Just what is the appeal of Batman these days?

[Rogar Demonblud]

The success of Wayne Enterprises is completely negated by the fact that DC Editorial absolutely refuses to allow anything to change. If you want to complain, start by calling them the cowards they are because there's your problem. Ditto the turnstile on Arkham.

[SilverCacaobean]

Underdog status: I keep seeing Batman getting referred to as the "believable hero" or the "relatable hero", in the sense that he is physically a human being who just gets by on extreme dedication. This especially comes up in comparison to Superman. But given all the "Batman can beat X" threads online, which by this point include just about every fictional character out there, surely he's the most overpowered character ever.
Let's go over his abilities: Master martial artist. Master athlete. Master acrobat. Master detective. Master chemist. Master driver. Master pilot. Master mechanic. Master burglar. Master of stealth. Master of various unconventional weapons. Fakir-like control of his body. Speaks seemingly every language on Earth. Vast trivia knowledge. I could go on.
[...]
My favourite version of the character is the one from the old Diniverse cartoons, as he has a full emotional range, and isn't invincible.

Thoughts?

I agree, he's as unrealistic as superman. These are not things normal humans can do, certainly not in those 10-15 years. Sometimes an ass-pull like "he's an alien from krypton" to explain extraordinary abilities is better than trying to explain the unexplainable. At the very least it saves time to focus on the important stuff.

I love the DCAU (that's the Diniverse, right? That's the only version of batman I know by the way) too, but by the end he was dodging Darkseid's homing eye-lasers with his mad acrobatics skills... Before that point, I agree completely though.

Sorry, I didn't have time to read the whole thread, but it reminded me of a very good article I'd read a few years back and I thought I'd link it since no one else has. Well, at least I think so. I was as thorough as searching every page for the word "hulk" so maybe I missed it. Yes it's from film crit hulk, you guessed it. It's from 2011 but I think its points still apply. He also says a few stuff about the joker, and I remember a similar thread about the joker so there's that too. Here.
I get the feeling I've linked this on this forum before... Déjà vu? Or is my memory going?
You might not agree with him on everything. I certainly didn't. For example I absolutely loathed the Nolan movies and he seems to love them. He uncharitably compares the Arkham games with them, though in my opinion the games are at the very least aesthetically superior on every level. (He does make very good points about the games, I admit.)

Don't let yourself get turned off by the all caps, either. It's a very good and interesting analysis and it's worth some time if you really care about this question.

[Peelee]

I love the DCAU (that's the Diniverse, right? That's the only version of batman I know by the way)

Yes. I think Dini also did Batman Beyond, which was also absolutely fantastic, and you should totally check out if you haven't already.

[SilverCacaobean]

Yes. I think Dini also did Batman Beyond, which was also absolutely fantastic, and you should totally check out if you haven't already.

I have and I agree. I found Terry, who was unburdened by the whole "batman is invincible" bias, to be a great character.

Edit:

Spoiler: Watch batman beyond before opening

Show

Though it was a bit weird that they had to make him Bruce's son. As if it's hereditary. Humans still haven't gotten over putting too much importance in bloodline.

[Sapphire Guard]

I already spelled out the 5 things causing his disconnect that no other hero has.

"In Batman's case, the disconnect is between his methods, his rogues, his motivations, his resources, and his supposed intelligence. No other mainstream hero has the specific combination of those five things he does that creates a similar disconnect. That's what leads to threads and other hot-takes like this one."

I read that, but every time you elaborate your examples apply to every other comic book hero.

None of the billionaires who live in Marvel New York are trying to protect Marvel New York exclusively. They all have global and cosmic threats to deal with. Batman's rogues, even big players like Joker, are decisively local problems - and that's before you get to their relative lack of powers that should make incarceration not insurmountable.

Batman is a founding member of the Justice League and one of their main financial backers. He has plenty of global/cosmic threats to worry about/spend money on.

[QUOTEAlready pointed out that Punisher has neither Batman's money, smarts, morality, money, connections, nor money. Did I mention money? ][/QUOTE]

I'm not bringing up the punisher as an example of social initiatives. He's an illustration that defeating Rogues permanently doesn't solve anything, you just end up with replacements with new names.

Well yeah New York has millions of people and the Punisher's never been very picky about who's ok to kill.

It's a core tenet of the Punisher that he actually is very picky about who he kills. But permanently ending all those gangsters hasn't done anything to improve New York, and defeating the Bat Rogues wouldn't be any different.

As pointed above, most of Marvel's supervillains are actually super and/or have powerful organizations backing them up. Loki is a god, Magneto is a mighty mutant with an army of mighty mutants, Dr. Doom has his own country, the Phoenix will keep coming back to possess people, Hydra has countless cells and even had Captain America as their sleeper agent (which alone can explain a lot of those troubles since being one of the main avengers and even the president of the USA at one point would leave Steve Rogers in the perfect position to sabotage whatever he felt like).

There's also the bit where in Marvelverse the government and superheroes clash quite a lot. Maybe the X-men could've solved crime in the city by now if they weren't being hunted down by killer giant robots paid by tax dollars all the time (and indeed they eventually just walked away and started their own island-state).

None of those prevent all the dozens of superheroes who also have amazing powers and powerful organisations behind them from engaging in social issues. Doom and Loki aren't based in New York, Phoenix and Magneto have their own interests, which are not New York. Hydra have bigger goals than New York, none of them are interfering in the social status quo.

Besides, there are plenty of DC equivalents, so I'm not sure how much this matters. Is ARGUS less antagonistic than SHIELD? I honestly don't know, I'm not comics literate enough.

This one has always bothered me. I mean, given just how bad Gotham City is at any given time, how much worse would it be without these initiatives? I think the question isn't does Wayne Enterprises work to improve the social situation, its given the state of the city, are they really doing the best they could? Because if they are, wow, that city would be a crater without them.]

On the whole, Gotham's citizens are probably safer than Metropolis' or Marvel New York. The high crime rate is more than compensated for by the low alien invasion rate.

We have plenty of billionaire philanthropists in the real world, which have not managed to solve all the world's problems yet. We don't usually decide that they are responsible for the problems in the first place. What is this backwards logic, where the fire department is blamed for fire and homeless shelters are blamed for homelessness? I agree that Superman needs a life to stay grounded, but why do people accept that Superman has limits to what he can achieve but not that Batman has?

This deconstruction relies on a very narrow interpretation of the comics that isn't really supported by the text. Still waiting for examples of Joker pulling off a successful large scale attack and not immediately being killed for it.

[Z3ro]

On the whole, Gotham's citizens are probably safer than Metropolis' or Marvel New York. The high crime rate is more than compensated for by the low alien invasion rate.

lol

We have plenty of billionaire philanthropists in the real world, which have not managed to solve all the world's problems yet. We don't usually decide that they are responsible for the problems in the first place. What is this backwards logic, where the fire department is blamed for fire and homeless shelters are blamed for homelessness?

My issue is that none of the billionaire philanthropists in the real world, to my knowledge, dress up as a bat at night to punch criminals (who knows, the rich are different, maybe they do). When you start doing that people start asking questions and holding you to different standards. Also, I'm not blaming Batman for crime (though his presence drawing criminals is an interesting idea). I'm metaphorically blaming the fire department because it spent more money on hats than it did on fire trucks.

[Psyren]

I read that, but every time you elaborate your examples apply to every other comic book hero.

I genuinely don't see how, particularly for the 5 categories I laid out. Do you have counterexamples?

Batman is a founding member of the Justice League and one of their main financial backers. He has plenty of global/cosmic threats to worry about/spend money on.

Then why the hell hasn't he dealt with/graduated from Two-Face? Or allowed someone else in the League to do so?

I'm not bringing up the punisher as an example of social initiatives. He's an illustration that defeating Rogues permanently doesn't solve anything, you just end up with replacements with new names.

No - what it proves is that defeating them the way the Punisher does doesn't solve anything. But again, the Punisher (a) isn't truly interested in solving the problem (after all, his job is to punish - it's right in the name) and (b) he has no other real means available to him. The genius billionaire who rubs elbows with gods daily should have a few other tricks up his sleeve, wouldn't you say?

On the whole, Gotham's citizens are probably safer than Metropolis' or Marvel New York. The high crime rate is more than compensated for by the low alien invasion rate.

Pull the other one

[AMFV]

I genuinely don't see how, particularly for the 5 categories I laid out. Do you have counterexamples?



Then why the hell hasn't he dealt with/graduated from Two-Face? Or allowed someone else in the League to do so?

I don't think that Batman would view asking somebody else to murder somebody as being morally not the same as him doing it himself, he'd probably actually think it's worse. And Batman is pretty anti-murder, with good reason.

So what are the other options?

Lobotomize them? Batman has seen how that option works out in the future that he avoided. The one where Superman wound up becoming a fascist dictator. So that's not a good choice.

The Phantom Zone? That would give Harvey a chance to make some VERY powerful friends and doesn't hold people any better than Arkham, so that's probably out.

Wipe their memory? That worked super well when they did that to Doctor Light and to Prometheus. In both cases Batman objected to that on moral grounds, and in both cases was vindicated later.

Also, the other people have their own problems to deal with. Superman can't drop every alien invasion to deal with Two-Face, but somebody sure has to. Batman is around and available to do that.

So what option (that Batman would approve of) do you think he has to "deal with" somebody like Dent?

No - what it proves is that defeating them the way the Punisher does doesn't solve anything. But again, the Punisher (a) isn't truly interested in solving the problem (after all, his job is to punish - it's right in the name) and (b) he has no other real means available to him. The genius billionaire who rubs elbows with gods daily should have a few other tricks up his sleeve, wouldn't you say?

Yep, and that ends with a dictatorship where people are put to death for littering, and imprisoned for causing a ruckus at a restaurant. I don't think that's preferable. Also Bruce DOES try to help. Hell, in our world Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have donated roughly have their several tens of billions of dollars to try to fix the world's problems, and none of them have yet to concretely and permanently solve a single social issue. Also we see that Bruce does do charity and outreach. He works with programs that house orphans, works with kids who are growing up parent-less, which is a major crime contributor. And again, we've seen what happens when he tries to solve everything in the DC universe that always goes thoroughly bad.

[Mightymosy]

This deconstruction relies on a very narrow interpretation of the comics that isn't really supported by the text. Still waiting for examples of Joker pulling off a successful large scale attack and not immediately being killed for it.

I'm not much into this superhero stuff, but you'd think that somebody might have a little bit of a grudge against the Joker after what he did in the Dark Knight movie.

Why does the attack have to be successful, for you to count?

At some point, people have seen enough murder attempts, don't you think?


At any rate, I think it's just built into the comic system: stuff has to get back to status quo, so stuff does get back to status quo, no matter how contrieved.

No crime = no crime story. Ergo -> crime is never stopped for good.

No Joker = no sells. Ergo -> Joker lives (or resurrects).

I don't think it goes much deeper than that.
Although it might be an interesting read if someone made a story of how Batman decided that the Batman approach didn't really help Gotham enough in the long run and tried the Wayne approach.
If done cheap, it would just end up with the resurrection of the Joker and him donning the mask again at the end - back to status quo.
If done more interestingly the Joker would be killed or otherwise permanently taken out of the picture, but crime still not stopping - so Batman decided that he needed to change the social system of Gotham, and give people education and work and justice and stuff, so that people wouldn't become criminals.
But this would only work as a one-of story, because it would progress the setting.
In other words, you'd soon get a reboot in order to show the man with the mask again.

I don't think that Batman would view asking somebody else to murder somebody as being morally not the same as him doing it himself, he'd probably actually think it's worse. And Batman is pretty anti-murder, with good reason.

So what are the other options?

Lobotomize them? Batman has seen how that option works out in the future that he avoided. The one where Superman wound up becoming a fascist dictator. So that's not a good choice.

The Phantom Zone? That would give Harvey a chance to make some VERY powerful friends and doesn't hold people any better than Arkham, so that's probably out.

Wipe their memory? That worked super well when they did that to Doctor Light and to Prometheus. In both cases Batman objected to that on moral grounds, and in both cases was vindicated later.

Also, the other people have their own problems to deal with. Superman can't drop every alien invasion to deal with Two-Face, but somebody sure has to. Batman is around and available to do that.

So what option (that Batman would approve of) do you think he has to "deal with" somebody like Dent?



Yep, and that ends with a dictatorship where people are put to death for littering, and imprisoned for causing a ruckus at a restaurant. I don't think that's preferable. Also Bruce DOES try to help. Hell, in our world Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have donated roughly have their several tens of billions of dollars to try to fix the world's problems, and none of them have yet to concretely and permanently solve a single social issue. Also we see that Bruce does do charity and outreach. He works with programs that house orphans, works with kids who are growing up parent-less, which is a major crime contributor. And again, we've seen what happens when he tries to solve everything in the DC universe that always goes thoroughly bad.

How about prison? I mean, one that is actually guarded by competent people?
After all, Harvey Dent is just some guy, isn't he? No super powers.
Real life prisons hold people without super powers all the time, and only a small fraction manages to break out.
Of course, in the comics they have to break out, because people want to read or watch them them breaking out.
It is not a failure of the characters in the stories, it is a failure built into the system of how these stories are made.
Or a feature. Depending on your point of view.

Either you accept that stuff is magically reset back to status quo forever, so you can see the same man in the same mask fighting the same criminals again and again and again forever, OR you want a story that actually progresses. Can't have both.

[Z3ro]

Hell, in our world Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have donated roughly have their several tens of billions of dollars to try to fix the world's problems, and none of them have yet to concretely and permanently solve a single social issue.

It really depends on how you're trying to define success. Sure, the Gates foundation hasn't eliminated crime, but they have saved the lives of an estimates 130 million children. I'd hardly call that a failure.

[AMFV]

It really depends on how you're trying to define success. Sure, the Gates foundation hasn't eliminated crime, but they have saved the lives of an estimates 130 million children. I'd hardly call that a failure.

True, but Wayne's charities are probably comparable in their degree of success. Arguing that because he has not eliminated crime makes him "unrealistic" is what I'm against here. Or arguing that his methods are necessarily worse than optimal as compared to a hypothetical better option.

[Psyren]

So what option (that Batman would approve of) do you think he has to "deal with" somebody like Dent?

1) Ruin him financially. Can't hire henchmen for your next heist if all your dough is gone. I don't just mean freeze his assets, I mean literally buy him out and spend it all. Hell, buy out the politicians too to really hammer it home, or just nail him on tax evasion or something. He's a detective, right?
2) Put him literally anywhere other than Arkham. He knows aliens and gods, surely there's a mystic or intergalactic superjail he can use. I don't see him getting out of, say, Themyscira or Oa within his natural lifetime.
3) Fix him. Like, with actual mental rehabilitation. Again, just because Arkham routinely fails doesn't make it impossible, it just makes Arkham a terrible idea. He can afford to build a space station for his alien friends and monitor the globe with satellites, but not to find someone more qualified/less crazy than Harleen and Hugo?
4) Put him in a coma. Hey, he's not dead. (Actually I think this one should probably be reserved for the Joker.)

I'm not saying any of these solutions are perfect, but I'm not as smart as Batman either, nor am I a team of writers who could properly explore these beyond a lazy "he doesn't want anyone to interfere."

Yep, and that ends with a dictatorship where people are put to death for littering, and imprisoned for causing a ruckus at a restaurant.

...What? Like seriously, what?

Also Bruce DOES try to help. Hell, in our world Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have donated roughly have their several tens of billions of dollars to try to fix the world's problems, and none of them have yet to concretely and permanently solve a single social issue.

Batman isn't trying to fix the world's problems though. He's watching over a single city with the same recurring bad guys, most of whom have no metahuman abilities to speak of.

And again, we've seen what happens when he tries to solve everything in the DC universe that always goes thoroughly bad.

That's due to editorial mandate, not plausibility. Marvel manages to marry the two - just have more powerful villains (or less powerful heroes.)

[Tyndmyr]

It really depends on how you're trying to define success. Sure, the Gates foundation hasn't eliminated crime, but they have saved the lives of an estimates 130 million children. I'd hardly call that a failure.

(evil) I suppose that depends on how much you like children. (/evil)

[Xyril]

True, but Wayne's charities are probably comparable in their degree of success. Arguing that because he has not eliminated crime makes him "unrealistic" is what I'm against here. Or arguing that his methods are necessarily worse than optimal as compared to a hypothetical better option.

To be fair, there are people in the real world who basically do the latter. Mark Zuckerberg's first attempt at large scale philanthropy drew a bunch of criticism from people who actually get paid to editorialize--some of it was probably politically motivated BS, but most was in line of "all that money didn't do that much because you weren't a careful and sophisticated donor." As far as I'm aware, no professional human beings made this particular criticism of Jeff Bezos, but when Amazon stepped in to save The Expanse, there was a shocking number of people essentially whining that Bezos was "wasting his money saving his favorite toy" instead of solving the world's problems.

Personally, I'm a little disappointed in the number of people who believe that if somebody is blessed with a certain amount of success in this world, what he or she does with that success should suddenly fall under the control of those less fortunate. I'm also unsurprised that no matter how objectively lucky and successful you have to be to be able to spend all this time on the internet telling billionaires how to spend their money, none of those same critics ever count themselves as successful enough to owe something to the less fortunate.

[Lemmy]

I think there are two mitigating factors for the the current estate of Gotham City and Batman's failure to completely fix the city:

Money: Admittedly, Bruce has a lot of money, but most of it is tied to Wayne Tech assets, and Bruce's ability to convert it into bat-gear and (functional) philanthropy initiatives is probably limited by the city's corruption and bureaucracy. And who knows? Maybe the cost of operating those cool super-armors is too prohibitive even for Bruce, so he's only able to do if for a few days a year, meaning he has to save it for the next time Darkseid invades Earth or Doomsday shows up again.

Time: Batman may exist since the 30s, but remember that in-universe Bruce Wayne is usually portrayed as only having been Batman for 10~15 years. That may be a lot from the PoV of an individual, but for society as a whole it's little more than the blink of an eye. And he probably took a while to get into philanthropy (IIRC, Bruce didn't start quite as rich as he is now. He actually got richer after he took over Wayne Tech, in no small part thanks to Lucius Fox). So Batman probably IS having a large positive impact on Gotham... It's just not enough to fix it all in less than 15 years.

And let's not forget that Batman villains also have quite a lot of money and influence, even if they don't reach Wayne Tech levels. And most of them are incredibly smart or even geniuses in their area of expertise. And they are only slightly less obsessive than Batman.

Of course, it's very rarely explained where the villains get their resources... But if we go down that particular rabbit hole, I doubt we'll be left with more than a handful of villains in both Marvel and DC who are too broke to do anything.

[darkdragoon]

Unless you're six year old or such, you'll find that there is never a simple solution to a complex problem.

They had a fancy prison. It was ruined by a natural disaster. Bad enough that even some of Batman's enemies (like Bane) ended up helping to keep the peace.

[AMFV]

1) Ruin him financially. Can't hire henchmen for your next heist if all your dough is gone. I don't just mean freeze his assets, I mean literally buy him out and spend it all. Hell, buy out the politicians too to really hammer it home, or just nail him on tax evasion or something. He's a detective, right?

How? You realize that the US government has been trying to do that very thing to criminal organizations since the beginning of organized crime, and they haven't had much success. Pretty much the only way to make Dent and the Two Ton gang go broke would be to start a competing gang or increase the effectiveness of enforcement. Batman would find the latter morally reprehensible, as would I, and the other one is EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING.

Also Batman has managed to get Two-Face on Murder and Kidnapping charges, those are typically worse than tax-evasion. The only the tax evasion thing happened is because they could not get Capone on regular charges, ergo... they had to do something else. The problem was not that Capone could simply escape from prison.

Lastly, as we see in the Superman series episode "World's Finest", when Batman villains get broke they typically become desperate and that can make them more dangerous. So that might have some pretty nasty ramifications.

2) Put him literally anywhere other than Arkham. He knows aliens and gods, surely there's a mystic or intergalactic superjail he can use. I don't see him getting out of, say, Themyscira or Oa within his natural lifetime.

I explicitly mentioned this. Oa, has had people escape, and has had prisoners who were helpless (Sinestro with no ring), become very dangerous. Themyscira IS ... NOT A ****ING PRISON. And I mentioned the Phantom Zone. That could be a serious problem since you are putting somebody who is dangerous as a mundane into contact with nasty evil super powered aliens.

3) Fix him. Like, with actual mental rehabilitation. Again, just because Arkham routinely fails doesn't make it impossible, it just makes Arkham a terrible idea. He can afford to build a space station for his alien friends and monitor the globe with satellites, but not to find someone more qualified/less crazy than Harleen and Hugo?

Rehabilitating people who are criminally insane to that degree is pretty challenging. Like we're still working on it, and we've probably thrown more resources than Wayne Enterprises could possibly throw at it.

4) Put him in a coma. Hey, he's not dead. (Actually I think this one should probably be reserved for the Joker.)

A.)That may not be that morally different from murder.

B.) That has been tried and it backfired. You should probably spend more time reading the comics if you're going to poke at them for not including things you consider obvious when they have.

I'm not saying any of these solutions are perfect, but I'm not as smart as Batman either, nor am I a team of writers who could properly explore these beyond a lazy "he doesn't want anyone to interfere."

Yet, I, who is not as smart as many Batman villains was able to poke some pretty obvious holes into those plans. Not to mention that many of them have been tried in world and failed.

...What? Like seriously, what?

The Justice League episode dealing with the Justice Lords. Also multiple other DC futures.

Batman isn't trying to fix the world's problems though. He's watching over a single city with the same recurring bad guys, most of whom have no metahuman abilities to speak of.

And Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, and Buffet have not fixed the same problems on that scale either. Also Batman has no metahuman abilities to speak of and he's pretty competent.

That's due to editorial mandate, not plausibility. Marvel manages to marry the two - just have more powerful villains (or less powerful heroes.)

You do realize that editorial mandate aside, those things happened in canon and are therefore real to the perception of Batman (and real in Batman's universe). So Batman should be very concerned about those sort of things.

And here we come to the crux of it. You prefer more powerful villains and less powerful heroes. So you are attempting to validate that belief by ignoring when your objections were presented in the comics and dismissed.

[Z3ro]

True, but Wayne's charities are probably comparable in their degree of success. Arguing that because he has not eliminated crime makes him "unrealistic" is what I'm against here. Or arguing that his methods are necessarily worse than optimal as compared to a hypothetical better option.

Here's why I even bring up the point - there's a common argument that goes something like this:

Q) Why doesn't Batman use all that money for social improvement rather than buying fancy equipment to beat up criminals! He's bad since he doesn't!
A) He donates tons of money to charity too! He's funded tons of programs to help the poor of Gotham!

I'm not arguing against a hypothetical better option. Obviously, a comic of nothing but philanthropist Batman would be hella boring. What I'm arguing against is the people making the answer I've outlined above. If they argued that, say, Batman can't donate tons of money because it's all tied up in Wayne Enterprises stock, hey, no problem. Or if they argued he's spending it all fighting malaria in Africa (a worthwhile cause! See the Gates Foundation), that's fine too. But to say that he is donating huge sums of money to help Gotham but it's still as bad as portrayed in the comics stretches belief.

[Sapphire Guard]

lol



My issue is that none of the billionaire philanthropists in the real world, to my knowledge, dress up as a bat at night to punch criminals (who knows, the rich are different, maybe they do). When you start doing that people start asking questions and holding you to different standards. Also, I'm not blaming Batman for crime (though his presence drawing criminals is an interesting idea). I'm metaphorically blaming the fire department because it spent more money on hats than it did on fire trucks.

Allow me to stretch this metaphor beyond recognition for a moment.

Fire helmets and fire engines are not conflicting goals, they both serve a useful purpose in health and safety. Donating money to fund a hospital and preventing Firefly from burning it down are not goals that come at the expense of each other.

Imagine a fire station chief. A member of his family suffered a traumatic brain injury from falling debris as a child, and as such the fire chief spends an unusual amount of money on fire helmets for himself and his staff, because he wants to minimise the risk of this happening again. However, this does not mean that he doesn't also spend a great deal of money of fire engines, state of the art gear, funding fire exits and fire doors in buildings, patents for safe appliances, everything he can think of to reduce incidence of fire. He works himself to the bone in this regard, it's a lifetime crusade.

The fire helmet budget does not impact the fire engines budget. And it's not his fault that fire still exists.

If you look only at the fire helmet budget, you may believe this person is wasting money, but you only get the full picture if you acknowledge everything else he's doing as well. Looking at Batman's vigilante work and ignoring the philanthropy gives you a skewed picture.

I genuinely don't see how, particularly for the 5 categories I laid out. Do you have counterexamples?

I thought I gave you several, from Superman and Marvel. Your explanation is that they're often dealing with cosmic threats, despite the fact that Batman does the same, but this doesn't excuse him somehow?

Then why the hell hasn't he dealt with/graduated from Two-Face? Or allowed someone else in the League to do so?

Because regardless of how high he rises, Bruce Wayne will never believe that someone being held at gunpoint in an alley is not important enough to worry about.

As for, 'dealing with', superprisons have been done before, they usually end in riots and mass breakouts. He has attempted to rehabilitate him more than once. Ruining Harvey financially won't help, his compulsion goes beyond that.

Coma is the same as the Punisher approach, he'll be replaced by somebody similar in a week.

His high end arsenal is not useful against the local rogues in the main, it either won't work (Two Face isn't weak to Kryptonite) or will work too well (anti Darkseid artillery will tear Harvey to shreds, and probably the building he's in. Shame about the bystanders).

Pull the other one

While that was a joke, I also... don't think I'm wrong? If anyone can correct me, feel free.

Batman isn't trying to fix the world's problems though. He's watching over a single city

Not exclusively by any means.

Changing things via philanthropy is very difficult. It's very worthwhile, but it's not a fingersnap and done solution. Not eradicating the problem entirely doesn't make it useless, though.

[AMFV]

Here's why I even bring up the point - there's a common argument that goes something like this:

Q) Why doesn't Batman use all that money for social improvement rather than buying fancy equipment to beat up criminals! He's bad since he doesn't!
A) He donates tons of money to charity too! He's funded tons of programs to help the poor of Gotham!

I'm not arguing against a hypothetical better option. Obviously, a comic of nothing but philanthropist Batman would be hella boring. What I'm arguing against is the people making the answer I've outlined above. If they argued that, say, Batman can't donate tons of money because it's all tied up in Wayne Enterprises stock, hey, no problem. Or if they argued he's spending it all fighting malaria in Africa (a worthwhile cause! See the Gates Foundation), that's fine too. But to say that he is donating huge sums of money to help Gotham but it's still as bad as portrayed in the comics stretches belief.

The thing is that you have NOT addressed the answer. You have to actually do that. Bill Gates and Buffet don't exclusively use their funds for charity, so arguing that Batman should seems a little absurdist. You have to actually address the thing in question.

[deuterio12]

I thought I gave you several, from Superman and Marvel. Your explanation is that they're often dealing with cosmic threats, despite the fact that Batman does the same, but this doesn't excuse him somehow?
...
His high end arsenal is not useful against the local rogues in the main, it either won't work (Two Face isn't weak to Kryptonite) or will work too well (anti Darkseid artillery will tear Harvey to shreds, and probably the building he's in. Shame about the bystanders).

Supes can punch a mountain to dust, but he can still punch a normal human unconscious without pulverizing their skull and the surrounding city block. I'm pretty sure Bats could make weaker versions of his anti-Darkseid artillery if he didn't want to really feel skulls cracking under his fists.

Plus even if overkill is a problem, overdefense is not. Bats also has power armor that can tank Darkseid's blows, that would come really handy for just waltzing inside the Joker's newest hideout. No need for fancy acrobatics or skulking in the shadows, just charge in shrugging off bullets/knifes/punches and take the criminals.

Instead Bats tries to take enemies like Bane with his normal suit and gets his spine broken for the trouble.

Because regardless of how high he rises, Bruce Wayne will never believe that someone being held at gunpoint in an alley is not important enough to worry about.

If he was really worried about that, then Bruce would work towards making sure Gotham isn't filled with dark alleys and an incompetent corrupt police force that gets clowned by crazy non-powered people every night. Bats has no super speed and Gotham's a big city, he'll never be able to save more than a new people held at gunpoint.

Like when even Gordan's most trusted cops will betray him in an heartbeat, you know you goofed up in your philantrophy efforts.

Kingdom Come actually has older Bruce just building an army of bat-bots that can properly patrol Gotham City.
And he basically just does it because he's way too old to go punch stuff himself. Bats only adopts an efficient solution when personal action adrenaline is no longer an option in the table.

Obviously, a comic of nothing but philanthropist Batman would be hella boring. What I'm arguing against is the people making the answer I've outlined above.

I would read the hell out of that.

[Anteros]

All of the arguments about "why doesn't Batman devote all his efforts into charity instead of dressing like a Bat" are ignoring that he exists in a universe where dressing like a Bat is millions of times more effective than social programs and charity.

Sure, he could probably scrap the Batman thing and raise Gotham's standard of living. It wouldn't last very long once they get nuked by one of the many crazies that live there, or the whole world gets destroyed because there's no Batman.

There are literally dozens of stories about what if Bruce Wayne wasn't Batman and all of them share the common theme that the world goes to crap. We're talking about a guy who has been instrumental in saving the world hundreds of times...and you want him to scrap that program and focus on what? Building after school basketball courts? I'm sure those will help the next time Superman gets brainwashed by some alien overlord! These types of "they should do this instead!" arguments only hold up if you willfully ignore all evidence about the setting the characters are in and the things they accomplish.

[Psyren]

I thought I gave you several, from Superman and Marvel. Your explanation is that they're often dealing with cosmic threats, despite the fact that Batman does the same, but this doesn't excuse him somehow?

Supes does not have the 5 things I mentioned. For one he is relatively broke, so his social change is limited to being "inspiring." He is also not dumb by any means, but nowhere near Bats in smarts, which is a plot point basically every time they clash. Their morals align but their motivations do not; Superman simply can't afford to focus on a single city (even in his relative downtime) the way Bruce can, nor would he feel compelled to given that his parents (his adoptive ones anyway) are both alive and well. And lastly, none of Batman's rogues gallery can compare to that of Supes. The closest we ever get is Lex, but his money and intelligence dwarf even Bruce himself, never mind that of a bunch of lowlife gangsters. If Superman weren't arbitrarily restricted from doing so, he could solo Batman's entire gallery without breaking a sweat, and therein lies the problem.

Remind me which Marvel examples you gave?

Because regardless of how high he rises, Bruce Wayne will never believe that someone being held at gunpoint in an alley is not important enough to worry about.

And that is a fine sentiment, admirable even. But it's also why the sensible thing to do is train up Nightwing or Batgirl or whoever and leave the alleys to them. They want Batman to be both the global superpower and the guy checking alleys, and then they wonder why so many people become disillusioned with him, when they're not outright mocking the character.

As for, 'dealing with', superprisons have been done before, they usually end in riots and mass breakouts. He has attempted to rehabilitate him more than once. Ruining Harvey financially won't help, his compulsion goes beyond that.

Coma is the same as the Punisher approach, he'll be replaced by somebody similar in a week.

Were those superprisons intergalactic?
Harvey's compulsion wouldn't matter much if he can't afford henchmen.
If a new villain pops up that would be unfortunate, but at least it wouldn't feel like we're constantly jogging in place.

His high end arsenal is not useful against the local rogues in the main, it either won't work (Two Face isn't weak to Kryptonite) or will work too well (anti Darkseid artillery will tear Harvey to shreds, and probably the building he's in. Shame about the bystanders).

And the nanite injection he used to beat Wonder Woman? Is Harvey immune to that?
This is why people can't take Batman seriously, he has plans to deal with everybody in the league but some gangster in a cheap suit is a threat to him.

While that was a joke, I also... don't think I'm wrong? If anyone can correct me, feel free.

Oh please, Gotham is no safer from the DC aliens than any Marvel city. Hell, the Parademons first showed up in Gotham!

[Dr.Samurai]

This is why people can't take Batman seriously...

Pray tell, what comic can you take seriously? Let us know so someone much better versed than me can explain to you exactly how silly it actually is.

[Psyren]

Pray tell, what comic can you take seriously? Let us know so someone much better versed than me can explain to you exactly how silly it actually is.

Your mistake is seeing it as a binary (either one takes a comic seriously or not.) Rather, the plausibility that lets me buy into a premise is a spectrum, and Batman happens to score lower on that spectrum than just about any other mainstream hero I've read, even Superman.

[Darth Credence]

Supes does not have the 5 things I mentioned. For one he is relatively broke, so his social change is limited to being "inspiring." He is also not dumb by any means, but nowhere near Bats in smarts, which is a plot point basically every time they clash. Their morals align but their motivations do not; Superman simply can't afford to focus on a single city (even in his relative downtime) the way Bruce can, nor would he feel compelled to given that his parents (his adoptive ones anyway) are both alive and well. And lastly, none of Batman's rogues gallery can compare to that of Supes. The closest we ever get is Lex, but his money and intelligence dwarf even Bruce himself, never mind that of a bunch of lowlife gangsters. If Superman weren't arbitrarily restricted from doing so, he could solo Batman's entire gallery without breaking a sweat, and therein lies the problem.

Come on. Superman can turn coal to diamonds, or could use his powers to mine any mineral, or scoop rare earths from the ocean floor. He is exactly as rich or poor as he chooses to be. He also is every bit as smart as he wants to be - there was an issue where he read everything on medicine that had every been written while they were prepping someone for surgery, and he then proceeded to save the life in an operation. Superman does focus on a single city - how often does he actually go to other cities in his solo comics? Moving on to villains, Supes also has Intergang, featuring Mannheim and the Edge family, Toyman, Prankster, the Archer, Bloodsport, and more that have no powers, just gadgets. Why hasn't he wiped Intergang from the map? On the Batman side, you have Ivy, Freeze, Croc, Man-Bat, Clayface, and a few more who have powers that, depending on the writer, could give Supes some issues.

[Sapphire Guard]

. Bats also has power armor that can tank Darkseid's blows, that would come really handy for just waltzing inside the Joker's newest hideout. No need for fancy acrobatics or skulking in the shadows, just charge in shrugging off bullets/knifes/punches and take the criminals.

I sure hope nobody has hostages.

If he was really worried about that, then Bruce would work towards making sure Gotham isn't filled with dark alleys and an incompetent corrupt police force that gets clowned by crazy non-powered people every night. Bats has no super speed and Gotham's a big city, he'll never be able to save more than a new people held at gunpoint.]

He does. Problem is, that's hard. Like I said, stopping a building from exploding doesn't prevent philanthropy as well.

Kingdom Come is about a world coming apart at the seams due to clashing ideologies of heroism, it's not an ideal for anything. How well do those robots work?

Superman is poor because he chooses to be, he could make fortunes if he wanted. He chooses to focus on a single city, when he has the capability to do more. He can and does take on most of his rogues gallery regularly. He's intelligent enough to leverage his skills if he wants to.

He could solo most of Batman's rogues gallery...and that wouldn't help. Either they escape, or get replaced.

Remind me which Marvel examples you gave?

New York as a whole, which somehow never gets any better despite the dozens (hundreds?) of resident superheroes, including many tech geniuses and billionaires, a la Stark, Rand, Richards, etc. Somehow they can't improve the town put together while Batman is blamed for not being able do that by himself, and Batman is the one being inefficient? Get any of those tech geniuses to spend an hour designing an efficient streetlight, see how much can be done with it. How much could they do in a day or so of downtime?

nd that is a fine sentiment, admirable even. But it's also why the sensible thing to do is train up Nightwing or Batgirl or whoever and leave the alleys to them. They want Batman to be both the global superpower and the guy checking alleys, and then they wonder why so many people become disillusioned with him, when they're not outright mocking the character.

So if some attack or other happens, Batman is meant to ignore it because it's beneath him? What?

Were those superprisons intergalactic?
Harvey's compulsion wouldn't matter much if he can't afford henchmen.
If a new villain pops up that would be unfortunate, but at least it wouldn't feel like we're constantly jogging in place.

Either Harvey will be killed, or he makes powerful new friends next time they break out. Dent fairly often works alone anyway.

Jogging is just how comic time works. It's nothing to do with Batman specifically.

[QUOTEnd the nanite injection he used to beat Wonder Woman? Is Harvey immune to that?][/QUOTE]

The one that makes her attack until she collapses from exhaustion? How is that helpful here?

Oh please, Gotham is no safer from the DC aliens than any Marvel city. Hell, the Parademons first showed up in Gotham!

I feel like Metropolis is likelier to to have things like Brainiac Drones rampaging through the streets or Zod being thrown through buildings.

Anyone that knows more like to weigh in?

[Psyren]

Come on. Superman can turn coal to diamonds, or could use his powers to mine any mineral, or scoop rare earths from the ocean floor. He is exactly as rich or poor as he chooses to be.

Right, because Superman doing THAT would surely have no larger economic, social or political consequences. (Just from the most basic standpoint - how many coal mines does Superman have the property rights to again?)

But more importantly for the purposes of this discussion is that what he could do is irrelevant - we're talking about what these characters CHOOSE to do, and how quaint/incongruous/hollow it's becoming in a modern context.

He also is every bit as smart as he wants to be - there was an issue where he read everything on medicine that had every been written while they were prepping someone for surgery, and he then proceeded to save the life in an operation.

Well hell, why didn't you say so? Maybe HE can cure Two-Face then. Give him every psychology textbook on earth and tell him to hop to it. Reforming a supervillain would certainly be bigger bang for his buck than performing a single surgery.

But this is exactly the kind of DC universe nonsense* that makes a lot of their characters downright comical to me (and judging by the various articles and memes, not only me.) Which is not to say that Marvel never does anything like that, but their A-Listers tend to have much more well-defined limits. Using your surgery example, if Iron Man had to learn a bunch of medical data quickly, he wouldn't read the entirety of medicine by himself - some AI of his would have done it, which is a lot more plausible since that's a thing we're getting AI to do right now. It also makes challenging Iron Man in the future much simpler, because his smarts in that regard would be dependent on the availability of his computer.

*language warning

Superman does focus on a single city - how often does he actually go to other cities in his solo comics? Moving on to villains, Supes also has Intergang, featuring Mannheim and the Edge family, Toyman, Prankster, the Archer, Bloodsport, and more that have no powers, just gadgets. Why hasn't he wiped Intergang from the map? On the Batman side, you have Ivy, Freeze, Croc, Man-Bat, Clayface, and a few more who have powers that, depending on the writer, could give Supes some issues.

Supes' solo comics frequently involve saving the entire planet, not just Metropolis. Certainly it's more frequent than Batman's books. As for gadgets, Two-Face and Black Mask and Hugo etc. don't even have that much. Certainly they don't have access to gadgets powered by Darkseid's technology (like Intergang does, and you failed to mention), so I'm truly hoping you see how that might prove to be something of a speed bump.

[Peelee]

Right, because Superman doing THAT would surely have no larger economic, social or political consequences.

Yes, where would society ever be without the blood diamond monopoly totally cool diamond business that has no perceivable flaws? It'd be madness, I tells ya, madness!

[JDMSJR]

Ok, I don't really read Batman, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they have some plot line where it turns out that Gotham is literally cursed to always be a wretched hive of scum and villainy? If you take that as true, then most of the other stuff makes sense. The universe is literally setting up the opportunities for these guys to keep continually breaking out of Arkham time and again. If you live in Gotham and have a slight obsession it is concentrated and magnified until you are running around in green spandex with question marks on it. If you are not morally upright you begin a downward spiral into graft and corruption. Seen in this light, Batman becomes like Sisyphus trying to push that crime boulder up the hill. All his work as Batman and all the charitable work Wayne Enterprises does is just to keep things from going backwards.

On a separate note, I have never understood the whole "other heroes stay out of Gotham because Batman says so" thing. Say the Flash wants give Gotham a few hours a week where he literally stops all crime because he is the most broken hero ever, what does Batman do?

Batman: (gravelly voice) "Stay out of Gotham Flash, this is my town.”
Flash: "No"
Batman: "...."

I mean what is Batman going to do? Attack him?

And another thing. Why is Batman so feared by the criminal populous? He is the one person in Gotham who you can be sure will NOT kill you. I would much rather see Batman show up than Two-Face or The Joker.