What would have happened to Bruce Wayne if his family had been poor?
- Thread starter Basement Cat
- Start date
Yeah, this seems like the most likely scenario. Something snapped in Bruce's head that night and without money to help him focus and train, things would get worse.Dalek Caan said:
This is what Batman would be like without a budget, and without Alfred and the rest of the Bat-Clan his levels of paranoia would probably go through the roof.
I think there's also a possibility he'd go the opposite way and become a bad guy. Or perhaps he'd go more along the lines of The Punisher.
Then again, he'd be a ward of the state, right? perhaps they'd force him into foster care and then into therapy. He might become well adjusted.
I think he'd end up more like Rorschach from Watchmen. He wouldn't need to Wayne identity anymore because there would be far less need for cover so Bruce would slowly be consumed by the Batman persona. He'd have to be more violent because he couldn't fall back on non-lethal gadgets. His mental disorder might not have been quite the same as Rorschach, but he could have ended up even more warped than he is if Gotham's orphanages are as bad or corrupt as the rest of the city's government seems to be.
So yeah, I could see him becoming a more violent even more extreme vigilante like Rorschach.
So yeah, I could see him becoming a more violent even more extreme vigilante like Rorschach.
If we're going this far, why not make a few other assumptions.Copper Zen said:
Batman, as a concept, kind of stopped growing emotionally at 8 years old. He's interesting, but taken as person in a real life situation he'd be a shattered husk. He's clearly OCD and maybe a little bi-polar and would probably have been diagnosed and medicated if he didn't have the ability to hide behind his walls of money.
Let's go one step further. Lets just say, for the sake of the exercise, that Bruce's memories of his parents were severely one sided. As with most kids, we tend to hero worship our parents at that age. What if Thomas Wayne wasn't some humanitarian/philanthropist/cipher and instead assume that his success, as with the success of many multinational corporations like WAYNE ENT, was built on the backs of it's workers through Wayne's underhanded dealings, shrewd business sense, and maybe let's say he was a task master.
Perhaps Bruce's parents getting shot was as much Thomas' fault as it was the Joe Chill's. I mean who is to say that WAYNE ENT wasn't strangling the life out of the entire city? Maybe crime was so high because the one wealthy family hoarded it all inside stately Wayne Manor while the rest could eat cake. Maybe Joe Chill was a struggling business owner who got crushed by a WAYNE development or a buyout. Perhaps, the killing of Thomas and Martha Wayne should have just been poetic justice rather than kickstarting what is essentially a psychopath with a vendetta set loose on the streets of a dying city and backed up by ill gotten gains.
You'll find a great many things we hold as true depend on our point of view
- Obi Wan Kenobi (paraphrased)
That's easy. If he can't be Sherlock Holmes in tights then after a long succession of compromises he would end up being Professor Moriarty.Copper Zen said:
Well, if his parents were poor then there's a good possibility his parents wouldn't get killed and thus he'd never have a reason to become a vigilante. He's live a life in poverty with his parents and eventually grow up and possibly get a quite normal career.
Going off of Batman begins and not the comics (because I haven't read any) here is what I think might happen:
Assuming his parents still get shot in front of him (they would be living around a lot of bad people, it's very possible that his parents are killed in gang violence) he would then possibly start fending for himself while just growing up on the streets and hating everyone around him. He will eventually leave Gotham City but not before planning the murder of the person who killed his parents. He will succeed in killing them, leave Gotham, and never be blamed/caught. Eventually, his travels for self-discovery will lead him to the League of Shadows. He will train under Ra's al Ghul and when it comes time for the final test of killing a man for his crimes, he will succeed and thus be forever part of the League. He will become Ra's al Ghul's second in command and together, they will burn Gotham down to let it be born anew.
Of course, it could go in a huge variety of other ways but this is how I envision it. The biggest difference is that since he will have grown up so completely surrounded by crime and murder, he will be desensitized to it and will go through with killing his parents' murderer.
Since he doesn't have Batman's morals, he won't ever hold back and will be an even more capable fighter. He and the League will hunt down many villains, Joker included, and kill them all.
Also, Bruce, Ra's, Talia, and Bane will all become weekend camping friends. They will live happily ever after while exterminating crime in the most severe of fashions.
Assuming his parents still get shot in front of him (they would be living around a lot of bad people, it's very possible that his parents are killed in gang violence) he would then possibly start fending for himself while just growing up on the streets and hating everyone around him. He will eventually leave Gotham City but not before planning the murder of the person who killed his parents. He will succeed in killing them, leave Gotham, and never be blamed/caught. Eventually, his travels for self-discovery will lead him to the League of Shadows. He will train under Ra's al Ghul and when it comes time for the final test of killing a man for his crimes, he will succeed and thus be forever part of the League. He will become Ra's al Ghul's second in command and together, they will burn Gotham down to let it be born anew.
Of course, it could go in a huge variety of other ways but this is how I envision it. The biggest difference is that since he will have grown up so completely surrounded by crime and murder, he will be desensitized to it and will go through with killing his parents' murderer.
Since he doesn't have Batman's morals, he won't ever hold back and will be an even more capable fighter. He and the League will hunt down many villains, Joker included, and kill them all.
Also, Bruce, Ra's, Talia, and Bane will all become weekend camping friends. They will live happily ever after while exterminating crime in the most severe of fashions.
Why is this even a question, he already exists, sort of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Jones
The crazy vigilante guy who fights criminals and has a group called the Rain City Superhero Movement. They seem to have done a pretty good bit of good stuff though, stopping drunk drivers, preventing robberies, breaking up fights, and 'Purple Reign' started an organization to try to prevent domestic abuse.
Though it basically sounds like kick-ass to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Jones
The crazy vigilante guy who fights criminals and has a group called the Rain City Superhero Movement. They seem to have done a pretty good bit of good stuff though, stopping drunk drivers, preventing robberies, breaking up fights, and 'Purple Reign' started an organization to try to prevent domestic abuse.
Though it basically sounds like kick-ass to me.
He would have learned that the world is a cruel place where power gains you what you want, so take what you can before someone takes from you. Also, killing is a very quick way to deal with resistance.
Flash forward 20 years and he's gaining ground as a major player in a large crime syndicate, slowly making the other crime lord's nervous as he climbs the ranks.
Flash forward 20 years and he's gaining ground as a major player in a large crime syndicate, slowly making the other crime lord's nervous as he climbs the ranks.
He wound likely have wound up in an orphanage, but still angry and bent on revenge. He would have been a problematic child, always fighting and in trouble. At some point, likely as an older teenager, he would have run away from the home, and wound up in the streets, picking fights with criminals and losing a lot of the time. If this were realistic, he would have gotten shot and that would be the end of the Wayne family.
Staying within the comicbook-type story, he would have met some sort of mentor who told him that picking random fights was not the way to avenge his parents and told him to get training and focus and all that stuff. He would have gone travelling, hiding aboard ships and such. He would have trained with ninja-monks in remote mountain temples, because they don't care about how rich he is (or isn't).
And then he would have gone back to Gotham and been a crime fighter. He'd build himself a batcave somewhere under the city, with cobbled-together equipment. Maybe he'D have some contacts in the police, who give him information in exchange for help with catching criminals because he can be outside the law.
He'd face very different challenges than wealthy Bruce Wayne. He wouldn't have the high-tech gear, but he would be a total unknown. After disappearing from the orphanage, everybody would assume that he died somewhere in the streets, and given the general level of competence in Gothams' police, nobody would wonder too much that no body was ever found. He wouldn't have to deal with all the trouble of maintaining a double life.
Staying within the comicbook-type story, he would have met some sort of mentor who told him that picking random fights was not the way to avenge his parents and told him to get training and focus and all that stuff. He would have gone travelling, hiding aboard ships and such. He would have trained with ninja-monks in remote mountain temples, because they don't care about how rich he is (or isn't).
And then he would have gone back to Gotham and been a crime fighter. He'd build himself a batcave somewhere under the city, with cobbled-together equipment. Maybe he'D have some contacts in the police, who give him information in exchange for help with catching criminals because he can be outside the law.
He'd face very different challenges than wealthy Bruce Wayne. He wouldn't have the high-tech gear, but he would be a total unknown. After disappearing from the orphanage, everybody would assume that he died somewhere in the streets, and given the general level of competence in Gothams' police, nobody would wonder too much that no body was ever found. He wouldn't have to deal with all the trouble of maintaining a double life.
This what I immediately thought of too, since the topic specifies that his family had been poor. I'm surprised everyone else is just talking about Batman superheroing on a budget.HardkorSB said:I can already imagine it:secretkeeper12 said:
The Waynes are going home one night, a robber comes up to them and points the gun at them.
Robber: "Give me all your money."
Bruce's father: "We don't have any money."
Robber: "...erm...well...fuck."
THE END
I can see a franchise potential in that
In the original stories their wealth actually had nothing to do with the "mugging". Joe Chill was actually hired to kill Thomas and Martha Wayne (and make it look like a mugging) by a mob boss who Thomas was going to testify against in court. It's part of why Bruce didn't get shot too, Chill was ordered to leave him alive. Chill didn't know it, but this was so that Bruce could tell everyone that it was a mugger who killed his parents.secretkeeper12 said:
Bruce would be put in an orphanage, and would be a troubled child often getting in to fights over perceived injustices. One night he would get in too deep when trying to intervene on behalf of someone being accosted by a group of thugs. As he is held down by two and another advances on him with a broken bottle, a huge man would jump in to the fray, knocking out the assailant with the bottle and allowing Bruce to break free of the two holding him down. The large man and Bruce then fight off the rest of the thugs together. Afterwards the large man introduces himself as former heavyweight boxing champion Ted Grant, and takes Bruce to his Gym (conveniently located just a couple of blocks away) and the two have a long talk about how crime & injustices have affected their lives. Ted takes Bruce in and teaches him how to fight. Thus begin the adventures of Wildcat & Batboy! (Batboy begins making clever crime-fighting equipment while Wildcat prefers to make a go of it with just his fists.)
(For those who don't know, Ted Grant/Wildcat is an actual DC comics character)
Actually I think they did this story in the comics once....
Another possibility is he would run away from the orphanage and join the circus, where he is taken in by a family of acrobats.....
(For those who don't know, Ted Grant/Wildcat is an actual DC comics character)
Actually I think they did this story in the comics once....
Another possibility is he would run away from the orphanage and join the circus, where he is taken in by a family of acrobats.....
As Batman is a character in a story, he exists as a vehicle for the writer's whim. The question ought to be "What what you decide would happen to Bruce Wayne if..."
What you are asking is for people to come up with their own story based on a new premise. Some people will "keep it real", others will continue to spin off in realms of fantasy or gritty noir. You question implies bringing some things over from what we know of the Bruce Wayne character - but essentially - if I decide he turns to crime to fund his crime-fighting and succeeds in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, then - that's what happens. It's my job, as a writer, to make sure the reader doesn't stop on the journey and say "That would never have happened."
Presumably not every rich boy who's parents are murdered by a street criminal go on to become the caped crusader, but we haven't read those stories - but there's nothing stopping a poor boy who's parents are murdered by a street criminal to become the caped crusader either. The story may be different, but the end point can be exactly the same.
What you are asking is for people to come up with their own story based on a new premise. Some people will "keep it real", others will continue to spin off in realms of fantasy or gritty noir. You question implies bringing some things over from what we know of the Bruce Wayne character - but essentially - if I decide he turns to crime to fund his crime-fighting and succeeds in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, then - that's what happens. It's my job, as a writer, to make sure the reader doesn't stop on the journey and say "That would never have happened."
Presumably not every rich boy who's parents are murdered by a street criminal go on to become the caped crusader, but we haven't read those stories - but there's nothing stopping a poor boy who's parents are murdered by a street criminal to become the caped crusader either. The story may be different, but the end point can be exactly the same.
Are we to assume that this situation doesn't include Alfred seeing as Bruce would be poor? The question is does Bruce find another paternal figure to rear him towards the morals that he holds for himself. It is in my opinion that without Alfred, there is no Batman.