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If Batman was real today, he'd go after the CEOs of companies, not gangsters. (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by WarmSoda@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

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[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 194 points 4 months ago (3 children)

No. Unequivocally no. This might make sense on its face but it misunderstands Batman at a fundamental level- Batman is a hero who cannot make sense. He is severely mentally ill and craves change physically and instantly wrought by his own two hands.

If a CEO were doing something outlandishly and visibly evil then they might find themselves on Batman’s radar, but exacerbating wealth inequality is just not something Batman usually cares about. Would it make sense for Batman to do something about it? Yes. Absolutely. Would the crazy 100 kg gymnast dressed like a giant bat, who has made a nightly ritual of shattering the spines of impoverished criminal dockworkers do that? No.

Now daredevil, daredevil might find himself beating the ass off a shady Manhattan CEO. But daredevil is sane, reasonable, and goal oriented and Batman is just not.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 58 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, doesn’t the dude consider Batman his true identity and Bruce Wayne the costume?

[–] projectmoon@lemm.ee 53 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Depends on the continuity and who's writing it, but often yes. He was notably portrayed this way in the Justice League cartoon.

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This fact was revealed in Batman Beyond, in which Batman's nemesis is an evil CEO called Blight.

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[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 29 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

In most modern versions, yes. He’s just survivor’s guilt held together by a ceaseless run of violent distractions and related obsessions. Not the one to call on your union busting boss.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 26 points 4 months ago

but exacerbating wealth inequality is just not something Batman usually cares about

In fact, being a mega-rich himself, he's probably best buddies with those CEOs so long as they don't do something so outlandishly evil that he has to go after them for publicity reasons.

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[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 130 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My brother in Christ, Batman is a billionaire CEO.

[–] sunzu@kbin.run 34 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Yeah but he is on "our team" though!

People can't spot corpo propaganda, a lot of educating to be done.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The joker isn't the disease in Gotham, he's the symptom. In a world where the effort of an individual results in proportional gains, where people have a home, family, and attachments to their community, there is no joker. The populace is innoculated against his desire to tear it all down, because they have a stake in "it all". The few that are vulnerable to his views, are getting the support and care they need from trained staff, and the people around them are keeping the joker away. Batman isn't in Gotham because of the Joker; the Joker can exist in Gotham because of Batman, a billionaire who spent his efforts and resource on violence, instead of outreach.

Plus, giving OSHA some teeth, and forcing corporations to compensate fairly for workplace accidents, and regulations requiring the inspection and certification of toxic chemical plants would have stopped the joker, and countless other tragedies, at a fraction of the cost.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 121 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Batman was a CEO of a company.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 69 points 4 months ago (14 children)

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.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 40 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip 27 points 4 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] criitz@reddthat.com 107 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Batman WAS the CEO of companies

[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And there's no solidarity like class solidarity. Remember Ellen Degeneres hanging out with Bush? Bruce Wayne would've been in that skybox too.

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

self punch then?

[–] Montagge@lemmy.zip 95 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 25 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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

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[–] awesome_lowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com 81 points 4 months ago (1 children)

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Are we going to pretend that Wayne Enterprises isn't likely 1 of those 100?

[–] awesome_lowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 4 months ago

I think that's kinda the point of the comic...

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[–] Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world 69 points 4 months ago (3 children)

No he won't, batman fulfills every billionaires fantasy of dressing up in a costume and beating up poor people.

[–] AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] emax_gomax@lemmy.world 58 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You're aware he is a CEO of a company?

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 15 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I thought Lucius Fox was the CEO. Bruce Wayne is chair of the board.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 9 points 4 months ago

Depends on the particular telling I think. DC has IIRC gone both ways with that.

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[–] Stern@lemmy.world 40 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Like Lex Luthor, who hes fought on several occasions? Or more like the Court of Owls, one of his recurring set of villains?

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Also the Penguin

[–] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Penguin is a mobster first and wealthy second, as a result of being a successful mobster.

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[–] Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org 40 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 39 points 4 months ago (2 children)

You've got Batman mixed up with the Punisher, OP.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Or Green Arrow, really.

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[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think more Superman.

He is just a working class guy, both his wife and his own job are probably getting replaced by AI, his mother pension keeps getting lower and his dad died because he couldn't afford proper healthcare.

Also his arch nemesis is already a Billionaire.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 24 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Bruce is a billionaire. He's on their side.

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[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 23 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Why do you people make up such obviously false head cannon. This is degenerate shit lol.

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[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Superman was already going after CEOs when Batman was first created. Batman was always a hero for the right wing.

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[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 18 points 4 months ago

Watch The Boys

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 10 points 4 months ago (6 children)

I would like you to explain how Captain America and Superman are reactionary.

Captain America is an artificial warrior created by a Jewish scientist to fight the Nazis, and Superman is a baby sent away in a basket to be raised by not-dead parents who chose to use his privilege to help people.

Zack Snyder is an Objectivist and that's why his Superman movies stink. He doesn't understand the core themes of superheroes, he only understands the spectacle and surface theatrics.

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 16 points 4 months ago

You're thinking of Poison Ivy.

[–] queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

CEOs of companies existed in 1939, and did before. 1939 would have been the time of the great depression, World War 2, fascism, and Batman didn't go after them, he went after the people who needed work and took the last chance they had.

Bruce Wayne is just a form of Bill Gates. Donates millions to charity, good causes, hospitals, fighting diseases, but he still has lots of more money than when he did before all this "charity". The difference is that Gates doesn't put on a mask and go punch the poor of Seattle.

If Batman was real, he'd be a dickhead, worse than Musk or Bezos.

EDIT: Why mine and no one elses? This dude is annoying.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 22 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Yeah because when I think of the working class I think lunatics dressed like clowns arming chemical weapon dispersing explosives on the orders of a guy who caught a chemical burn induced skin condition and decided everyone was gonna die suffocating over it.

Batman is a detective, a detective! 99% of what he does has nothing to do with fighting, you just don't hate read the detective work because Batman going out of his way to find the murderer of some nobody with nobody to care enough to ask it be done doesn't feed this bizarre obsession some folks have with making Batman the worst thing ever because he has money as a plot convenience to explain where all his insane tech comes from.

Also, he does constantly do work addressing wealth inequality by backing community efforts to relieve the effects of poverty and by championing community leaders standing up to corruption. Why doesn't it work? Because there's a literal criminal conspiracy of the wealthiest of Gotham dating back centuries that most recent versions of Batman has been at war with since near the outset of his investigative career. Again, read any of the comic books published in the last like 20 years and this would all be entry level stuff.

Also, Gotham's gangs are not normal gangs, like I exampled above, but also consider the sheer level of advanced education or ability to outsmart most folks who have one Gotham's criminal leaders have. Even Joker is heavily implied to have retained advanced chemical engineering training from before he went psycho.

If the idea that even one rich person has genuinely good intentions and does genuine work addressing the causes of criminal activity at every level is that hard for people to grasp, maybe just put the comics down and find another topic because man are you all gonna struggle with basically everything else you're gonna find in the genre.

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[–] Delusional@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago

And politicians. Clearly corrupt republican politicians who are trying to destroy democracy for some reason.

[–] Foni@lemm.ee 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] awesome_lowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 4 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

No he won’t. Batman wasn’t the good guy

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

"They're the same picture."

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