What makes batman more than a vigilante?

Question

What makes batman more than a vigilante?

Answer 1

The abilities that his bat suit, bat car, and other superhero gear gives him.

Thats about it though, realistically, all superheroes, batman included, are vigilates, as they are not formal police officers.  I suppose that Batman might be the closest to being an actual Peace Officer, as he works with Police Commissioner Gordon- maybe he deputized the Bat to make it all legal.

Answer 2

When Batman was first introduced in "Detective Comics" back in 1937, the police were trying to arrest him and there was so debate among the general public as to if Batman was a criminal himself or a vigilante. Batman's case of having to fight crime while being chased by the police himself was hardly unprecedented, since police had even tried to arrest Superman, without any luck, months before Batman entered the scene, and the Green Hornet had also be chased by the police in his radio program.

In "Batman" #5, an issue that came out in early 1941, in a story titled "The People VS Batman," Batman and Robin were given the status of legal deputies in Gotham City. I can also remember stories from the fifties in which they were given the same legal status in London and in a fictional town somewhere in the southwest. Batman even had the legal status of a lawman on another world in another planetary system in a story, "Batman, Interplanetary Policeman," from the early fifties.

In comics, Batman has enjoyed the status of being much more than a mere vigilante, and he also enjoyed the same legal status in his own newspaper strip which ran for over a decade. There were two Batman movie serials in the forties, and Batman and Robin worked with the police in both of them. On the "Batman" television program and in the first movie titled "Batman," Batman and Robin worked with the police and were highly respected by them.

Only in movies since the second "Batman" movie in the late eighties has Batman's statuse with the police been different than it was in the comics and the first series of Batman movies didn't really treat his status as a vigilante consistantly. Unfortunately, the audience for movies is so much larger than the audience for comics that the general public is almost always going to get most of their impressions about the nature of Batman from the most recent Batman movie (the only thing that could cause a bigger impression on the general public would be a regular Batman television program which is something I really hope not to see). I do not like Nolan's  Batman movies because he is reinventing the character at the expense of Batman's considerable history in comics and other mediums, but my refusal to buy tickets to Nolan's Batman movies is not going to effect the general impression Nolan's movies will make for several years. Lord only knows what Batman's status with the police will be in the next Batman movie.

Answer 3

Nothing, this is a point constantly made by opponents of the Batman throughout the comics. Both the authorities and the criminals accuse him of being a masked vigilant who is little better than the criminals that he fights.

I suppose that a Batman fan would say that his refusal to take a human life sets him apart, as does his moral stance.