Thread by @jessnevins

Bruce Wayne's family wealth was “a merchant fortune that came over from Europe in colonial times, growing as Gotham City expanded to form the cornerstone of an industrial empire.”

I'm curious how many Anglo/Euro merchant families' wealth didn't involve slavery.

Okay. Unless Wayne's ancestor changed his name, Wayne pretty much had to be English rather than Dutch (to my disappointment).

Let's see: The Waynes came over in the "colonial" era. (canon). They are Old Gotham City Money. (canon). Gotham City is an east coast city. (canon).

Gotham City is apparently canonically in New Jersey. Okay. New Jersey became English in 1664.

I think we have to assume that the Waynes were originally gentry rather than related to royalty--there'd have been stories about Bruce Wayne's royal ancestor if that were the case.

Let's be kind and assume that the Waynes weren't landowners in England, because English landowners of the 17th century and before were notoriously cruel in their own way. But it's inevitable that they were involved, however tangentially, in the TransAtlantic trade.

And that's where we get into some dark territory, because the transatlantic trade was so intertwined with slavery and plantations, American and Caribbean, that you pretty much couldn't make money from the trade without slavery being involved.

This is where history and superheroes grind rather than merge, admittedly, and a clever and historically-knowledgeable writer could probably come up with a 17th century merchant profession that didn't have blood on its hands.

Nonetheless, I think we have to conclude that the Wayne family fortune is built on the backs of slaves, one way or another.

I could bore you about what position the Wayne family must have taken during the English Civil War, and why that matters, but I think I'll leave this here

(It's actually a shame there's no longer an audience for historical superhero stories, because there's *so* *much* you could do, *so* *many* *stories* you could tell. But that's not what most of the audience wants any more.)

(Last parenthetical: the first modern, urban, costumed hero was actually a woman in early 17th century London, in both fiction [ballads & plays] and reality).