Kingdom Come actually addressed this to a degree too. Wonder Woman's entire origin is that she was sent to Man's World to bring about an end to warfare and usher in an age of peace, but for a number of narrative reasons she obviously was never allowed to make any sort of progress in that. So she was essentially fired (well exiled) for her lack of progress.
A big hurdle would also be that nowadays conflicts tend to be a lot more morally ambiguous and there's increasing frustration with the way the U.S. military conducts itself. So while something like the All-Star Squadron was acceptable in a World War 2 setting (nobody can deny that the Nazis and Imperial Japan were the bad guys), trying the same concept in let's say, the Iraq War or the conflict between Israel and Palestine would likely be VERY divisive among readers, so say the least.
edited 27th Jun '13 5:09:32 PM by comicwriter
Due to the moral ambiguity that most conflicts have nowadays, I'd say that the only real course of action a superhero could take was to ensure that the loss of human life was kept to a minimum. E.g. Superman evacuating a building full of palestinians seconds before a missile hits that kinda thing.
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.There's the whole "Slippery Slope" argument, too. Justice League did this one; an alternate universe version of the League has succeeded in ending all conflict. Great! They did it by getting rid of all aggression and dissent, period, often through lobotomies. Not great.
Only if they can be held accountable to their actions by some sort of global authority, a group who watches the watchmen if you will. This opens up all sorts of issues like registration of Superheroes' secret identities to this group which is a whole other can of worms that I don't really want to go into.
I guess my point is, either we go completely apolitical like Superman who does what he can but has to agree and compromise to all international laws and isn't going to topple some dictator because he's angry or we have to acknowledge that you can't have Superheroes handling serious political conflicts without becoming a much more transparent entity, and therefore accountable to the people of the world.
![]()
![]()
This. So much this.
We can argue whether Army A gets to live more than Army B till the cows come home, but when armies are committing genocide or rounding up civilians, the Justice League / Avengers / whoever can and should step in.
Superheroes maybe shouldn't decide wars for us, but they can referee.
But on the other other hand, there's this nagging little voice in the back of my head that says all these explanations are just inane plot contrivances to explain something the writers, in all honesty, don't know how to explain.
During the Justice League International, I know there was a point where Doctor Light said that other countries liked having representation on the Justice League, because it made the world nervous that the most powerful heroes (and indeed most superheroes in general) came from America, and I can definitely see how that would worry other nations.
If shit ever does go down, you could easily end up in a situation where the heroes end up as hired thugs for their government.
I recall that during the Byrne era, they had Superman fly into the middle-eastern nation of Qurac (at the time, their generic middle-eastern terrorist state), destroy a number of their weapons systems, and then lay down the law to their dictator ("I'm watching you" basically). He did this on his own initiative and, interestingly, the Superman writers made this incident a bit of a running problem with him. It was mentioned several times throughout the 80's and 90's.
I'm going to go metatextual.
Superman won't intervene in the Syrian Civil War for the same two reasons Mr Fantastic won't invent a cure for AIDS.
First of all, it's disrespectful to the people who are really involved. There are people out there right now, fighting and dying for what they believe in. Suppose Superman decided to fly over and oust Bashar al-Assad. Let's further suppose that Superman manages to get him tried in an international court and convicted of being an evil bastard.
Ignore for a moment the international uproar this would cause and instead consider that the rebels win and establish a democratic, more egalitarian government. Syria becomes a shining beacon of hope and democracy in the Middle East.
How is that going to look to the people still fighting in Syria? It's a long, brutal war, and having Superman casually sort out their problems with a grand gesture is just going to look, for want of a better word, condescending.
Then there's the matter of history. Marvel and DC, for whatever reason, feel the need to keep their universes generally consistent with the real world; so, for example, Obama still gets elected in 2008. Keeping with the example of Syria, at present, the conflict is turning against the rebels because America for so long vetoed arming them. Most likely, Bashar al-Assad will retain power, and this branch of Arab Spring will fizzle out.
But if Superman helps out al-Assad, the rebels win, and Syria becomes a democracy. Bam, alternate history, and things are only going to diverge more and more as whatever al-Assad does in the real world doesn't make it over to the comic due to his loss of power in fiction.
So, consider the fact that Saudi Arabia is supporting the Syrian rebels. Suppose al-Assad decides to go to war with Arabia in the future because of this. The writers might like to work that into their stories, but they won't be able to, because in their world, Syria is run by a different regime which is more friendly to Arabia.
And suppose in the real world, there is a Contra-style scandal involving the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia which brings down the president. Once again, the comic universe will diverge from the real world due to the scandal never arising.
So yeah, if superheroes decide to intervene in a real-world conflict, it automatically leads to an alternate history.
Ukrainian Red CrossIn Alan Moore's Top Ten, it was suggested that a majority of American science-heroes were more focused on fighting the Nazi's science-villains, rather than interfering in the actual war.
Embroiled in slave rebellion, I escaped crucifixion simply by declaring 'I am Vito', everyone else apparently being called 'Spartacus'.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. And later on, Iron Man had to deal with Crimson Dynamo instead of engaging us commies directly, and so on, and so forth. Not much of a Hand Wave, but it holds out a lot better than trying to play Superman Stays Out Of Syria as some sort of moral stance, lest we get the Fantastic Aesop that things like famine relief and peacekeeping can only be done by unpowered and underfunded muggle organizations because the self-proclaimed forces of justice are too concerned with PR.
Alternately - don't go into it at all. A chief quality of superhero escapism is imagining how the real world would be much better with them around. Having them unable to deal with non spandex-related crises simply breaks the magic. Better to put such issues Behind the Black, than to have superheroes appear useless against them.
Even just refereeing a real-world conflict is a slippery slope, because an unfortunate fact of war is that war is brutal. How do you referee that? Especially for a superhero? Does Superman explain the rules to the two sides about how they can properly kill each other, and then step back watch the ensuing bloodbath to ensure that nobody crosses the line?
There's going to come a point where he has to step in. If a superhero is there, he is there for a reason. Even if that reason is just, "protect civilians from the conflict," the best way to accomplish that goal is to make the conflict not be a conflict anymore. He will have to take a side if he's going to involve himself.
I don't think it's necessarily wrong for comic book characters to involve themselves in real world events, so long as they don't do it in a game-changing way. During World War II, Marvel was able to avoid having Captain America just march in and end WWII by putting supers on Germany's side as well, creating a stable situation where ground troops could fight ground troops while superheroes fought supervillains.
Likewise, Flash Thompson fighting in the Iraq War has become a defining element of his character. Both Iron Man and the Punisher have the Vietnam war as a core element of their background. None of these characters had to single-handedly win the war and change history to do so.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Back in the day, American comic book characters interfered in other countries' internal politics all the time. Of course, these were all fictional countries (some very thinly veiled duplicates of real ones), and it was always shown as "usurper has illegally taken over." Something Man helps out the rightful heir, who decides to make the country more democratic in gratitude.
Pretty much, yeah. Thousands of philosophers have pondered the question of "just war", and there are plenty of guidelines and rules one can follow to make sure you go about your bloody business with as little damage as possible. I'm pretty sure Superman would be a lot more effective at enforcing those rules than The Hague.
...yes, many philosophers have discussed it to a great extent. But some of the most effective wartime tactics tend to also be pretty underhanded by some people's opinions. What qualifies as "appropriate" varies heavily depending on the person; one person might think, for example, that wearing civilian clothes so that your militia can vanish into a crowded city is a great way to make a retreat without your forces getting massacred by superior numbers and firepower, while another might equate that to using human shields and call it cowardly and barbaric.
One person might think artillery is a great weapon, while another might think the ability to kill a ton of people from miles away is unfair. War is hell. The very concept of, "doing your bloody business with as little damage as possible" is oxymoronical. If you want to do away with anything that anyone might consider unfair or immoral, then all you're left with is a bunch of guys lining up and shooting each other, and then victory automatically goes to whoever has the most guns.
Unless you're just doing away with anything that Superman specifically finds to be immoral or unfair. Then you're at the mercy of Superman's personal biases, and at that point, he's not refereeing anymore, he's an active part of the conflict. Which is probably inevitable anyway, because in a hypothetical scenario where, say, Korea winds up with more shooty guys than America, would Superman really be willing to sit back and go, "Well, sucks to be America, Korea had more shooty guys than you, so you're a slave state to the Koreans now." Could he honestly allow a dictator to go unopposed simply because the rebel freedom fighters didn't have enough forces to defeat him in fair and just and completely regulated combat?
War is complicated, bloody, and horrible. It's a lot more complex than a gladiator tournament where an almighty king watches and regulates.
edited 28th Jun '13 8:56:06 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
I remember a few years back there was a Vixen mini-series (that was pretty good BTW), and I remember reading a negative review where someone said that some of the topics dealt with (genocide and mentions of female genital mutilation) just seemed horribly out of place in the DC Universe, since it's generally such a Disneyfied environment. Hell even in JLA/Avengers, the Marvel heroes all made a point of saying that the DC Universe seems weirdly optimistic and bright compared to their more "realistic" Earth.
So maybe part of it is something as horribly bloody as the conflict in the Middle East would just seem REALLY jarring when you start throwing these bright, happy, colorful characters like Superman and Wonder Woman into the mix.
That's still better than the alternative. Personally, I'd rather rely on Superman's judgement for what makes a just war than whether or not a particular belligerent can afford the mustard gas.
Sure, we can argue that there may be a Slippery Slope on this sort of thing, but there are a few things we can agree with. For one thing, war rape. Aside from persons whose opinions really shouldn't matter (like sociopathic warlords), pretty much everyone agrees that war rape is unambiguously evil. We can start from there and start figuring where the line is drawn later. Even if we stop at war rape, we've already done a hell of a lot more good than exists in the world today.
edited 28th Jun '13 11:01:58 AM by KingZeal
That's actually more along the lines of what I was thinking of, yeah. Like, I wouldn't put something like US/Iraq in a comic; the morality of that can and has been debated for days on end. But something like Sudan or, as mentioned, Syria? Pretty much everyone agrees The Government is in the wrong there. Could we really fault it if, say, Wonder Woman walked into Omar al-Bashir's palace (or whatever he has) and snapped his neck like she did Max Lord's?
Wwe're implying that All Deaths Are Final in this situation, otherwise, this conversation is pointless.
EDIT: Nevermind, I misread.
Anyway, I argue that it need not be pointless. The main problem with superhero comics today is that they try too hard to reflect the way the world is rather than the way it should be.
edited 28th Jun '13 12:34:32 PM by KingZeal
The only way that it could work is if the superheroes specifically established a League or other team that could be based on neutral soil. That way members of the league could intervene in situations around the globe without fear of retaliatory strikes against innocent people.
Members of the League would go through an extensive vetting and training process to ensure that they are up to the standards such a league would have to maintain. Superheroes who are not part of the League would not be able to intervene outside their own country due to potentially committing acts of war. If those superheroes wished to take part in, say, World War 2 they would need to enlist with their respective countries.
Does this make sense? I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well.

...such as wars, genocides, dictatorships, etc?
I'll explain what I mean. It's a persistent source of frustration for comic fans that comic characters, for all their massive power/intelligence, can never seem to solve the problems of the real world. Occasionally this can be a source of frustration in-universe as well; the subject is a favorite one for Breaking Speeches for Knight Templar-type villains. Honestly, at times it seems like they could basically serve as a one-individual "mutually-assured destruction;" you start up this war/persecution campaign/terrorist plot again, and you're dead. I find this is particularly notable within the context of the Silver Age, where the heroes were at their most powerful and the villains at their most silly all the while the Cold War and all the various atrocities therein loomed. At the very least, it seems kind of petty that Wonder Woman would apparently rather beat up the Crimson Centipede than Mao Zedong, doesn't it?
There's a flipside to this, as well. A frequent in-universe justification for not getting involved is that while superheroes may operate worldwide, most are typically associated with one country, and thus intervening in another country's business could ignite an international incident. This was actually a plot point in Fifty Two, where pretty much all the morally-dubious countries (including a few fictional ones whose leaders are literally supervillains) form an international coalition to declare the intervention of foreign superheroes in their conflicts an act of war. It's implied pretty strongly they're just doing this so they can carry on their own dirty deeds unpunished, though. And Alan Moore demonstrated pretty awesomely in Watchmen that a sufficiently-corrupt leader could use superheroes to essentially conquer any place he didn't like. So, where is the line drawn?
What say you, Tropers?
edited 27th Jun '13 5:00:56 PM by HamburgerTime