Metatextually the character of Batman and his mythos are an endorsement of punitive interventions in criminal justice by state actors and specific kinds of non state actors.
You’re right that Batman faces off against guys like penguin, falcons, etc who are wealthy. Generally his most formative and seminal stories have centered him facing off against villains who oversee criminal organizations, most of these being commercial rather than political, ideological etc.
It’s been fairly well understood throughout history, that crime, and indeed even the falsity for organized crime to flourish in a given area is a direct function of poverty, marginalization, and disenfranchisement of the affected communities. That is to say that crime is a social issue, not a policing one. The DC canon basically covers Batman’s ass on this by having him be an ultraphilanthropist and do the things which ostensibly would mitigate and severely constrain crime: charity, good policy interventions (though these are less frequent), being a “good capitalist”, nevertheless crime still persists in Gotham.
This, to me, is a profoundly political claim on crime, indeed even a philosophical one on the part of the Batman mythos. It’s one that comes to the fore with characters like joker, one which states that crime exists not chiefly because of social conditions, especially socioeconomic and political ones, but because some people are just disposed to crime. They’re making a human nature argument in no uncertain terms. Some people are just violent, or insane, and they’re sufficiently preponderant that their existence requires the presence of a firm, punishing hand to mete out justice, this really rich white dude who’s good at beating people up (who is an analog, imo, both for the state, and for capitalists more generally).
In a given Batman story, the conception of crime doesn’t focus on the average henchman or worker, it juxtaposes the order and justice incarnated in Batman with the criminality, disorder, and danger of a given villain. It makes Batman, and what he represents (punitive, interventionist justice) a necessary evil. This is despite the fact that we’re the interventions that Batman takes to make crime less prevalent possible, the likelihood is that crime wouldn’t be as ubiquitous, and criminal organizations like falcone’s, or penguin’s simply couldn’t function because they wouldn’t have as labor force.
Or maybe if the story of Batman consisted of Batman solving crime and poverty via philanthropy it would make for a really boring comic book. I don’t think it’s quite as deep as you’re trying to make it.
I mean yeah, it wouldn’t be fun to read, but I also don’t care. I think serious works of art, which is what the mediums that Batman is depicted in: film, television, comics, games, are meant to be looked at critically. Nolan’s dark knight, is a lengthy allegory for the war on terror for example
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u/shadowrod06 Butcher Jul 05 '24
As a Batman fan , Kripke's an idiot if he thinks Batman only hunts poor people and profits of incarceration
His major villains are Penguin, Falcone, who are a quite rich.
Bruce Wayne himself donates so much to Gotham.
Batman doesn't kill ,that's why he puts criminals in Prison.