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Batman was a CEO of a company.
not to mention he’s a psycho himself. instead of using his seemingly infinite wealth to engage in any real systemic change, he puts on a fucking bat costume and prances at night to beat the shit out of low level goons while letting the biggest maniacs and the ones leading these gangs run away every time.
instead of using his seemingly infinite wealth to engage in any real systemic change, he puts on a fucking bat costume and prances at night to beat the shit out of low level goons
Some of the better Batman comics introduce him as skilled detective, rather than a superhero whose power is infinite money.
Like any good crime thriller, his work starts with some innocuous crime or tragedy that gets swiftly covered up by corrupt police. Batman steps in as a noir vigilante, listening to the witnesses everyone else ignored and tracing the crime back to the low-level thugs who serve as pawns in a much bigger game. He extorts them for information in order to move on to bigger fish - the crime boss who runs the docks or the sleazy businessman who thought he could pay to make a problem go away - and uncovers a deeper systematic corruption. He runs into various freaks and geeks - your two-faced DA or your web-fingered club owner - who facilitate the city-spanning crime. And, in the climax, he discovers the whole system is rotten, even to the point where his own Wayne Enterprises is complicit in these cruelties.
He discovers the limits of vigilantism, its not just a question of biting into a few bad apples, but tearing the rotten tree out of the earth root-and-branch. And he realizes its too much for one man to change. So he goes back to that first original witness/victim, and he brings him back to his cave. And he sets himself to training this survivor of a broken system how to fight crime like he does.
The best Batman stories aren’t the ones where he punches a Clown Prince out of a factory window. Its ones in which he pulls another scared child out of the wreckage of his parents’ home and gives him a second chance at life.
Wish we had this instead of a growling guy in a mask headbutting a clown
I don’t mean to direct this at only you, but I hate this take. There are plenty of comics that dive into this, him using his wealth to help Gotham, the city just had too many problems. Court of Owls for instance, the group that is always watching Gotham and influencing it state and its key figures.
don’t worry i don’t take it personally. I’ll look into the court of owls.
One of my favorites story arcs. I do agree with you to some degree though because there are a lot of comic book writers that have a habit of romanticizing his wealth, that’s why he does come off as a “typical billionaire” most often. Then it is up to the next writers to mitigate the damage. Comics are tricky like that, you just have to pick and choose your own head canon.
Well he did have his parents murdered in front of him as a child.
That shit twists people.
i mean yeah, I’d totally support this angle but DC usually uses him as the moral compass of the entire universe while making Superman go nuts instead.
Yeah but he never actually went after the original murder if you notice. He spent his entire time going after lunatics who thought that they were going to take over the city because they had planted a bomb on a bridge or something.
At least Spider-Man actually got vengeance.
Depends on the story.
And that “vengeance” is what taught him that vengeance is dumb, and it’s better to fight to better the world around him than go after people Punisher style.
instead of using his seemingly infinite wealth to engage in any real systemic change
Do we know this? I don’t follow the comics at all but do they ever go into the things Bruce Wayne does as CEO of Wayne Enterprises? I can’t fathom we have gone decades without someone touching on this.
i don’t follow the comics but things that are established that i know of are:
- Bruce Wayne is insanely wealthy
- Uses his wealth for his bat-themed middle age crisis (bat sports car, bat private jet, bat motorcycle, bat gondola probably)
- Other than that the best thing he does for other people is “philanthropy” (in the real world this is a scam by the wealthy) unless you count taking in his
young loversidekick - The police and the politicians are extremely corrupt and are for sale.
Now from all this i gather it would be very easy for Bruce to get actual political power in Gotham to make real change but he doesn’t do it because running around in a furry costume is more fun.
Even apart from that, sneaking around in a costume talking about how you’re the night or the knight or whatever is on its own very cringe and psychotic.
Why do you refuse to answer the comments disproving you?
idk what the hell you’re talking about. there’s one comment that gives reasons, and excuse me for being asleep at the time. other comments are just people being offended on batman’s behalf. that’s not disproving.
Oh no mate, you’ve really upset the adult Batman fans
i know right. i mean we’re in showerthoughts, and some of these people are accusing me of not having inhaled the entire batman anthology. i like two of the comments though, supersaiyanswag and underpantsweevil
So basically you know very little, but have come to the conclusion that he sucks anyway?
dude it’s ok. I’m not going to slap batman comics off of your hands.
Batman WAS the CEO of companies
And there’s no solidarity like class solidarity. Remember Ellen Degeneres hanging out with Bush? Bruce Wayne would’ve been in that skybox too.
“Dark Knight Rises” plot is basically “Bane starts a revolution of the people, and a billionaire must stop him”.
self punch then?
Yes the billionaire that spent a shit ton on money on gadgets to beat up poor people would definitely be a champion of the people
He also beats up rich people, like the Penguin. The Joker and Riddler and all those guys get their crazy gadgets and hordes of minions somehow. They must be rich af
That’s what happens if you take all your knowledge from memes. Good luck.
No he won’t, batman fulfills every billionaires fantasy of dressing up in a costume and beating up poor people.
Yes. Not one really questions why Gotham has such a high crime rate, but where there’s poverty there’s crime. I think we need a working man’s batman.
Someone whose super power isn’t having infinite resources.
That’s the internet pop-psychologist interpretation, but the people actually writing him often have him doing his best to better the Gotham around him. A lot of the petty thugs he catches are given chances to redeem themselves via Wayne based welfare programs.
The former richest man in the world gave away much of his fortune and continues to do so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett#Wealth_and_philanthropy
Bruce Wayne is not like that at all though. He’s in a position where he could actually do something about the problems of Gotham City and decides to go LARPing instead.
To be fair, he beats up a bunch of rich criminals too but he whole thing is really more about his ego than about doing good.
You’re aware he is a CEO of a company?
Batman is a CEO, right?
He just goes after the ones he can beat without much backlash from the public/system.
Imagine if he takes down a CEO. He’d not be able to play batman. Gordon and batman sympathisers would be affected, so Batman’s human connection in the police would be lost. He can hack stuff, but might not always be enough.
He can do other stuff, but he can only do it gradually and much more tactfully.
You’ve got Batman mixed up with the Punisher, OP.
Or Green Arrow, really.
That would work too.
Like Lex Luthor, who hes fought on several occasions? Or more like the Court of Owls, one of his recurring set of villains?
Why do you people make up such obviously false head cannon. This is degenerate shit lol.
Bruce is a billionaire. He’s on their side.
And remember, there’s no ethical billionaires, no matter how much philanthropy they do. Their billions are out there exploiting people.
Philanthropy is just the wealthy justifying their tax avoidance by wanking publically about how giving they are. If they were genuine about their concerns for giving back, they would pay their fucking taxes and at a higher rate. Tax avoidance and financial shit fuckery like corporate bailouts, share buy backs and COVID payments accelerate wealth acruell and drive up inflation and wage stagnation. Fuck. Them. All.
Superman was already going after CEOs when Batman was first created. Batman was always a hero for the right wing.
Is this a ThinBlueLine x Punisher crossover episode?
If Batman was real today, he’d be Donald Trump.
That’s what these (alleged) “super heroes” really are… idealized, ubermensch-esque metaphors for the actual power wielded by the rich and privileged.
In fact, I’d say that Batman is the ultimate Objectivist wet dream - he perfectly personifies the fascist (as Batman) and the capitalist (as Bruce Wayne) in one person. Even Ayn Rand’s creepazoid ancap sugar-daddy “heroes” didn’t manage that.
I once read that Superman was a humble man who faces big exploitative businessmen, while Batman is a big exploitative businessman who stands up to homeless people. The implications of Batman being more popular than Superman today and what this says about our society is enough for a complete essay.
And politicians. Clearly corrupt republican politicians who are trying to destroy democracy for some reason.
