Or maybe both?

As was detailed by someone else the Doylian reason why heroes don’t change the status quo is that people want to see our world in media, not a fantasy one and that this means only villains are allowed to want changes, but since the people funding the production of media tend to be invested in the status quo status quo changing ideas tend to be flanderised and done by people who do evil and selfish acts to reinforce standard morality.

I thought he gave some villain speech about getting his gang and people like them what they deserved and bringing down Stark and Co. But I could well be mistaken or misremembering since I only saw it once, quite some time ago so you may very well be right.

I dunno, I think making things like this is Clowes’ lifeline. He makes comics about how dirty and self hating he is to keep himself going.

So I reckon it’s no waste of time and reduced global suffering and pain.

Congratulations, you’re now at level 2 of the joke.

Legit though Clowes’ work is all about self-loathing and feeling dirty. It’s not easy or pleasant.

Off the top of my head the villain in one of the Iron Man films was opposed to US war crimes and imperialism, New New Spider Man 1 had the Vulture as a villain whose deal was Stark and the wealthy were screwing people over.

In Batman Begins 3 Bane is a pastiche of anarchism/anti-capital ideas until revealed that that’s a play by Talia.

Well intentioned extremist is a pretty common villain trope in general.