Deadshot has been featured in Batman titles about 20 times by my count, versus a handful of times against the Justice League and maybe twice against Superman.
Yes, he's
appeared plenty of times in Batman's books. They've even fought on a handful of occasions, but how many times has Lawton actually tried to
kill Batman? Answer: surprisingly few. Like I said before: during the instances where they've directly fought, he
almost always pulls his shots around Batman.
Is this really an issue? Yeah, he's expanded beyond Batman. Yeah, in current continuity, they don't fight as much. But when you're considering who is and who isn't in someone's rogues gallery, you take an overall view. It's not a matter of "they hate each other now" - things change all the time in comics.
Deadshot hasn't
really changed his stance on this since as far back as the mid 80's by my count, and that was still relatively fresh after he was brought back in Strange Apparitions, after his initial origin story. The vaaaaast majority of his criminal career (and almost
all of his development as a character) since that time has had nothing to do with Batman, hence why I don't think he should be consider a Bat rogue.
So, no, despite what The Guard wrote above, Deadshot is not "traditionally" a Batman villain. "Traditionally," Floyd is independent of Batman's corner of the DCU. It's only when he deviates from the norm that he comes into conflict with Batman.
Hell, Bane and Batman made nicey nice for a while, but it didn't get Bane kicked out of the gallery.
The difference is that Bane spent over half the years since his debut trying to kill or cripple Batman (and the fact that those stories were big epic events). If he and Bats are still on good terms in the comics twenty years from now, and he makes leaps and bounds as a character outside of any stories relating at all to Batman, then I wouldn't count him as a Bat villain either.
Catwoman hasn't been in direct conflict with Batman for the better part of twenty years; she's more of a Bat-family member now than anything, but she's still considered part of the gallery.
Not by me. If she were in a movie, then yeah, show her stealing stuff. But we then get a better look at her character and motivations as the movie unfolds and we see that she doesn't want to kill Batman either, assuming that we want them to stay true to the character. Just like Mr. Lawton.
He was introduced in Batman.
Inconsequential.
He's fought him more than any other hero.
Might be relevant if I were arguing that Deadshot was a Flash villain.
He's been in one his animated movies, he's been in one of his video games.
If Gorilla Grodd appeared in a Batman movie and videogame, would people think he was a Bat rogue?
He's got two pages devoted to him in the Batman Encyclopedia.
You might actually have something there, depending on how much of his entry relates to confrontations with Batman and emphasis on his relationship to the hero.
Do I think he should be picked over a more prominent member of Batman's rogues? I don't know, depends on the story Nolan wants to tell. And if he chose to use Deadshot, there'd be more than enough justification for it. It's not like he's Silver Banshee or Atomic Skull, for Jiminy Crickets.
It would make sense, especially if Nolan also uses Strange. One of Deadshot's most famous and memorable moments is during Strange Apparitions.
Alright. Stepping back and looking and at this from a practical standpoint of how Deadshot could play out in a feature length movie while still being true to the character.
Let's say Deadshot is set to appear in the next Batman movie. Cool? Okay, so how do you explain why Floyd (a man with nigh-perfect aim) never shoots Batman in the head 0.5 seconds into the fight? The
Gotham Knight movie never explained it, which reduced Deadshot to just another guy with guns vs. Batman and took away his entire gimmick as a character. And in the heat of the moment when you're watching that movie, you might even let the lapse in his abilities slide, since it was a brief fight in a brief movie and the creators don't take time to let the audience think about it.
But how do they do it in a 2 hour movie, where events like that are naturally decompressed and reflected on? Let's say that Strange hires Floyd to kill Batman. What does Lawton say when Hugo asks him why he doesn't just shoot Bats in the face? Either Deadshot doesn't want Batman dead (immediately de-fanging him as a threat to Batman), or he actually
is trying to kill Batman, but still keeps missing his shots. Now if Deadshot unintentionally misses his shots, what's the difference between him and just another crook with a gun?