Blood Knight / The DCU

The DCU

Comic Books

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Batman shows Blood Knight tendencies at times. He often tries to make himself not enjoy the violence he inflicts upon criminals, but some pleasure does seep through as this quote from War Crimes shows:
    Batman: Still, doing it this way does have its compensations. My fists fit so nicely into their guts. And impact meat and bone with perfectly satisfying thumps.
  • All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder: Frank Miller takes this side of Batman to an outrageous character breaking degree as Batman is literally burning criminals alive and then having sex with Black Canary because he feels so alive.
  • Bruce's cousin Kate "Batwoman" Kane is similar; she has a tendency to smile or grin before or during her fights, but doesn't take it too far.
  • Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon is an action junkie - plain and simple. In Batgirl: Year One, Babs explains she refuses to have a desk job because she loves fighting. As fighting Killer Moth, she ponders that "Batman would have ended the fight three minutes ago. But he wouldn't be having fun."
  • Lady Shiva has been both protagonist and antagonist depending on the storyline. The only constant to her character is that her life revolves around becoming and remaining the best martial artist she can possibly be — and proving it over the unconscious or dead bodies of as many other "A-List" DC martial artists she can possibly pound on. She had a brief fling trying to be a mentor figure for Black Canary and Robin (Tim Drake).
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): While most of the Holliday Girls like fighting Bobby Strong takes it farther than the rest of the gals, and will taunt enemies who are reconsidering so that she gets to pummel them and attack foes that might have been talked down by her allies if not for her presence. She will also stow away on a plane if she can't get permission to come along to what promises to be a good fight.
  • Wonder Woman (in Post-Crisis and beyond) although she's more often than not portrayed as affectionate, reasonable and a force for peace, being raised by combat-ready Amazonians since she was just a little girl has had this effect on Diana. It's fairly common to see her smiling broadly while fighting demons, gods and any super villains dumb enough to challenge her. The New 52 takes this even further as she's shown having a whale of a time fighting Darkseid, gleefully slaughtering criminals and she even becomes the Goddess of War herself. However, it's subverted as the effects of becoming a god take a heavy toll on Diana, leading to some Freak Out moments for her. DC Rebirth dials it back making Diana much less bloodthirsty although she’s still more eager to hack villains apart with her Cool Sword than her colleagues/friends Superman and Batman would like.
  • Cheetah literally lives off this trope as Barbara Minerva serves the Goddess of the Hunt and seeks to glorify the deity by killing any Worthy Opponent or prey which puts her at odds with Wonder Woman who usually seeks peace. Whenever Cheetah teams up a super villain team her only real goal is to kill Diana and she couldn't care less for planet conquest, unless it spoils her hunting, she even collects the skulls and bones of her prey as trinkets. Her ending in Injustice 2 has her forcing Brainiac (before beheading him) to create a world where she can hunt and kill freely without interference.
  • Ares, naturally. He became Diana's biggest enemy because he is a counterpoint to her efforts to prove mankind is worthy of protecting. Par for the course Ares lives off conflict and fighting him especially on a battlefield will power up to him up. After agreeing to stop trying to incite wars and influence humans he even restyles himself the “The God of Conflict” to get power from any conflict in Wonder Woman (1987). Being the embodiment of war means he has plenty of weaknesses, specifically The Power of Love as well as when war is non-existent on Earth e.g in Injustice where Ares is weakened and on the verge of death due to the lack of conflict thanks to the Regime. In New 52, Ares isn't villainous or blood hungry at all and plays the Mentor Archetype to Diana.
  • Unlike Diana who (outside the New 52 and DC Rebirth) usually prefers to avoid conflict and fighting when at all possible and often talks her opponents down or uses her lasso to make them realize the horror of what they've done/are trying to do, Artemis absolutely loves a good fight. She will charge in and turn a situation into a brawl even if a peaceful resolution is at hand. After some character development she backs down a little from this but she'd still prefer fighting to talk to her opponents.
• Lobo is a massive one, which explains his chosen of profession of intergalactic Bounty Hunter. Lobo will gleefully fight anyone and anything including Superman, the Justice League or Santa Claus (whom he murdered). Lobo also killed his own race and nuked his own planet for a science project... and gave himself an A afterward.
• In Gotham City Garage, Big Barda from the New Gods has spent years trying to break free from Granny Goodness' indoctrination, but even so she's never happier than when she fights.
  Barda: Highfather help me. Even after all there years away from Granny's Forge... I'm never as at home as I am in war.
• Supergirl:
  • Kara Zor-El is quick-tempered, fierce and proactive, and several writers have interpreted her hotbloodedness as a passion for fighting. In Justice League United, the team runs into a gathering of bounty hunters and Kara is giddy because she has to punch them.
    Green Arrow: Sardath said this space station was a bit rough... be ready for anything. Supergirl, I hear voices through that door, can you see through it with your X-Ray vision?
    Supergirl: Oh... This is going to be fun!
    Green Arrow: Hmmm... What is it, Supergirl? A few alien thugs?
    Supergirl: [smiling] No. Much better than that... Bounty hunters. Lots of them.
    Animal Man: ... Oh Crapballs.
  • Last Daughter of Krypton: Super-villain Reign loves to fight and she's very good at it.
  • The Killers of Krypton: As fighting a bar full of aliens, Supergirl cannot help but ponder how much she is enjoying that brawl and wonder whether she is a bad person for admitting it.
  • In Reign of Doomsday, Supergirl actually enjoys engaging Doomsday because she can cut loose and fight without restrain for once.
• Green Lantern:
  • Mongul II is merely one of these at his very best. The arrogant, fight-loving asshole side, however, is almost always supplemented with some of the most disgusting behavior in the DCU. He bit off more than he could chew, however, and holy shit did Sinestro make him pay for it.
  • The one-shot Green Lantern Vol 2 #188: "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" gives us a bounty hunter by the name of Bolphunga the Unrelenting, who hunts down the titular Green Lantern for the fun of it. He ends up... well, relenting... on realizing that Mogo is a planet.
  • Brutus Force has a fight with Green Lantern in "The Fight For the Championship of The Universe!" in Volume 2 Issue 39. Brutus Force is out to prove himself the best fighter and is furious because all the opponents he defeats say that the Green Lantern would be able to defeat him. After he is defeated by the Green Lantern, he threatens anyone who says bad things about the Green Lantern
• In Mastermen #1, Leatherwing of Earth-10 espouses that he only believes in "What's real, dirty... and leaves bruises." His "interrogation" of the Human Bomb included beating him with a baseball bat, and overall he feels similar to the Batman of All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder.
• Suicide Squad:
  • Bronze Tiger first got into martial arts in the hope that they would serve as an outlet for his deep-seated urge to inflict suffering on others. Said urge began back when he was 10 and used a kitchen knife to slaughter a burglar who'd attacked his parents.
    "But what scared me was that I wasn't sorry for killing him. I was sorry it ended so soon."
  • Deadshot, oh so much. Lampshaded by his then-lover Jeanette when she says that one of her previous husbands was "A mad dog killer who pretended it was for money" and goes on to say that he was probably a bit LESS single minded than Deadshot.
  • Catman and Scandal Savage are also very much this trope, and King Shark certainly skirts it as well.
  • It's not a coincidence that so many of the criminals the Squad recruits are like this. Fighting their fellow villains is still fighting, so they take less convincing to go along with it.
• The New 52 version of Rose Wilson from Teen Titans.
• Watchmen:
  • The Comedian gleefully admits that he is also partially this trope along with mostly Psycho for Hire. It's at least to an extent a product of his worldview, as he seems to act this way mostly because he acts the way he feels the world actually is. However unlike truer examples he doesn't take it lightly into being slashed, brutalized and on the receiving end since for him it is less about the challenge and more about thrill-killing.
  • Rorschach as well; his thought bubble upon seeing a rapist accosting a woman in front of him, only to look around and see him is simply "Sometimes the night is generous to me".

Films

Films

• Michael Keaton’s take on the Dark Knight as seen in Batman (1989) and Batman Returns; for a protector of the innocent he is having waaay too much fun taking down criminals with him in the latter film cracking a Slasher Smile at a Why Am I Ticking? Penguin goon before punching him down a grate. There’s also his return in The Flash (2023) where he’s obviously having a whale of a time kicking ass again and even while dying tells Barry not to apologise since this what he truly wanted after years of being a self-hating recluse.
  Bruce: Let’s get nuts.
• Etrigan spent most of Justice League Dark: Apokolips War drinking in a depressed stupor, with only combat situations getting any sort of a rise from him. Even then, he fought in a half-hearted, disinterested manner until he came across something he considered to be a real challenge: a Brainwashed and Crazy Wonder Woman. Even when she ultimately killed him, he died with a satisfied smile on his face.
  Etrigan: And so it ends; my race is run.
  I regret nothing. It was fun.
• Wonder Woman (2009): Artemis loves war and doesn't understand why her academically-inclined sister Alexa wouldn't want to die a warrior's death.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Faora from Man of Steel while she seems likes a dispassionate individual, still clearly loves combat as she smiles in battle, though to be fair she was literally born to be a solider. Faora even spells out in one line claiming "A good death is it's own reward". She's also surprisingly honorable as when Colonel Hardy (a squishy mortal man) challenges her with knife, instead of just flattening him she responds to his gesture pulling out a knife of her own. Her leader, General Zod also has shades of this in the climax sporting a Slasher Smile while fighting Supes but this is may have been due to his Villainous Breakdown at loss of his entire race.
  • Much like her New 52 version, Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman enjoys combat quite a bit in the films. This is first seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice during her fight with Doomsday, whom her teammates Superman and Batman appropriately treat like a horrific threat, while Diana on the other hand is actually having fun fighting the beast◊. In her solo movie there's more than a few instances of Diana cracking a smile and laughing while fighting or doing anything exciting. Although it's important to note while she does enjoy battle, Diana despises needless bloodshed and the death of innocents.
  • Speaking of Wonder Woman (2017) there's the film's Big Bad Ares, who revels in conflict and chaos as per his nature having killed the entire Olympian Pantheon. Though Ares does actually go about his warmongering in smarter ways than just throwing his power around, as he reveals to Diana he's been manipulating and influencing humanity for years without taking direct action himself. Ares genuinely believes Humans Are the Real Monsters and the world would be better off without them, Diana along Steve Trevor prove him wrong with a Heroic Sacrifice and The Power of Love.
  • Arthur Curry aka Aquaman is a Boisterous Bruiser much like his Batman: The Brave and the Bold counterpart who treats armies of enemies and world ending threats like a day at the amusement park. There's many instances in both versions of Justice League and Aquaman of Arthur whooping with glee while fighting his opponents and will happily jump out of airplane without a parachute after his Fiery Redhead Love Interest. Played with a bit: Arthur doesn't start fights (in even in barrooms) without reason, he will show mercy to foes except when given no choice and the aforementioned Diana's Lasso of Truth reveals in Justice League that he is more scared and depressed than he lets on and just uses fearless bravado to cover it up.
  • Justified in SHAZAM! (2019) as Billy Batson is Just a Kid and the unbridled glee he gets out of stopping crime with his newfound powers can be chalked up to immaturity and a lack of responsibility which he eventually gains by the end. Played straight with Freddy and especially Eugene in Final Battle when they get their Super Modes, given Eugene was a diehard Fighting Game fan who was willingly to fight bullies with nunchucks long before he got superpowers, it's unsurprising in his case.
  • Harley Quinn along with other Suicide Squad members such as Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc and to lesser extent Deadshot have far more fun kicking ass and taking names than they should, though since most of them are criminals who only do what The Government tell them to do because of bombs in their heads this is to be expected. Harley in particular at one point in her solo movie gets high on drug fumes and with a smile goes on a One-Woman Army rampage against Black Mask's goons.
  • In The Suicide Squad (besides Harley again) Bloodsport and Peacemaker are both low-key Blood Knights, going about their missions with cool efficiency but often slipping up to reveal how much they love killing. They most noticeably display their wanton lust for ultra-violence while raiding an “enemy” camp— they have a dick-measuring Body-Count Competition like a more violent Legolas and Gimli which only becomes awkward when they discover the camp they massacred was La Résistance.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• Smallville:
  • Phantom Zone escapee Titan is an alien Super-Soldier and Proud Warrior Race guy portrayed by Kane. Having arrived on Earth, he fights his way through biker bars, and criminal hangouts, eventually participating in underground gladiator-style competitions with Meteor Freaks, before finding the ultimate Worthy Opponent in Clark. Think of a Nigh-Invulnerable wrestler with an attitude problem and you've got him.
    Titan: Good fight.
  • Clark becomes one under the influence of Red Kryptonite. Bizarro too, as well as Clark Luthor from Earth-2. Even the normal Clark gets in the act when he is in a bad mood.
    Clark Kent: That all you got? [punches Bizarro into space]

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Hawkgirl in Justice League: "Less talking, more hitting!"
• Teen Titans (2003): Raven could possibly be this — as well as her allies, but she's most notable. God help you if you really piss her off by messing with her friends. She'll kick your ass if you do.
• In Teen Titans Go!, all of the Titans except for Raven have shades of this.

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