We love Batman. Before you all misunderstand us and start thinking that we are anti-Batman, let us tell you that we are not. We love Batman, we love Batman films (all of them), and we also love the Arkham video games. In fact, we love even the modern comic book series. He is The Dark Knight who bashes up criminals while toying with fancy gadgets all the time. Why won’t someone like him?
He is a billionaire with global businesses. He has a best pal and bum chum. He swoops across skyscrapers, swinging around with masked women at night.
As if that wasn’t enough, he even has a butler. If you are wondering whether you have seen anyone have a butler, then NO, you haven’t. You don’t belong to the filthy rich class of ‘best’ people who have butlers.
The whole world dotes on Batman. Kids on the streets idolize him, men dream of being him and women want to be the masked women swinging around with him. They won’t mind whether he fancies the Batgirl or Batwoman.
True that this is not really shaping up to be a good case to prove that Batman sucks, but, hang on, we are getting there. We are just seeing what all might seem good to be about Batman and while we empathize with you, all this is absolutely, crazily wrong.
1. Batman Fixes Nothing.
Okay if you are a Batman fan then tell us when did he last save the world on his own? You can’t be naïve enough to say, “the time when he fired a bullet at Darkseid” in Final Crisis because he didn’t really kill Darkseid and also the fact that Final Crisis was absurd. In case we were dumb enough to spend our life tackling the crazy things conceptualized by Grant Morrison, we would rather better off not existing.
Honestly, Batman has never saved the day. When Joker blasted the convent and created mayhem at a birthday party, all that the caped crusader did was to drag him to Arkham Asylum. So much for playing by the book! The Joker anyway didn’t let the Asylum host him for long.
The fact is, Batman has never solved the problems. All he does is to beat some crazy guys to a pulp and then hand them over to a legal system that can’t even handle tree growing women, people who can turn into crocodiles and then this is the greatness of the Batman.
Once he puts them to prison, the villains escape only to kill, loot and threaten Gotham again and again. Then he once again stops them, puts them into the prison and the cycle repeats. That’s what he has been doing to keep Gotham always under fear of criminals for the last 70 years. There will obviously be a time when Batman will fade out and who will then take charge of his crusade against the crime?
You might talk about morals and ethics, but, the only guy who has a clear plan to eliminate crime is The Punisher.
2. He can stop crime, but, he doesn’t.
Gotham is a ridiculous crime infested city with a corrupt prison system with inadequate policing and high poverty rate. That’s not the ideal city to inhabit. While Bruce Wayne is among the richest men in the fiction world with business operations all over the world.
He is so rich, and yet he spends his insane wealth on building fancy gadgets, flying in private jets all over the world and slamming in the faces of his stockholders. That’s how he trains to fight killers, snatchers, and burglars. Couldn’t he do more to prevent crime by funding that inadequate police force, buy them armor and sophisticated weapons that could create fear in the hearts of the criminals?
Couldn’t he do more to prevent crime by funding that inadequate police force, helping them hire more men, buy them armor and sophisticated weapons that could create fear in the hearts of the criminals? In fact, he is such an expert at combat that he could even train the police officers and the detectives to solve some of their cases. That would be a true win-win situation, but, no he doesn’t do any of that.
Not just that, he could use his wealth and technological expertise to build high-security prisons that can contain deadly criminals for a long time, or he could fund the Arkham Asylum to ensure there are no escape hatches and security weaknesses.
However, he just loves to roam around in a Batsuit arrogantly and somehow haul the criminals into the prison where after a brief therapy and rest, they can again go out and kill people on the streets. That’s all about Batman.
3. He is an unrealistic superhero.
There are so many superheroes who get powers either through accidents or planning or through some alien means/origins. Then there is this guy who has spent less than a decade mastering various things like Criminology, psychology, forensics, biology, geology, geography, linguistics which include the toughest languages such as Mandarin and Cyrillic), combat skills, acrobatics, driving, piloting, engineering, chemistry, computer programing and what not.
Is there any way that you could become the top master in any of these things if you learned them dedicatedly at a college? Somehow, this brilliant billionaire is the universal authority in all of the above and probably a lot more.
The only realistic way to achieve all that within a decade is to snatch a powerful magic ring from some alien. Honestly, that is more realistic than a man mastering all of the above.
4. He is not the best option to pick as your BFF.
Let’s assume that you have absolutely no problems with the snooty, egoistic Batman and you are both on each other’s friend list on Facebook and share hourly updates of your fun activities in the Batcave on Instagram. Then one fine day while you would be pumping fists with the Bat after clearing the next level of your favorite video game, the two-face will burst in and leave you bullet-riddled. Now, that’s the kind of a scenario which typically greets a Batman pal. At times you don’t get killed, but, just beaten to the pulp and end up being crippled. You can verify the same with Commissioner Gordon, Gordon’s wife Sarah, Batgirl or Jason Todd!
In fact, the best way to stay active and alive for a long time is to put on a costume and challenge the Batman for a fight. Because unlike his enemies, Batman doesn’t kill.
In the end, we don’t say that Batman is the worst superhero ever, but, it is just that he might be more bearable if he tried being more real than being a super idiot all the time.
