Batman: Vigilante Plutocrat Fighting a Class War

To underscore this thesis, he then contrasts the Dark Knight (an ambiguous aristocratic nickname if ever a superhero had one) with his famous rogues gallery:
Let's see Christopher Nolan or Grant Morrison take on that theme if they truly want to update the Batman's legend.

Way to really delve into the (possible) subtext of the work of fiction there, GG. They're fictional characters. They could have whatever powers and whatever enemies their creators wanted. The question being raised is "why are they written the way they are?"

Padnick could also have contrasted the Batman with another non-superpowered, gadget-orientated wealthy vigilante: The Green Arrow. Oliver Queen (another obvious aristocratic allusion) started out in the shadow of Batman but graduated from fighting a mentally ill, clown-themed nemesis to fighting for the rights of the underprivileged and for social change.

After all, Robin Hood, Green Arrow's inspiration, was an English aristocrat who didn't forget about the common folk in his crusade against corruption. Batman's is a drunken Viennese partygoer with a grudge.

Because the creators of Batman wanted to make a "street level" character to do more pulp detective style stories rather than battles with cosmic scale villains?

*facepalm*

Robin Hood was an English aristocrat fed up with being taxed to death by an out of control government.

An illegitimate government, it must be emphasized. The redistribution of wealth is his own innovation.

The Batman, in his Golden Age origins, was quite content with the status quo in Gotham City, which was presented as well run and honest. He was strictly concerned with battling the underworld, mad scientists, etc., not fighting city hall.

When Superman is fighting someone who's on an equal level with him, conventional law enforcement and the court system are incapable of dealing with that threat.

That's much less the case with the threats Batman faces.

I do have to wonder what would happen if Bruce invested an amount of money equal to what he spends on being Batman on social welfare programs, drug treatment centers, job retraining and the like. I suspect he doesn't because he likes being Batman.

Batman is dangerous. No one can decide what is right except for him, and we have only his assurance that he will never compromise his principles. He's completely unaccountable to anyone. He's got a deep-seated belief that only he can deliver real justice in Gotham because of endemic corruption, and is not afraid to use fear and violence to promote his ends. That's not to say that the people he fights aren't bad people - but there is no protection from Batman for someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can't sue Batman if he injures you in the pursuit of a bad guy. And, of course, Batman always only goes after bad guys - there's never any ambiguity or mistaken identity...

I've not read a Batman comic in 15 years, so correct me if I'm wrong on any of those points.

Well you are wrong, sir, so I'll go ahead and do my best to correct you.

If the numerous breakouts from Arkham that have ended up with body counts in the double digits as well as the payoffs and extortions of Gotham's law enforcement system don't count as conventional means being unequal to the task of dealing with Batman's rogues gallery, I don't know what does.

And Batman actually does spend money on those things. But they only get mentioned offhand every now and then, because they don't look to fill 22 pages a month of Bruce showing up on charity functions and signing checks.

As for Batman being dangerous, well, yes he is. To criminals. Other superheroes like Superman somehow don't catch as much flack for disregarding law enforcement procedure, despite many of them actually having powers and thus presenting a more potent threat on paper.

In point of fact, Robin Hood's "government" (i.e., Prince John) was quite legitimate by the standards of the day. King Richard went abroad, John stood up.

Now, he was an awful monarch, no doubt. But there's a difference between being bad and being illegitimate.

As to Batman... You completely neglect the fact that the social order that Batman fights to uphold is neither self-imposed nor arbitrary. Batman doesn't go around beating up random citizens who defy his "Bat-Laws" because he feels like it. He uses violence only against the violent to uphold a common social weal that most of his fellow citizens agreed upon long before he came on the scene.

You can't discuss Batman without reflecting upon his inspiration: El Zorro, Don Diego Vega. Another aristocrat vigilante, but one acting on the people's behalf out of a sense of noblesse oblige. A motivation that is commonplace in the Batman mythos as well. Bruce Wayne isn't Batman just because he wants to be, he's Batman because he's the only one who can afford to be and because it's his duty to the city and the people that are the source of his affluence and success.

But, obviously, this is a speciously-constructed argument meant to advance a controversial thesis rather than a cogent viewpoint.

tl;dr version: Back under the bridge, troll!

Batman Inc seem to have him focusing on a more global scale now.

I don't classify hero "levels" by power output, but rather by the amount of territory they patrol.

Batman focused on the entire city, and was only focusing on the streets early in his career. Then again, I do tend to overanalyze a bit.

Ugh, Batman Inc. Excuse my threadjack here but this storyline should just kill Batman as a character dead.

The whole point behind an alter ego is to remain anonymous, partly so that one can remain unencumbered by the legalities of vigilantism.

With any kind of reality, every thug and gangster that Batman ever punched or even threatened, even once, should now be lining up for the great-grandmother of all class-action legal suits. And most of them would win. No matter how good Bruce's lawyers are, they'd win.

Unless, of course, Bruce is willing to buy off the same corrupt Gotham judges and DAs that keep letting the bad guys off. That would be an interesting moral dilemma...

Good lord, that would never hold up in a medieval court of law. John conspired against Richard's appointed regent, William Longchamp, and then proceded to conspire with foreign powers to take the crown for himself while Richard was held captive abroad.

The oppressive Spanish colonial government against which El Zorro fought has no counterpart in old Gotham, which, I must emphasize, was portrayed as a corrupt society only much, much later in Batman's history. There's very little sense of social justice in the original Batman. (Even Golden Age Superman was known to fight for the little guy early on, taking such actions as demolishing tenements and beating up slum lords.)

Too late! Padnick's controversial thesis is loose on the Internet! (His blog is down, however.)

Minus being duly deputized under the law (a minor detail that only the Adam West TV show rectified).

You can't really hold up the 1930's comic-book-logic "old Gotham" as a comparison to Macauley's pulp-adventure historical setting of Pueblo de Los Angeles. "Old" Batman didn't need a compelling social context under which to operate and you can't cite the lack of one as a context in and of itself.

The only way you can disparage Batman as an oppressor is if you claim that the people he goes after are using valid means of expression to change the social order. They're not. We're not talking even eco-terrorists or anti-WTO rioter-protestors. Batman's rogues are sociopaths and psychopaths committing blatantly self-serving criminal acts. There's nothing oppressive about Batman (or anybody else, for that matter) stopping them. Batman is just better-equipped to do so.

I was under the (probably mistaken) belief that Batman isn't deputized because if he were all the evidence he gathers (most of which illegally) would be thrown out of court. Since he's not an official part of the legal process his evidence, like Crimestoppers tips, serves to point the police in the right direction to discover the same evidence themselves which is what actually makes it to court. I.. think it has a name... inevitable discovery?

Yeah. That's it'.

If I understand that right all the ruses and schemes and bribes and threats and such that Batman's villains use to foul up Due Process illegally allows Batman's illegally gathered evidence to stand. It wouldn't if he were legit.

Even sociopaths deserve their day in court, and have certain rights that Batman violates. They retain those rights until they are convicted in a court of law and sentenced by a jury of their peers. That's the foundation of our civil society - that we can only be punished when we are proved guilty, because we have decided as a nation that it's better for guilty people to go free than for innocent people to be punished. Batman skips all of that, and if he's going after you, there's a presumption of guilt. And Batman's never wrong about that.

The issue is one of narrative convenience - Batman's methods are justified because every single person he goes after is a genuine criminal with no extenuating circumstances. They're bad guys, pure and simple, and no one argues that the Joker is just 'misunderstood.' That makes it easy to cheer for Batman, because all the people he goes after are EVIL. He never makes mistakes, so his unshakable belief in himself as the only source of real justice is justified. Narratively, it doesn't matter that Batman's violating their rights or brutalizing them - they're bad guys getting their comeuppance. That's cool, I can understand that - I love lots of fiction where the hero gets stuff done without worrying about technicalities. That doesn't mean that, when you step back, you realize that Dirty Harry is a bad cop and you wouldn't want him in your town, let alone the heroes of Lethal Weapon. It doesn't make Batman noble, it makes him a crypto-fascist vigilante.

You can enjoy the story and gloss over it in your mind, because it's not important to the story - our heroes only do these things to the really bad guys, we're assured, and we don't worry about it. But when you do think about it, it's really hard to justify the existence of Batman.

To hit your major point - Batman is a greater threat to the social order than criminals. In our social order, we know there will be criminals, and we're set up to handle that - we have police, courts, prisons. Batman says the social order is corrupt and weak, and only he and his violent methods can save us from the other, the evil scary criminals.

Or on the side of the people who'd rather not be slaughtered en masse.


While it's an interesting interpretation of Batman, it doesn't really hold any more weight than any other interpretation. Every one of the points listed could be viewed in a completely different way.

But it's always fun to see someone put their own spin on things.