Poison Ivy has her doctorate, and in the modern cannon is from a wealthy family. Harley Quinn was also a Doctor and wasn’t exactly “poor.”
Ra’s al gull is not poor by any stretch and neither is his daughter. Bane is... well, he starts out poor but as Ra’s al gull’s heir is far from- and he really didn’t need to be poor- he’s a genius former political prisoner who after escaping prison and leaving his country chooses to be a criminal- at one point he escapes prison again and leaves Gotham- but then decides to join Ra’s Al Gull.
The rank and file thugs and henchmen Batman fights are quite often poor, and many of his Rouge gallery members are poor or from poor backgrounds- most share tragic back stories of how they ended up criminals; but really, if we wanted to link the majority of Batman’s foes both “super villains” and thugs- we could pin point mental issues and traumas above economic status.
But it is interesting- one of the many interesting aspects of Batman and his popularity- that the Hero most people root for is a rich but mentally traumatized bag of issues and pathologies that beats up people committing crimes due largely to economic reasons or their own mental unhealthiness and trauma.
The overt message we get is a rich industrialist protecting us from others like us who have the means to hurt but not to be a protector in that same sense. But the real villain of the comics has pretty much always been a lack of social services. His charity work asides, Batman is a very almost... Rand-ian folk tale- citizens routinely loose all they have or those dear to them to collateral damage of crime and fighting it in Gotham- but most don’t don masks and fight for or against crime. Most go back to work.
Many of Batman’s villains aren’t so much “poor” as they want more. Unlike most of Gotham’s citizens however, they don’t simply toil away hoping against the odds and breaking their backs for a little more. They want much more. They want what Bruce Wayne has, or more than that. The power to do as they please almost free of consequence. The “bad guys” and “good guys” play by their own rules, but Batman stands behind a social order where you “keep your nose clean” and what you get is what you get. The “villains” are largely those who slipped through the cracks in the system, or the system turned its back on, and said “f&ck the system then.”
We have Mr. Freeze- who cousins pay for his wife’s healthcare in a system of for profit healthcare. A guy “stealing from honest folks” to subsidize his medical expenses. We have guys like the Penguin and other “freaks” outcast by society, unable to be accepted and have a place other than “freak.” We have a host of mentally disturbed villains who perhaps with better and more available mental health services could have been saved, or could be rehabilitated.
Gotham is a sort of parody of this idea of America and robber baron Rand-ian capitalism, the government is ineffective and often causes more trouble than it aids with. Only exceptional private citizens can make a difference. People tend to be largely faceless extras or cogs in a machine either working or broken.
That said- in various storylines and continuities over the years, Bruce Wayne has offered all sorts of philanthropic acts, programs, and social services. The line Batman would have you believe is that same Rand-Ian line many conservatives parrot to this day IRL- “there are plenty of options besides crime. Anyone who is a criminal is making a choice against honest work.” That’s the way Batman often presents things, with in various stories- him even giving his enemies legitimate “second chances” and even giving them jobs or solutions to the problems that they supposedly were trying to solve through crime- and decades plus on- they always end up throwing it away and going back to crime. Often simply because they didn’t like being “honest” and just enjoy crime.
Penguin is fairly wealthy as well, owning a successful nightclub business and coming from an incredibly rich background. Two-Face was a lawyer, Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter and Man Bat were scientists, Harley Quinn and Hush were doctors/surgeons, really the only one here who kinda fits the bill is Clayface who lost everything and turned to crime in the end. When you really think about it, a lot of batman villains were pretty successful before they became evil, and I doubt any of them were on the way to the poor house anytime soon
That’s a message rooted in antiquated rhetoric, while some criminals (The Joker, or real life serial killers) may be completely beyond hope of “rehabilitation,” the idea that most criminals are just bad people by their nature, that they choose crime and seek to do wrong. In Batman’s world every sob story is just an excuse, and the criminals by and large would have become criminals even if those tragic things never happened because they are criminal by their natures.
@dr_richard_ew- yes. Very true. And many of them acquired powers which could be of great use to them in making money or doing good legitimately. Clay face as an actor would have tremendous advantages for example. I mean, Killer Crock has a rough ticket, you’ve got guys like that. The Hatter, Ivy, Harley, all god examples of villains who have certain mental health issues. People who could be otherwise successful but have untreated illness that prevents their functioning in society.
I mean, on the whole the group of people Batman beats up who we can say are likely mostly “poor” AND mostly no more or less sane than most people are some of the thugs and henchmen he deals with. But- as we’ve discussed, a lot of these villains are not “poor” or from such backgrounds- so there is an allegory there to how the rich use the poor.
Ra’s al gull is not poor by any stretch and neither is his daughter. Bane is... well, he starts out poor but as Ra’s al gull’s heir is far from- and he really didn’t need to be poor- he’s a genius former political prisoner who after escaping prison and leaving his country chooses to be a criminal- at one point he escapes prison again and leaves Gotham- but then decides to join Ra’s Al Gull.