Instead of being trained by Ras Al gul, he’d have been trained under both 4chan and qanon. Instead of working out his emotional demons by maiming henchmen, he’d be an incel shitposting. Instead of Alfred admonishing him to be careful, he admonish Bruce to go outside and socialize once in a while
That’s just Frank Miller’s Batman.
Superman was already going after CEOs when Baam was first created. Batman was always a hero for the right wing.
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.
Or Batman’s more popular because he’s a more interesting character. Superman can only experience kryptonite so many times before you start to suspect he never actually left the planet Krypton.
Maybe, or maybe they have bad writers because they are not able to imagine credible stories in which Superman’s strength is useless in the face of the corruption of the system and the businessmen who abuse their power, no one would believe stories like that, you need to add kryptonite to make it realistic
useless in the face of the corruption of the system and the businessmen who abuse their power
You could put any superhero in that situation and have a story. But if it’s just a white-collar crime setting, would Supe then be any different from any other Tom Dick or Harry? Is it even a superhero comic at that point? It would be interesting to some, but I can see why the writers wouldn’t want to take that risk.
Well, I’m not a big comic reader but that’s what the story with Lex Luthor is about, right? how all of Superman’s immense power is useless against the intelligence of a rich and evil man. I think that is the most famous antagonist and that has transcended the comics the most for a reason. Maybe for fans it’s doomsday or zod, but for casual readers and the general public it is lex and it is for good reason.
what the story with Lex Luthor is about
I dunno, seems to end with a big fight and / or kryptonite almost as often anyway. Then again, doesn’t that kinda undermine your original point?
And politicians. Clearly corrupt republican politicians who are trying to destroy democracy for some reason.
Pretty sure theres a lot of batman media that confirms that people hate him because he basically just protects the rich. They even call him a billionaire playboy.
Bruce is a billionaire. He’s on their side.
this. here’s proof https://x.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1194221297603088386?ref_src=twsrc
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.
You’re thinking of Poison Ivy.
Batman was a CEO of a company.
They don’t fight their own kind.
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
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.
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.
the group that is always watching Gotham and influencing it state and its key figures.
Bruce is just jealous of being left out of the “cool kids” group, so he plays the other team
that’s on him tbh, he should’ve been owlman
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.
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.
This reads like he was real at some point in the past.
Batman could have done more good as Bruce Wayne and instead dressed up like a bat to beat up street level thugs. If he was real, I don’t think it would make a difference what time period he was in, he’d still be traumatized by his parents death and decide to dress up like a bat to beat up street level thugs.
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?
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.
He did take down Lau in the dark knight tho.
Lau laundered money for the mob and also was Chinese.
I don’t think the public/mainstream would have issues there, where he goes after the non-native guy who laundered money for the mob.
Watch The Boys
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
That’s what happens if you take all your knowledge from memes. Good luck.
He also beats up rich people, like the Penguin.thr Joker and Riddler and all those guys get their crazy gadgets and hordes of minions somehow. They must be rich af
But all those are poor people who got rich via crime since they didn’t really have other avenues.
The Batman lore has a lot of hidden messages about social class and hierarchy which doesn’t translate well to today.
Upper middle class. They’ve got the kind of money Al Capone had, not the kind of money Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos have.
Batman generally leaves Lex Luthor, who does have that kind of money, alone. (And I don’t usually read DC, so I may be wrong, but I don’t think he tends to get physical with the court of owls much either…),
No he won’t. Batman wasn’t the good guy
