Re: A Lonely Place of Dying
Fans are always going to claim that class issues-- and to some extent race and gender issues-- aren't present in mainstream superhero comics. Reading superhero comics in light of real-world issues like that generally makes the material feel loathesome and sickening.
In particular, confronting the class issues at work in the Batman stuff is impossible without coming to the conclusion that most of the characters involved are selfish monsters so steeped in white privilege that they've lost all grasp of reality. Batman's behaviors and the world around him in fact bear no true relationship to real experiences. They are best allegorical.
Batman is escapist wish-fulfillment entertainment to most people so they want the problems there to be, basically, the sort of problems you wished you had. Melodramatic problems that are at best symbolic representations of actual pain and conflict. Class is an intractable life-destroying problem that requires very sophisticated writing to explore adequately. Even the most sophisticated Batman stories would not really be capable of it.
No, superheroes aren't a private club, but they are an element of a genre that trends toward stupidity. Extraordinary creators can invest superheroes with real meaning but this does not happen on a regular basis. If I see someone who appears intellectually dissatisfied by superhero crud, I'm going to suggest going elsewhere because I sincerely believe doing so would make that person happier. There are comics that can talk about class issues-- and they also don't feature fanciful assholes in capes. This is not coincidental.