I never knew what to infer from a certain scene (or panel) from The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller related to the ransom of the Ridley Chewing Gum heir.
After getting rid of the big mutant Batman grabs the mutant's machine gun and shoots another, to rescue the kid. She threatened Batman "I'll kill him", Batman shoots, then there is this panel I don't know what to think of: Batman cradles the child to his chest emblem and he says "I believe you".
There is an interpretation of this scene in the animated movie of The Dark Knight Returns, but this movie is changing some other things from the comic book here and there, and I don't know how much is true to Miller's original intentions in this scene.
It is not only that Batman is using a fire arm here (which he clearly hates). The lack of explanation and Miller's drawing style make the panel quite ambiguous (at least for me). That thing on the wall seems to be blood (but, given what happened to mutant Spot the blood may not be necessarily hers). Is she dead (Batman believed she would kill the child and there was no other thing to do but to kill her)? Is she just wounded? In shock or fear? Given Miller's style and what we have, is it even possible to know what happened for sure?
What was Frank Miller's intention on this panel?