I loved Batman growing up.. And to some extent, I still do. However, over time I've slowly began siding with his villains.
It's hard not to see Batman as a biiiiit fashy when reading these comics, especially the post-Moore/Miller stuff.
The Dark Knight Rises was literally a movie about billionaires punching Occupy Wall Street. Bane opens the prisons, reveals the lies pushed by Gotham's elite and says "WE GIVE GOTHAM BACK TO YOU... the people" and we're NOT supposed to side with him?
Poison Ivy is an Ecologist who just wants to protect the biosphere from her corporate overlords.
Joker is an Egoist trying to show the world that its entire system is a spook.
Mr. Freeze just wants his fucking wife back...
But the good guy is the wealth hoarder who attacks poor people in the street, because their situation has pushed them into "crime"
@GreenandBlack The fact that the core superhero schtick, exceptional individuals protecting the status quo from undesireables, is so deeply conservative is something I see surprisingly little conversation about.
Batman is a standout for those reasons, but he's also one of the most inconsistently written characters out there. When he's written well, he does things like fund Freeze's research and attempts to rehabilitate Clayface.
When the likes of Frank Miller write him, ehh, not so much.
@Caelyn This is why I'm so attracted to superheroes that don't uphold the status quo, why Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of my favourite comic book movies.
Green Arrow murders billionaires if he thinks they are a detriment to his local community, that's anarchic af.
And yeah, Batman from the Animated Series >>>> Batman from The Dark Knight trilogy
@GreenandBlack The latest run of Detective Comics was wonderful to me, as a die-hard "BTAS Batman is best Batman" person. I've not been keeping up because poverty and apparently it's gone south recently, which is a shame, because it was soooo good. The whole premise of the arc is Batman saying "I need help and I'm shit at being a leader, so I'm gonna get Batwoman to run a team for me."