A lot of cape shit is hard to swallow because of the overarching lib premise of “steal some money, you’ve accepted having your arms broken”. Something I didn’t notice before but is very commonly used as a blanket justification for violence.

That said, it’s not all that is happening. Mostly because it’s fiction as others have said. So you can be mindful of the shitty stuff while still enjoying the gadgets and fighting since none of it is real.

Also you can cheer for poison ivy

I know this isn’t really the answer you’re looking for… but you’re allowed to like some things that aren’t specifically leftist in nature.

If Batman were real, it would definitely be problematic. But he’s not. He’s a comic book/movie character. Your existence does not need to revolve around enjoying only things specifically leftist in nature. It’s too fucking exhausting to live like that. You obviously already see the flaws in his character. So go watch the damn movie read the comics and enjoy yourself. Life is too short and too hard to worry about Batman existing in a leftist narrative. Maybe talk to other people who might not see how Batman is a billionaire that gives poor people concussions. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. He’s not real.

I think any good version of Batman would have him fundamentally restructuring how Gotham approaches crime and going to a literal war with the police at some point. let me shit out an idea so everyone can tell me it’s bad:

the story begins with Batman chasing someone who has gone on a spree of bank robberies using stolen Wayne tech. initially looking to get his stuff back, Batman catches the person and they are reduced to a crying mess, saying “finally, I need this”.

he asks what they mean and they explain that you are forced go out and do violent crime to even be considered for Arkham and that a lot of people are actually turned away for not meeting their rigid criteria. people who suffer from mental illnesses but are not violent are forced into the Gotham slums, into homelessness, losing everything because the system that the Wayne Foundation solely supports focuses on the taking care of its leadership and not the people they are supposed to help.

as Bruce Wayne he begins investigating Arkham’s failing mental health resources and how the money is distributed, in the process he finds out that the corruption failing the people of Gotham goes back to his mother and father who created an intentionally flawed system to profit off of it, a tradition that continues to the current board of directors. he learns that his parents weren’t killed by a random mugger but by Carmine Falcone to ensure their silence regarding the corruption of the Arkham and the Wayne Foundation from its very origins.

shattered by the discovery that his parents weren’t the heroes he assumed him to be, but grifters who were killed in a power struggle to control an empire, Bruce dons the cowl and begins to assault Falcone fronts and distribution centers for narcotics. it turns out the Falcone family is responsible for most drug imports to Gotham, exacerbating an already present mental health crisis and forcing people into poverty and dependency on the family to feed their addictions. Batman begins to brutalize the leaders of the Falcone family but after a few weeks of his assault, another family takes over production.

seeing the cycle of exploitation before his eyes and realizing he is powerless to stop it, Bruce is shattered. his life’s work, both as Bruce Wayne and as Batman were dependent on suffering that he continues to profit from. he realizes that his true power lies in his immense wealth and he begins a process of buying and renovating houses and apartment buildings around Gotham and signing the deeds over to the people most affected by his family’s greed. he establishes a fund for the homes’ upkeep and institutes a basic income to provide necessities for people who need it. hanging up the cowl for now, Bruce realizes his actions can’t fix the failures of capitalism, but he can do his part to make things better for those whose suffering he feels responsible for.

I’m too lazy to continue this but that’s probably enough for the first arc of a series. you could take it a lot of places, making the point that charity doesn’t fix the actual issue, having him go to war with the cops/government because his actions are putting private prisons out of business, and nearing the end of the story you could do a civil war :so-true: type thing where Bruce takes up the cowl and uses his Justice League connections to begin a revolution and destroy capitalism once and for all, expending all of his Wayne Foundation resources to fight a global war against capitalists and those who are beholden to them

Sort of tangentially related but there was that one comic where joker stopped going crazy and realized Batman effectively caused most crime in Gotham through systemic inequality, plus the fact he wasn’t beholden to any oversight. The joker became mayor, expropriated all of Batman’s stuff and reinvested it in the community. The cops got all of Batman’s weapons though so there’s a cringe angle of “refunding the police,” but what are you gonna do they’re all liberals.

A long time ago Thoughtslime made a video about Batman and how he (like any fictional character, but especially any superhero) is a reflection of the writer’s values. It was a good breakdown of different depictions of Batman, including several that were deeply critical of accumulated wealth and rich people, and some that were considerably more reactionary in their depiction (Frank Miller …).

EDIT: I can’t find the video, they may have deleted it