Political Memes

These critiques also always feel like massive misunderstandings of why we tell stories (and the necessary metaphor/allegory comics almost certainly have to take in order to tell meaningful stories that we can relate to).

Can I guarantee that the creator of Batman had class-consciousness in mind when creating the character (Hell, I can't even guarantee that it wasn't any deeper than finding old money such as still having a butler just quirky because the creator was so far removed from it)? No. If we're making new characters, should we continue to make benevolent billionaires? Probably not.

But stories are something we shape and (as many people keep pointing out) the narrative and world of Batman keeps getting complicated so that we can tell interesting stories and not have it function as a glorification of capital and put forward the idea that we just need rich men to save us.

It also feels like people who fundamental don't under stand how comics (or any long-form media) works; if we found out the creator was actually a capitalist fascist, that doesn't suddenly expose a rot at the root. Long-form media is continuously building on what came before it and sometimes we don't like it so we retcon or restructure things (there's no way we can guarantee that every contributor to the decades-long canon was swell and great, after all); or create alternative universes as one-shots to try thought experiments about the characters and universe. I don't particularly like Frank Miller's politics but that doesn't mean that I'm bound, now, to take his takes on Batman as foundation to how I view Batman; we create an alternative universe and chuck out the trash. Like, are we so alienated from art that we don't understand how it works, anymore?

Anyway, doesn't directly touch the Batman-is-a-billionaire debate but my favorite encapsulation of my headcanon of the character: https://youtu.be/CUy5rsO5cwo