Why Do We Assume Superheroes Would Be Able To Solve Real World Issues?

I do believe there are certain causes they would support, but why do people think the mere presence of a superhero would solve every problem in the world? They can't just beat every issue into submission. Taking out a tyrant won't do anything for the sociopolitical problems that resulted in said tyrant coming into power in the first place. Presenting technology to help people won't mean everyone gets to have access to that tech.

We tried something like that back in the 80s. It was called Superman IV The Quest For Peace.

Lord knows that should have been a warning never to ask that question again.

Taking out a tyrant won't do anything for the sociopolitical problems that resulted in said tyrant coming into power in the first place.

By itself, no, but at least it's a first step. God knows it's better than leaving the tyrant in place. Without a tyrannical ruler, those problems you mention have a chance of being worked out, but as long as those people stay in power, they won't let the needed changes to ever happen.

Presenting technology to help people won't mean everyone gets to have access to that tech.

Likewise, almost any high tech implement starts as the privilege of a few, but after they become easy and cheap enough to produce, their availability becomes much wider. Again, it beats the alternative of not letting those developments to come up in the first place.

edited 3rd Sep '15 3:11:12 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

It is frequently better to do something than to do nothing. The superhero is a figure willing and able to act in most instances where action is required. They are not helpless in instances where most of us would feel helpless, and rise to meet challenges in ways we hope we would, or wish we could. They act in ways we wish we could, with the wisdom we hope we would have. If superheroes were actually about, they would not be able to solve EVERY problem (they can't solve every problem even in the fictional worlds they inhabit) but they'd be able to do some good when good needed to be done.

It really depends on the superhero. No one expects someone with an enhanced sense of smell or the strength of ten men to change the world. But when someone can exert enough power to blow up a moon, or freeze the Atlantic Ocean solid, or transform an entire city into gold, their powers really should be enough to bring us towards a post-scarcity society.

Ditto on the technology thing - the overall uselessness of superhero-related tech is among the greatest unrealisms in comics, never mind the ham-fisted fantastic aesops whenever this is played as a moral choice. When real doctors use miniature death rays to fight cancer, even the adoption of supervillain tech should come easily.

For that matter, the analysis and intentional conferring of superpowers for beneficial purposes would also be on the list, media skittishness regarding the subject notwithstanding. Sans Captain America, though, this is usually presented as a misguided if not outright villainous act, usually with similar excuses as above.

In general, superheroes remain both physically unreachable and practically useless on a large scale for one simple reason - they were pretty much designed that way. The distinction between a superhero and a normal person has always been arbitrary, no greater than a domino mask and a plot armor vest. They were meant to be escapist characters, well beyond common social worries, apart from the occasional very special issue. Seeing them from a strictly problem-solving perspective is selling them short, because they are inherently awesome but impractical. Realistically, a world with superpowers and/or masked vigilantes would quickly become substantially different from our own. Alan Moore already covered that... and DC's spent most of the time thereafter trying to shill their rejection of that fact, and the darker and edgier the stories get, the more ridiculous they actually look.

Bottom line, low-powered heroes probably wouldn't have an immediate impact. Anything Spider-Man level and beyond, however, will pretty much revolutionize science and society as we know them.

This problem, elements that should radically change the world but the author does not want it taken to the "logical conclusion", is pervasive in fiction, not just in comics. It occurs in any setting that has portals, but does not use them to make a perpetual motion machine, or any sci-fi setting that allows spaceships to get off worlds easy and FTL, but does not have ground warfare become near-pointless due to orbital bombardment. It is incredibly hard to introduce some form of physics breaking and not have the the logical conclusion warp the setting beyond recognizability and into something the author might not like.

So, here is a question. Is it bad world building when one includes something like portals or any of the superhero-related tech found in the Big 2 and does not let it warp the setting as because that would go against the tone they desire for the setting?

I'd say it works out well so long as it's not directly Played for Drama, like, say, Oracle being crippled or the "nobody in the world can heal a bullet wound" issue in One More Day. Then it's just an idiot premise.

For that matter, modern bombardment already makes land warfare obsolete, but it's underused mostly to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage. Why settings with a full-blown total war situation don't use it, however, is either again the above, or just plain Rule of Cool, though often with some token excuse like planetary shields. That sort of thing doesn't really bother me.

We don't assume superheroes will "solve" issues, most of us don't anyway. Assuming that there are also super villains, simply stopping the destruction of the world\civilization as we know it might be the best a superhero can hope for.

What we do expect is for a world that has superheroes to not resemble the world we live in, because we don't have superheroes. How reasonable this expectation is, varies. Varies depending on how many super people there are, what the nature of the powers is, how human they are, if they actually dwell in human habitat or can be contacted\exploited by people, ect.

Orbital bombardment doesn't make ground warfare obsolete.

The point of military engagement is not simply to kill your enemies, it's to achieve an objective for your own side. That often means taking control of an area or some resources. Bombardment destroys the very thing you're trying to get.

pretty much they said it: by introducing super hero in large amount the thing would be less "our world with spandex guy in it" to borderline speculative fiction with tight.

Hell it goes beyond just letting supes around, it become jarring as history plays exactly the way it have been here in our world, it makes you think how it is the middle east or protest in marvel and dc world right now.

borderline?

Yeah, the border's been crossed ever since the Superman theatrical cartoons, if not earlier.

I don't really find the relative uselessness of superheroes too bothersome, apart from one particular case - when the superheroes outright refuse to act regarding situations they were more or less designed to resolve in the first place. Like, say, whenever Batman avoids interfering in Gotham's corrupt court system (one word: "leverage"), or Superman merely grits his teeth in impotence when Luthor gets ignored by public authority. It's not even a matter of using lethal force, but simply doing anything to show that the heroes in question aren't just a glorified neighborhood watch. I reckon it's a way to try and push the aesop of society needing to solve its own problems, but after a while it just becomes self-serving, presenting a crapsack world full of apathetic citizens all so that the hero can play the lone idealist martyr.

All in all, superheroes are generally expected to solve whatever problem they're faced with in the story. Don't want them to solve real world problems they likely could - don't mention them in the first place.

edited 6th Dec '15 6:32:42 AM by indiana404

I would say the border was crossed back in June 11, 1934.

The issue with superheroes failing to solve real-world problems stems from an issue of their abilities. Really, nobody expect Spider-Man or Daredevil to single-handedly take out DAESH, but Superman probably could. Batman's fortune could reasonable cover his actions up to the end of the Bronze Age, but as of the Iron Age, the fact that he's funding half the Justice League and has enough gear to stand up to Darkseid means he really should be able to sort out Gotham by now.

i feel like that's more of a problem of these stories needing to be everlasting soap operas.

under a sensible writer who was allowed to write a story and finish it, batman WOULD have sorted out gotham by now.

Or he would have been shot.

Like, a lot.

But yeah, the fact that the stories aren't allowed to end can really hurt the abilities of the heroes.

Which brings up an interesting question: Should comics be allowed to end? For example, say DC decides to do another reboot, except this time, they've planned the new universe out so that not only does it truly start from scratch, but also that it will end in 5-10 years time, with set events and endings planned out for each major character in advance. After that, they do a hard reboot again with a new set of writers, different enough from the last batch to ensure that the new universe goes down a different path than the previous one, though it would still end all the game. And so on and so forth. Would this be preferred over your standard never-ending comic book universes? I think it might at least be worth trying out, and it'd prevent the various universes from going on so long that they're struggling with where next to take their characters. Then again, I know that some people hate the very notion of reboots and just want the same universe to keep going, but there's really only so much you can do with one universe before it runs out of steam, which is IMO starting to becoming an issue with Marvel at the very least.

to be honest i would probably prefer that. I don't know if it would make any financial sense for DC or Marvel to do that of course (i'm guessing probably not), but it would be an interesting experiment. obviously DC and marvel need to keep using these characters because they have to make comics, but nothing says they have to make the stories go on forever.

planning the stories for their characters for a long time to come and then giving THOSE versions of the characters a definitive end would honestly cut down on a lot of the issues that comics currently have, and make the stories much more meaningful and permanent because they can kill off characters and have it stay that way, or make a character change very radically and have that development stick. if people don't like it there's always the next universe.

In that sense, it's not that much different in the sense that future writers will be able to use an important and popular character down the line, but the difference is they will have much more control over that character when do they get them because they'll have a clean slate and they won't diminish the impact of older stories.

of course, part of the problem could be circumvented if the writers just worked around their current limitations. if your format is basically an eternal soap opera with people in silly costumes, you have to write around that instead of drawing attention to those limitations and frustrating the readers.

edited 9th Dec '15 8:24:11 PM by wehrmacht

The idea that Marvel/DC need to use the characters bugs me. That implies they suck to much, be it at promoting, writing or both, to make new characters. It's only comic books, US comic books at that, that are so dependent on relics from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. Marvel in particular haven't had a breakout since the 70s or 90s depending on how generous you are. And it's not like comic book characters newer than Wolverine or Deadpool are incapable of catching on, it's just that they don't catch on in comic books. But again, to clarify, US comic books. Works like Attack On Titans suggest the medium is still capable of attracting readers to characters without decades of prior establishment and surprise, Marvel had no idea what to do with it.

That's hyperbole, they crossed it over with the guardian avengers of the galaxy. Marvel had no idea how to make anyone care about an otherwise popular development younger than Deadpool.

That is more or less the direction the medium is moving nowadays. Marvel and DC keep on doing sprawling interlinked soap operas, but when you look beyond the big two, the dominant form is self-contained series that tell a definite story and reach a final end. Aside from Invincible, I don't think any new comics IP created in this millennium has been open-ended, infinite length. Heck, even Witchblade, which did start off as a super-long soap opera, came to a definite conclusion this year, and it's been followed by just the sort of reboot you describe, in the form of Switch!.

edited 10th Dec '15 11:26:52 AM by VampireBuddha

Be fair, the new Ms Marvel only came out last year and it's been a huge hit.

edited 10th Dec '15 11:30:20 AM by VampireBuddha

yes, Image and I believe Dark Horse have been doing just that for a while, but Marvel and DC are the ones we're talking about specifically. As good as stuff like Descender and Saga is, it doesn't have that much mainstream visibility.

edited 10th Dec '15 12:35:12 PM by wehrmacht

I don't know if legacy really addresses what I was getting at, but Captain Marvel is a story that should have ended that Marvel milks for a completely different, much more petty reason outside the confines of narrative sense or generated revenue. If they do actually hit pay dirt with it after all this time I guess I will happy in the sense it'll feel less like a playground game.

If we can say Miss Marvel in 2021 had the same amount of success or even close to Attack On Titan now, that would at least prove Marvel is still capable of generating new interest of some sort. It's still one rooted in familiarity but it is moving forward with new characters rather than sliding the timescale, I guess. It will lend more evidence to the fact it doesn't necessarily need familiarity as its main pitch if it writes and promotes well.

Granted, the multiple success stories of the 60s should have made it more clear but something from 2014 from USA's own Marvel comic themselves would automatically shoot down all the excuses like "different time period" or "different region".

Works like Attack On Titans suggest the medium is still capable of attracting readers to characters without decades of prior establishment and surprise, Marvel had no idea what to do with it.

Now ask yourself how many people in the actual Western mainstream, those who aren't interested on manga and anime, know the first thing about Attack On Titans. Also ask yourself how many will remember Attack On Titans ten years after it ends.

Manga and anime titles have actually rather short staying power after they're over, unless they get continued remakes like Tenchi Muyo or Saint Seiya, or the umpteenth update-sequel to Dragon Ball Z... which isn't much of an improvement over the overexplotation of American comics properties. Otherwise? They just are replaced by a legion of copycats if they were successful—- this is why we end up with basically interchangeable harem comedies recicling the same old cliches after Love Hina is little more than a vague memory, or a nonstop chain of Shounen fighting series starring Idiot Heroes and following the same overall story beats.

In general, the Japanese model is less about true innovation and more about the Eastern equivalent of replacing Superman with Uberman and then Awesome Man and then Evil Baldy-Fighting Noble Alien ad nauseam.

well there are some fundamental differences between the comics industry in north america compared to japan and even parts of europe.

american comics are extremely niche. even the most popular superheroes featured in big-budget, mass-marketed movies don't sell that many copies, really. there's a lot of history behind this, but that's more or less how things are now.

manga doesn't suffer from this problem. anime has something of a stigma, but from what i understand manga has less of one. Sales for popular manga can be pretty hefty and make the authors and publishers a lot of money if they're successful (isayama of attack on titan has, i think, said his bank account has so many zero's he doesn't bother to count them at this point).

Hell, Takehiko Inoue, the creator of Vagabond, was even on national television and has been invited to prestigious art exhibitions.

France and Belgium (and I think a few other countries like Italy) also seem to hold their comics and comic creators in higher regard (asterix and tintin are both enormous and very well-respected), and they hold japanese creators in very high regard as well. Hirohiko Araki was invited to host Jojo art in the louvre, which is by all accounts one of the most prestigious honors any artist could receive.

So well, Marvel and DC could write some pretty damn good stories, but I'm not sure that they would reach the super success of One Piece and Attack on Titan because that's just not the american market reality.

It's basically the same thing. The reason people still care about characters like Batman, Superman and Spiderman is because of the numerous cartoons, films and videogames keeping these characters in the mainstream. the comics have very little to do with it.

This kind of imitation happens everywhere though, The 90's is a perfect example of it happening to western comics, given that every single comic tried to copy the grim and grittiness of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, often with interchangeable and bland nominal "heroes" and wolverine knock-offs.

The japanese industry is really no different from the american one in this regard: the mainstream publishers aren't always going to publish the most interesting stories, so you have to look outside of them if you're sick of it. The seinen and josei demographics in particular, while obviously subject to their own trends and familiar beats (which I would argue are less annoying in a lot of cases anyways), have stories that are much less formulaic and more experimental.

edited 10th Dec '15 5:43:43 PM by wehrmacht