Poll of the Day > If Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark where real people, they wouldn't even be that rich

(+) Yeah! (+)

Bruce Wayne is estimated to have a net worth of 9.2 Billion, not even cracking the top 200 richest people in the world.
Tony Stark is estimated to have a net worth of 12.4 Billion, not even in the top 150 richest people in the world.

T'Challa though, he could buy out the entire Forbes 500 and not even break a sweat!

Sources:

https://www.quora.com/Who-is-richer-between-Bruce-Wayne-Tony-Stark-and-Ryder-from-Paw-Patrol
https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/

I've seen estimates of the volume of gold in Smaug's hoard, and I don't think he even breaks the top 10. It says a lot that people writing billionaires in fiction can't even make them as wealthy as many real people because of how ludicrously implausible that real wealth is.

All 3 people mentioned in this topic are dead so it really doesnt matter

Dikitain posted...

Ryder-from-Paw-Patrol

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/dbd7555e.jpg

adjl posted...

I've seen estimates of the volume of gold in Smaug's hoard, and I don't think he even breaks the top 10. It says a lot that people writing billionaires in fiction can't even make them as wealthy as many real people because of how ludicrously implausible that real wealth is.

How do they estimate the Arkenstones worth? It's a priceless artifact

Also I feel like it's kinda stupid to judge Batman's or Iron man's wealth since they're is so many different interpretations of those characters. Are we talking in the comics? Shows? Movies? Batman built an entire space station for the JLA, if it's anywhere close to the ISS then it should have been like at least 60 bil if not more since they have teleporters and other sci-fi tech.

It's never even really explained what Bruce Wayne's company does, he just has a company that's so profitable he can fund the Justice League's worldwide/intergalactic operations with (fully staffed) space stations, orbital weapons, intergalactic spacecraft, and teleportation.

Because "Bruce Wayne" is basically an irrelevant part of Batman's character in most stories, it's just an excuse to explain where his infinite resources come from and that he's Batman because his parents got shot.

Now, Tony Stark on the other hand, stopped selling weapons and makes a lot of new tech he doesn't sell, so in theory he should run out of money eventually if he keeps mass producing Iron Man suits and Avengers buildings, but he just doesn't.

The problem is that they're supposed to be insanely rich, so Marvel and DC are constantly retconning exactly how rich they really are. Bruce Wayne has been described as a trillionaire in some stories, after having started out as a millionaire in the 40s and being upgraded to a billionaire later on (and at one point it was explicitly stated he had $100 billion). Any calculation to determine their "true wealth" is going to be obsolete shortly after being written. Doubly so when you consider that there are differences between how rich he is in the movies versus how rich he is in the comics versus how rich he is in various cartoons, and so on.


Though what's more impressive for Tony Stark is that he's lost his fortune multiple times and then had to basically rebuild his wealth from scratch. Half his major stories seem to involve hostile takeovers from other companies or corporate mergers that go wrong, with him ultimately having to form a new company from the ground up, then potentially leveraging his new assets to attempt to get the old ones back. Bruce's wealth is generally much more stable in general.

Though it's also worth remembering that Lex Luthor is supposed to be much wealthier than Bruce is. Because Lex is willing to make money in ways that Bruce isn't.

eventually their "projects" costs would have to eclipse their income. I mean, really, a fully functional batmobile would cost trillions, right?

They don't often mention specific numbers in the comics TBH

And things have changed obviously over the years depending on the writers or the continuity

Metalsonic66 posted...

things have changed obviously over the years

You mean like the value of an American dollar due to inflation?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Half his major stories seem to involve hostile takeovers from other companies

maybe he should stop going public and having shareholders then

ConfusedTorchic posted...

maybe he should stop going public and having shareholders then

I could be wrong here but I think there exists "magic hackers" in the Marvel universe that could just steal his stuff regardless so it wouldn't really matter.

adjl posted...

I've seen estimates of the volume of gold in Smaug's hoard, and I don't think he even breaks the top 10. It says a lot that people writing billionaires in fiction can't even make them as wealthy as many real people because of how ludicrously implausible that real wealth is.

But Smaug's fortune is in immediately sellable assets, not buildings and speculation.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Bruce Wayne has been described as a trillionaire in some stories

You know, it's kind of a sad commentary that when I was a kid (and even afterwards), this would have been laughed at as being ridiculously unreasonable, but it's honestly not that far-fetched anymore.

Up until the late 90s, no one had even managed to amass more than $25 billion (and even if we adjust for inflation, the world's richest man only held $20 billion to $40 billion for the entirety of last century, aside from Henry Ford in the 40s). Now we have multiple people with net worth north of $200 billion (i.e. a more than fourfold increase in roughly 25 years). Barring a major financial collapse, most of us will probably be around to see the world's first trillionaire.

darkknight109 posted...

Barring a major financial collapse, most of us will probably be around to see the world's first trillionaire.

boy oh boy how exciting

FrozenBananas posted...

All 3 people mentioned in this topic are dead so it really doesnt matter

Damn, Ryder from Paw Patrol is dead?

darkknight109 posted...

Barring a major financial collapse, most of us will probably be around to see the world's first trillionaire.

I'm on the fence whether not I'd eat a billionaire but I would DEFINITELY eat a trillionaire.
(lol Firefox doesn't even think trillionaire is a word)

FrozenBananas posted...

All 3 people mentioned in this topic are dead so it really doesnt matter

were they ever even really alive

GanonsSpirit posted...

Damn, Ryder from Paw Patrol is dead?

https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/carwfh/ paw_patrol_mayor_goodway_haunted_by_dreams_of/

Stupid gFAQs URL limitations