reaming the public....but he accidentally killed a couple cleaning ladies while doing it. Castle yelled at him that he (Frank) always planned his stuff well enough so that bystanders were never hurt and then shot him.

When Punisher MAX started, Microchip noted that he helped Punisher kill 800 people over 20 years.

Joker once noted that he had killed over 600 innocent people, and this was in the *80's,* he's had time to up that body count considerably since then.

End result - Punisher killed 800 scumbags. Had Batman killed Joker after his first or second rampage, probably about 590 or so INNOCENTS would still be alive (instead, Joker goes to Arkham and routinely escapes every year or so, gets caught by Bats, goes back, escapes again, etc.).

If hundreds of people are going to die, call me crazy, but I prefer they be scumbags and not innocents.

Forget Batman's approach. Joker has killed dozens of kids, and that crap is on Batman's head. However, I will admit it is a big leap for us to believe Punisher never hit an innocent with all the automatic fire and explosions he's laid out over the years.

The problem is Batman is driven by revenge via justice. Punisher is driven by revenge via punishment (aka murder). If Batman killed all the high-level murderers like the Joker, there will be nothing left for him to do. In a way, the Joker gives Batman a "life."

Call me crazy, but it seems Batman's reluctance to kill the Joker, which would have saved nearly 600 lives, is the opposite of what he was trying to do in the first place: save lives.

The Punisher would have put a slug in between the Joker's eyes and end his murderous rampage right then and there, thus saving hundreds of lives down the road. Ironically, Batman would have called the Punisher a psychotic criminal and even arrest him.

So who is the crazy one?