#vigilantism

CONTENT WARNINGS

Violence (Physical harm, murder, brutality)

- Graphic depictions of violence, especially when discussing Batman and Red Hood’s actions in their idea of justice, and how aggressive the prison-industry complex is to both abusers and victims.

- Includes discussions about Batman’s refusal to kill versus Red Hood’s more lethal approach, the justification of murder, and the Jokers murders (especially around Jason Todd)

Systemic Inequality & Prison/Justice System

- References to systemic issues, corruption in Gotham, and parallels with real-world institutions like the American police system.

- Critique of the criminal justice system, including prisons and the portrayal of Arkham Asylum as a stand-in for the prison-industrial complex.

- References to the issues within Gotham and real-world parallels, particularly how Batman’s privilege as a billionaire impacts his choices.

Trauma & Mental Illness

- Batman’s trauma from the death of his parents and Red Hood’s trauma from being killed and resurrected.

- References to how distressing mental health causes crimes and needs to be systematically normalized and helped.

DISCLAIMER: Please don’t take this as a personal attack against your favorite character or however you relate to them, this is not intended as hate or to call these characters bad or unherolike, just a leftist perspective on how they could improve on their justice systems.

READ ME HERE (BATMAN)

I’ve started to unintentionally hate Batman. For years he's upheld an image of being the ultimate moralist—a man who doesn’t kill, who stands for justice above vengeance. But the more I think critically about it, the more that this entire persona feels hollow. It rests on the back of his privilege. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire—an upper-class white man—and that bleeds into everything he does as Batman

His version of “justice” is deeply entangled with the law; a law that we know is broken, corrupt, and biased—especially in Gotham, where police and political officials are explicitly and obviously on mob payrolls or worse. Yet Batman still aligns himself with these institutions. He acts as though he’s separate from them, a moral force outside the system, but he works with the police, he uses their channels, and he lets the courts handle people he captures.

One of his famous lines is that he isn’t "judge, jury, and executioner," but that’s exactly what he is. He decides who deserves to be chased, who deserves to be brutalized, and who deserves to be locked up. And with his intelligence, he absolutely knows what will happen to these people. He knows the horrors of jail. He knows who will die, who will rot, and who will eventually escape. He calculates all of that information into his moral code and decides what he thinks is a fit punishment for a crime—something is not his choice to make.

It’s a moral fantasy built on ego. His refusal to kill is often painted as strength or principle, but it's ultimately about preserving his image of himself. “I won’t become like them” sounds noble until you realize it’s less about ethics and more about identity. He wants to believe he’s better. That he's somehow untouched by the violence he enacts. But refusing to kill, even when it means allowing known murderers to kill again, is not heroic—it’s selfish.

Take the Joker. How many times has Batman caught him, only for him to escape and massacre dozens or hundreds of innocent people? Batman knows Joker will never change. He knows the system will never contain him. And still, he insists on letting him live. And every time, more people die. There’s nothing moral about that—just arrogance. In theory, yes, everyone deserves a second chance. But Batman isn’t a philosopher, and his world isn’t built to support healing and second chances, it’s made to punish and brutalize. Batman is supposed to be a protector of innocents. That’s his job, and he has to make the hard decisions. He has to choose what is better for the people despite his morals. Not out of vengeance, but out of necessity. When you're entrusted with protecting lives, you don’t get to hide behind moral absolutism while people suffer.

He becomes a symbol of a certain kind of ideology. A rich man who beats up the poor and mentally ill while refusing to address the root causes of Gotham’s problems, many of which he profits from as Bruce Wayne. And people adore him for it because he makes them feel like justice can exist without sacrifice (without confronting one’s own complicity, without personal moral failure) But real justice? It’s messy. It's not about looking clean while doing what's easy—it’s about doing what's right, even when it’s ugly.

Honestly he’s a direct reflection of American policing, especially the way it's idealized in media.

A man who works outside the law but still collaborates with the police, who uses surveillance tech, torture like interrogation methods, and physical force with little to no oversight. He embodies the fantasy of a "good guy with power" who uses violence to “keep order,” even if that order is deeply broken.

Batman decides who the threat is. Just like the police often do. He targets “criminals” without addressing why crime exists. Gotham is filled with poverty, systemic corruption, cycles of abuse, and mental illness. But instead of investing in infrastructure, mental healthcare, or community safety, Batman punches muggers in alleys and throws mentally ill people in Arkham Asylum—a place that’s basically a stand-in for the American prison-industrial complex. And then he walks away like the problem is solved. (Don’t get me wrong, in the newer comics he does act more radically, and explores a modern solution, and I’ll talk about that in a bit.)

That’s American policing. A reactive force that rarely prevents violence and almost never addresses root causes. Like Batman, American cops claim to "serve and protect," but what they actually do is punish and control. And when they fail—when people die, when prisons overflow, when violence continues—they don’t take accountability. They say the system needs more funding, more weapons, more power.

And let’s not forget that Bruce Wayne is a billionaire. He could actually “fix” Gotham. Fund housing, education, mental health clinics, jobs. But he doesn’t. Because that wouldn’t give him the same emotional satisfaction as suiting up and punching someone through a wall. It wouldn’t maintain the fantasy of being both traumatized and righteous.

Batman believes that he alone knows what’s right. That’s dangerous. It mirrors the mindset of American cops who believe they’re above the law because they ARE the law. No matter how many times Batman causes collateral damage or perpetuates Gotham’s suffering, the narrative always forgives him. Just like how police are almost never held accountable for systemic failure or brutality. Because the myth of the hero must be protected—even if the people suffer for it.

But to be fair in more recent comics there’s been a noticeable shift in how Batman is written—especially as writers and readers alike become more critical of the capitalist, conservative and authoritarian elements that defined him for decades. DC is starting to fiddle with the uncomfortable truth that Batman, in many ways, mirrors the failures of real-world policing and systemic inequality. And some newer stories have made deliberate moves to challenge that.

Modern Batman isn’t as rigid, detached, or brutal as he used to be. Some writers have started to explore a more self-aware Bruce Wayne—someone who’s actually engaging with his privilege and trying to do better, not just punch harder. He’s been funding social programs in Gotham, building better mental health infrastructure, and working with marginalized groups and vigilantes from the streets who don’t have the luxury of billion-dollar tech. In some issues, he’s even explicitly shifted away from working with the GCPD because he recognizes how corrupt and violent they are.

Even with all the recent character growth, where Batman is more compassionate, more socially aware, and even funding progressive infrastructure—he’s still deeply entangled in a system built on corruption. That’s the trap of his character. Because no matter how much he personally evolves, Batman still believes in law as the ultimate tool of justice, it’s a key point of his character, but the law itself is inherently flawed.

He might recognize that the Gotham Police Department is corrupt. He might distance himself from them, or even call them out. But he still puts people into prisons. He still trusts institutions like Arkham Asylum. He still believes that the system, if just operated by the “right people,” will work. That’s the fantasy—one rooted in liberalism: that reform is enough. That institutions are neutral. That the problem is bad actors, not the structure itself.

But in Gotham—and in America specifically—those structures were never neutral to begin with (Police beginning as slave patrols, prisons starting as a system of punishment and labor exploitation, with the post-slavery convict leasing system re-enslaving Black people for forced labor, etc). Arkham doesn't rehabilitate, it tortures. Prisons don’t reform, they disappear and isolate people. Cops don’t keep communities safe, they uphold power. And even when Batman tries to fix things—fund shelters, mental health clinics, community initiatives—he's doing it all through the lens of a benevolent billionaire. He’s still deciding what gets funded, who gets saved, what justice looks like. That’s not liberation, that's control.

So despite Batman becoming more left-leaning in modern stories, as long as he still operates within the same legal and moral framework—one that centers punishment, isolation, and billionaire saviorism—he’ll always be upholding the same system he claims to fight.

Because Batman’s core dilemma isn’t just “should I kill or not?” It’s “can I protect the people without tearing down the very system that keeps hurting them?”

And so far he hasn't had the guts to answer that

READ ME HERE (RED HOOD)

Red Hood is often held up as the ideological opposite to Batman—and for good reason. Where Batman refuses to kill, Red Hood kills without hesitation. He doesn’t believe in Arkham, or the courts, or second chances. He knows the system is corrupt and that it lets criminals walk free. And unlike Bruce, Hood doesn’t just acknowledge that, he acts on it.

In that way, Red Hood is more grounded in reality. He sees the failures of the legal system and doesn’t pretend reform is coming. He knows the Joker will never change. He knows serial rapists, abusers, pedophiles, and crime lords will slip through the cracks. So he picks up a gun and says, “I’ll do what Batman won’t.” He puts them down permanently, claiming he’s protecting the innocent by removing those beyond saving.

At first glance it feels righteous. Like he's the honest version of Batman—no more moral gymnastics, no more tying up murderers for the cops to mishandle. But dig deeper and Red Hood isn’t doing the right thing. He’s just doing what feels right. His justice isn’t based on principles—it’s based on anger

Because Red Hood isn’t actually fixing anything. He’s deciding who deserves to live and who deserves to die. He’s not just killing genocidal unchangeable supervillain warlords—he’s killing street-level criminals, dealers, gang members, people he sees as “irredeemable.” He becomes judge, jury, and executioner—but not from a place of balance or mercy, only vengeance. He’s operating from his trauma, not from a higher moral ground. And that’s dangerous.

This makes him less like an antihero and more like a metaphor for a frustrated, disillusioned liberal society (which reflects most of Americans today)—one that sees how corrupt everything is, but channels its rage in a way that doesn’t build anything. It’s the mindset of: “Burn it down, they’re all scum anyway.” It recognizes the system is irredeemable, but instead of imagining better systems, it just replaces institutional violence with personal violence. It feels radical, but it’s just another form of control.

Red Hood doesn’t protect people—he punishes. And that distinction matters.

Real justice isn’t about who deserves to be saved. It’s about asking why people become who they are, and whether we can build a world where they never have to. Red Hood doesn't want to build anything—he just wants to destroy what he hates. And that might be satisfying, but it isn’t stopping abusers from becoming abusers, just stopping them after the fact.

Murdering criminals as a form of punishment may feel like satisfying revenge but it ultimately fails to deliver true justice. Justice isn’t about causing more pain or balancing one person’s suffering with another’s. Inflicting harm in response to harm doesn’t undo the original damage—it only spreads trauma and perpetuates cycles of violence. When society chooses execution, isolation, or jail over rehabilitation, it sacrifices long-term safety and healing for short-term emotional relief. True justice must go beyond punishment to prevent further harm

At this point in time, both in real life and in the comics—choosing, or acting on revenge over rehabilitation is not just a personal preference; it’s an active choice that harms survivors

When society or characters prioritize punishment and retribution above healing and accountability, they reinforce cycles of violence that make survivors less safe, not more. Revenge focuses on making the offender suffer and ignores the real needs of survivors. It also distracts from addressing the root causes of harm, such as mental illness and systemic failures.

Rehabilitation recognizes that people who commit crimes, even serious ones like rape and murder, are human beings with rights and lives and capable of change.

While some offenders may never fully repair the damage they caused they can learn, grow, and reintegrate into society when given the right support and accountability. This process centers on accountability—not erasing or excusing wrongdoing—but on transformation, prevention, and restoration. It allows everyone to heal without witnessing endless cycles of violence and vengeance. Most importantly, rehabilitation aims to protect future potential victims by addressing root causes of harmful behavior rather than simply removing some offenders from society and furthering abuse

But I do agree there are situations that would require Red Hood’s methods. Like the Joker: people who have been given several chances at positive change, who cannot be kept institutionalized because they keep escaping, and who continue to hurt masses of people. Because despite what would be a radical and better solution then what Hood or Batman does, there is not a system or a society currently that could provide that for extreme re-offenders, and people like the Joker.

Morally and socially, I don’t believe in murder to control or govern a people, but it is his job to protect the innocents, and sometimes he has to make the morally incorrect choice for them.

In the end, despite their different ways, both Batman and Red Hood participate and actively support the system that causes violence in Gotham by refusing to dismantle or fundamentally challenge the corrupt institutions and social structures that enable that violence to start. They focus on fighting symptoms rather than addressing root causes, because doing so would force them to give up their control, their sense of purpose, and the clear-cut identity they’ve built around being vigilantes.

Further Explanation of Rehabilitation over Revenge

Rehabilitation is ultimately more effective than revenge because revenge, especially in the case of severe crimes like abuse and rape, is driven by emotion—a desire for justice, closure, or punishment that may feel satisfying in the moment but doesn’t address the root causes of the harm. Executing or punishing a criminal may temporarily provide a sense of justice or emotional relief for survivors, but it doesn’t stop the cycle of violence, nor does it help the abuser confront and work through the underlying factors that led to their harmful behavior.

Rehabilitation, on the other hand, focuses on understanding what caused the harm in the first place—whether it’s trauma, learned behavior, mental health issues, or societal influences—and actively working to address these root causes. By providing support like therapy, accountability, and education, rehabilitation offers the potential for change, reducing the likelihood of reoffending and helping the individual understand the impact of their actions.

Rather than continuing the cycle of violence through punishment, rehabilitation opens the possibility of healing—for both the survivor and the abuser. When abusers and rapists are given the tools to acknowledge their actions, understand the harm they’ve caused, and take responsibility, they have a better chance of reintegrating into society without perpetuating the same harm. This is a more logical, compassionate, and long-term solution than simply resorting to retribution, which only perpetuates further trauma and violence.

Thank you so much for reading!