• Blames himself for his parents being brutally murdered when he was a kid.

Gotham is lucky he's not more insane.

• enough money, highly qualified personnel, and connections (both legitimate and clandestine) to bring real change to a blighted city
• does none of the sort

He does use those resources to make change through charity and programs designed to improve the community. But that doesn't instantly solve existing crime, particularly organized crime and corruption.

Plus, it will never actually fix Gotham because Gotham being shitty is part of the premise.

• brutalizes mentally ill people (but it's okay because he doesn't kill)

He beats up violent criminals, generally when they are in the middle of either attacking him, or attacking someone else, or otherwise doing something that would harm or endanger innocent people. That some of these people have varying degrees of mental illness is unfortunate, but they doesn't mean they don't have to be stopped.

• crime lords and terrorists walk free because of notoriously terrible corrections system and no-kill policy

Everyone of those criminals who walks free could have just as easily been murdered by any number of people during their time in custody. Why is it Batman's responsibility to decide who lives and dies, and not any given cop or prison guard? And even if the system is broken, is it really better to have a masked vigilante killing people without trials (and appeals, and evidence, and oversight by some kind of authority)?

Also, let's be real here, the reason they get out so predictably is not because of in-universe reasons, it's because they want to keep bringing back villains. He could kill every supervillain in Gotham and most of them would be back in six months.

• main appeal is cool gadgets made by other, more qualified people

He's the world's greatest detective, a ninja, a world class martial artist, a scientist, an inventor, and one of the greatest strategists who ever lived. If he's not qualified, who the fuck is?

I agree with a lot of the points you make here, but I actually think Batman will stay popular as a series and not just because of fan loyalty.

In Kill Bill the titular character does a long monologue about Superman being the real person and Clark being the made up one and is his critique on human culture. It’s a fabulous scene but I disagree with the point, Clark grew up as Clark that’s the real person.

But I do think that’s an interesting way to spin Batman, because Batman is the real person and Bruce is the act and you could and i believe they already did the most recent movie play it up as a scathing critique of capitalism, but it’s really long and I only saw it the once.

In the lore, Wayne runs an extensive charitable foundation to deal with the structural problems of Gotham by building schools, orphanages, and clinics. He also pays for the psychiatric and physical treatment of many of the villains.

In-universe he's an idealized good billionaire. In real life, of couse, there is no such thing.

(but it’s okay because he doesn’t kill)

it's more fucked up when you realize he doesn't kill so he can re-traumatize these innocents.

over and over, and over again.

In the post above, user satansmaggotycumfart has shared an image of Homelander, from Amazon 's critically acclaimed series The Boys.

I knew exactly what video that would link to before I clicked. Great video, glad to see someone else reference it.

Supervillains consider themselves to be superior to the common masses. Superheroes don't see it that way. They see their power as a tool to help those who weren't as lucky as them. The superpower lottery is a vehicle to tell the story. The moral is about how those powers are used.

So by that logic white people cant be woke because theyre privileged?

I mean Nietzsche was kind of woke. Fuckin, there is an argument to be had that slave morality is what we'd calll wokeness today. The whole Ubermensch thing just kind of feeds in to that.