While the cause of many woes in our real society might be capitalism, in comic book Gotham its
The Illuminati made up of rich folks in the city using zombie dudes to do their bidding (Court of Owls)
The multiple Lazarus pits (2? 3? Not 100% there.) likely leaking into the water supply makin folks cray cray
The portal to hell under the Sanitarium leaking evil all over
The evil bat god trapped under the city also leaking evil all over
The evil warlock who was trapped under the city leaking evil all over
The evil swamp that spawned Solomon Grundy not too far outta town which probably is doing something
Like don’t get me wrong… I’m sure socialized housing and the like would help but grand scheme of things? Cities kinda fucked in a way that is far beyond conventional solutions, without a real way to unfuck it.
Just today, I came across a post on Mastodon, talking about the Batbible. They have the entire thing from 1985 online. Some of this stuff might be out of date, which is why you might be seeing more supernatural things these days. The 1985 version said:
“Batman should never visit Mars or Middle Earth. But this does not exclude the supernatural. Ghosts and even such nasties vampires and poltergeists are fair game, provided they are used infrequently, judiciously and placed in stories that incorporate other Batman elements.”
So, at least in the 1985 version, Gotham is mostly supposed to be plagued by normal human-type problems, not sci-fi, not fantasy, not supernatural. The bible also makes it clear that a major problem in Gotham is that the rich aren’t paying enough to fund a functioning city. You have Bruce Wayne living on a massive estate, going to high society events, meanwhile the police department is barely scraping by:
“The rest of the GOTHAM CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT is not admirable. Poorly paid, virtually untrained–there is nothing in the budget for what are considered “nonessentials” … Their equipment is mostly obsolete … The crime laboratory, for example, is bench, a microscope and a fingerprinting kit stuck in the back of an evidence storage room”
So, really, what would make Gotham safer, $50M on yet another Bat-vehicle, or $50M to properly fund the Police Department?
As for Anarky, he was so powerful he had to be muzzled: " Fabian Nicieza, author of the issue and storyline in which Anarky appeared [decades after his first introduction], depicted the character as being held hostage by Armstrong, “paralyzed and catatonic”,[11] encased in an iron lung, and connected to computers through his brain. This final feature allowed the character to connect to the internet and communicate with others via a speech synthesizer.[35] Nicieza’s decision to give Machin’s mantle as Anarky to another character was due to his desire to establish him as a nemesis for Tim Drake, while respecting the original characterization of Anarky, who Nicieza recognized as neither immature, nor a villain."
I guess the next Batman villain should be Socialismo!
![[AfterDeathComics] Batbills](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4362696b-8c2a-4d7b-b3df-e758e89475eb.png){kind=link}
While the cause of many woes in our real society might be capitalism, in comic book Gotham its
Like don’t get me wrong… I’m sure socialized housing and the like would help but grand scheme of things? Cities kinda fucked in a way that is far beyond conventional solutions, without a real way to unfuck it.
Also, for your amusement- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarky
Just today, I came across a post on Mastodon, talking about the Batbible. They have the entire thing from 1985 online. Some of this stuff might be out of date, which is why you might be seeing more supernatural things these days. The 1985 version said:
“Batman should never visit Mars or Middle Earth. But this does not exclude the supernatural. Ghosts and even such nasties vampires and poltergeists are fair game, provided they are used infrequently, judiciously and placed in stories that incorporate other Batman elements.”
So, at least in the 1985 version, Gotham is mostly supposed to be plagued by normal human-type problems, not sci-fi, not fantasy, not supernatural. The bible also makes it clear that a major problem in Gotham is that the rich aren’t paying enough to fund a functioning city. You have Bruce Wayne living on a massive estate, going to high society events, meanwhile the police department is barely scraping by:
“The rest of the GOTHAM CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT is not admirable. Poorly paid, virtually untrained–there is nothing in the budget for what are considered “nonessentials” … Their equipment is mostly obsolete … The crime laboratory, for example, is bench, a microscope and a fingerprinting kit stuck in the back of an evidence storage room”
So, really, what would make Gotham safer, $50M on yet another Bat-vehicle, or $50M to properly fund the Police Department?
As for Anarky, he was so powerful he had to be muzzled: " Fabian Nicieza, author of the issue and storyline in which Anarky appeared [decades after his first introduction], depicted the character as being held hostage by Armstrong, “paralyzed and catatonic”,[11] encased in an iron lung, and connected to computers through his brain. This final feature allowed the character to connect to the internet and communicate with others via a speech synthesizer.[35] Nicieza’s decision to give Machin’s mantle as Anarky to another character was due to his desire to establish him as a nemesis for Tim Drake, while respecting the original characterization of Anarky, who Nicieza recognized as neither immature, nor a villain."
I guess the next Batman villain should be Socialismo!