I suppose it depends on one's depiction. What I mean is, Gotham from the outside, probably seems like the same since Batman has appeared, but I'm sure under the surface you would see that actually, it has changed. Batman has followers and probably even a cult, that he obviously wouldn't have if he weren't there. More people are willing to stand up now because this Batman did it first, he created a chain effect. Yeah more villains appear, but more people I bet are willing to believe and do something about that because Batman does it than if he weren't there. People look up to Batman. Now how big of an effect does that have in Gotham? Well, who knows, but even the smallest change is still change. As in crime rates, I assume just the presence of Batman would lower it as especially the lower-tier criminals wouldn't want to chance running into him. Then again there would be gangs who would want to try and kill Bats for the big bucks, so. It's almost like saying, if you put a group of police officers in a certain area, would that discourage or encourage people to go to that area?
And not killing doesn't mean not dealing with them, but finding other means of dealing with them. I.E. Spider-Man webs criminals up to let the police and the law deal with them. Also that's why Ravencroft was invented, or Arkham Asylym. I get what you mean though, Virtigo was going to escape, if he wasn't killed, he probably would have again. Merlyn would probably get out of anything regarding the law, so then what do you do? So I agree that they both needed to die.(Though the latter mgiht not even be dead)
I also partially agree with you on Ollie, however he should only kill those that cannot be contained or are to dangerous not too.
Yay a fellow spidey fan!
