Comics Characters Occasionally Recognize Limited Resources

Cover to Uncanny X-Men #520, art by Terry Dodson

An interesting point comes up in Uncanny X-Men #520. During the "Utopia" crossover, Scott Summers and the X-Men created massive engines to lift Asteroid M out of the ocean. This allowed the X-Men to create a floating haven for all the mutants left in the world. The resulting island refuge was dubbed Utopia. And mutantkind would live happily ever after, isolated from people who would look to hurt them...

Unfortunately, the X-Men were very short sighted in their construction of this new home. No-one thought to mention that when you build giant engines to lift an asteroid, you need to power and repair those same engines. Woops.

This is the point brought up by Dr. Nemesis (a member of the mutant science team put together by Beast) in Uncanny #520. In a briefing with Cyclops, Nemesis reveals that the engines keeping Utopia afloat are failing and that the island is sinking. The only solution he can think of is to tap into the wealth of Warren Worthington (the X-Man, Angel) and continuously build replacement engines. But, as Nemesis points out, the consequence of this would be to bankrupt Worthington.

This is important because, finally, in a comic book, a character acknowledges the fact that even a billionaire still has limited financial resources.

Comics history is filled with characters who have seemingly bottomless pockets. Think about it. For years, the Xavier Institute has been sustained by Professor Xavier and Warren Worthington. Somehow, the nebulous assets held by these two men has paid for housing and feeding hundreds of mutants, building countless supersonic jets and periodically rebuilding a massive mansion when Sentinels blow it up.

Batman is able to create an arsenal of weaponry that could conquer a small European nation. He has literally hundreds of cars, jets, boats, explosives, grappling hooks, and bat-shaped shuriken that he created using his personal wealth. And his assets are so great that Bruce Wayne is able to build all of these things without anyone noticing that he is using his money to build ridiculous contraptions. This means that he can buy a Bat-plane without creating enough of a dent to arouse suspicion. That is a LOT of money.

But in Uncanny X-Men # 520, we see that wealth is, in fact, finite and that someone can't keep buying engines for a mutant asteroid indefinitely. It's nice to see someone in this universe who is in touch with reality. Even if that person is an immortal man in a white suit and surgeon's mask who dual wields hypodermic injection pistols.

Dr. Nemesis from Uncanny X-Men #504, Art by Terry Dodson

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Question for Readers: Who is the Richest Comic Book Character?

When most people think of "rich" comic book characters, they naturally flock to two notable superheroes: Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark.

The former, owner of Wayne Enterprises, uses much of the revenues gained through the many branches of the company (Wayne Steel, Wayne Shipping, Wayne Industries, Wayne Technologies, Wayne Medical, etc.) in order to fund his double life as Batman, equipping himself with an arsenal of bat-shaped gadgets, a utility belt, a kevlar (or somewhat stronger than kevlar) batsuit, a batplane, batsub, batmobile, and perhaps the most advanced supercomputer the world has ever seen ("Computer: cross reference this screeching sound with 'brown bat.'")

The latter owns Stark Industries, a multi-billion dollar company most known for its weapons manufacturing (an extremely lucrative market), but also having a strong international presence (Stark Industries has offices in Japan, Europe, etc.) and several subsidiaries (such as Fujikawa Industries and Stane International). Stark is of course famous for creating the Iron Man armor, which by far is the most advanced suit of armor in all comic book universes.

Naturally, it is easy to think of these two heroes, especially considering the recent motion pictures. However, there are several other wealthy comic book characters: Professor Xavier was a former nuclear scientist who inherited a fortune and owns an entire academy; Danny Rand (the new Immortal Iron Fist) owns Rand International; Oliver Queen was a billionaire and mayor of Star City; Lex Luthor owns Lexcorp, a heavy competitor of Wayne Industries in the DC Universe (Luthor has even managed to harness and channel some Brainiac technology, which he used towards gaining revenues for the company); Normal Osbourn owns Oscorp, and so on and so forth.

I will post my views either in the comments or a later post, but I'd love to hear from the readers the answers to several questions. Given your knowledge of these characters as well as the real-world performance of their respective industries (and assuming all the characters live in the same universe):

1) Who is the richest comic book character in terms of net worth? (You can answer pre-Dark Reign and Batman RIP and post-Dark Reign and Batman RIP)
2) What do you think is this character's net worth in today's dollars?
3) If you answer is not Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark, who of the two is wealthier?
4) Whose company do you think the recession is affecting the most (positively or negatively)?

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