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Superman (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by Stamets@lemmy.world to c/tumblr@lemmy.world
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[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

You lost me at Bruce Wayne saying that the city should spend more on infrastructure.

This is ultra-Libertarian playboy Bruce Wayne who attends lavish rich guy parties in a city that's crumbling all around him. He could do so much to solve Gotham's problems by just paying higher taxes, but instead he spends his money coming up with cool gadgets he can use to beat up people who escaped from underfunded insane asylums.

[-] BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

is this a specific comic storyline? because i read he spends most of his money on all sorts of programs and infrastructure and help, but gotham is cursed by a demon so it never improves

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

It's not a specific storyline, it's just the status quo in the Bat Universe.

Maybe he donates to various worthy causes here or there, but it doesn't seem to be a big enough donation to affect his rich playboy lifestyle at all, nor does it affect his budget for gadgets. What he never does is campaign for a major tax increase for billionaires. He's never meeting with the "Bernie Sanders" equivalent in Gotham, trying to push through progressive legislation.

The thing is, his character has the perfect excuse. He's really Batman, and Bruce Wayne is just a cover identity. But, to keep up appearances, he has to put on his tux and go to ultra-rich person parties as Bruce Wayne. It would seem suspicious and draw unwanted attention if his cover identity Bruce Wayne started lobbying for higher taxes on the rich, so he gets to use that as an excuse for why that filthy playboy Bruce Wayne never does those things. It's so that Batman can keep going out there and "fighting crime". AFAIK he's never outright said that that's his excuse for not lobbying for progressive causes. But, he has definitely said that he goes to ultra-rich person functions as Bruce Wayne and plays the idle rich guy because he needs to keep his cover story intact. It's mighty convenient, if you ask me.

[-] Stamets@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Bro, I fucking hate Batman and think he's the worst comic book character of all time but when it comes to his philanthropy, you're just wrong.

Bruce Wayne spends an absurd amount of money keeping Gotham running. He's the one who actively funds all of the programs that are for orphanages, he hires thugs to keep them out of crime and he has a metric fuckload of low income programs.

Bruce Wayne CONSTANTLY lobbies for progressive causes. Straight up. He's aggressively leftist. The Wayne Foundation funds all manners of charities, medical research, and all kinds of stuff to fix the buildings he admittedly destroys. He will pay for college tuition for his employees and he will set up entire youth centers. The man perpetually puts all of his money back into Gotham.

If you want an example of this, issue #32 of Gotham Knights does a lot to focus on that. The entirety of that issue, and a lot of that series, is just Bruce Wayne living his normal life and the whole life is just philanthropy. He ends up supporting environmental policies, takes old people out to lunch, tells a mailroom employee to go to college and pays for his tuition. He goes off to a dedication ceremony for a statue and then goes golfing with a rich fuck and convinces her to build a recreation center instead of a Starbucks. Even shows an ex-con applying to a new job, and Wayne sending a ton of new bulletproof vests to Bludhaven PD.

Gotham itself literally would not exist without Wayne as it currently stands. It is a cesspit? Yes. But it would be worse without Wayne by a significant margin. Why? Because, and I feel like this isn't mentioned nearly often enough, Gotham is cursed to be this way. Like straight up literally cursed. You've got a bat-demon who's locked in the center of Gotham, that the city was built around an asylum that was created by a serial killer, and that Arkham Asylum has a literal portal to hell inside of it.

Bruce Wayne is another side of Batman. As in Bruce's own words: "As Bruce Wayne, I can utilize every division at Wayne Enterprises and the money we possess to improve the social and urban infrastructures in Gotham. And as The Batman, I can help the Gotham City police take on the criminals who prey on our city."

Saying that Bruce isn't a leftist and doesn't push for social change could not be further from the truth. He's a playboy, 100%, but he's a playboy philanthropist through and through. And I say all of this as someone who up until a few months ago thought the same thing. Still hate him for all those other reasons but that one had to be dropped when I realized it wasn't true. Dude is a genuine force for good in the world when it comes to his money. He got all of it from inheritance and the only things he does with it publicly is invest in Gotham and the world as a whole and be a rampant slut. Privately... yeah he's using a whole lot of toys.

[-] frank@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

It's impossible for me to see him as anything other than the sole villain in the series

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 week ago

metro man is objectively a better person than superman

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Several comic lines have explored this issue. It's always come down to the fact that there are people just as rich as Wayne who are corrupt and bankrolling mob families, drug traffic, providing weapons, lobbying government, etc. Essentially it is one billionaire against a dozen billionaires. So, he still has to don the bat suit to do illegally the shit he can't do legally. Often he ends up using intel gathered as the bat for rich-people power plays to oust other corrupt rich people.

I think it's poignant of real life. If you want to stay rich, you don't fuck with the other rich people, because they will disappear you faster than you can blink. Being rich is a club that you are only part of until you start fucking with other people's wealth. If you are an ostracized solitary sod, who doesn't go to any social event and all you political stances are openly hostile against the entire rich class you are a part of, you won't stay rich for long and all the power that comes from that wealth will disappear, if you get to keep your life at all. Without all his money, Batman is just a really buff dude who is very smart and knows martial arts. I've met a few of those. Almost all of them broke as fuck.

[-] Donkter@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Were there any superman comics that were just about the Clark Kent personality and him using super hearing or this example to find a story and then having to find the right leads and ask the right questions to find the story that he already knows is true? Cause I would read the hell out of that.

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

I've never heard of that. But, I've heard that writers say it's really hard to write good Superman stories because of his super hearing. This guy is portrayed as someone who is always fighting for what he believes in. With his super hearing, he is never unaware of the crimes going on around him. He hears every case of domestic violence, every mugging, every rape, every suicide attempt in a huge city of millions of people. But, sometimes he wants to be Clark Kent, so he has to just ignore all those horrors going on around him.

[-] Stamets@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I feel like that's more a limitation of writers imagination than an actual block to stories. The whole reason why Superman is my favorite hero is because while every other hero focuses on having an actual physical weakness or limitation, Supermans often focuses on his mental limitations of being the goodest boy to ever scout. Lazy Superman writers fall back on Kryptonite being the key weakness and have it all revolve around that. Good writers focus on his emotional state and Kryptonite would be used as a representation of that emotional state.

For example, I can see why Superman wouldn't involve himself in everything that he hears. His whole thing is to inspire hope and goodness but by showing up to every single crime all the time, he'd just instill fear in everyone. He also can't rock up to every Dictator or everything on the planet because then you've just got a God who is showing up to tell you how to run your country and there are already people who are terrified of that idea becoming a reality. He's also aggressively American and the imagery of an American rolling around the world telling you how to do your shit also won't fly. Not then and ESPECIALLY not today.

For Superman to continue inspiring people, and not scaring them into submission, he just... can't react to all of those things around him. Not without inherently changing the entire status quo of the whole planet.

And that's just one idea as to how you could explain that off to write a good Superman story...

Genuinely and fully believe that the reason most people don't like Superman is because most writers of Superman don't understand the source material. Also genuinely believe that Zach Snyder got it better than anyone wants to give him credit for because he actually demonstrated those sides of Superman and had him deal with it. That's the origin story I wanted. Not something sanitized to high heaven and dripping with nothing but optimism. Reality doesn't work like that. Clark isn't blind to reality. He had to learn his lessons in hard ways and has limits he has to deal with that no one else can relate to. Also not like he can easily go through therapy. Cavills Superman was both a genuinely good person but also struggling to find out how to be one with the person he was and the person the planet expected him to be. People can not like it all they want, that's fine, but he created a more realistic version of Superman as a man instead of just a Superhero.

James Gunn is going to churn out YET ANOTHER FUCKING ORIGIN STORY FOR SUPERMAN AND THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, slap bright colors on everything, have him flying around with a fucking Dog and just spam Donner references repeatedly while not even demonstrating a single hint of a struggle and everyone is going to shit themselves over it because it will be pure nostalgia with nothing new and no hint of Superman beyond a lunchbox image of him. I have no fucking faith for Gunn whatsoever. Don't get me started on the suit looking like it came from a fucking Spirit Halloween. Also Krypto can fuck off.

God dammit I am so fucking sick of James Gunn. And this isn't me being like "Oh Snyder got it better therefore fuck Gunn." It's because I genuinely have no faith for anything that Gunn ever touches. He ends up backflipping away from the source material with his head up his own ass. Asshole called the 2023 Flash movie the "Greatest Superhero Movie of All Time". Dude oversaw both that movie and Aquaman 2, coming in to fix both of them but given they're both dogshit I don't know how much he fixed. Don't get me started on calling the second Suicide Squad movie the same fucking name.

His movies don't amount to anything in the run of story. The only thing he does is find a ridiculous character and make the audience emotionally invested. Every goddamn movie. Groot in Guardians and it's going to be Krypton in this upcoming bullshit. They don't have ANY STORY. They're just surface level garbage that builds tension only to slap a joke in to remove it because the made is terrified of any suspense. His movies just end up being the same schlock over and over and over again, being wildly self indulgent on pop-culture or meta-references without any hint of a vision or linking thread.

Worst Director currently working because he keeps getting jobs he isn't qualified for.

this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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