I don’t know the Batman universe, so at first I thought this looked like dip, from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. But I checked and no, dip is much darker than this.
The city streets are crowded for the holiday. Even with the rain. Hidden in the chaos is the element, waiting to strike like snakes. And I’m there too. Watching. 2 years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal. I must choose my targets carefully. It’s a big city. I can’t be everywhere. But they don’t know where I am. We have a signal now, for when I’m needed.
- OSHA inspector explaining the whistleblower system
*Fewer
Why do they even have jonkler cum in storage
I heard on a podcast someone explain “batmaning is the worst use of his money, just pay your taxes”
Edit: okay I’ve learned a lot about Batman now so I’ll say my two opinions
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Gotham is redeemable: meaning there are things that can be done to improve life in Gotham. If that’s true Bruce should focus on his parents foundation of charity which seems to do a lot of good. Being Batman isn’t actually fixing things and is instead just Bruce’s ego and wanting revenge for his trauma. Quick and dirty example: maybe finance a new asylum that isn’t over a pit to basically hell. Concrete over the hell put it something.
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Gotham is irredeemable: meaning the problems will keep coming and repeating forever. If that’s true being Batman doesn’t fix anything long term. Bruce should use his money to relocate people to a safer city. Quick and dirty example: any new location of the Arkham aysykum is impossible because all locations would have have an equally bad curse. So we have to level the city and leave it uninhabited.
I don’t see a Batman as a good solution either way. Either way being a Batman is only going to make things worse.
Bruce Wayne does a ton of philanthropy, and even hires low level goons to get them out of a life of crime. Part of the reason why “just pay your taxes” doesn’t really work is that Gotham is extremely corrupt. Another part of that is that the city is literally cursed.
You’re ignoring the first part of the statement and focusing on the pay your taxes part.
Every dollar he spent on Batman would have been better used elsewhere.
He could’ve have used money to campaign for government reform. I don’t know much about cursed parts of town but maybe the city should rezone that part of town. or wall it off. If someone cursed it someone can uncurse it. Start financing some talented witches or something.
Maybe he should open some mental health wards focusing on the mental health crisis going on in Gotham.
Vigilante justice causes more crime it doesn’t reduce crime. That’s why we don’t allow vigalante justice most places. Don’t go batmaning .
He needs to have some batmanning skills and equipment because the more he publicly supports improving things, the more often criminals who benefit from things being bad will attempt to assassinate Bruce Wayne. Gotham is full of graves of people who tried improving things legitimately.
Really, the best thing he could do with his money would be to hire and train a bunch of mini batmen to work as bodyguards for all the people who are trying to improve things. Lots of the aforementioned graves belong to people that he’d briefly left unattended while he had to do something else, and that wouldn’t be a problem if there was someone else available to cover for him.
Well the same could be said in real life. They guy who exposed the cia’s involvement in the crack epidemic had his life destroyed, family broken apart, and driven to suicide. It’s dangerous to push for change but we don’t allow people to be Batman.
Now you’re hire security idea is exactly what I’m talking about. Instead of building a bat mobile just hire a security form to protect Harvey dent. Far better use of money.
When things get as bad in real life as they often get in Gotham, people do support vaguely batmanny behaviour. Luigi Mangione was convicted of some batman-adjacent behaviour, and is widely regarded as a hero for doing so. The legal system didn’t allow him to be batman, but the general population were fine with it.
Luigi wasn’t a billionaire. He had no power or money to cause change in the world around him thru other means.
Batman is obscenely wealthy and has plenty of options.
Luigi is closer to the person who shot Batman’s parents than he is to Batman.
In real life vigilante justice doesn’t solve problems. Luigi didn’t change the healthcare industry with his action. People loved it maybe, but it accomplished nothing and vigalante violence just breeds more violence. In real life vigilantes aren’t rich. They are desperate people doing desperate things. Batman has options and chooses to do the least effective thing.
As has been stated in many other comment threads on this post, he has options, and takes them all. He’s doing as much as he can legitimately, to the point he even occasionally gets attacked for it, and only survives by using his batman skills. Within the scenario the comics/movies/shows create, that proves to be inadequate, so he batmans as an additional measure, not his primary measure.
He could’ve have used money to campaign for government reform
He did
maybe the city should rezone that part of town. or wall it off
It’s the whole city
Maybe he should open some mental health wards focusing on the mental health crisis going on in Gotham.
He did, I think he’s the primary funder of Arkham
What, the most common (and smooth brainned) criticism?
Gotham has literally been cursed half a dozen times over, is governed by some of the most incompetent government officials, and has about nine different covert or overt corrupt groups all vying for control.
Taxes aint gonna fix that shit.
Eh, its kind of a mixed bag with batman. Some of the villains are fighting for workers rights or to improve the environment. Others are just absolutely bonkers and somehow get a ton of people to support them. Batman has always been a bit problematic, but that is always the case with anti-heroes.
Anti-heroes shouldn’t be role models, and are supposed to be problematic. The punisher isn’t someone to look up to or base any real solutions on. He is a broken man that was pushed to the extreme and decided extreme measures were needed to fight corruption. Wolverine has lost everything and fights largely for himself (I know there are stories where he grows and learns, but that wasn’t the original basis of the character). Batman is kind of the same. He was a spoiled rich kid that went through trauma and decided to punch his way out of it. Are there better solutions? Maybe, but they wouldn’t make for interesting comic books.
I can see the argument for environmentalism with poison ivy, but who exactly is fighting for workers rights?
That also seems like an excuse to argue that Batman is somehow a bad guy in the situation, which is quite the stretch considering most, if not all, of the villains he faces would see gotham wiped out to see their goals acheived.
It also ignores that in his Bruce persona he does do a lot of charitable work (including environmentalism and worker protections). But, as you say, him sitting in board meetings organizing this stuff wouldnt make for very entertaining stories.
And i was never saying he was a role model, just that the constant mischaracterization is tiresome. Saying that just cause he was born to generational (and fictional) wealth he is automatically a bad guy. That clearly he could be doing better things (that he mostly does do anyway).
Is putting on an animal costume and risking his life to protect others the act of a stable person? Fuck no. But its not like its also inherently harmful either. Especially in the world created around him.
Anarky is anti-state and anti-capitalism. There might be others, but it has been a really long time since I read Batman comics. So my memory is admittedly pretty vague.
He could donate money for the campaigns of good government officials. He could’ve opened a string a mental health facilities because Gotham has a major mental health problem. All these things don’t require Batmaning. Vigilante justice has been shown to increase crime not decrease it. I get you like Batman comics and that’s fine but you can’t act like being Batman is the best use of his money. Even in fictional Gotham.
He literally canonically does all of that. Gotham isn’t real life, real life socioeconomics don’t apply.
He could donate money for the campaigns of good government officials.
Like Harvey Dent, who became Two-Face?
He could’ve opened a string a mental health facilities because Gotham has a major mental health problem.
Harley Quinn’s origin story is that she was Joker’s psychiatrist.
IMO: In the real world Joker and the rest of most heroes rogues galleries would have 100% been either sentenced to death (Which while it doesn’t currently exist in Gotham which is in New Jersey, would likely be put into effect considering waves hands broadly at the various levels of shit that has gone down in Gotham over the years.) or murdered by a cop who said they “lunged for his gun”. Superman would be a transitional energy source, we’d be living in luxury gay space communism owing to the innumerable genius level intellects (Atom, Mr. Terrific, Brainiac 5, Blue Beetle, the list goes on.) fixing basically every issue, which makes for a great reality but a really boring comic book universe.
I’m not suggesting an idea for a better comic book lol I’m just saying it’s not wrong to point out being Batman isn’t the way to fix issues it’s an ego thing. Just like iron man.
Didn’t Harvey dent become two face because of Batman? Atleast in the movie it looks like Harvey would’ve faired a lot better without Batman.
The city is designed so that Batman is the solution, any argument like “Batman should just do boring X thing instead” would be foiled by the writers. It’s that simple.
Saying a comic where Batman is responsible with his money would be boring doesn’t mean Batman is doing good. It means it’s just entertainment. That’s fine enjoy your comic. Doesn’t change the fact Batman isn’t acting responsibly. It doesn’t change that Batman is bad for Gotham.
Let me explain it this way.
Horror movie charecter goes to investigate a strange house in the dark. Was it necessary for the movie? Yes. That doesn’t mean they made a good choice. It was a bad idea to go out unarmed to investigate the strange noise in the darkness.
It would be a boring movie had they not done that but that doesn’t change the fact that the idea that person had was bad. It’s fine to call that charecter stupid for doing that.
Batman is stupid for doing a Batman.
Doesn’t change the fact Batman isn’t acting responsibly. It doesn’t change that Batman is bad for Gotham.
Was it necessary for the movie? Yes. That doesn’t mean they made a good choice
Depends on how Gotham is written. And as the other commenter has described, Gotham has many reasons why the “responsible” method doesn’t work.
Besides, unlike a single movie, comics are constantly growing and evolving. So whatever plothole the readers come up with, the writers can just patch in the next volume.
I’m working under the assumption that you haven’t read a lot of the comics but if you have, forgive me.
You gotta understand how deeply fucked Gotham is. Like, evil bat god sealed under the city, portal to hell in the asylum, crazy juice from the Lazarus Pit leaking into the water supply which has probably already got chemicals in it that are fucking folks up mentally (along with likely lead pipes but I’m just guessing.), the Illuminati basically running the city, corrupt cops all over, mafia, monsters, people who are basically monsters, there was even a whole plot line where it got kicked out the United States. If any city in real life had that many problems we’d probably level the fucker and start over.
You can’t “pay your taxes” out of something like the Illuminati trying to use zombies to assassinate the police chief.
Didn’t Harvey dent become two face because of Batman? Atleast in the movie it looks like Harvey would’ve faired a lot better without Batman.
In the comics he got hit in the face with acid by a crime boss, iirc during a trial.
I never read any of the comics. Saw a few of the movies.
A lot of those problems Bruce could focus more on better by paying qualified people.
The chemicals and bad pipes could be solved with money.
Illuminati? Isn’t he like the richest person in town? He could use his wealth and power against that as well.
They should probably rebuild the asylum people keep escaping from somewhere that isn’t above a portal to hell. Maybe just cement over the portal.
As for the cursed city and bat god: this is a world where magic exsists, and money exists. He could hire better magic to solve the problem.
Monsters in the streets are a police and military problem. The police may be corrupt but that’s happened a lot in history and what we do is hire better police.
But lets look at Batman. Batman isn’t solving the long term problems like portals to hell and bat gods. The criminals he captures keep getting away, he hasn’t solved the corruption or crime or monsters. Batmaning isn’t working. He should focus on using his wealth to change things and drop the whole Batman thing.
Illuminati? Isn’t he like the richest person in town? He could use his wealth and power against that as well.
No one got arrested for the Panama Papers or Epstein Island so I think you’re overestimating what Bruce could do there.
They should probably rebuild the asylum people keep escaping from somewhere that isn’t above a portal to hell. Maybe just cement over the portal.
Literally every jail in comics is porous. They had a supermax in another dimension people were getting out of.
As for the cursed city and bat god: this is a world where magic exsists, and money exists. He could hire better magic to solve the problem.
“Hey Thor here’s 20 bucks go beat up Satan”. C’mon.
Monsters in the streets are a police and military problem. The police may be corrupt but that’s happened a lot in history and what we do is hire better police.
Who then get frozen solid, eaten by plants, or murdered in a myriad other ways. At some point any cop is going to reasonably say “Nah this shit above my pay grade.” no matter what that paygrade is.
Batmaning isn’t working…
May as well point out that Tom is a terrible cat because he never catches Jerry and in reality they would have called a professional by now. Well obviously in real life but then again in real life Tom would have died after being crushed by a anvil the first time so maybe suspend your disbelief a bit, and even beyond that whats the next cartoon look like after Jerry dies in a fumigation? Tom takes a nap?
We can’t apply reality to an ongoing entertainment medium in one way and ignore it in another. It’s not a “Why didn’t they ride a eagle to Mordor” situation because Lord of the Rings had a ending, and Batman etc. don’t and won’t so long as they keep making money.
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I just realized I’d rather live in Gotham, at least someone was trying there
Bruce makes sure there’s no OSHA in the city where they manufacture their shit, both for profit, and for hobby.
Chekhov’s
gunslime pitIf a slime pit is shown in act one, the Joker will exist by act 3
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