I saw a thread on Twitter and Reddit asking whether characters like Batman, Iron Man, and Iron Fist actually need to be wealthy for their stories to work. Some people were saying that, in the DCU, Batman doesn’t have to be rich—he could just be middle class and the story would still work. Similarly, if the MCU gets rebooted, Tony Stark wouldn’t necessarily need to be wealthy and could be working class instead.
A lot of people argued that this would make these characters more relatable and easier to root for. Personally, I’d say no. Elseworlds stories are fine, but if you’re adapting these characters into movies or TV shows, you should stay at least somewhat comic-accurate. Their wealth is a key part of who they are.
Stark Industries, Wayne Enterprises, and Rand Industries are characters in the story too, and they play important roles in shaping these heroes and their worlds.
It’s similar to how Clark Kent being a reporter or Peter Parker struggling financially are essential to their characters. Those traits help define their stories.
What do you think?
Batman: I could see a street level Batman without as many gadgets in a more rudimentary batcave still be Batman. I think this is because if you take away all of the wealth Batman is still Batman, an excellent detective with extensive martial arts training who enjoys terrorizing criminals.
Iron Fist: that’s a title, like Ghost Rider or Spawn there are other Iron Fists that are not rich. So while not exactly the same there are some Iron Fists that are not rich.
Iron Man: I don’t think Iron man without money would work. Either you would have to change a core detail of him or it wouldn’t make sense that he’s not rich. The main defining characteristic of Iron man is his suit, which requires an extraordinary power source. So either he doesn’t understand the power source (e.g. it’s an alien artifact) or you would have to explain why he doesn’t sell products with a similar power source and becomes rich.
Unless they are metahuman - probably, yes.
There are exceptions, like The Punisher, but he’s not really a “super” hero (at least, not in any of the media I’ve consumed, which is admittedly not very much). Heroes like this are great at saving the day, but its just not believable that they can save the world or the galaxy or the universe.
Iron Man without money is some dude in a garage who spends his lifetime building the arc reactor and the Mark I. By the time he’s gathered enough resources to build a Mark II, he’s already 60.
That’s the fantasy of superheroes: that people with power can be guided by morality.
Batman probably doesn’t need the money; he was originally just a really good Sherlock Holmes type detective. Didn’t have gadgets. Hell, he even used guns.
Ironman, on the other hand… I’m split. In the movies, he builds his suit in a cave with scraps sure… But he didn’t make the power source. The other dude with him did. In the animated series I’ve seen, his father made the power source. IDK about the comics; I was more into Spider-Man than anything else so I never read Ironman. Tony is smart and capable; but only when it comes to engineering. And if he can’t engineer a power source for his suits, he has no chance of being as helpful. Dude is also kind of an asshole and an alcoholic. If he didn’t have money, I don’t know how much people would have put up with his behaviour.
Tony Stark broke idea: he’s a genius who got into uni on scholarships but then got kicked out because of alcoholism. He now works at a scrap yard as he tries to sober up. He’s also been working on making a suit to help his mother who has multiple sclerosis move. One day the Power McGuffin falls from space into his junkyard. He studies it and makes it a power source. Yadda yadda some tragedy happens and he makes the iron man suit
It’s giving Steel vibes.
Batman rocking up on a black Toyota Camry… Gadgets in his belt bought on Amazon. No Alfred. No mansion. No true cave, but let’s say he calls his basement the bat cave. I mean regular people already call their basements “man-cave” so I guess this gets a pass. Oh he probably has a day job too. I don’t know. The plot could work, but it’d be very different.
Batman superpower is his resources. If he’s not rich, then how would you explain custom made rocket car in his cave garage?
lol imagine middle class Batman he has a… bat-lawnmower and a bat-dog? lol it could work I guess but he would be fundamentally different
Maybe he could have a bat?
Like… a bat-bat?
If you made Bruce or Tony middle or lower-class people, you could still make an adventure out of that. It’s just that all of the heavy infrastructure would need to be completely rewritten. Skills and abilities would allow them to do amazing things, but they just wouldn’t have million-dollar tech at their disposal.
The character would be the same, but the story would have to take a very different path.
Would the characters be the same though? Isn’t Bruce Wayne being a billionaire playboy a big part of his personality?
It’s his cover for why he doesn’t have a real job. If Bruce isn’t wealthy enough to not have to work, then he has to work during the day, fight crime at night, and never sleep. Even Peter Parker has a job with flexible hours to accommodate his Spider-Man time.
However, Peter only has the one gadget, doesn’t even own a car, and barely makes ends meet. Bruce needs a vehicle to get around town and at least a few gadgets and body armor to deal with the fact that he’s outnumbered, even with just normal criminals and not considering supers like Mr Freeze or Poison Ivy. If you’re keeping supers out of the equation, you could probably strip Bruce down to things that you could make in your garage, like reducing the Batmobile to an ordinary car he’s tinkered with a bit, painted black, taken the license plate off of, and ground off the VIN.
You still need to deal with how the hell he funds everything, though. Even with minimal gear, he’s going to need a full time job to afford it all. And if he doesn’t want to advertise who he is and where he’s operating out of, he’s going to need a second location to store his bat-stuff so that his neighbors don’t notice the Batmobile parked in his driveway. You’re probably looking at a small house that he doesn’t live in and another house or an apartment that he does live in without any roommates or renters at either place. Even with this minimal setup, Bruce would need at least $100k a year in income. This means one of the following: a) a well-paying full-time job, which cuts into Batmanning; b) inherited wealth; c) lottery winnings; or d) an extremely successful Only Fans account. The first doesn’t seem viable, the second is what’s already being used, the third just feels contrived, and the fourth, while something I’d probably read for the novelty, is probably really difficult to market.
He would still behave in a similar way, but with a lower budget. That would force him to let go of some habits, adapt in interesting ways, and learn new ways. I think it could be interesting, but it would have a radically different flavour.
Tony would be really cool. imagine if he had to rely on a community of people to build shitty-but-miraculously effective contraptions. And the focus would be on how he has to positively interact with people to allow him to be a guy who tinkers instead of getting a real job
Maybe Bruce too but his trauma is more of a barrier to social existence. It would take a way more creative writer to work out him working through his problems with anything other than money. Bet it would be cool though
Tony has amazing skills. He could make just about anything. I think there’s some story potential here.
Bruce would probably end up being a bum or a weirdo. If you like redemption arcs, the story of Bruce could be interesting.
Bruce Wayne broke just becomes Rorschach
Batman has to be free from the need for a real job, plus be able to run the Batcave research infrastructure that developed the Batmobile, the Batplane, and all that. Plus keep Alfred on staff and in on the secret, plus stay with his backstory of Thomas and Martha Wayne being murdered. Wayne Enterprises came much later. Bruce Wayne’s original guise was being an idle playboy in Wayne Manor.
Spider-man isn’t rich. If you want a non-rich superhero, you might check him him out.
Or heck, I’m old enough to remember Reid Fleming, the World’s Toughest Milkman.
Depends on how accurately you want to stick to Batman. If all the gadgets and batcave are necessary then yes, he need to be rich. If it’s just the physical and mental capabilities then he doesn’t need to be rich because he’ll just be Rorschach.
I thought part of the legend was that his parents were killed but they had arranged for him to be cared for and educated, probably at a level that the average orphan can’t get anywhere near. Plus there’s all that physical training that he has to do all the time. Like in this story he (at one point) beats the crap out of Harry Potter even though Potter is an Auror with tons of magical combat tricks. I’m unfamiliar with Rorschach so can’t compare.
You should definitely read Watchmen, it’s fantastic
Absolute Batman is street-level and has little to no resources, and it’s new… read it up.
BTW, Absolute Joker’s a rich sociopath, everyone’s an altered fucked version of themselves.
Iron Man and Batman can only do what they do because they have the time and access to resources to do it. Guardian from Alpha Flight, for example would be something like “Working Class Ironman.” Common engineer who found out the mining suit he was building was going to be sold off to the military so he stole the prototype and became a superhero. He’s kind of an “Iron Man’s brain, Captain America’s heart” kind of character, so if you wanted the non-rich Iron Man, it exists, it’s just not Tony Stark. Tony needs to be rich or he’s not Tony Stark.
Same with Batman. The Shadow is a former soldier who uses stealth, martial arts and magic tricks to fight crime. But he’s not Bruce Wayne because being a billionaire playboy is what makes Batman possible.
Why recharacterize heroes with totally new backstories when the not-rich version is already a different superhero.
For Tony Stark, being poor makes him more of a Peter Parker equivalent. Also, having a suit of high tech armor likely means he’s sourcing his components from some very wealthy companies anyway. I feel like owning the companies feels a lot more moral than stealing from them.
For Bruce Wayne, being poor makes him more equivalent to the Punisher. By himself, Batman has to be at odds in hiding his secret identity and, to some extent, getting lost in his alter ego. In the Justice League, Batman ends up being de facto leader a lot of times because that is because he is funding the organization and his leadership skills in Wayne Enterprises and up matching well for the Justice League.
Stark and Wayne need to have the financial means to do their thing at that scale because they’re not magic. A mid level manager of a domino’s would be far less convincing in those roles. If you add magic to the mix, income becomes less relevant. The royal nepo god baby Thor could be dead poor as long as he had the hammer.
I’m not sure if the Equalizer franchise is based on a comic. That would be an argument for a more relatable living situation for a former super soldier who isn’t magic. He just enjoys working at a Lowe’s.
iron man , bruce wayne is your rich billionaire that is funding the other superheros.
gifted is somewhat reversed, the "rich person a mutant is funding a Mutant state for them to live in through the use of “terrorism”.
You should watch Ironheart. Riri Williams is a black girl from inner city chicago, and she built a suit of power armour in her garage. She has a lot of money problems.
Also, in the comics Moon Knight is rich, but in the MCU he works at the London Museum gift shop.
No one should watch Ironheart. Who hurt you?
I like Ironheart.
Well, at least that club room comes with plenty of space to stretch your legs.
Does it get better? I watched the first 1 or two episodes but stopped because the first real decision the young black female hero makes for herself is to join up with a gang of criminals which felt really problematic to me.
No. Watch a review if you’re curious about the story progressions, but the short version is she continues to be a narcissistic idiot.
Ironheart was dumb as hell, though. She didn’t need to join a gang to make money. If she built a bunch of gadgets and an Iron Man suit in a college classroom, then she can build something and sell it. Or go back to Wakanda and get an internship there.
I know. You’re responding to the one who recommended not continuing with the show.
Apparently a bunch of y’all have never heard of Absolute Batman.
