Rewatching old Batman TAS and am surprised how many times I take the criminal’s side. Batman there just reinforcing the capitalist patriarchy. Turns out he’s not the hero we need.
Ok, but Batman is there to protect innocents, not solve systemic issues. I don’t care how tragic your back story, when you start freezing people to death, turning them in to plants, or murdering them based on a coin flip, you’re the bad guy.
Also, Batman throws them in Arkham Asylum expecting them to get help. Bring it up with Arkham why they keep reoffending.
I’d buy that if he weren’t already also in a position to help solve systemic issues.
There’s the Wayne Foundation that does… stuff. I dunno I don’t know much about it.
I mean He is a billionaire lol
I think that what makes TAS good is how, at least in characters’ first appearances, it seems that the idea is precisely to show how social problems have driven these “villains” crazy, and the objective is always, with some exceptions (i.e. Red Claw), to make the audience sympathize with them, producing social awareness of this problems in the audience. Unfortunately, as the characters are reused, they are reduced to caricatured villains and the incentive to sympathize with them fades. For example, Two-Face appears as an antagonist in 6 episodes and only in the stories “Two-Face” and “Second Chance” is he treated as a human being. And this only gets worse in the sequel in The New Batman Adventures. I actually think it’s a good thing that, despite generally showing some sympathy, Batman always opposes his antagonists when they reach a point of social rupture: Batman is not a revolutionary, because Bruce Wayne could never be a revolutionary. Batman not being exactly on the side I would be on is not a problem: it gives the cartoon a verisimilitude.
Now, regarding “the hero we need” and other ideas of the sort, present in Nolan’s films and Miller’s comics, they are radically fascist, there’s nothing to discuss.
What did Clayface do wrong, exactly, except go after a rich asshole?
OP would enjoy Watchmen
The printed version, please. The movie kind of misses the point and becomes hog slop.
“I grew up poor, my family had to struggle, my uncle beat me and/or died… but instead of getting handouts!, life threw me a curve ball and radiated/bit me into bootstrapping myself! and helping my community or something. I dunno, cops don’t show up anymore.”
Since spiderman was used as an example I’ll list the villains for the newer spider man films, you tell me where the films are promoting the status quo:
Homecoming: a group of criminals who stole incredibly advanced weapons and used them to terrorize communities in new york.
Far from home: a guy gets really pissed that some technology that he made for a company was property of the company, starts endangering civilians to make him look like a hero.
No way home: Classic spider man villains from other universes come to this Spiderman’s universe, spider man tries to help them improve themselves and there lives
This comic is just a “quit having fun” but with leftist pandering
Homecoming: Blue collar workers are told they’re fired and replaced by billionaire Tony Stark’s new government backed company, Haliburton. I mean Defence Force or something. System failed them so they said fuck it.
Far From Home: Billionaire’s company steals invention of his employee and passes it off as his own. Makes more billions. Dozens of the employees quit to support employee’s new plans of taking back his tech and usurping Billionaire’s world dominance. System failed them so they said fuck it.
No Way Home: Literally just a movie about how Spiderman and the system failed these “villains” who really just needed support with mental health and navigating a shit system.
Yes and it’s also about how all that doesn’t justify killing people.
I’ll give you the first two, even if neither one was at all constructive or even radical about it. (Neither of them were really trying to change the system, just to abuse it for themselves after being told they couldn’t succeed inside of it).
The third one is practically the antithesis of this comic.
If we want to argue the other way:
Homecoming: Tony Stark fucks over a bunch of union workers, leading them into a life of crime to support their families.
Far From Home: Tony Stark fucks over a fellow scientist, dismissing his lifes work as a party trick and tanking his career, the scientist then uses his technology to make himself appear as a hero and save his reputation.
No Way Home: Spider Man condemns four out of five men to die in their home universe, attempting to rehabilitate them and reverse their powers before their eventual deaths.
Would it be a life of crime or lives of crime?
and if we want to argue the other other way:
Homecoming: tony stark decides to actually help clean up after himself for once instead of making the citizens of new york pay for it (many of whom are homeless after the events of “avengers”). Some union workers start to destroy small businesses and kill people because of that
Far from home: A guy kills people because his invention wasn’t respected as much as he would prefer
No way home: spider man destroys his whole life and sacrifices 4 people who he tried to help for the sake of all life in the multiverse
Homecoming: tony stark decides to actually help clean up after himself for once instead of making the citizens of new york pay for it (many of whom are homeless after the events of “avengers”). Some union workers start to destroy small businesses and kill people because of that
This reminds me of the situation where people thought they were doing good by sending free food and clothes to underserved African populations, but it turns out it was putting their local manufacturers out of business.
Far from home: A guy kills people because his invention wasn’t respected as much as he would prefer
Billionaire names the employee’s invention “BARF” craps all over it, then uses it for himself
No way home: spider man destroys his whole life and sacrifices 4 people who he tried to help for the sake of all life in the multiverse
Why was the multiverse in trouble again?
Not sure if it was the multiverse or just one universe, but it was due to large amounts of multiversal travel, caused by spiderman annoying Dr strange while he was casting a spell, which resulted in villains being brought over from other universes.
I see what the writer is saying for sure but I’ll be honest and say Spider-Man wasn’t the best choice of superhero to try to make this point
wasn’t there a movie a couple years ago where the bad guy was a union member?
Yeah the first Tom Holland Spider-Man has a protagonist that was a union guy who spent his savings trying to keep his business alive but buying the alien tech cleanup contract. The government under Tony starks direction takeover the cleanup and fail to repay the union guy who then turns to theft violence and eventually murder.
They call him your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man for a reason
He’s always depicted as hand-to-mouth poor.
Of all the superheroes, he’s probably the most proletariat-affiliated.
On the other side, there are examples like the Pym family, who destroy their stretch limos whenever they’re dirty to buy new ones.
He’s always depicted as hand-to-mouth poor.
And when he started a business and started doing well financially they introduced a second Spider-Man who was broke again.
I just want to start this sentence with saying that I know literally nothing about Captain America, but I’m willing to bet that Captain America would be a better choice.
Captain America in 1970s briefly abandoned being captain America after preventing the US president from doing a coup as a cult leader
Where’s Captain America when you need him
Maybe the Captain America from first comics, but the good stories of Captain America are good precisely because they show Captain America realizing that the “American Dream” he is supposed to represent is really just a dream and does not exist in reality.
I mean, there was k8nd of a whole event that lead to a massive super powered civil war where Cap lead the charge on the “rebel,” side. The movie didn’t do it justice, at all, but still had Cap on the anti-government interference side.
While you were writing that, I was expanding my comment as the current (2010s and later) super hero writers have kind of realized that government isn’t inherently good. Which time frame are you referencing?
Yeah, Ironman, Captain Marvel and Black Panther are better options.
Batman
I don’t understand people who push this narrative. It’s generally just… not true?
Have you watched a superhero movie or read a comic book? Nearly every villain is just a violent person trying to change things and the hero fights to keep things the way they are.
Never have I seen a villain trying to change things for the better. World domination, sure
Batman (the comics, anyways) is full of villains like that. Mr. Freeze just wanted to save his wife and went off the deep end after people pulled the plug on her cryogenic stasis pod, killing her. Poison Ivy was a biologist who worked on saving the world from ecological collapse and came to the conclusion that humanity would never change in time to save itself, so the only way to save the world is through violence, which is why she usually targets companies polluting the environment and their owners. Cat Woman is often depicted as either a petty thief making big scores for the thrill of it, or Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and donating the money to cat shelters and stuff. Sure, there are plenty of more standard villains in Batman, but when done right, Batman is largely the story of a broken man trying to save other broken people and stop them from hurting themselves and others.
The most literal example of a villain trying to save the world I can think of is Ozynmandias in The Watchmen. The story revolves around a plot by Ozymandias to basically explode two nuclear bombs and make it seem like attacks by Dr Manhattan in order to stop the Cold War from going hot by uniting the Soviets and the US against him. The comic is a total deconstruction of the genre, but it’s definitely the most outright “the villain saves the world through mass murder” story you can find.
The comic doesn’t use nukes at all. I mean, it uses an allusion to nukes, sure, but it’s so much more bizarre and interesting than that imho.
Aye, I was shorthanding it.
Ok but not ALL change is good. Conflating “we should improve society” with “let’s start giving people alien weaponry for cash” is asinine.
It’s definitely true sometimes. The tortured revolutionary that took it too far is a very common trope. A lot of the time, it’s just very wishy-washy, as you’d expect from a mass produced cash machine like Marvel. When you’re making so many stories, they’re not all going to be winners, for any number of reasons. The people that think Marvel is making propaganda are just looking for it. The movies just aren’t that good, they’re not hiding some sinister motive
“Shows”? So Loki and The Boys, then? One is about dimensions, and the other is the exact polar opposite of this idea.
Dimensions like height, width and depth?
I have not watched it.
Yes. Loki is mostly a home improvement show with some action.
That the new genre. Check out “litrpg”. Starts with discovery of “the system” (basically a machine god). Invariably leads to shopping and a new house.
Marvel Defenders of the Status Quo: https://youtu.be/LpitmEnaYeU
Great video! The way I’ve always seen it is that since there are superpowers both in the hand of good and bad people it becomes the job of the good people to prevent the bad ones using their powers for bad stuff and only that. But I mean at the end of the day these movies are just pulp designed to turn your brain off with for a few hours so there’s that.
If you can, read MiracleMan by Alan Moore. Spoilers to the middle of the comic, MiracleMan destroy all weapons on earth, redistribute all resources and eliminate money from human society, with his powers create technology that fulfill all human needs and recluse himself. The comic stop being about him, and moves to how people live in a new society when an actual good makes your wishes true, and the subsequents decades of prosperity for everyone. The comic was never finished, sadly, but it was implied that things were about to go dark soon.
Alan Moore didn’t though it was realistic to have super heroes, like superman, existing in out society while keeping the status quo as it is. Some things fundamental to our capitalist society, like the insurance industry, cannot exists in the Marvel universe where from nowhere half New York can be destroyed.
Not really… What hero/story is this?
These movies are all about mass destruction, aliens and fast travel around the planet, universe and interdimensionally. They aren’t about protecting unrealized capital gains or a villain that takes control of all abandoned vehicles in junk yards, illegally parks them in cities with his mind and then jeopardizes police time with them writing millions of parking tickets that will NEVER… BE… PAID!!!
The first Black Panther kinda goes Iike the comic I guess
I can’t even remember the last time a superhero was like this.
Batman? Instead of helping with his massive wealth he goes around beating people up who do petty theft.
Well there’s that (and an answer to that,) but I meant superheroes enforcing the status quo by beating up people who want a change for the better without addressing their complaints. Like Killmonger comes to mind, but Black Panther did listen.
Falcon and Winter Soldier did listen too but did nothing to solve the problem
I wouldn’t say nothing. After stopping the Flag Smashers, they went to the GRC and told them not to be so mean to the refugees. But they didn’t really address the world borders thing or anything (as far as I remember,) so I guess this counts.
The Avengers are cops.
superheroes are “benign” fascists which I’d why they have to be supernatural to exist.
We need to stop pretending this marvel movies are woke. Zemo should not be the good guy.
Comic book zemo no, but this is a different Zemo with a different origin.
Zemo? The same incompetent-but-indestructible Zemo of Hydra? Good Guy?
Movie zemo
I probably didn’t watch it. Now that it think of it, i stopped watching new marvel movies after ant-man.
The actual superhero/blockbuster/action/thriller propaganda is that problems are always caused by a few bad apples. But there is no spoiling the bunch. Once the newspaper and honorable elder governmentals get wind of it all is return to the good old status quo.
That is the real problem - that we learned to not question the rules of the system that lead to negative outcomes. That rules and conditions that make negative outcomes all but inevitable.
Of course debating the financing of institutions and bylaws that impact socioeconomic policies would make for an awfully dull superhero movie!
Not related to the movies themselves but I remember from the original Spider-Man run in the first 100 issues, Spidey goes to a prison riot and understands the guards are the abusers and supports the formation of the inmates union iirc
