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?
As soon as your “power” is gadgetry, you need money to fund that power to be effective. Full stop.
Batman is Batman because he can afford to do everything he does. This includes gadgets, but goes far beyond that and also encompasses his philanthropy too. I have read many posts about how Batman has given low-level criminals jobs to put them on the right track, or set up scholarships to help kids rise up in life. Don’t forget how he has all his wards that he turns into superheroes too (Robin, Nightwing, etc).
He could never do any of that if he were middle class.
Zach Snyder’s Batman said it best when The Flash asked him what his super power was: “I’m rich.”
Well, Danny Rand would still be the Iron Fist if he was homeless and broke. Now, if he was that poor, he might need to do something like pimping out his skills and powers. Maybe turn it into a business. Call it something line heroes for hire, get some buddies on board, etc.
Half joke aside, there are less wealthy, middle class, and outright poor heroes that have no powers beyond their learned skills and/or knowledge. In DC, Wildcat is a decent example of someone that’s just a fighter with fairly moderate income and no familial wealth. He’s batman minus the gadgets in terms of power set.
In Marvel, Ironheart exists, and a major component of her story is that she was just an average kid beyond her brains. No wealth, middle income family, cobbling her suit together and stepping up to fill a need.
So, I think that’s enough to show that the basic idea of Batman and Iron Man can work right t the money.
You can even go high tech in comics with just brains, or a power dedicated to tech (like Forge of the X-Men) without starting rich.
The question then moves to can those characters work without money? I say yes for Bruce, probably not for Tony, with the caveat that the goal is to keep them as close to their canon personality and history as possible.
Bruce’s story involves a long period of roaming the world without wealth after losing his parents. He learned his shit essentially in secret, and didn’t buy his way into his skills. I think he could have followed the same basic path in terms of character development if he’d grown up in the slums of Gotham. Not identical, but becoming a brilliant tactician and world class fighter with the same basic personality, absolutely.
Tony though, a large chunk of his character development is built around his wealth. He’s the rich kid that half-assed his way through life by coasting on his brain and his father’s money (gross over simplifying, but close enough). He could have become iron man, maybe even have had strong similarities, but I think you’d have ended up with someone closer to personality to Reed Richards with a grudge against the world than Tony in all his flawed glory.
Now, obviously, both of them have had story arcs where their wealth was core to the arc, so you’d never have a 1:1 parity even if they got rich after becoming heroes.
But in general, I think the answer is different for them, it isn’t a one size fits all.
Of the three, Iron Fist seems like the one that would be best suited for this treatment, as being a magical kung fu monk doesn’t require wealth (and arguably should be inhibited by it). But he’s also the one I’m least familiar with.
Batman, stripped of his wealth, would still be a world-class investigator and martial artist, and could probably still do quite well as a street-level hero. I’m less sure that he’d still feel like Batman without the gadgets, though.
Iron Man I don’t think would work without significant hand-waving. Take away his financial resources and you’d basically have Ironheart, but she only built the suit in the first place with a Stark grant, and even then had to turn to alternate, less ethical revenue streams to finish it.
