Gothman is a meme in my friend group. He is effectively sad batman, a regular goth guy, and a visigoth all at the same time or which he ever needs to be at the time.
He may not be the meme we deserve, but he is the one that we need to burn Rome.
The entire premise of this accursed property is “structural change is definitionally impossible and evil-natured people cannot be helped so let’s see how Batman brutally maims victims of this system to defeat the villain-of-the-day”. This is such a profoundly repulsive ideology to me. It’s not about the in-universe justifications, it’s about the horrible, awful, despicable themes of the stories that glorify hyper-individualism and completely discredit democracy, civic institutions, and community.
The in-universe explanations were just tacked on to those core reactionary ideals. The writers didn’t stumble on a cursed city, they invented a cursed city to justify their need for vigilantism and violence to be the only rational answers to society’s ills.
Not only that, most fully realized versions of the character channel both the vigilante AND playboy personas to fight crime, using Wayne Enterprises to create welfare programs and jobs so Gothamites need not resort to crime to put food on the table.
There’s a scene where Batman pacifies a room of Black Mask goons without lifting a FINGER - he hacks the projector screen simply shows them a Wayne Foundation advertisement for better, safer jobs. One by one, every man simply drops their weapons and walks out the door as their crime boss irately yells at them to come back.
Gothman is literally cursed from head to toe to be the way it is.
It’s more like, this post is full of people describing why the only way the storyline can stay realistic is by introducing supernatural evil.
If it were not a cursed city and if Batman was really a hero who wanted to help people, he would do the social programs and investment in community, but that would be a pretty lousy monthly comic book for kids to read and buy batman merchandise.
There are better places for superheroes. As I note above, there’s a lot of elite deviance / white collar crime that Batman’s amazing detective powers could easily be turned on. Heck, the US has been occupied and is controlled by a dangerous religious cult with a rogues gallery of masterminds vying for power, and they’re behaving conspicuously like comic-book villains.
On the street level, a mega-corporation fighting a labor organization for control over the workforce would be a great venue for vigilantes with extraordinary powers. Eventually they’d higher a PMC task force (possibly with a cadre of G. I. Joe like specialists) as the Guy of Gisbourne to our protagonists’ Merry Men.
There are a lot of directions that can be taken that pit vigilante justice-seekers against sociopolitical bullies with wealth and power. DC needs to just do a bit of brainstorming, but no they’d rather Batman fight the Joker for One More Time. 🥱
Supernatural evil is not realistic. And when we encounter unearthly natural evils (which we do!), they tend to have solutions that are not a flying vigilante putting out street-crime level fires.
Deep geological repositories for storing vitrified nuclear waste, for instance. We have those.
This thread is full of people who have never read Batman comics.
Gothman is literally cursed from head to toe to be the way it is.
Batman is effectively sisyphus in that regard.
Gothman has syphillis?
Lmao, im gonna leave it.
Gothman is a meme in my friend group. He is effectively sad batman, a regular goth guy, and a visigoth all at the same time or which he ever needs to be at the time.
He may not be the meme we deserve, but he is the one that we need to burn Rome.
Now we need a Gothman comic!
That’s worse. You see how that’s worse, right?
The entire premise of this accursed property is “structural change is definitionally impossible and evil-natured people cannot be helped so let’s see how Batman brutally maims victims of this system to defeat the villain-of-the-day”. This is such a profoundly repulsive ideology to me. It’s not about the in-universe justifications, it’s about the horrible, awful, despicable themes of the stories that glorify hyper-individualism and completely discredit democracy, civic institutions, and community.
The in-universe explanations were just tacked on to those core reactionary ideals. The writers didn’t stumble on a cursed city, they invented a cursed city to justify their need for vigilantism and violence to be the only rational answers to society’s ills.
Not only that, most fully realized versions of the character channel both the vigilante AND playboy personas to fight crime, using Wayne Enterprises to create welfare programs and jobs so Gothamites need not resort to crime to put food on the table.
There’s a scene where Batman pacifies a room of Black Mask goons without lifting a FINGER - he hacks the projector screen simply shows them a Wayne Foundation advertisement for better, safer jobs. One by one, every man simply drops their weapons and walks out the door as their crime boss irately yells at them to come back.
It’s more like, this post is full of people describing why the only way the storyline can stay realistic is by introducing supernatural evil.
If it were not a cursed city and if Batman was really a hero who wanted to help people, he would do the social programs and investment in community, but that would be a pretty lousy monthly comic book for kids to read and buy batman merchandise.
He already does all that on top of being batman.
He does do those though?
There are better places for superheroes. As I note above, there’s a lot of elite deviance / white collar crime that Batman’s amazing detective powers could easily be turned on. Heck, the US has been occupied and is controlled by a dangerous religious cult with a rogues gallery of masterminds vying for power, and they’re behaving conspicuously like comic-book villains.
On the street level, a mega-corporation fighting a labor organization for control over the workforce would be a great venue for vigilantes with extraordinary powers. Eventually they’d higher a PMC task force (possibly with a cadre of G. I. Joe like specialists) as the Guy of Gisbourne to our protagonists’ Merry Men.
There are a lot of directions that can be taken that pit vigilante justice-seekers against sociopolitical bullies with wealth and power. DC needs to just do a bit of brainstorming, but no they’d rather Batman fight the Joker for One More Time. 🥱
Supernatural evil is not realistic. And when we encounter unearthly natural evils (which we do!), they tend to have solutions that are not a flying vigilante putting out street-crime level fires.
Deep geological repositories for storing vitrified nuclear waste, for instance. We have those.