Wired: These Days It Makes More Sense For Batman To Be A Villain

Kinda wish the comic book would just like that, in black and white. Unless it does, which would be awesome. :P

Sean's art looks amazing either way. I have an oversized edition of Punk Rock Jesus in black and white and it's goddamn glorious.
 
He's a billionaire capitalist who's only "virtue" is that he's a billionaire capitalist, much of which he inherited. It's 20th century pro-capitalist propaganda. He would be villain today.

How many burglaries are caused by his company underpaying workers and they need to pay rent?
How many bank robberies are committed by his desperate worker's who need to pay for an operation because they're a low level employee and don't have health insurance from their job?
How many kids turn to criminal gangs because their schools are underfunded thanks to Wayne Enterprises hiring an army of CPA's to get away with paying no taxes on billions in profits?
 
He's a billionaire capitalist who's only "virtue" is that he's a billionaire capitalist, much of which he inherited. It's 20th century pro-capitalist propaganda. He would be villain today.

How many burglaries are caused by his company underpaying workers and they need to pay rent?
How many bank robberies are committed by his desperate worker's who need to pay for an operation because they're a low level employee and don't have health insurance from their job?
How many kids turn to criminal gangs because their schools are underfunded thanks to Wayne Enterprises hiring an army of CPA's to get away with paying no taxes on billions in profits?

Now apply this line of thinking to every single superhero character and you will know why superhero comics are secretly the worst thing in the universe.
 
To anyone complaining he doesn't help people with his money, ehhh, he's always donating/building stuff for the poor. I'm not even sure how he doesn't run out of money with how much he throws away.
 
He's a billionaire capitalist who's only "virtue" is that he's a billionaire capitalist, much of which he inherited. It's 20th century pro-capitalist propaganda. He would be villain today.

How many burglaries are caused by his company underpaying workers and they need to pay rent?
How many bank robberies are committed by his desperate worker's who need to pay for an operation because they're a low level employee and don't have health insurance from their job?
How many kids turn to criminal gangs because their schools are underfunded thanks to Wayne Enterprises hiring an army of CPA's to get away with paying no taxes on billions in profits?

Clearly somebody doesn't read the comics Bruce gives a lot to Gotham, the writers are just never going to let it get better (At one point Gotham was literally cursed). Your logic basically fits all heroes in superhero universes since they could all technically make the world better.
 
He's a billionaire capitalist who's only "virtue" is that he's a billionaire capitalist, much of which he inherited. It's 20th century pro-capitalist propaganda. He would be villain today.

How many burglaries are caused by his company underpaying workers and they need to pay rent?
How many bank robberies are committed by his desperate worker's who need to pay for an operation because they're a low level employee and don't have health insurance from their job?
How many kids turn to criminal gangs because their schools are underfunded thanks to Wayne Enterprises hiring an army of CPA's to get away with paying no taxes on billions in profits?

I mean, the police still arrest them one way or another.

On the other hand, Peter Parker has given criminals jobs, so...
 
More recently, he's reflected the outlandishness of the 1980s thanks to Jack Nicholson's portrayal in Tim Burton's Batman, and the existential dread of the new millennium via Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight.

???
 
He's a billionaire capitalist who's only "virtue" is that he's a billionaire capitalist, much of which he inherited. It's 20th century pro-capitalist propaganda. He would be villain today.

How many burglaries are caused by his company underpaying workers and they need to pay rent?
How many bank robberies are committed by his desperate worker's who need to pay for an operation because they're a low level employee and don't have health insurance from their job?
How many kids turn to criminal gangs because their schools are underfunded thanks to Wayne Enterprises hiring an army of CPA's to get away with paying no taxes on billions in profits?

He's a character who employs thousands and dedicates his free-time to preventing people from getting mugged.

It isn't his responsibility to stop people from making poor life choices. Plenty of people navigate poverty without turning to crime.
 
Just checked out the first issue for this.

As a deconstruction of the Batman mythos, I'm not sure it's completely working for me so far. To make its points, Batman is portrayed as a murderous thug who seems to be quickly losing his appreciation for human life and The Joker we get here isn't really The Joker, being a lot less harmless than his mainstream counterpart (he's never been convicted for anything but robbery, has less of a perceived reputation for hurting people, in addition to being a known personality in Gotham before he transformed into a super-villain).

The art is absolutely gorgeous, though.
 
Just checked out the first issue for this.

As a deconstruction of the Batman mythos, I'm not sure it's completely working for me so far. To make its points, Batman is portrayed as a murderous thug who seems to be quickly losing his appreciation for human life and The Joker we get here isn't really The Joker, being a lot less harmless than his mainstream counterpart (he's never been convicted for anything but robbery, has less of a perceived reputation for hurting people, in addition to being a known personality before he transformed into a super-villain).

The art is absolutely gorgeous, though.

Joker's supposedly based on the DC Animated Universe version of the character, who was very much a bank robber / prankster and has a conclusive backstory as a former member of the mob (like the 1989 Batman movie).

That doesn't explain Batman though, who doesn't even break the limbs of criminals in the DCAU.

So I'm guessing Sean's crossing DCAU Joker with Frank Miller's Batman to give the Joker a chance at not being considered the villain, which is the only way you could do it I suppose.
 
And seen through the lens of the 21st century, a time when it's understood that vigilante justice is dangerous, Bruce Wayne's actions don't look much more safe or sane than the Joker's.

"There's blame on both sides."
 
The key thing about Batman is Gotham - he works in the heightened reality of a fallen city where corruption is systemic, criminals have super powers, the mob runs everything and citizens despair. In that context, his brand of vigilante justice works perfectly.

When you sanitize or normalize Gotham too much, for the sake of 'realism', suddenly the whole character stops making sense.
 
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