I made a post on the Batman subreddit saying I would like to see a Batman story where Batman has a civilian supporting cast similar to Peter Parker or Matt Murdock. Bruce Wayne had friends as a kid and went to exclusive private schools. I find it hard to believe his friends didn’t sympathize with him. I think it would be cool if during Batman’s first year he’s obsessed and only wants to be Batman and doesn’t care about being Bruce Wayne, but later on comes to realize he actually wants his friends around and comes to accept being ‘Bruce Wayne.’ That post got downvoted.
Bruce had a childhood friend who came from a wealthy family named Tommy Elliot. Another one was Mallory Maxon. It would be cool if Bruce opened up to Tommy or Mallory or any of his rich friends or a rich love interest. Bruce Wayne doesn’t have to be this statue with no friends who’s overly obsessed with being Batman. Daredevil and even Arrow (which is basically just a Batman show) prove the main character can do both.
Same with Spider-Man. He doesn’t have to constantly be poor and keep getting beat down time after time. With how smart Peter Parker is, it makes no sense for him to always be broke. Dude could get any job he truly wants. And this man is personal friends with at least four billionaires. I find it hard to believe Harry, Tony, Reed, or Danny wouldn’t say, ‘Dude, you can get a part-time job working for me and I’ll give you 200k a year,’ and the best part is since they know who he is, they can give him time off to do Spider-Man stuff.
But people don’t want to see these characters grow or be normal. They want Batman to remain a friendless statue and have Spider-Man keep taking constant Ls.
I think it has to do with the kinds of stories these characters are used to tell. Batman is a tortured billionaire who tries to use his vast resources to solve the problem of crime single-handedly, and he keeps people at arm’s length because he’s afraid that personal ties will endanger the mission he’s given himself (or something like that, Batman scholars feel free to chime in if I got it wrong.). Spiderman is a story about a broke kid trying to make a difference in the world with the limited resources he has. Similar goals for both characters, but different preconditions make the stories meaningfully different.
I think these flaws are what endear fans to a particular character because they struggle with the same problems (overly self-reliant, broke as hell) and if you have a character grow past them, you’re now telling a meaningfully different story. Might still be an interesting story, but I get why people who love these characters would consider some changes to be dealbreakers.
This is kind of a foundational feature of serialized character stories: if you want to keep telling stories about the same characters over and over again, they can’t fundamentally learn or grow or change meaningfully, not permanently anyway, because then the appeal of the character fundamentally changes, so you get characters like Batman who are stuck in this sitcom-y eternal purgatory of constantly slamming their heads against their own limitations, and still failing to grasp the root issue. And really I think, it’s not for them to figure out. Their stories are there so that we can see our own flaws in them, and learn from them. And once we have, Batman will still be out there, being a lonely nerd for other lonely nerds to identify with.