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Here’s a Tumblr post about how different versions of Bruce Wayne (comic books, animated series, etc.) have donated huge sums of money to charities and other improvements to Gotham City.
Meh. Only suckers give a shit about the “generosity” of billionaires. Tax them. Tax them down to millionaire status. Why should they dictate what programs get funded? It’s never worked before… it’s not suddenly going to start now.
I mean, your own tumblr link is proof of that. After all, Gotham’s still a crime ridden shithole, isn’t it? Clearly Bruce Wayne doesn’t know what Gotham actually needs.
So you think removing the main plot device is the way to go for Batman stories?
Not necessarily disagreeing with you in the real world. But what do you expect from fiction?
Gotham’s still a crime ridden shithole
In most continuities, Gotham is literally supernaturally cursed, often in multiple different ways
I am convinced that someone at some point in the DC universe timeline decided to make a shithole sink just to see what happens, Gotham was the end result. Shame it somehow became multi dimensional.
Points for talking about real issues but also this is a pretend fantasy billionaire we’re talking about
better yet, fundamentally remove their power to rise again and build a system where money is not equal to power.
He should pay his employees more. I don’t care if he pays them twice the average for their positions, he is clearly wealthy enough that his businesses can afford it.
In that post he bankrolls many things that should already be subsidized by the state.
Also it’s not systematic, it’s just within his sphere of interest. If he physically sees you suffering he will make a grand public gesture to end it and buy himself some PR at the same time. This is the conservative mindset. Live two cities over? Tough luck. Anonymous donation? No of course not, Wayne Enterprises needs all the publicity it can get.
He picks and chooses his favorites, like every billionaire out there.
You only see the things in his immediate vicinity because it’s a story not a financial report. If he’s vaccinating kids on the other side of the planet, we aren’t going to hear about it unless it’s relevant to the story.
IIRC there are vigilante groups in Europe and Africa financed by Batman.
In Batman begins, the issue is corruption.
Everyone knows Falcone is guilty but no one has the legal ability to arrest him.
So Bruce Wayne becomes a vigilante in a more Luigi kind of way in which he is willing to risk things cause he has the tools to do it right.
The whole point of Batman is doing all he can with his resources, even if that means breaking the law.
But yeah, we know today that the most effective thing he can do is not even charity, but pay for lobbying
It’s a feature in all superhero media. They don’t touch the status quo, or the systems we live in. It’s always the fault of a few rotten apples and they’re taken care of. Normal people don’t need to apply, it’s up to a few people with special power to fix it. And in reality, people with money see themselves as more special and empowered than normal people.
Those who pursue power or money and nothing else are statistically more likely to achieve the most money or power. It’s a filter or selection process. So a 100 billionaires are much much less likely to care, or to know, how a society should function except for what they learned and practiced: capitalism as the wealthy exploiting the masses and buying political power to gain more money.
They are narrow minded nerds in their own specific fields. Techbro’s reprogramming reality. In that way the villains stupidly applying their narrow minded views or delusions to social problems is a quite fitting metaphor.
So even if Bruce Wayne would pay lobbyists and donate to political campaigns and do it wisely, he would be the rare exception and outspend 100:1.
A rich guy dressing up in body armor and going around beating up poor people to fight systemic corruption is the most believable part of the whole Batman franchise. In his original incarnation he had a gun too.
IN ONE OF THE animated series/movies uses it to kill zoom.
That’s actually the Thomas Wayne that becomes Batman from The flashpoint timeline!
It’s extremely spot on that instead of doing obvious things that would better the city they just invest in a bunch of industry and tech instead. Very on the nose. Especially the Dark Knight Rises Batman where he had a clean energy program that was the answer to the energy crisis or whatever they were in but he just didn’t do it because he thought ‘the world wasn’t ready’.
‘The Batman’ is even worse as the Wayne charity, which he should be running, is the center of corruption for Gotham.
The Riddler was justified in trying to get revenge on Bruce Wayne.
How is the world not ready? The world was never ready for nuclear weapons, but we got them anyway…
We just need to advance socially as a species faster than climate change, that’s all. Easy.
I’m more pissed that Tony Stark having a clean energy solution was a central part of Ironman 1 and forgotten about in ever sequel. It could have been a theme of Ironman 2 if they aligned if Justin Hammer was invested in dirty energy and offered a juxtaposition to Thanos’s nihilistic environmentalism.
Problem is, by the time you’re successful in Hollywood, you’re invested in the status quo and it shows.
I don’t think it was plot relevant anymore, so we don’t hear much about it; but wasn’t an investment in clean energy mentioned in passing on one of the Avengers movies?
Isn’t the genie in the original story a trickster?
The genie will probably make everyone poor when Aladdin wishes for more equality.
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Changing the skin colour is enough “woke” to get banned. If kids shows have revolutionary heroes they’d drop bombs from helicopters on their studio like they did to people in Philadelphia all the way back in the distant memories of 1985.
This, so much this, one of the major problems the MCU has is it has Military Money behind it… So the plots mostly go
“The Status Quo is perfect, the people complaining about it are unforgivable!”
It’s why you have villains like Kilmonger who are incredibly based, but then they’ll eat a baby in the third act to try to justify him being the bad guy… even though Kilmonger was absolutely correct in that Wakanda betrayed the rest of Africa by not reigning in the white man with their superior technology.
Yeah I heard a theory somewhere that MCU movies are inherently fascist. They’re about how agents of change are always dangerous, they can be incredibly based but for no reason they have to do mass murder to meet their ideals? And the only ones who can save us from these dangerous agents of change are a some sort of superhuman, an ‘ubermencht’ if you will, to get rid of agents of change through might, high-five some cops, and never ever again mention or ponder on anything ever.
Indeed, and Disney’s throwing a fit because an executive watched one of the only good Post-Endgame MCU movies (Deadpool 3), fired Ryan Reynolds, and admitted that since they’ve been marketing it for so long the Left Hand doesn’t know what the Right is doing.
Between Blatant Fascism and an outright disdain for quality, I don’t watch MCU anymore and don’t know why anyone else does. It’s like living in 2006 and still thinking qouting Wayne’s World makes you the King of Comedy.
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Duck… and coverrrr! 🎶
After all, how long has it been since any version of Robin Hood was on the screen?
Well that and stories depend on conflict, if you create a perfect society, you lose out on conflict. Sometimes you just have to stop dreaming if you want the story to be any good.
The only story I know of where people solve EVERY problem is Scribblenauts, and that’s because it’s hard to get more overpowered than Maxwell’s Notebook.
Heck they even did a DC Crossover where you can pretty much make Maxwell invincible by adding the adjective “Kryptonian” to yourself and Kryptonite isn’t even a problem when you can just add an adjective claiming it’s fake or just a toy.
Always mildly annoyed by this type of meme.
First and foremost: Gotham is fucked. Like… really fucked. Evil secret societies run the place, the water supply is very likely poisoned in various ways, both conventionally and naturally, there’s ancient evils buried under the city that have been corrupting it for centuries, a portal to hell in the asylum. We can say “Oh surely a food bank would help” and Wayne absolutely does do that via foundations in both of his parents names… but all the shit to erase systemic poverty in the world can exist and The Joker, Zsasz, Mr. Pyg, The Court of Owls, Solomon Grundy, and the like are still going to be doing their shit (Not to mention big alien threats like Darkseid.). Likely most of his villains would still be on their grind except maybe Mr. Freeze who actually could have his problems solved by money.
Secondly: You gotta suspend disbelief. Make Superman a transitional power source and no one is gonna read it anymore, even if it would be ‘realistic’. Any number of heroes could readily solve a number of the worlds issues. Why doesn’t Iron Man put Arc reactors everywhere to power the world on clean energy? How come Storm doesn’t get rid of every hurricane before it starts? Why doesn’t Ice Man freeze up the poles and cool the planet down? The Flash could instantly deliver supplies to places in need. It’s realistic, but it’s boring, and boring doesn’t sell comics. Okay, maybe Ruins but that couldn’t be like… a whole series.
I think they did a comic where Iron Man did exactly that, but it ended with him going mad with power.
The problem with Super Heroes is that if Reed Richards isn’t useless, you don’t have a comic anymore.
For those who don’t know what I mean…
Super Geniuses are really good at coming up with cures for “Anicent Polymorphic Diseases created by an Alien Civilization that threatens to turn us all into robot slaves!” that “Work like no bacteria ever before seen under a microscope.”, usually having a 100% cure rate by the end of the storyline, it might take a while… like 5 issues spanning over three weeks in-universe
Cancer has them completely stumped and the best they can do for you is to show up in costume when you use your make-a-wish foundation favor to meet Spider-Man.
The main reason super man is better than batman is because superman is working class. There’s no ethical way to be a billionaire, even if you inherit it.
Superman is an elite superhero who cosplays as working class
He’s a journalist son of farmers though
And a hell of a good dad.
So elite he has trouble paying rent, sometimes.
The point of Superman is that he could BE the most elite being on the planet, but chooses instead to give himself to those who need it most
The second thing he ever did was throw a wife-beater through a wall
Clark fuckin rules
Anarchist Batman is the best Batman.
Him and his hat always pop into my thoughts, from time to time.
Superman was born with power and recognizes that he doesn’t deserve it so he tries to use that power to help people whenever he can.
Batman was also born with power but decided that that wasn’t enough so he travelled the world acquiring more power and then returned home to use that power to enforce his will while wearing a mask to escape accountability.
In the recent movies, he, or the Wayne foundation, does give a lot of money to charities in the city, and built the monorail system as well.
I thought his parents built/funded the monorail?
he, or the Wayne foundation,
Fair, but riding on the accomplishments of your parents is pretty nepobaby…
It was also canon that Wayne foundation funded the orphanage in Gotham.
i want batman who is not billionaire yet still manages to achieve same things through ingenuity and community effort
Project Mayhem.
It’s almost as if he’s a crazy person who is responding to childhood trauma in an arrested development kind of way, punching the bad guys who hurt him as a child, forever, rather than dealing with his trauma in a healthy coherent way, almost as if that’s a core aspect of the character without which he wouldn’t even be the character he is anymore.
Except Batman’s saved Gotham and the world a few times. Presumably not being a billionaire would make that much harder. Personally, I think the continued existence of everyone we know and love is worth more than all of Bruce Wayne’s wealth.
If he “saved” Gotham, he wouldn’t need to exist anymore
When someone plants a bomb that will destroy Gotham and Batman defuses and removed the bomb, what has Batman done to the city if you don’t think he saved it?
Like, if I save a child from getting hit by a car today is the kid now immortal?
The people usually doing stuff like that are guys he’s already caught a thousand times
Then after the bomb threat is gone, Gotham is still a shithole
The people
Whom the police are invariably unable to stop
usually doing stuff like that are guys he’s already caught a thousand times
Are you saying we should execute those who are mentally unwell and pose a danger to others?
Then after the bomb threat is gone, Gotham is still a shithole
Gotham’s a shit hole and thus doesn’t deserve saving?
Yeah. Execute them.
Not like we have any other choice like using nth metal to make more secure facilities.
Oh wait
I forgot
You’re taking this entirely too seriously and I’m not arguing over a fictional city with someone who seems to have a lot more invested in this than I do
I have two long boxes of Batman comics. I’ll have my fun. You can have your Internet fights.
Sure but you’re the one who started a silly internet fight.
If he “saved” Gotham, he wouldn’t need to exist anymore
I get you don’t want a billionaire to be doing the right thing but it takes a pretty ridiculous reading of the comics to argue that there’s a better use for Batman’s money.
Sounds interesting
He didn’t defuse it, he just shielded himself under some heavy iron pipes when it went off.
Not quite sure which incident you’re talking about but Batman’s saved Gotham and the world more than a few times. He mortally wounded Darkseid in the Final Crisis event, stopped a worldwide Joker plague in Endgame (and Gotham city from a similar fate in the 1989 movie) and so on. As a member of the Justice League, I imagine he’s saved the universe a good few times too.
A friend of mine asked me recently, was I gonna go see the new Batman movie with him. I don’t respect the concept of Batman because of what I understand about politics now.
I’mma lay it out for you. Rich dude owns a corporation, has state of the art equipment, and he uses this to beat up on street-level crime. He doesn’t mess with the industrialists, or the super capitalists, the Murdochs, or the Trumps. He really just fucks with the person that’s just on the corner.
Batman is a conservative’s wet dream. Fuck Batman.
The Wayne Foundation is a charity organization run by Thomas Wayne and Wayne Enterprises. For a time, Bruce Wayne lived in its office building’s penthouse to be closer to the city.
The Wayne Foundation funds medical scientific research and helps people with research by providing facilities and training.
Bruce’s first action as head of the Wayne Foundation, was the creation of a new program called “Victims, Inc. Program” (VIP), which would help the victims of crimes who need financial support.
The Martha Wayne Foundation is a patron and supporter of arts, families, education, and tolerance. The foundation supports and helps to run a number of orphanages and free schools, and provides teachers for those who have learning difficulties. Artists can apply for grants from the foundation to help support them in furthering the arts. The foundation sponsors companies like Family Finders. Family Finders is an organization directed at finding lost people and uniting families. The Martha Wayne Foundation also sponsors and runs dozens of soup kitchens within the city.
This conversation is missing the part where he says “all of them”
And then also dresses as a bat
Maybe it’s changed over the last decade but not so much. Massive homeless problem, incredible mob presence, and a constantly filled forensic sanitarium.
If he made Gotham a better place he wouldn’t be able to punch mentally ill people at night to get his dead parents to love him
In his defense Gotham is quite literally cursed, and not like one cure but multiple on top of each other. That’s not even getting into the Court of Owls and the other secret society assholes, or the dark Eldritch gods for that matter.
Frankly speaking the best way to fix Gotham is probably just to dump all the napalm on it and then sink the city. Problem is I imagine that the city has relatively high home ownership with dirt cheap taxes due to the afformentioned issues meaning I doubt anyone will move out.
They tried that and the curse made ask the disasters hit Bludhaven instead. You can’t destroy Gotham.
To be fair, as common of a criticism as this is
In the lore the Wayne Foundation uses Batman’s fortune to fight poverty, and a lot of Batman media goes out of its way to show Batman is always willing to give his villains a chance to turn their lives around.
It only fails because retiring a villain permanently is bad for comic sales (But quite a few like Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn at least find themselves in the Heel-Face Revolving Door)
Now Frank Miller wrote a few books detailing why “Rehabilitation is naive and something suggested by the Radical Left because they don’t understand how the real world works.”
But Frank Miller is a crazy person who also wrote a book where a Pedophile-Coded Batman goes on a killing rampage and Vicki Vale’s ass talks to the reader.
