Why Superheroes Are Actually Criminals

So, the idea of superheroes is as good a place to start as any for my first blog. It's always been one of my favorite kinds of story, as they have interesting characters and outlandish fight scenes. Superpowers frequently give a decent framework in which all confrontations can be solved with wit and unconventional tactics, which provides a plethora of opportunities for character development and story lines.

Many of these stories, if not most or practically all, start basically the same way; person gets superpowers through some freak accident, then reluctantly begins fighting crime with his newfound powers. Also frequently, this becomes a secret occupation, where he develops a secret identity and starts seeking out crime by more dangerous and powerful adversaries(usually having their own superpowers), as they juggle this new responsibility alongside their personal lives. Law enforcement has a range of responses to this, from grateful for the help to outraged that someone is trying to do their job for them.

But there is one problem with all of this. Vigilante justice is illegal, and for one main reason; accountability.

Imagine for a moment what would happen if a group of citizens just start taking the law into their own hands while disguising their own identities. They are effectively appointing themselves judge, jury, and executioner if necessary, in fashion similar to Judge Dredd. Any atrocities they commit would be without consequence, and police would then have the added difficulty of dealing with these vigilantes on top of the already substantial criminal threat. The problem is lack of accountability; a police officer must answer to his superiors, and by extension to the public at large he defends. If Spiderman has a warrant issued for his arrest, he can simply stop changing into Spiderman, and no one could find him.

“But,” you might say, “Superheroes aren’t bad people. They are just helping solve a problem, and responsible citizens do the same thing everyday.” Correct, but the problem arises when they set out to fight crime rather than just stepping up when the situation arises. And this adopts a near-binary view of morality; ya got heroes, and ya got villains. Maybe an anti-hero here, or a sympathetic villain there, but the distinction by most authors between the bad guys and good guys is there. When in reality, the mere act of trying to perform the duties of law enforcement(seeking out criminals, not merely stopping them when no one else can) without oversight is negligent at best and criminal at worst. And this isn’t even the craziest thing about this.

MERCENARIES are more legitimate than vigilantes. That’s right; mercenaries, typically depicted as gun toting, hard faced thugs that are only loyal to their currency of choice. These basically exist in real life as hired private security. In fiction, they are usually assassins(though those exist in real life as well, of course). But they at least have someone giving them mission requirements, which if they ignore are then out of a paycheck. If it’s their livelihood, they likely won’t want to harm their reputation by going rogue. Let that sink in for a moment.

The reason none of this is examined very often is because superheroes are always written as well intentioned. They just want to help, completely innocent in their motives. But if that’s true, why not join the police force? It’s not like there is no precedent for witness protection programs, they could work with a version of that. Better yet, superheroes like Spiderman could have an actual stable income, and even a reliable alibi. “Peter? Oh, yeah, he’s working late in the lab. Definitely not fighting a lizard on a skyscraper.”. Some fictional universes have corrupt police forces, one may argue, but that should be remedied by reform, not just fighting them along with the criminals. After all, ignoring that problem doesn’t make lives for anyone easier, and certainly not the vigilantes.

And don’t get me started on the Justice League or Avengers. Building a private military with the express purpose of conducting clandestine missions using cutting edge technology and super powered individuals is approaching levels of power of an actual government. The Justice League at one point builds a orbital laser, and that turns out just as well as anyone could expect. Not to mention these organizations are inexplicably funded by a member with unlimited wealth, which just baffles me. These are projects with no profit whatsoever, and incredible expense, and yet no one discovers this one rich guy is bankrolling a private police force that answers to no one, and many times lacks transparency even among its members. The only reason bad actors do not infiltrate these agencies and cause havoc for the entire world is because the authors do not write that, and even when they do it’s limited in scope to just “villains trying to defeat/cause problems for the heroes”. These types of issues are why a level of transparency in any large organization that wields power goes a long way in preventing abuse of that power.

As a side note, I never completely understood the focus on crime fighting, either. A person gains the power to generate electricity? Get a job at the local power plant, especially useful out during outages. Telekinesis, or super strength? Dangerous jobs like construction would be a lot safer and be completed faster depending on the amount of weight that can be lifted. Super speed? A lot of money could be made as a delivery man who moves even twice as fast as a normal person. And that’s just scratching the surface. There are powers that lend themselves to crime fighting specifically, and most can be used in that way when needed, but there are other ways to benefit society. I love X Men as a franchise, but I never understood why the mutants never successfully marketed their power’s real world applications to help the rest of society realize that they were not only a negative force in the world.

I’m not even arguing that superheroes should be regulated by their in-universe government; I’m saying the idea that they should be able to act with complete anonymity outside of the law or any sort of system that ensures against bad actors is insane, and would function as a super magnet for capable but morally bankrupt individuals. I’ve never seen a story appropriately tackle this, except for “government wants to control superheroes, but they are bad so they shouldn’t, and the superheroes are right to oppose them”. Direct government control? Preferably not, but I would want some level of assurance that a superhero isn’t being manipulated by a crime kingpin to knock out his competition.

I guess my point is there are a lot of holes in this formula, despite its popularity. Some fiction tackles this with varying levels of success, but mainstream movies are reluctant to deviate very far from the core of the source material. I’m hoping more people think about this, and eventually we can get more super power fiction that realizes super powers aren’t only useful for fighting criminals, and morality is not as simple and binary as presented.