Take Away The World Of Badass

Superheroes typically exist among other costumed vigilantes and bad guys.

Take that away.

How well would most superheroes fare if there weren't any other costumed people, say if Spider Man or Superman were relegaed to fighting street crime/evil CEO's/terrorists. If Batman never had to fight the Joker or Solomon Grundy? Their only allies are the regular police, SWAT, CIA, governments, and militaries.

Just "mook crime", how long does it take for them to become public enemy #1.

edited 23rd Mar '15 10:19:17 AM by Soble

... is the implication, in the real world, anyone wanting to do good in a global scale and with the means for it would become a public enemy? Because if so, we're definitely doomed as a species. Not because we need superpowered champions, of course, but because, if that's mankind's attitude towards heroism, we're real stinkers with no future.

Yes, because self-righteous individuals attempting to impose their personal values upon the majority have often caused great harm to the world at large. Many of history's most horrific events, from the Crusades to the Holocaust, have been done in the name of "fixing" the world.

This is exactly why superheroes tend to be reactionary rather than proactive: the line between a superhero enforcing his own personal ideal of justice upon the world at large, crushing all opposition to his idea of what is Right, is not so distant from a cruel and oppressive tyrant. There is no such thing as a Benevolent Dictator.

edited 23rd Mar '15 12:35:02 PM by TobiasDrake

That's a valid point if we're talking about generic human beings who rise with superpowers, but this scenario is talking about pre-existing characters who are established with actual codes of behavior that most often aren't 'self-righteous', like Superman. People who really wants to help and who have repeteadly proved, in universe, barring alternate realities, they don't want to lord over mankind or start taking over it for its own good.

Doesn't matter. People in a story generally don't read the script. Most of the muggles in Spider-Man don't read Spider-Man comics and aren't familiar with the precise morality of Peter Parker as a person.

Versions of these characters who exist in a world where their existence is not required in order for the planet to keep right on turning would be thoroughly despised for their vigilante activity and callous disregard of due process - which does NOT begin in the courtroom - even if they didn't decide to turn their attention to the world at large and kept to just being Secret Police violently assaulting people they suspect of crossing their own moral guidelines.

Supervillains justify the existence of superheroes. Without them, superheroes are the villains.

edited 23rd Mar '15 1:03:05 PM by TobiasDrake

It depends, I guess. In this scenario, are we assuming we start with our previous knowledge of Superman and the like once they arrive? Of course, that's hardly a guarantee we're getting the 'good' Superman anyway.

It's interesting, however, to think— If superpowers were to manifest in the real world, where do we draw the line between negligence by not doing anything for others with them and excessive interference? After all, our governments and legal systems are just as if not even more corrupted and shady than those in most fictional worlds (President Lex Luthors and National Security Norman Osborns aside), so are we counting on them as a guideline for what we should do with our powers? Technically, a North Korea born super would be legally obliged to serve Kim's interests.

So, do we sit aside and watch things unfold so we aren't 'self-righteous'? In the real world we don't even have the superhuman control means a Batman or Nick Fury would have either, so can we only fall back on our personal and wildly varying moral and social codes?

Also, your scenario on third party interventions being despised by citizens is fair for some place like the USA where the legal system, warts and all, still works if only because of its own self-preservation interests, but I doubt the opressed country folk of guerrilla-opressed areas in the Third World, for instance, are going to throw fits over a superhuman taking out the armed opressors the government either pays off or are powerless to stop.

edited 23rd Mar '15 1:29:44 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

What we do is participate in the system rather than lording over it. Instead of being a masked vigilante acting with callous disregard for due process, Spider-Man should just be a cop. He'd be an amazing cop. A spectacular cop. Easily the best cop.

If Superman wants to enforce the laws, he should do so within the law. If he wants to change the laws, he should do so democratically and accept that his powers do not make his opinion more valid than that of every other citizen.

The core problem with superheroes is that they operate around and outside the system rather than within it, because the general assumption of superhero media is that the system cannot function. Police are either corrupt or incompetent and only the hero could ever take down the villain.

If a superhero wants to function in the real world, he needs to let go of that conceit and learn to be a part of the system instead. It exists for a reason, and no matter how compelling it may be to think. "Joe Super has a good head on his shoulder and would always be right in his judgments, never do the wrong thing, and also knows perfectly what is best for every possible complex situation that could come up," it's just not true.

If emergency response were really that simple, it wouldn't be so hard to get it right as it is.

edited 23rd Mar '15 1:32:59 PM by TobiasDrake

Eh, anyway, in this scenario, can they really keep their secret identities anyway? If Superman comes over to the real world, EVERYONE will know he's Clark Kent, and we aren't blinded by plot to fail to realize he's the same person when he puts the glasses on.

In Batman's case, he largely relies on Wayne Tech's resources, so unless he came with the whole company, and at that point it would be a much bigger game-changer than Batman himself, he wouldn't really make any actual difference.

Even if they could, they shouldn't, especially if they intend to operate in a First-World Country. Secret Police are synonymous with tyrannical regimes, and most of us outside Comic Book Land have no patience for them.

EDIT: Besides, without the likes of the Joker and the Green Goblin, the rationale for secret identities, "I must protect my loved ones!" goes from being paper-thin to completely unjustifiable.

edited 23rd Mar '15 1:34:49 PM by TobiasDrake

Yeah. Cops don't have secret identities. Though, why police work? How about search and rescue or firefighting?

They definitely could do that. I just assume policework because superheroes tend to prefer punching bad guys to any of the many, many other things they could be applying their powers and abilities to.

Like, Batman could approach Gotham City by using his wealth and influence to institute political and economic change on a large scale, but he'd rather fight crime than stop it.

Like, Batman could approach Gotham City by using his wealth and influence to institute political and economic change on a large scale, but he'd rather fight crime than stop it.

He canonically does both, but the universe itself won't allow us to even see most of the changes that may bring, much less for it to actually work, because that's not what superhero comics want to give us. It's unfair acting as if it's only Batman's case, since it's the same reason why Reed Richards Is Useless, and an overall contrivance of fantasy narrative (not even restrained to super heroes; manga and anime are also repeat offenders here).

On Reed, however, I would actually advice against trying to bring his tech, at least in full force, into the real world. It's not often that I condone We Are Not Ready, but this case definitely qualifies, and Reed's rather erratic approach to common sense in the spreading of his developments doesn't help.

@Soble: Didn't Watchmen already cover that? (And didn't things end up rather badly?)

Superheroes can't win. If they fight crime and supercrime they're ignoring real world problems they could solve, but if they solve real world problems then they're trivializing them.

Superman #247.

Now, golden age Superman wasn't public enemy number 1, but he was definitely public enemy someone.

Namor the Submariner may very well have been public enemy number one, but there was nothing the public or its government could do to stop him, other than rely on superheroes, hence Let's You and Him Fight created Marvel's Shared Universe.

Come to think of it, lots of Golden age comics, besides those like Batman that didn't have any powers, were basically curbstomping criminals and other undesirable elements with an angry vengeance...Namor was unique in that humans in general were the undesirables in his stories.

I don't recall Human Torch being against law enforcement or the military though he sort of had super villains to fight. Not especially powerful ones but I guess he's the exception that proves the rule.