He would still behave in a similar way, but with a lower budget. That would force him to let go of some habits, adapt in interesting ways, and learn new ways. I think it could be interesting, but it would have a radically different flavour.
Comment on Do "rich" superheroes have to be rich in order for the story to work?
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days agoWould the characters be the same though? Isn’t Bruce Wayne being a billionaire playboy a big part of his personality?
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s his cover for why he doesn’t have a real job. If Bruce isn’t wealthy enough to not have to work, then he has to work during the day, fight crime at night, and never sleep. Even Peter Parker has a job with flexible hours to accommodate his Spider-Man time.
However, Peter only has the one gadget, doesn’t even own a car, and barely makes ends meet. Bruce needs a vehicle to get around town and at least a few gadgets and body armor to deal with the fact that he’s outnumbered, even with just normal criminals and not considering supers like Mr Freeze or Poison Ivy. If you’re keeping supers out of the equation, you could probably strip Bruce down to things that you could make in your garage, like reducing the Batmobile to an ordinary car he’s tinkered with a bit, painted black, taken the license plate off of, and ground off the VIN.
You still need to deal with how the hell he funds everything, though. Even with minimal gear, he’s going to need a full time job to afford it all. And if he doesn’t want to advertise who he is and where he’s operating out of, he’s going to need a second location to store his bat-stuff so that his neighbors don’t notice the Batmobile parked in his driveway. You’re probably looking at a small house that he doesn’t live in and another house or an apartment that he does live in without any roommates or renters at either place. Even with this minimal setup, Bruce would need at least $100k a year in income. This means one of the following: a) a well-paying full-time job, which cuts into Batmanning; b) inherited wealth; c) lottery winnings; or d) an extremely successful Only Fans account. The first doesn’t seem viable, the second is what’s already being used, the third just feels contrived, and the fourth, while something I’d probably read for the novelty, is probably really difficult to market.