Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

Shocker does do that - his gauntlets' original purpose is to break open safes.

Remember that the guy was a career criminal first (albeit not a very good one at anything but safe-cracking).

Edited by M84 on Nov 30th 2020 at 11:41:05 PM

I think bank robbers are less relevant in modern society compared in the past and I think at this point a bank robbery can be a fun low stakes action scene before the real story starts, but I think some of these supervillains should up their game if they want a really big score.

At this point, unless supervillains are murdering people while robbing the banks, a bank foreclosing on someone's home is a bigger concern to them than a supervillain robbing a bank.

Edited by Overlord on Nov 30th 2020 at 7:53:39 AM

Or they do realize it but they feel legalizing it would defeat the purpose of why it is banned in the first place. Meth is hazardous to health in high doses and on top of it is highly addictive too right?, so the concern of not wanting it to be freely available is understandable. But making it too hard to get legally is what helps black market thrive. So u either provide a safer alternative or figure out a proper balance.

Edited by xyzt on Nov 30th 2020 at 9:27:37 PM

Alcohol and Cigarettes are hazardous to health and addictive as well. Have you looked at the statistics of deaths related to either drug, this year alone?

Edited by Forenperser on Nov 30th 2020 at 5:02:36 PM

Governments probably can't legalize everything, bath salts and meth are really dangerous, but you can legalize the smaller drugs like Cannabis and decriminalize the use of other drugs. I live in Canada, cannabis has been legal for 2 years now and there was no massive negative impact on our country.

However, more US states are legalizing and decriminalizing cannabis. It makes all the war on drugs cartoon messages from the 80s seem really dated and silly. Though the Federal government refuses to do so:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/29/america-legalize-weed-congress-440718

You know what is weird, Germany has not legalized cannabis yet.

Edited by Overlord on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:12:24 AM

The point is that "it's too dangerous in real life" isn't a good argument against bank robberies in a story with supervillains in it.

There are better arguments - mainly, it's boring.

Edited by M84 on Dec 1st 2020 at 12:12:41 AM

I think that bank robberies are too comparatively mundane for comics. Sure, it's an easy way to get money, but just robbing a bank is less interesting to readers than the creation of a global criminal enterprise. People don't go to comics to read about everyday stuff.

Edit: got ed by an edit lol

Edited by Altris on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:16:21 AM

It not matter of if its too dangerous, it's a matter of its one of the least profitable crimes you can commit at the moment, compared to other criminal enterprises. Heck, some hacker can clean out banks without leaving his house, better than a costumed supervillain can.

Agreed, its very low stakes. Spidey saving people from Carnage is higher stakes than Spidey saving the bank's interest rate from Shocker.

Edited by Overlord on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:17:56 AM

The reason the risk factor is too high in real life is because in real life people aren't superpowered bulletproof villains who can easily break safes.

It just doesn't apply to the superhero genre.

As I said before, the main reason it's going out of vogue is simply because it's just not a very interesting story on its own.

Edited by M84 on Dec 1st 2020 at 12:18:45 AM

Sure. And there are strong reasons to regulate those two too. Tobacco especially given how much death it causes. If the tobacco industry and lobby groups weren't as strong as they were, I believe there would definitely have been more restrictions and regulations to curb smoking.

Edited by xyzt on Nov 30th 2020 at 9:49:04 PM

Still doesn't change the fact a hacker can more efficiently rob banks than a costumed supervillain nowadays and if bank robbing is not that relevant in modern society, perhaps it should less relevant in comics.

Comics may be fantastical, but they do try to reflect sometimes too, to varying degrees of success.

Edited by Overlord on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:23:18 AM

You can make a bank robbery relevant and interesting still if the point isn't actually getting money.

Take the Dark Knight bank heist in the beginning. It's interesting because it establishes the main villain and the real goal isn't the money but rather attracting the attention of Gotham's organized crime.

Which still doesn't make the risk argument a poor one.

Edited by M84 on Dec 1st 2020 at 12:20:39 AM

Sure that could work if you have a bank robbery lead to something else, Joker didn't just rob banks in that movie.

It's not a matter of just risk, its a matter of reward, how much reward does bank robberies provide compared to other legal and illegal money-making ventures? Heck with the drug trade, you have paying costumers, you do not have to force them to give you their money, they willingly give you their money.

Yeah, there are better crimes for villains to be committing, but everyone can't be doing complex 500IQ schemes at once, can they? The small crimes are there to be a break from the big ones.

I feel like bank robberies should be the domain of the less bright criminals, like the Rhino and someone like Shocker should try something more dynamic.

I can make an exception for someone like Captain Cold, who robs banks for fun rather than profit.

A hacker can steal money more efficiently than a robber, but a superhero can’t punch out a wire transfer.

One of the limitations of the superhero genre is that violence is the only option available to solve a problem, so every problem has to be one immediately solvable by violence.

Maybe that is something that should change, have the heroes use their brains to find a hacker, rather than brawns to punch out another bank-robbing villain.

Really the bank robbery trope has become an increasingly irrelevant set piece, an excuse for low stakes action rather than something that tells a real narrative. I am not saying you have to get rid of it completely, but it does feel less relevant now.

Edited by Overlord on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:39:26 AM

Shocker doesn't just rob banks,though. That's just what he does when all his other funds dry up.

I think the other good example of who Shocker is is when he moved to New Jersey, and with only Ms. Marvel to deal with, he builds a portal device out of trash in like a day.

That (or something similar to that) does happen with the more clever and/or tech oriented villains who like to leave clues right? Like the Riddler. And the superhero has to use his intellect to find out where the villain is hiding.

Edited by xyzt on Nov 30th 2020 at 10:16:19 PM

I feel like superhero books need to have a certain amount of flair no matter what crime is being committed. Sure, we can have a hacker do hacker things, but he better be wearing a costume and have a funny gimmick. Just seeing Spidey trace someone's IP address wouldn't be as interesting.

That's why half of the villains who are just evil businessmen get mech suits or get mutated into gorillas or something. They need to be able to do something fantastical.

If Shocker can do that, why isn't he coming up with more profitable schemes in general and aiming higher than he has been in the past? If Shocker can do that, he shouldn't be robbing banks or generic goon work, he should sell teleporters to anyone who wants one.

Riddler is one of those villains who has adapted well to the modern era. The Fantastic Four villain the Mad Thinker could too if the writers started using him better.

Edited by Overlord on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:45:47 AM

I think mundane crimes are necessary for establishing that...

A. The heroes are willing to stand up for the little guy B. That said heroes are still human (whereas more high stakes stuff in contrasts seems to establish their demigod image) and C. to enforce the panopticon like effect they need to have a chilling effect on crime in general. People are kinda more inclidne to commine robberies if they think the authorities are too distracted by the bigger fish (and there's Always a Bigger Fish)

That said I agree that bank robberies had gone far beyond the cliche into being a Dead Horse Trope, but other forms of mundane crimes still have a purpose in superhero media. (plus whether or not point C is a good thing or not is debatable).

BTW DC recently released a book featuring Black Lightning that showcases how DC's history intertwinces RL history and how marginalized people like himself felt about the JLA around the time of the Civil rights movement and beyond.

One of the most basic updates of the bank robbery is to rob a armored truck. Also provides quite an exciting high speed chase most of the time.

With a hacker, it depends on the exact superhero. For example, I could see a story about Batman bringing down hackers working pretty well.

Though I suppose Batman is probably the exception here. Batman is one of the strongest examples of a superhero using brains over brawns. Even other gadget-using superheroes tend to go a "brawns through brains" strategy at least to some extent (such as Tony Stark creating an Iron Man suit). Batman's intelligence is usually demonstrated in a more "practical" fashion of him outsmarting his opponents, and I'd say that's actually a big part of Batman's appeal.

Then you have Arkham game Batman who can pancake half of all the goons in Gotham over with his Batmobile.