Okay hear me out, so basically in my opinion batman should be poor or working class because i think it would make for a more compelling hero, more interesting stories, more legitimate stakes, and just more logical storytelling.
- Becoming a superhero using his level of wealth would be remarkably easy and thus saps narrative tension. What do i mean by this. Batman's inciting incident was street violence and subsequently a desire to rectify injustices through direct action by way of vigilante justice. His origin often tells of his worldwide expedition to gain skills and abilities which might aid him in his war on crime. However i would argue because of his wealth this task was probably less difficult and harrowing than if would probably appear. A normal working class person couldn't afford to take extended sabbaticals to accrue a lifetime worth of skills from all manner of experts in a wide variety of fields. Someone with limited resources would have to be incredibly clever to seemingly backpack across the world while trying to gain training. Also at any point a poor or working class person would be in real danger of starvation or becoming permanently homeless. Bruce Wayne had no such difficulty because he could easily fund the entire trip, or traveled for the rest of his life if he so chose and never would worry about being abandoned in a harsh environment or about paying or bribing world class martial artists or scientists to train him. While his physical abilities are tremendously impressive, almost anyone able-bodied with the resources to received training in a wide variety of skills to accomplish something similar.
- A great many people in Gotham and certainly elsewhere have certainly had their family members killed by violence and many would probably absolutely love the opportunity to instill justice in the world, the only seeming difference between them and Batman is money.
- Batman because of his access to tremendous wealth has basically unlimited resources for all intents and purposes. His batmobile get destroyed? He can buy another or buy the materials to build it. This saps dramatic tension as we never worry that he will be able to properly supply himself for his missions or about creating clever shortcuts to arm himself. He seemingly always has access to whatever incredibly specific highly expensive equipment or resources are needed to accomplish a particular task without any fear of
- It stretches believability. I know and understand that he is a comic book character but for two reasons his wealth presents an issue to both his life as Batman and his secret identity. On the part of Bruce it stretches the realm of believability that the CEO of a major corporation could spend so much and so frequently on incredibly expensive military equipment and scientific gear without drawing suspicion. At the very minimum he would need a constant supply of things like jet fuel, custom engine parts, computer maintenance, batarangs, custom Kevlar, portable battery packs, line launchers, tires, electronic parts etc etc. On the part of Batman if would become evident pretty quickly that he is either a wealthy individual himself or is being backed by a wealthy sponsor due to the assortment of incredibly advanced weaponry that he uses.
- His gadgets seemingly get more highlight especially lately at the expense of his intellect, will and physical abilities (hellbat armor, justice league contingency weapons etc.) it makes him seem like more of a gadget based character as opposed to a highly skilled and trained hero.
- It is increasingly hard to empathize with a character that enjoys such tremendous privilege, being a multibillionaire as i find it difficult to believe that anyone could accrue that amount of wealth without exploiting their workers in some way. If Batman is truly a hero of the people why does he not simply give away massive amounts of his wealth to the homeless. Bruce could single handedly solve homelessness and food insecurity in Gotham by simply buying homes and giving them away for free and creating thousands of free food kitchens (which would probably go a lot further to solve Gotham's crime problems honestly but that's a different discussion). While he is so incredibly wealthy it becomes hard to rationalize why he needs a super jet tank car instead of using that money to feed, cloth and house someone somewhere n Gotham. Regardless of how effective Batman seems to be there always seems to be a rather sizeable unhoused population in Gotham. Making him poor would solve this in my opinion
