Regarding competition for authority...
The overwhelming majority of superheroes were not given their powers by the government, and all of them seem to have randomly come on the scene and started asserting said authority. If you don't like what they're doing, tough, better hope somebody can take them down.
On the other hand, in the countries where the vast majority of superhero stories are set (namely America, plus Canada and Britain), government is democratic. Politicians are elected by the people, frequently have term limits, and if not they can be voted out of office next time there's an election.
Thinking about that kind of puts things in an interesting perspective.
As for a civilian's perspective, I actually had an idea on that. My proposed story would follow the life of a guy who works in a factory, which is in a world full of superheroes. Like, how does he react when his place of work is wrecked by a battle between Apogee and Nadir
?
Uh... VB? Can I direct you to several Astro City stories, Marvels (I think, haven't read that one, but from what I understand the concept is similar), and to a lesser extent the original Damage Control miniseries? All of them follow the 'guy on the street' through a superhero-infested world.
It's a good concept, don't get me wrong, it's just not a new concept.
Say, relevant to this discussion, and something I've wanted to know besides: where was it revealed that Iron Man only complied with the SHRA because the alternative was The Government turning loose the Sentinels? I definitely recall hearing this was the case, and I think I recall even seeing a scan, but what I'd like to know is, was it during Civil War or was it after? Because if it was after, I'd think it'd have been an Author's Saving Throw to explain his dickishness...
The Sentinels have been a variable threat. The early Sentinels, of course, were monsters. They got nerfed for a long time, to the point that the New Mutants took down several of them without even breaking a sweat. Now, their threat level varies from one story to another. Sometimes, they're serious threats. Other times, they're cannon fodder.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.I think the OP has a point -superhero comics tend to show the government at least as suspicious and sometimes as downright corrupt. But that's not, from my experience anyway, because the fans want or believe it- it's because the writers think it should be that way.
In fact, ultimately it can all be blamed on poor writing. Rarely are the sides of an argument (and yes, superhero activities as vigilantism is a valid argument) presented fairly. Besides the many things mentioned about Civil War, it bothered me that none of the GOOD people in Marvel's government who have been introduced over the years -Like Valerie Cooper- showed up top intercede.
The Guardians of the Universe are perhaps the worst example of this, since they started not just as the Corps' masters but their inspiration, because of their wisdom. Over the years however they have been reinvented and reduced to nothing more than something to rebel against by people like Hal Jordan, just to make him look hip. In the TV show they don't even seem to have any powers besides flight!
Super-heroes haven't always been in opposition to authority, remember. There are reams of Batman stories from the 50's and 60's where Batman works in close co-operation with the police and city government in Gotham. Much the same with Superman, especially back during the Silver Age when he had universal citizenship granted him by the UN. It waxes and wanes with the taste of the times.
Actually, in the story in question, he doesn't really bully the governor, and the governor is never shown to be corrupt. Superman forces his way into the governor's mansion in the dead of night, because the innocent woman in question was minutes away from being executed. He manhandled the governor's butler some, but the only interaction he had with the governor was giving him the proof exonerating the woman in question. Sorry if it seems like I'm nit-picking, but I've read that story, like, a hundred times.
Your point is well taken, though. In his early appearances Superman opposed corrupt authority all the time. The fantasy of having the power to do just that was one of the reasons Siegel and Shuster created him in the first place.
There's also the trope Inherent in the System. Hey, don't get me wrong, I know that the system is not perfect, and that failures happen. It's just that when the writers use this trope over and over and crank it Up To Eleven, it starts to break the Suspension of Disbelief.
Am I wrong here?
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Also, let's not forget that the genre of the story determines the point of view that we get. Superheroes cannot win all the time (if they did, would anybody bother trying to be a villain?) but the stories we see, are the ones where they win, because that's what the audience wants to see. Similarly, the Government can't possibly be evil or corrupt all the time, but the writers rarely seem to think of stories where showing the functional or even inspiring acts of the government would be interesting, so they only show us the times they screw up. Which gives us the impression that authority is always bad.
Rule of Perception, basically.
edited 3rd May '12 8:11:30 AM by Sijo
I think it's not a problem of anyone's anti-authority attitude so much as:
1) The protagonists are superheroes, so every other power is a possible antagonist.
2) Superheroes can work with the government, but they can't be work for it; being employees taking orders from others goes against the spirit of things. These heroes are lone wolves, adventurers.
Hence when governments come into the story, they default to being an obstacle, if not a villain.
My advice to writers is to be fair to the authorities, show them with legitimate concerns, and show the problems that can come of heroes not being subject to overview. Justice League did this fairly well, even if it was mostly to set up future villains.
But even better would be to have superheroes who are indeed employed by the government, and make use of the conflict between orders and conscience, by-the-book and adventuring, and what the heroes and the government owe to each other.
Does anything like that exist? Watchmen had the idea but did not explore it in this respect. Fullmetal Alchemist comes close, as does Neon Genesis Evangelion and I suppose some other Real Robot / Super Robot hybrids.
A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.It was actually stated before Civil War, in an issue of New Avengers where the Illumnati debate over the ethics of the bill. Iron Man flat out says that if they fight the bill, it's only a matter of time until some young hero (he specifically uses Spider-man as an example) "zigs when they should have zagged" and the public decides that ALL supers are a threat, and the government caves to the mob and uses the most knee-jerk reaction possible.
Okay, one thing about this whole discussion that no one has brought up yet:
The reason why governments are seen as assholes in superhero stories is because of how much more powerful their control and use of force has gotten. Have any of you heard of the CIA mind control tests? Or biological weapons tests on civilian populations? Or false flag operations used to justify the creation and stockpiling of nuclear weapons? Because all of that crap happened, and the public has either never known about it, known about it and could do nothing substantial about it, or only found out about it decades after the fact and thought, "Oh well things were different back in the 40s/50s/60s/70s/80s/90s/whatever.
The reason the government constantly gets portrayed as untrustworthy and immoral is because it IS untrustworthy and immoral. The problem is we don't have any options in Real Life.
But we do in fiction.
I still say it's because people with power make for much more effective villains than people with no power. Batman may get off on beating up poor people, but the Avengers need threats a little grander than "Hobo-with-a-knife Man." Governments and corporations have the money for giant secret death rays. Therefore, governments and corporations are the ones building giant secret death rays. Not the guy living in a box.
It's not about politics. It's about making sure the threat is big enough to actually be a threat.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.What about Captain America?
Ukrainian Red CrossI don't know about Cap. He was made from the start to be a patriotic symbol, whereas most superheroes embody the dream of setting things right by yourself. My understanding is that since Vietnam, he's been emphasised to be a champion of American ideals rather than its government. Could anyone with some knowledge of the matter explain his relationship with the nation and how it has changed over the decades?
A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.Captain America got deeply disenchanted with the US Government back in the 1970s when he found out not-Richard-Nixon was the head of the Secret Empire. (Not making this up.)
As for Civil War, I'll just repeat what I said early on when the series first came out: If your master plan requires you to shoot at Captain America, you're the bad guy. No exceptions.
To reply to someone earlier in the thread: I know at least one comic where superheroes did take over the government: Squadron Supreme. It didn't end well, despite their best intentions.
Elephant in the room: Captain America tends to represent "the ideals of America rather than the government" more during Republican administrations. This has everything to do with the writers. Comics started that direction in the early 70s. Before that, hippies and commies were the bad guys, not the (US) government. (By the "dangerous villains have resources" argument, the USSR made for a great source of villainy, actually.)
Superheroes vs. the (US) government—major part of The Authority. Superheroes vs the (UK) government was a small part of Miracleman. In both of these cases, the superhero takeover was presented as a Good Thing.
Personally, I think "In a brilliant move, J. Edgar Hoover actively begins recruiting superpowered individuals in the 1950s. Now the FBI is the most pro-mutant organization on the planet—and mutants are stereotyped as FBI agents." would make for a nice reversal of usual assumptions. Whether FBI Psi is portrayed as a benevolent law enforcement organization; or whether "The US Government is EVIL!" remains the default assumption. (In the latter case, the antimutant activists would be the good guys, I suppose.)
I'd like to point out the reasons that superheroes, at least in DC, don't kill is because they feel they don't have the authority. It's also why they don't go around beating up random dictators in the Middle East. They don't, legally, have the authority to do either of those things, and to violate that would probably turn the public against them. (Though I don't think anyone would blame Batman for finally offing the Joker, but I'm talking generalities.)
It's like they're basically volunteer cops/first responders; they go catch the bad guys and save the world from meteors, but they cede ground to the legal governmental authorities to do things like put them on trial and decide whether jail time or execution is appropriate.
Government doesn't necessarily have to be the enemy, and usually isn't. Superheroes generally try to work with them, becoming a part of the establishment themselves. A battle between superheroes and the government could be compared to interdepartment rivalries. With a lot more explosions.
Though I guess going to the government as the go to bad guy is because the real life improvement of technology and science makes them a more credible threat in the minds readers. That and recent trends in America to put a truly ridiculous amount of money into the military for boondoggles.
I remember that story, and what strikes me as a little odd now is that, even without the Mayor deputizing him, Superman could have performed a citizen's arrest.
While I know there have been various "registration acts" portrayed in super hero comics, I'm kind of surprised that no one has thought to try to license super heroes, much like Private Investigators are licensed (though you don't need a license to be a bounty hunter, so maybe it isn't that surprising...)

From what I've seen, a lot of Comic Books feature superheroes and The Government as competitors for authority. But...there is something that those stories have not gone into. That something is the average citizens and the bystanders. The key component with authority is having people to exercise it on. What is authority without having any citizens in the picture? What kind of people would want to have the superheroes and governments depicted in comics in charge?
These are questions that should be examined.
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