Most mornings, as I stand in the shower, fighting off the coming day, my mind is almost always inevitably consumed by one overpowering thought: What I would do if I were Batman?
Obviously, I would roll around in the Batmobile, taking down The Joker, getting into fistfights with Two-Face’s thugs, matching wits with Ra’s al Ghul and staying one step ahead of the law as I waged my one man war on Gotham’s evil doers.
In short, I would be awesome.
Except, I wouldn’t be awesome.
Not really. No one would be. If anyone were in fact Batman, that would mean we would have access to all the resources that make Batman, well, Batman. And having access to all that and opting to put on a cape and a cowl and patrol the cities at night in the most badass vehicles ever is probably the most irresponsible thing a person could do, especially if what that person wants to do is make real change.
What could a reasonable person with Batman-esque resources do to make life in Gotham City a little less Hellish?
Here’re four better, infinitely more productive (although more boring and far less comic book worthy) that immediately spring to mind…
1. Become Aggressively Politically Active
Since day one, Batman’s biggest pain in the ass has always been corruption. Sure, sure, sure, folks like Joker, Riddler and Bane get the lion’s share of the credit for being Batman’s biggest… bane… but the real evil in Gotham City doesn’t dress in outlandish costumes and make death traps.
No, the real evil in that city is most often hiding out in City Hall.
Corrupt cops, corrupt city councilmen, and corrupt mayors have always done their damndest to keep the people of Gotham down, and sure, from time to time, Batman has exposed a few of them while Bruce Wayne once held a fund raiser for a DA one time. But somehow, these corrupt elements always find a way to worm their way back into public office, all while Batman is out dodging ballistic umbrellas compliments of The Penguin.
What if instead of spending millions upon millions building Batmobiles, Batboats, Batwings, Batcaves and Bat Shark Repellant, Batman instead used that vast fortune to find, vette and fund honest men and women of integrity to serve the people of Gotham City?
We know that Bruce Wayne is Bill Gates rich.
He comes from old Gotham money. He has the kind of financial wherewithal and social influence to be a better super lobbyist than super hero.
In the time it took him to train to be the world’s greatest detective and the single most fantastic physical human specimen, he could have been building a political machine in Gotham the likes of which the city, maybe even the world, had never seen.
Instead of pouring money into franchising the Batman brand, pour money into leaders.
But, compared to beating up performance criminals, politics is absolutely boring as hell.
And maybe he likes being hands on. That’s totally fair. So, why not…
2. Give Arkham Asylum a Complete Overhaul
There’s a reason The Joker is always sent to a mental hospital rather than prison. Despite having a higher body count than Hitler at this point, the courts declare him to be in dire need of dedicated psychological treatment.
However, rather than actually send him to a quality mental care facility, he’s sent to Arkham Asylum, a shit hole that makes Bedlam look like Passages and has worse security to boot.
With one check, Batman could fix Arkham, or rather, Bruce Wayne could. He could choose at any moment to give Arkham a much-needed influx of cash and make it an actual place of rehabilitation instead being eerily similar to the kind of place those rich Europeans murdered hot American kids in those Hostel movies. Batman could use his money to court the best doctors, the best security, the best EVERYTHING by merely opening his checkbook.
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| An Arkham nice enough for the whole family |
Actually, why stop at funding Arkham? Why not…
3. Use Wayne Enterprises to Actually Invest in the Gotham City Community
This is the one item on the list that is actually in Batman’s best interests on multiple fronts. Not only does it go to the root of the problem in Gotham City, but it also goes a long way towards making sure Batman has a steady enough income to maintain his Batman lifestyle.
Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed in a random act of violence. They were victims of a mugging. A lot of people in Gotham are victims of muggings. See, there’s not a lot of opportunities in Gotham for honest work. Hell, Joker may have even gotten his start as a down-on-his-luck family man who turned to crime for baby formula money. Gotham needs hope, and Bruce Wayne has the means to give them that hope.
No, not by becoming The Bat (remember the point of this list)! By actually doing his job as chairman and CEO of Wayne Enterprises! Batman is one of the ONLY super heroes that can actually help others have a meaningful, productive livelihood. Superman can punch asteroids, but Clark Kent ain’t exactly about to start paying hundreds, maybe thousands of people a living wage. Same for Green Lantern, The Flash, Martian Manhunter or any other member of the Justice League NOT THE HEAD OF A MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATION. Batman can do more in the boardroom in one day than he can in the back alleys of Gotham over the course of a year, and yet he evidently just can’t be bothered.
Now to be fair, businessing is boring. There’s a reason I only took one Intro to Business Class in college and dropped it midway through the semester. Maybe he likes being on the front lines. Maybe he likes getting his hands dirty. Maybe he just likes to kick a little ass from time to time. As you guessed, there’s still a better way to go about even that…
4. Work With the Gotham PD to Make EVERY Cop As Well-Equipped and Trained as Batman
Simply put, there is nothing the police force can do that Batman couldn’t do better on his own.
Nothing. And that’s without all those wonderful toys. Could you imagine what the police could do if they did have them?
What if, instead of working in the shadows and above the law, Batman instead worked hand-in-hand with it?
What if every member of the GCPD has a badass Batsuit complete with utility belts stocked with the latest CSI equipment? What if every GCPD precinct has a Batcomputer that could do all the crazy shit the one in the Batcave could do? What if instead of one Batman, you had an army of them and they were all legal members of the law enforcement community?
Batman’s one man war on crime is all well and good, but it’s inefficient as hell. A war on crime with the backing of an actual army, on the other hand….
(side note: if you do a Google image search for “war on crime” 10 of the first 12 results are Batman, so what do I know?)
That Batman has never once approached Commissioner Gordon with this idea is just criminal. That Commissioner Gordan has never asked Batman to consider this means he may be the real reason he gets removed from being head of Gotham’s Police Department every year or so.
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