Superheroes are the selfless heroes of the weak and downtrodden. One of the tropes of the genre has always been that the hero themselves are in the same financial straits as those they protect. However, there are many Marvel and DC heroes who themselves are rather wealthy, using that money both to fund their acts of heroism and to help the poor in more tangible ways.
Some of them were born rich, some of them made their money, and some are monarchs with massive kingdoms but they all have one thing in common- fighting evil and protecting the innocent.
10 Wasp Both Inherited Wealth And Added To It
Wasp was always one of the richest Avengers but with Tony Stark on the team, she always seemed kind of normal. However, that’s not the case at all- the van Dyne family fortune gave her a leg-up that most don’t have and she only added to that with her fashion designs- everyone wanted clothes made by an Avenger.
The Wasp started rich and only got richer. Unlike some other wealthy heroes, her money was never taken from her by an enemy with a grudge or the federal government, allowing her to accrue even more wealth.
9 Reed Richards Is A Genius Scientist And A Shrewd Businessman
Reed Richards is one of the smartest people on the planet and he’s put that intelligence to good work. Richards owns all kinds of patents but one is more lucrative than all of the others- unstable molecules. Material made from it can do just about anything, is quite durable, and it’s made Richards an obscene amount of money.
Richards also owned the Baxter Building, a skyscraper in New York City, and rented out space in it, as well as owning other NYC real estate. Richards’ worth is probably way more than anyone figures but seeing as how he cares more about science than wealth, that makes sense.
8 Emma Frost Had Enough Money To Bankroll Utopia, An Entire Island Of Mutants
Emma Frost wasn’t always a hero but since joining the X-Men has proven herself to be one of the best. She’s also one of the wealthiest members of the team, having acquired the Frost family fortune by hook and by crook and expanding it. In fact, Emma Frost had so much money that she paid for Utopia, the island where the remnant of the mutant race lived after M-Day.
That’s a lot of money, with Frost being able to put it out there and still be one of the wealthiest mutants around. Now one of the heads of the Hellfire Trading Corp., Frost is working to enrich her people and probably turning a good profit for herself.
7 Iron Man Has Made And Lost Several Fortunes
Iron Man was born into the Stark family, inheriting the family business and expanding it. After he became Iron Man, he put his money where his mouth was, bankrolling the Avengers and generally doing as much good as possible with it. However, as great as he was at engineering, he was a lousy businessman and has lost his fortune a lot over the years.
He’s always been able to rebuild it, though, bouncing back through a mixture of hard work and name recognition.
6 Batman Runs One Of Biggest Corporations On The Planet
Batman is another hero who inherited a lot of wealth. There’s always an argument about whether he’s richer than Iron Man and the simplest answer is that Bruce Wayne is wealthier and it’s probably by a lot. Iron Man has regained and lost his fortune several times but beyond sometimes being ousted from the Wayne Enterprises board of directors, Batman has never really lost his actual money or at least hasn’t as much as Stark has.
On top of that, Wayne Enterprises is way more diversified than any of Stark’s companies, so even when he’s not actively in charge of the company, Batman’s still making a massive profit.
5 Nightwing Is Now Richer Than Bruce Wayne
Nightwing is one of the greatest street-level heroes in the DC Universe but he’s now also one of its richest heroes. The death of Alfred was a tragedy for the Bat-Family but Alfred was secretly a billionaire and he left all of his money to Nightwing, making Dick Grayson richer than his mentor overnight. While this is a recent development, he’s already started to do some good.
Nightwing has embarked on a campaign to make Bludhaven, his adopted city, a better place with the help of Barbara Gordon and his billions. While there’s a chance this wealth won’t last, for now, Nightwing is one of the richest heroes around.
4 Professor X Is The Wealthiest Mutant On The Planet
Charles Xavier was born into privilege and he eventually turned all of that to a good cause, bankrolling the X-Men and giving a home to mutants when they had none. While he wasn’t always the best for the team, his wealth kept them going. Recently, that same wealth enables mutants to finally gain some power in the world.
Secretly investing in pharmaceutical companies and using drugs synthesized from Krakoan flowers, Professor X leveraged a massive increase in wealth to create a new homeland for mutants on Krakoa. Mutants finally have power in the world and it’s all thanks to Xavier’s near inexhaustible coffers.
3 Namor Is Monarch Of The Largest Kingdom On Earth
Namor has been a lot of things over the years- hero, villain, Avenger, and a member of the X-Men but one thing he’s always been is the king of Atlantis. The undersea kingdom is larger than any other nation on Earth, with the greatest amount of wealth and natural resources on the planet. Namor controls all of that, making him one of the wealthiest people on the planet.
On top of that wealth, Namor’s kingdom also controls the salvage rights to all kinds of sunken ships, a side hustle he’s spun off into a lucrative business more than once in the past.
2 Aquaman Has The Resources Of The Entire Ocean Behind Him
It’s kind of hard to say which King of Atlantis is richer but seeing as how Aquaman isn’t always getting mad at the surface world, he probably has treaties with surface governments that pay him for resources, making him probably wealthier. The ocean covers most of the planet and that means there’s a lot of stuff that Aquaman owns, since monarchs own everything in their kingdom.
Aquaman is the ultimate in old money- both because he’s royalty and because Atlantis existed millennia before just about any other country on Earth before it sank. Aquaman is easily the richest hero on the planet in the DC Universe and he’s got the golden shirts to prove it.
1 Hulkling Is The Ruler Of An Intergalactic Empire
Running a country on Earth, especially a monarchy, implies that one is usually the wealthiest person in that country or at least one of them. However, that wealth pales in comparison to the wealth of someone who runs an intergalactic empire. Sure, the United States was gifted with a lot of resources but that’s just one continent. Imagine the resources of an entire planet. Now multiply that by thousands and that’s how rich Hulking is.
While he’s just recently just become emperor, Hulkling controls a vast swath of space with an unimaginable amount of resources and wealth at his disposal. There’s no other superhero out there with the kind of wealth that he has.
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