How Much Does It Cost To Be Batman?

July 17, 2012 in Editorial, Top

We all think about it several times a day (it’s not just us, right?…right?) How much would it cost to become Batman? In anticipation of the impending release of The Dark Knight Rises, Centives decided to find out.

Batman Begins establishes in painstaking detail what it takes to become a caped crusader. Bruce Wayne first decides that he needs to f Read the rest of this entry →

How Much Is Bruce Wayne Worth?

July 17, 2012 in Editorial, Top

Forbes’ Fictional 15 is the gold standard in determining the net worth of fictional characters. It estimated the 2012 net worth of Bruce Wayne at $6.9 billion making him the 8th richest fictional character. However Forbes’ does not publish its methodology and it takes into account all iterations of Bruce Wayne from the comics to the movies. Centives decided to create its own estimate of the net worth of Bruce Wayne, based only on the Batman movies directed by Christopher Nolan: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

In Batman Begins we’re told that Wayne Enterprises helped build the rail system of Gotham City. Therefore the company must have a division focused on con Read the rest of this entry →

Is Batman Keeping Gotham City Poor?

July 16, 2012 in Editorial

In Why Nations Fail Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson attempt to explain why certain areas of the world remain under-developed. In Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne becomes Batman in the hopes of bringing stability to Gotham City which has severe economic problems. But the analysis presented in Why Nations Fail suggests that Batman is, in fact, making the problem even worse.

To begin with, there is little doubt that Gotham city has f Read the rest of this entry →

The CEO Wayne Enterprises Deserves?

July 16, 2012 in Editorial

In Batman Begins we’re introduced to William Earle, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. By the end of the movie, Bruce Wayne fires him and appoints Lucius Fox as the new CEO of Wayne Enterprises. It’s a classic story of good triumphing over evil in the corporate world. But did Earle really deserve to lose his job? Centives realized the answer is no.

One of Earle’s most controversial decisions as CEO seems to have been to take the co Read the rest of this entry →

How Much Does the Batmobile Cost?

February 22, 2012 in Editorial, Top

Batman enthusiasts have always wondered where the caped crusader managed to find some of the snazziest and most sophisticated vehicles ever seen. 2005’s Batman Begins gave us an answer: he simply uses the latest experimental technology from his family business, Wayne Enterprises.

But as The Dark Knight demonstrated these vehicles have a propensity to be destroyed. What does Batman do when Wayne Enterprises isn’t developing some new concept that the Batman can co-opt in his crusade against crime? As long time readers of the comic books know, he simply p Read the rest of this entry →

The Best Justice League

August 31, 2011 in Editorial, Top

Today, DC comics, the owner of such venerable characters as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, completes the reboot of its universe, restarting all of its comic book titles with issue #1.

One of the comic series to be restarted will be The Justice League of America, the DC Comics Superhero Team that consists of the most popular DC characters. Over the past fifty years The Justice League of America has had a variety of team rosters to help fight against crime. The DC reboot has prompted analysis about which version of The Justice League of America was the best. This analysis has generally focused on the quality of the story telling and the art work over the history of the series.

This is a mistake. It should be obvious to everybody that the only true way to decide which version of the JLA was the most successful is to look at the effect that the various incarnations of the team had on the crime rate in the United States. Using crime data from the FBI, Centives decided to find out, once and for all, which version of The Justice League of America was the best. Here is what we found: Read the rest of this entry →