Off My Mind: Superheroes Breaking Laws

@HexThis said:

@huser said:

@HexThis said:

Child endangerment is the only one that really irks me. I don't understand at all, whatsoever why someone who chases after criminals for a living and racks up a bazillion resentful, murderous enemies would involve a kid in the picture. I'm sure it'll seem a bit loaded but this is precisely why I have a huge issue with Damian Wayne being Robin. Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered when he was a child and there's a good chance someone could murder him before the eyes of his child in these circumstances or worse...Damian could get killed. And Damian has no superpowers, it bothers me so much!

Also, Dick Grayson wasn't necessarily a kid in the early Batman comics, I think he was meant to be more childlike so readers related to Batman as a fatherly, moral authority....well, either that or Batman needed a purely sub-textual boyfriend.

Dick Grayson has generally been explicitly stated as preteen, 8 years old or there abouts.

And they've sorta addressed it, with Dick being the stand in for all other teen/kid sidekicks. He gets brutally tortured and murdered by the Joker...BECAUSE Batman didn't train him. IE these kids without training, backup, or equipment likely would just do the superheroing on their own, with the expected consequences of poorly trained, supported, and equipped kids going up against supervillains. Most of them have no less a dramatic/traumatic background as the main heroes, they just typically don't have the resources or experience (otherwise they would ALREADY be heroes). Thus, given the reality that say Dick Grayson was going to go fight evil anyways, better give Grayson at least some of the benefits that Bruce himself enjoyed (training by some of the best in the world, high tech gadgets, etc) and maybe gain an ally/heir to the crusade Batman is engaged in.

Well, training them is one thing but adopting a gaggle of Oliver Twists barely in the double digits and taking them into intense combat situations just seems like expediting the whole dying process. I don't expect complete realism in comics but could a 10 year old really survive a routine with Batman? One of the only kids that maybe have been convincingly deadly or capable as far as I'm concerned is maybe someone like X-23 but she had the advantage of healing and wielding adamantium claws.

I love Batman, don't get me wrong. But I just think it trivializes his trauma and his whole motivation for crime fighting when he becomes daddy Bats to a bunch of kids who could very well be led to their deaths. Not every kid is a young Bruce Wayne and particularly with Damian there couldn't be any more red flags that he's destined for some kind of murderous pass time.

Dick was a worldclass athlete even at his young age. If ringers like Batman or heck Cassandra Cain can exist, then it shouldn't be unreasonable other people can approach their level without their specific backstories. At least within some narrow field like acrobatics, detective work, etc. If Batman can routinely avoid automatic rifle fire, so can Dick, though maybe not in short shorts and a bright yellow outfit. Tim and Jason are much more edge cases, but it's clear that at least with Tim and Damien, Batman undertook their training for fear they would get their training from other people...ie villains. And given Damien was already trained by the League of Assassins, sticking him in the Cave was a nonstarter to keep his attention from wandering. Tim found Batman out on his own, so had proven himself worthy at least as a detective. I do agree with you that the training process should take years before they are let out of the Cave even with supervision, but that goes to DC not wanting their money maker explicitly being an old man (and the real fear Dick Grayson was going to be offed to remove that very real and tangible evidence of Batman's age). I don't believe they necessarily need to take as long as Batman did, just because they don't need to be as proficient at everything he does immediately and he's already gotten the lesson plan together (ie they don't need to spend a year proving to some guru they are worthy of the training).

I'm with you on a real world standard, but heck the X-men were led by 17 year olds and had a 14 year old on the crew when they started after only a limited amount of training, or say Spider-man being a 15 year old crime fighter.

@Jnr6Lil said:

@acer51 said:

@Jnr6Lil said:

@acer51: That's the thing, Even if the government knows their identities, the superheroes themselves are more powerful than the government, Superman could take over the US if he wanted. Registration is just a bunch of papers.

Which is of course why the other superheros would have to attack the superheros who won't register or step out of line.

Which will just end up in Civil War, as I said since the beginning which does nothing but put the focus on the heroes then the citizens.

But the focus was never on the citizens the focus was on getting these very powerfull individuals under goverment control.

Newsflash; I was being sarcastic the entire time, I agree with you.

@acer51 said:

@Jnr6Lil said:

@acer51 said:

@Malonius said:

@acer51: It's a childish fantasy to think that unaccountable god-like beings are always going to exercise good judgement. Without the checks and balances of a community sanctioned legal framework for use of force, diplomacy, and a justice system, the superhuman violence would lead to intolerable chaos for most people.

Eexactly my point, that's why we need a Superhuman registration bill..

Superhuman registration bill doesn't mean superheroes will be held back a shown in Civil War.

That's like giving guns to a mass murderer, but saying because there's this legal document that says he can't use them for bad, that he won't do it.

I never said that they would, but the goverment would need to know there idenitys.

And the heros would have to do what the goverment wants.

This is what they should do, all heros should register.

Mutants should be made to do this too, there to dangrous to be left unchecked.

Disclaimer: I know how this will be rebutted but Godwin can shut up.

Remember in the 1930's when people were forced to be catalogued and registered? That ended so well didn't it.

Robin/Bucky pic is to funny to be true.

@acer51 said:

@Jnr6Lil said:

@acer51: That's the thing, Even if the government knows their identities, the superheroes themselves are more powerful than the government, Superman could take over the US if he wanted. Registration is just a bunch of papers.

Which is of course why the other superheros would have to attack the superheros who won't register or step out of line.

Which will just end up in Civil War, as I said since the beginning which does nothing but put the focus on the heroes then the citizens.

@Jnr6Lil said:

@acer51: That's the thing, Even if the government knows their identities, the superheroes themselves are more powerful than the government, Superman could take over the US if he wanted. Registration is just a bunch of papers.

Which is of course why the other superheros would have to attack the superheros who won't register or step out of line.

@acer51: That's the thing, Even if the government knows their identities, the superheroes themselves are more powerful than the government, Superman could take over the US if he wanted. Registration is just a bunch of papers.

@Jnr6Lil said:

@acer51 said:

@Malonius said:

@acer51: It's a childish fantasy to think that unaccountable god-like beings are always going to exercise good judgement. Without the checks and balances of a community sanctioned legal framework for use of force, diplomacy, and a justice system, the superhuman violence would lead to intolerable chaos for most people.

Eexactly my point, that's why we need a Superhuman registration bill..

Superhuman registration bill doesn't mean superheroes will be held back a shown in Civil War.

That's like giving guns to a mass murderer, but saying because there's this legal document that says he can't use them for bad, that he won't do it.

I never said that they would, but the goverment would need to know there idenitys.

And the heros would have to do what the goverment wants.

This is what they should do, all heros should register.

Mutants should be made to do this too, there to dangrous to be left unchecked.

Yes super heroes and even the crimefighters have to defy some laws to get the job done. But in the end things have a way of going horribly wrong then intended. The police break the law when going under cover or another occasions because they have the authority and to keep others from doing it. Only major difference would be police don't endanger children. i think for the comic universe, heroes have the exception to being above the law because the law can't stop super villains. In our world, so called "heroes" mainly costumed idiots are fools pretending to be like their fantasy super idols and are no where near an exception to take the law into their own hand. Unless some actual super villains do arrive the police nor military could stop.

@acer51 said:

@Malonius said:

@acer51: It's a childish fantasy to think that unaccountable god-like beings are always going to exercise good judgement. Without the checks and balances of a community sanctioned legal framework for use of force, diplomacy, and a justice system, the superhuman violence would lead to intolerable chaos for most people.

Eexactly my point, that's why we need a Superhuman registration bill..

Superhuman registration bill doesn't mean superheroes will be held back a shown in Civil War.

That's like giving guns to a mass murderer, but saying because there's this legal document that says he can't use them for bad, that he won't do it.

I like that people can both do the right thing and spit in the face of cops simultaneously, It tickles me muchly.

@Malonius said:

@acer51: It's a childish fantasy to think that unaccountable god-like beings are always going to exercise good judgement. Without the checks and balances of a community sanctioned legal framework for use of force, diplomacy, and a justice system, the superhuman violence would lead to intolerable chaos for most people.

Eexactly my point, that's why we need a Superhuman registration bill..

@Miss_Garrick said:

@Jorgevy: This should explain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_rights

And that's why I liked the scene from the first Robocop movie, when Robocop is reading Mirands Rights while throwing Clarence Boddicker through glass panel, smashing it. :lol

@RobinRX said:

They're already vigilantes, for the very reason that the law apparently is corrupt or doesn't work as it should. There's no point adhering to it in that case.

They're already vigilantes, for the very reason that the law apparently is corrupt or doesn't work as it should. There's no point adhering to it in that case.

The question as asked is flawed. It should be broken into two separate and distinct classes. Superheros face two classes of villains: Superhuman (super powered, aliens, robots, etc.) that are simply beyond the authority or ability to manage of normal human police or military forces; and those that are more typically criminal.

The typically criminal fit most of Batman's villains. Which is why he made such a good fit for this article. For these class of villains clearly we can argue against the superhero. Heroes like Batman are interesting and fun to read about because they straddle the line between good and bad, righteous and fascist. It is part of what makes these characters psychologically interesting. Batman and Wolverine have dirty hands unlike the boy scouts like Superman or Captain America.

The superhuman class on the other hand can only be handle by equal opposing force. Whether we are talking about an alien invasion or super human on the power scale of say Superman, only other equal powerful super humans would be up to the task. The normal rules of society no longer apply because we are not talking about individuals that are part of that society.

@Oscars94 said:

I think that the only ones that should put the heroes on trial are other heroes otherwise we'd have another S.H.R.A. Super-Human Registration Act.The Avengers put Yellowjacket on trial for hitting Wasp and he served time, he also rehabilitated himself afterwards.

I think that the only ones that should put the heroes on trial are other heroes otherwise we'd have another S.H.R.A. Super-Human Registration Act.The Avengers put Yellowjacket on trial for hitting Wasp and he served time, he also rehabilitated himself afterwards.

@ZZoMBiE13 said:

Batman isn't the Dark Knight of Law, he is the Dark Knight of Justice. Anything he does in pursuit of that falls within his boundaries. His status of "Above the law" is how he gets things done in a world where due process is a joke that criminals spit in the face of. Gotham's Lady of Justice isn't just blind, she's been defiled and left on a respirator. Hence the need for Bats to step up in the first place.

Ever wish it could work this way in real life? o_O

@RedheadedAtrocitus said:

Unfortunately sometimes superheroes are in dire need of having to break laws and statutes in order to get the job done. It doesn't excuse what they do, but like the hated phrase goes...it is what it is. Its at the point when civilians and others begin to get harmed that the line should be drawn.

This

Killing someone is breaking the law, but sometimes it can be for good reasons.

@Jorgevy: You're welcome! After years of watching Dragnet and Law & Order, I have nearly the whole thing memorized.

@Miss_Garrick said:

@Jorgevy: This should explain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_rights

oh those things cops in the US say when they arresting someone, like "you have the right to remain silent" etc....

oh cool. thanks!

I have some fine opinions about this. That qualifier said - breaking the law is black and white. Extenuating circumstances and how they are adjudicated is not - which is why we have Court review. This topic is fine - but truly the more appropriate question is; are they actions of vigilantes to be ethically endorsed.

Like most comic readers, I have my own view on this shades of gray subject, but I don't want to spend hours explaining so here is the sum up: I think superheroes should be allowed a little leeway, as long as they are fighting for greater good, and not for the sake of beating people up. As long as they produce more results than broken bones, It's ok.

But they should definitely not tamper with evidence, and should try and cut down on the child endangering as much as realistically possible.

@Jorgevy: This should explain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_rights

Unfortunately sometimes superheroes are in dire need of having to break laws and statutes in order to get the job done. It doesn't excuse what they do, but like the hated phrase goes...it is what it is. Its at the point when civilians and others begin to get harmed that the line should be drawn.

@AmaterasuNoHasu said:

@ZZoMBiE13 said:

Batman isn't the Dark Knight of Law, he is the Dark Knight of Justice. Anything he does in pursuit of that falls within his boundaries. His status of "Above the law" is how he gets things done in a world where due process is a joke that criminals spit in the face of. Gotham's Lady of Justice isn't just blind, she's been defiled and left on a respirator. Hence the need for Bats to step up in the first place.

Hahahahahaha. Very well said.

A) Thanks, and thanks to all the others who kindly replied to my post. :)

B) You may have the coolest avatar I've ever seen.

Batman isn't the Dark Knight of Law, he is the Dark Knight of Justice. Anything he does in pursuit of that falls within his boundaries. His status of "Above the law" is how he gets things done in a world where due process is a joke that criminals spit in the face of. Gotham's Lady of Justice isn't just blind, she's been defiled and left on a respirator. Hence the need for Bats to step up in the first place.

@InnerVenom123 said:

What a tasteful picture used for dead sidekicks.

@One_Eye: ;)

@ZZoMBiE13 said:

Batman isn't the Dark Knight of Law, he is the Dark Knight of Justice. Anything he does in pursuit of that falls within his boundaries. His status of "Above the law" is how he gets things done in a world where due process is a joke that criminals spit in the face of. Gotham's Lady of Justice isn't just blind, she's been defiled and left on a respirator. Hence the need for Bats to step up in the first place.

Hahahahahaha. Very well said.

i btought this up years ago with the power rangers. how is it these guys fight a giant monster in a giant machine and obviously destroy buildings, they still are seen as heroes? seriously? what stops some guy from performing a citizen's arrest?

@hyperman said:

@ZZoMBiE13: I totally agree with you. I wish there were a whole Bat-family in my country, in the real world , breaking the useless law.

Heh, I second that.

@huser said:

@HexThis said:

Child endangerment is the only one that really irks me. I don't understand at all, whatsoever why someone who chases after criminals for a living and racks up a bazillion resentful, murderous enemies would involve a kid in the picture. I'm sure it'll seem a bit loaded but this is precisely why I have a huge issue with Damian Wayne being Robin. Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered when he was a child and there's a good chance someone could murder him before the eyes of his child in these circumstances or worse...Damian could get killed. And Damian has no superpowers, it bothers me so much!

Also, Dick Grayson wasn't necessarily a kid in the early Batman comics, I think he was meant to be more childlike so readers related to Batman as a fatherly, moral authority....well, either that or Batman needed a purely sub-textual boyfriend.

Dick Grayson has generally been explicitly stated as preteen, 8 years old or there abouts.

And they've sorta addressed it, with Dick being the stand in for all other teen/kid sidekicks. He gets brutally tortured and murdered by the Joker...BECAUSE Batman didn't train him. IE these kids without training, backup, or equipment likely would just do the superheroing on their own, with the expected consequences of poorly trained, supported, and equipped kids going up against supervillains. Most of them have no less a dramatic/traumatic background as the main heroes, they just typically don't have the resources or experience (otherwise they would ALREADY be heroes). Thus, given the reality that say Dick Grayson was going to go fight evil anyways, better give Grayson at least some of the benefits that Bruce himself enjoyed (training by some of the best in the world, high tech gadgets, etc) and maybe gain an ally/heir to the crusade Batman is engaged in.

Well, training them is one thing but adopting a gaggle of Oliver Twists barely in the double digits and taking them into intense combat situations just seems like expediting the whole dying process. I don't expect complete realism in comics but could a 10 year old really survive a routine with Batman? One of the only kids that maybe have been convincingly deadly or capable as far as I'm concerned is maybe someone like X-23 but she had the advantage of healing and wielding adamantium claws.

I love Batman, don't get me wrong. But I just think it trivializes his trauma and his whole motivation for crime fighting when he becomes daddy Bats to a bunch of kids who could very well be led to their deaths. Not every kid is a young Bruce Wayne and particularly with Damian there couldn't be any more red flags that he's destined for some kind of murderous pass time.

@acer51: It's a childish fantasy to think that unaccountable god-like beings are always going to exercise good judgement. Without the checks and balances of a community sanctioned legal framework for use of force, diplomacy, and a justice system, the superhuman violence would lead to intolerable chaos for most people.

IS ANYONE READING THE NEW 52?!!!The justice league started the Superhero phenomena. The government is thankful to them for saving the PLANET!!!! Hence the leeway the superhero community gets.

@tcglkn said:

I think Spider-Man training Alpha is the most responsible thing Spider-Man could do. When a person has super powers they hardly go on living a quiet life so Alpha would either turn criminal or be an amateur hero. Both of which are more dangerous to him and others. With Spider-Man training him he'll learn that "with great power comes great responsibilty". Plus he'll have Spider-Man there to help him out of sticky situations.

Exactly. A quiet life is not likely in their future and so really the only responsible thing is to give the youngster the benefit of a mentor with a decade+ of experience and superhero connections.

I have little information on American law, so what the heck is Miranda's rights?

@HexThis said:

Child endangerment is the only one that really irks me. I don't understand at all, whatsoever why someone who chases after criminals for a living and racks up a bazillion resentful, murderous enemies would involve a kid in the picture. I'm sure it'll seem a bit loaded but this is precisely why I have a huge issue with Damian Wayne being Robin. Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered when he was a child and there's a good chance someone could murder him before the eyes of his child in these circumstances or worse...Damian could get killed. And Damian has no superpowers, it bothers me so much!

Also, Dick Grayson wasn't necessarily a kid in the early Batman comics, I think he was meant to be more childlike so readers related to Batman as a fatherly, moral authority....well, either that or Batman needed a purely sub-textual boyfriend.

Dick Grayson has generally been explicitly stated as preteen, 8 years old or there abouts.

And they've sorta addressed it, with Dick being the stand in for all other teen/kid sidekicks. He gets brutally tortured and murdered by the Joker...BECAUSE Batman didn't train him. IE these kids without training, backup, or equipment likely would just do the superheroing on their own, with the expected consequences of poorly trained, supported, and equipped kids going up against supervillains. Most of them have no less a dramatic/traumatic background as the main heroes, they just typically don't have the resources or experience (otherwise they would ALREADY be heroes). Thus, given the reality that say Dick Grayson was going to go fight evil anyways, better give Grayson at least some of the benefits that Bruce himself enjoyed (training by some of the best in the world, high tech gadgets, etc) and maybe gain an ally/heir to the crusade Batman is engaged in.

Hold the phone, there are police and government officials who break those same laws for the greater good. A drug dealing pimp cuts a deal to reduce his sentence in return for fingering his supplier. He gets off a little easier then he would have, which is technically against the law, I'm order to get deeper in to the criminal infrastructure. The only thing that really makes super heroes different is that they tend not to wear a badge when at work.

Batman ((and so family)) have a reason: Corrupt Police Men ..... the rest? Who knows

BEING A SUPEREHERO ALREADY MAKE YOU A PAWBREAKER AND IF THE GOVERNMENT ISN'T IN CHARGE OF THEM, THEY SHOULD ALSO BE ARRESTED, WHICH THEY WOULD BE IN THE REAL WORLD. NOW BACK TO COMICS, THEIR GOVERNMENT IS SO FLAWED WHEN DEALING WITH BADGUYS THEY SUCK. SO LET THE VIGALANTES AND HEROS GET AWAY WITH WHAT THEY WANT. NO NEED TO CHANGE THAT RELATIONSHIP EVEN IF IT WOULD BE MORE BELIEVBLE TO DO SO .

G-man was saying we should have some kind of law passed by the goverment to help Superheros be legal.

I think I know how that would be done, I think a law like that would go somthing like this.

They would pass a bill at congress, this bill would require all Superheros to be card carrying members of the goverment.

It would be benifical to Superheros in these ways.

Federal funding..

Pay checks.

Vacation.

Organization.

Of course they woulld be members of the goverment, so they would have to reveal there secret IDs, but the goverment would do a good job at protecting there familys from all the bad guys while there on duty right?

And of course the Superheros wouldn't be able to interfere in areas that are politicly delicate, meaning the JL or the Avengers woudln't be allowed to help china even if it meant an astroid was going too kill hundreds of children, but that would be okay, because at least that way there not breaking the law right?

So of course the goverment would be able to dictacte who they save and who they let burn, but they'd have a strong backing so it's even!

But of course they wouldn't be able to help the people who don't want to be goverment agents. Those people would now be considerd vigilantes, so they'd send the goverment agent superheros after the non-goverment agent superheros. They would then lock the Non-goverment Superheros up in a prison without trial.

So that is why we need a bill to make Superheros legal right?

@G-Man: It's great when these sorts of questions come up in the comics themselves such as Kingdom Come, Ultimates Vol. 2, Watchmen, or Civil War. To me it represents a question of maturity within the superhero genre...are we as audience ready to grow out of our childish power fantasies/simplistic black-and-white moral views and embrace the responsibility and accountability that come with a role in adult society.

No society can truly allow people with crazy powers to just use them in public according to their personal judgement. If the government is corrupt or evil, then the superheroes need to go beyond vigilantism and enter the world of insurrection and revolution, empowering the people to put in place a more legitimate government.

I believe that all real heroes have to break the law because there is one truth in life and that is the law is so far from perfect it would be like saying the devil's hooves look a saintly white color.

This works in comic logic because rules can be bent or broken for the greater good which the real world is not known for which is much better for those like myself who read comics at least to dream that things will turn out well in the end.

If real world terminology happened then everyone knows all governments would not allow anyone not under their explicit control even when doing good to go uncontrolled by them.

They're already breaking the law by being a superhero.

@Urthiln: I totally agree with you, the law is flawed and cops in cities like Gotham need heroes like Batman and Blake to go places and do things the can't.

I remember comic from the 90s that touched up on this point. Two Supervillains were talking one had retired and decided to be a regular mobster or something, the other was a new guy. The retired one made a comment like "First thing I learned as a villain, the costumed heroes aren't law and when they catch you it makes it easier to get out thanks to loopholes.' So yeah they stop the criminal in the comics, but make it easier for him to go out and do it again.

Oy vey....