Ben Affleck Is Right - The Flash's Wonder Woman Cameo 'Saves' Batman From Himself

This article contains spoilers for "The Flash"

Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne isn't in "The Flash" for long, and the movie ends with a whole new Bruce — or, rather, a returning one since the Affleck version seems to have been replaced by the George Clooney one. Still, while it remains to be seen whether Affleck has genuinely left the cape and cowl behind him for good, this movie wouldn't be the worst possible swan song for him.

In fact, by his own admission, Affleck quite enjoys the way "The Flash" treats his Batman. Before the movie even premiered, Affleck told the Smartless podcast that he was particularly fond of the movie's Lasso of Truth scene with Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). "I don't want to give spoilers but it was a scene where I get caught — I get saved — by Wonder Woman during a conflagration with some bad guys," he said. "She saves me with the Lasso of Truth. And so what happens is that Batman divulges some of his real feelings about his life and his work."

Indeed, Batman gets extremely real during the scene where he gets tangled in the lasso. Upon accidentally touching the magical item, he immediately admits that he has an overgrown ego and that he chose the bat theme essentially because it's hardcore. What's more, he also seems to secretly wonder whether being Batman is a good use of his time, going as far as admitting that he could probably do more good if he'd just give all his money away, using it to help end poverty. The revelation that what might be the toughest live-action incarnation of Batman is secretly wrestling with such questions is definitely as excellent a reveal as Affleck hinted — and what's more, it actually addresses a long-standing bat-question.

Batman has a lot of money from a vast array of sources, and it's indeed easy to start wondering whether he'd do more to end crime if he just used his millions and/or billions (depending on how broke Batman is at any given time) to improve the community. This is a common question that the comics have been known to explore, with varying results. Some writers note that Bruce Wayne is a large-scale philanthropist while Batman takes care of ... the other stuff, while in other stories, he outright gives all of his money away. Still, fans tend to wonder about this, and not every interpretation in the comics is particularly nice to the Caped Crusader. For instance, Garth Ennis and Liam Sharp's "Batman: Reptilian" reveals that while Bruce Wayne does support various charitable programs, he mostly just does this to control Gotham City, which helps his work as Batman. 

Judging by his Lasso of Truth-inspired comments, the Affleck Batman falls squarely on the "not doing all that much charity" end of the sliding scale of bat-philanthropists, and it's fun to see him admit that he knows this full well — but has been too deep into his big-budget cosplay to correct course. Affleck is no stranger to bold statements about his Batman in "The Flash," but it's clear that he hit the nail on the head with this one ... and it's fun to imagine that the second Bruce Wayne gets home after the lasso scene, he starts setting up a whole bunch of charitable foundations and begrudgingly cutting his Superman-fighting power armor budget.