Comics

Why are people so intent on this meme?

Bruce Wayne is literally the kind of .1%er that can only live in fiction: an actual good one, that uses his wealth ethically in all the ways no one with that degree of wealth would ever do in the real world.

Not unlike how Batman is the ideal fantasy vigilante taking the law into their own hands (i.e. uncorruptible, unbiased, and uncompromising in his ethics), Bruce Wayne is the ideal fantasy billionaire that isn't a drain on humanity.

Neither are realistic, neither exist in real life, and that's the whole damn point. It's aspirational and escapist.

It's the reason why Lex Luthor is a villain and Bruce Wayne isn't.

He was trying to save his love by freezing everything and she wanted plants to become the dominant lifeform on the planet. So yes, we're rooting for the billionaire that has a better adjusted moral compass than those two yahoos.

This is the subtext of the Nolan trilogy. Batman makes everything worse and literally everyone tells him that to his face, but he doesn't listen due to belief in his own exceptionalism. The only good thing he ever does is at the end of the third movie he fucks off forever.

My man, if every billionaire had the ethics and morals of batman we'd be a much better place.

Not everything in life is a conspiracy theory. Him being a billionaire is a cool concept precisely because most billionaires are assholes. Not to mention it's the only way he could afford all his gadgets.

I felt they were using the fact that Batman is an orphan, and being a billionaire is an excuse to explain how he can fund his... hobby?

But I could see the billionaire propaganda aspect as well. I guess it depends on the author's intent.

It's right-wing propaganda in general.

Who's the hero? One of the richest men in the city.

Who are his allies? The cops.

Who are the enemies?

• An immigrant who wears a mask
• A psychiatrist
• A psychologist
• A female environmentalist
• A male environmentalist

What happens when his enemies are defeated? They are sent to a mental hospital... a mental hospital that is falling apart and chronically underfunded. That leads to them escaping, giving Batman another excuse to go beat them up.

If Mr. Wayne is a billionaire and very influential in city politics, the way they always portray him, shouldn't he be advocating tax increases on the wealthy, and using that money to fix up the city... or at the very minimum to fix up Gotham Asylum?

Come to think of it, growing up I remember thinking of certain scenes, like he goes to temples to meditate, "to find himself" or "fight his demons" or whatever, or joining fight club-style events with randos, again "to find himself" or for the fun of it, who knows - and even then I was thinking "damn, I guess it's good to have that much money to act like a clueless brat!"

Most superheroes are built on the idea that the world is unjust. The people who acquire power often do so through sheer chance rather than any merit of their own, but it's still their responsibility to use that power ethically, even if society fundamentally isn't built for people like them and they have to adopt a secret identity to have any chance of a normal life.

Batman's different. He was born with a great deal of wealth and power, sure, but then he took it upon himself to acquire even more power and put himself even higher above the people around him. He's exactly who society is built for, but he wears a mask anyway to shield himself from accountability.

Somehow, we're supposed to think of him as a hero.

Nah it's just an excuse for where his character gets his cool toys.

Gotta play dominos with them. Everytime one pops up- knock em dead. I mean down. Wink wink.

Poison ivy would argue we don’t have time for systemic change. She’s doing what is in her power to do. She’d probably say that if your potted fern is droopy, it needs to be in the sun. But if you can’t afford a place with sun, maybe you need to do what you can now, and get a grow light.

This is what we are taught.
But what we want is to change the system. And those specific people of that specific class are what stands in the way of many/all.

Tl;dr: Ivy is a hero, the hero we need.

after the 15th or so killed in a 6 month period things might start changing. Maybe.

One way to find out.

Have you ever heard of Death Note? I think you might like it.

In that condition she could probably have convinced him to "legally" deed all his properties to her. (She would need to be able to enthrall everyone in the room when it happens, otherwise witnesses will testify he wasn't of sound mind, but that seems like something she could solve.)

It gets complicated after that, though, lots of shareholder suits if she does anything too drastic. Maybe she converts all those assets into investments in renewable energy, which would keep shareholders off her back.

Then she only has to deal with assassin squads sent by the rest of the oil stakeholders but, again, that seems like a problem she could solve.

I mean... if you play whack-a-mole long enough, eventually they'll get the message.

We can sure start with that

Killing the first one probably won't any more than killing a single mouse doesn't stop an infestation, but once the mice realize that you got a couple of cats they will find the exit.

That's why you need to put traps by the exit too, the mice know too much and might potentially regroup to return with better tactics. You've got to get them all in one swift purge.

No but it might make the new owners think a bit.

Also, Batman isn't opposed to her environmentalism, and a ton of his rogues' gallery are rich assholes. A situation like this would be likely to end in Batman stopping Poison Ivy and sending her to Arkham, but also stopping the billionaire's plans through destroying his project, exposing his plans, finding a reason to send him to jail, etc. It very much might involve kicking the shit out of a billionaire. More or less radical depending on who's writing that story.

And really, not to be a wet blanket, but Batman's been written by tons of people over nearly a century. Depictions of him and his surrounding characters are going to vary. Poison Ivy tends to be more of an antihero nowadays as her cause has only gotten more sympathetic.

Poison ivy isn't a misunderstood anti-hero, she's a villain.

Recent comics have changed her from outright villain to eco-friendly Punisher as far as I know.

And more will die this year from record high heats than batman could ever save

Nathan Long