ABSTRACT
Vigilantism is a common trope in comics. Sometimes, crime becomes so prevalent in a city the police can’t keep up so private citizens take matters into their own hands. This was particularly true in the Golden Age of comics. During that time, two popular heroes, neither of whom possessed extraordinary powers, hunted criminals with great aplomb: Batman and the Shadow. This chapter compares the approaches of these two super sleuths who fight crime in distinctly different ways. The Shadow relies almost exclusively on labor to accomplish his “production,” while Batman leans almost exclusively on capital. The differences in approach have much to do with the different endowments of the heroes’ aliases. Kent Allard (later Lamont Cranston), the alter ego of The Shadow, is a people person. In contrast, Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, finds relationships far more difficult, and with significant financial recourses at his disposal, turns instead to capital. Utilizing an isoquant and isocost analysis, this chapter shows that the varied methods chosen by these two vigilantes are illustrative of the labor/capital choice all producers face, implying that the rudiments involved in such decisions are universal: even comic book heroes follow the same economic principles the rest of us do.
