Batman: The Dark Knight Tosses

It's the 30th day on our trek through the 32 Game Endings of Christmas! With the recent success of Akrham City and the hype surrounding The Dark Knight Rises, Batman couldn't be hotter. While it may not be as ambitious as Rocksteady's recent work, SunSoft's 8-bit Batman game quickly became one of the best superhero games of its era. Unfortunately, it had an ending that seemed to go against everything the Caped Crusader stood for. Find out what I mean when you punch out another episode of the 32 Game Endings of Christmas!

Previously On Batman: By now you know the story. Bruce Wayne's parents were gunned down in a dark alley when he was just a kid. Since then he has pushed his body to the limit in order to effectively eliminate the crime problem from Gotham City. He does this by using his inherited wealth to devise new technologies, vehicles and, yes, those wonderful toys.

In this particular adventure, Batman is forced to go up against his arch-nemesis, the Joker. It seems that the Artist Formerly Known as Jack Napier has a new plan to unleash a chemical attack on the innocent people of Gotham City. Thankfully Bats has swooped in to save the day. Through city streets, sewers, museums and an old abandoned church tower, the Joker sends our hero on an epic quest. Although the game is largely based on the plot of the 1989 Tim Burton movie, SunSoft has introduced a bevy of new bad guys and bosses.

How It Ended: If there's one thing I have learned from the Batman comic books (as well as Christopher Nolan's recent reboot), it's that the Dark Knight doesn't kill his enemies. He'll knock them out, tie them up and even throw them in the direction of the police, but he doesn't kill them. It's part of his code; he's an ethical super hero. Killing his enemies would put him on their level, something he has fought his whole life to avoid. You can take it to the bank; Batman is totally, 100% against killing people.

That is, unless it's at the end of this 8-bit video game. In this violent retelling, the caped crusader literally throws the Joker off the bell tower, sending the arch-villain to his doom. We then see several shots of the Joker crashing into the street below, clearly dead. Of course, that's not how the original movie ended. Batman tied up the joker as he tried to escape, ultimately sending him falling to his death. The end result may have been the same, but I would argue that there's a world of difference between deliberately a guy off a church tower and Batman using his wonderful toys to tie the Joker up. This turns Batman into a killer, something we should not put up with in our superheroes. For shame, Bruce.

How It Should Have Ended: After getting home from a long day of murdering people, Batman has a heart-to-heart with Alfred the butler. The old man chastises Bruce for letting his emotions get to him and doing the unthinkable. They then segue into an interesting conversation about how many movies and video games end with people falling to their death. We see that in most of the Star Wars films, several of the entries in this 32 Game Endings of Christmas feature, Jurassic Park and most of these SunSoft-produced video games. They conclude that this is the least violent way to kill a man on film, as it is largely left up to the imagination of the viewer. Sure it's a boring ending, but the twelve film nerds in the audience were captivated.