Sorry it took so long to respond to this, but I was a bit out of time which hindered my abilities to do really long posts on the Hype.
Yeah, actually the more I just thought about it, Batman is probably a liberal. I don't know if he'd be part of any political party and would vote and throw fundraisers for candidates he likes, regardless of party, but nationally he's more inclined to agree with Democrats. He believes in social responsibility and that the rich, like himself, have a duty to improve the lives of the poor and unfortunate and that in a society that it is their duty to provide a social safety net for the downtrodden and those who suffer at the bottom of a community--probably from his very New Deal-esque father's values. But, on matters of local politics he can be more conservative. I think he'd probably believe in more robust law enforcement and the right of authority in the pretense of security over the rights of the individual. Probably why he loved Harvey Dent when he was DA.
That said, Frank Miller's Batman is a hardcore far, far, far-right fringe conservative, if not an outright fascist.
You act as if social responsibility and wanting to help others are concepts that exclusively belong to the left. Such concepts also belong to the right.
What you have to take into account that the more famous portrayals of Batman from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight, to Frank Miller's crazy God Damn Batman, to Grant Morrison's ubercapitalist, Batman is more often portrayed in a right winged fashion. And also take into account that most of Batman's villains are either apolitical (the Penguin, Black Mask) to the ultra hard core left (Joker, Ra's al Ghul, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, and before his transformation Harvey Dent came off as a rational leftie).
And then take into account Batman's actions. You can compare the Wayne family to that of industrialists like Andrew Carnegie in which they wanted to use their wealth to help others. It's not by government actions that are being used to help, but private actions. Wayne uses his wealth to fund charities, scholarships, and to revitalize Gotham City. Instead of state governments funding high speed rail, the Wayne family developed Gotham's rail system in Batman Begins. Instead of government programs like Medicaid, Wayne funds Lesilie Thompkin's free clinics. He wants to provide jobs to the people of Gotham City. He's gathering the wealthy of Gotham to rebuild Gotham City from the earthquake, No Man's Land, and reviving poor areas like Park Row as opposed to just letting the government allowing them to degrade. Things like this are what small government minded libertarians argue in favor of. Don't confuse libertarianism for Randian Objectivism.
And to continue with my arguments of how Batman is a right winger look at how Batman is a huge supporter of the Second Amendment. Sure he doesn't like guns, but that doesn't change the fact that Bruce Wayne owns an incredibly extensive gun collection. And Batman's arsenal includes a lot of lethal goodies that I'm pretty sure aren't street legal.
Or take a look at Batman, Incorporated, which is a private company in which Wayne works with various local governments to fight crime throughout the world by installing a Batman in major metropolitan areas. Batman Incorporated is essentially a private security/military company to benefit others.
And finally, both Bruce Wayne and Batman just aren't fond of the Federal government. When the Luthor Administration came into power, Bruce Wayne had cancelled all contracts Wayne Enterprises and as Batman, he essentially helped Superman overthrow him. And Batman's relationship with the Federal government without Luthor has always been rather poor.
Peter Parker just doesn't strike me as someone who pays attention to politics. He's too into his personal life and too "everyman" for that. But given he's from Queens, he's probably a registered Democrat and as a New Yorker would be disgusted by the Republicans' social platforms (anti-gay, anti-hispanic, anti-Muslim anti-youth, anti-minority).
Once Steve Ditko left the character, Peter Parker became an obvious Democrat. There is no way that the modern Spider-Man is a Republican.
Superman was raised in Kansas with good midwestern values. He's a Republican probably right down to believing marriage should be between one alien and one woman [blackout]
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Nope, Superman is a hardcore leftie now. When he was created Siegel and Schuster essentially created a pseudo socialist champion of the common working man who took down corrupt industrialists and politicians (as opposed to the more elitist and bourgeois Batman who took down more traditional bad guys). And when Grant Morrison took over the direction of the character he restored Superman's leftie roots. The New 52 pretty much established that Pa Kent installed some rather progressive values into Clark.
Daredevil doesn't believe in the death penalty, takes pro bono cases for poor people in his crappy neighborhood and also believes in social justice and responsibility. Bleeding heart liberal.
Daredevil is a registered Democrat. They flat out confirmed that.
Iron Man, as I said, is a moderate Republican. He started out as a neoconservative, but given he quits manufacturing weapons, refuses to give his tech to the US government because he does not believe in the theory of M.A.D. and nuclear deterrence, and goes into manufacturing free cheap renewable energy, he would definitely have drifted left and be crucified by Fox News and CNBC for turning his back on America, capitalism, "freedom," etc. However, given that he trusts in his own personal ability over the government and prefers the private sector, he'd still be on the right. But more like the old school moderates they ran out.
Don't forget his best statement ever: "Ladies and gentlemen, I've privatized world peace!"
And Punisher is a gun-crazed wingnut.
Sooooooo true.
BTW this all goes back to Watchmen. Alan Moore characterized most superheroes and rightwing nutjobs. Rorschach, most people's favorite character and the story's narrator, is a parody of the ideal "Objectivist" of Ayn Rand. He is also delusional and a misinformed hypocrite who admires "big tough" leaders like Harry Truman who nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end a war, but dies to condemn snobbish and elitist blue blood, bleeding heart liberal Ozymandias who essentially nukes New York to avoid WWIII in that story. So, the idea of the hero or ubermen being different forms of absolute fascists is an interesting idea to explore.
Well Alan Moore is an anarchist, so he's pretty far out there on the left.
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