I am rather curious what the artist’s intention was there.
Well, Brian Bolland, the cover artist, is British… his exposure to tacos may have been limited when he got the description for the art.
Sure, but he still presumably thought he was drawing something. He might not know what a taco is filled with, but he knows they’re not filled with rubber bands. Sliced onions, maybe? You’d think he’d go with a generic textured lump of who-knows-what, though (which could be a lot of different foodstuffs).
EDIT: Oh, and I’ll admit that the first time I looked at that picture, I didn’t even notice what the tacos were filled with.
Well, it’s stretching the genre limits a bit, but doesn’t Jack Reacher deliberately own nothing but the clothes on his back?
Reacher refuses to carry more than a toothbrush, yeah, but he has resources. I think he’s got about half a million stashed, currently.
The Silver Surfer doesn’t need food.
Thor was a successful doctor, as Donald Blake, for awhile, and also a construction worker.
Also Defenders can always crash at Doc Strange’s.
Avengers could crash at Avenger’s Mansion.
Also, and I really only kept up with comics in the 60s and 70s, so I’m not up to date on all the reboots:
Didn’t Hal Jordan and Barry Allen both keep their day jobs? Hal continued to fly for Ferris Aircraft and Barry kept up his work with the CCPD. At least for a number of years until the DC Universe started turning upside down. They weren’t the Flash and GL 24/7 any more than Clark Kent went everywhere in the blue tights and red cape.
Howabout The Maxx - straight-up homeless guy. Very occasionally crashed on Jungle Queen/Julie’s couch.
Iron Fist is the head of a huge company and is a millionaire, and Heroes for Hire is a tax write-off and an excuse to hang out with his HLP Luke Cage. Cage is also an Avenger.
The Avengers are funded by a trust set up by Tony Stark (so they continue to operate even though he tends to go broke about once a decade) and the full-time members evidently draw paychecks, in addition to living in the fabulous mansion. So Cap, Hawkeye, Falcon, Luke Cage, etc. have money despite not seeming to do much besides save the world.
The X-Men, likewise, are funded by the various millionaire members of the team like Prof. X, Angel, and Emma Frost. They all live in the mansion and the adults draw salaries as teachers at the school while the kids are all students there.
Shang Chi’s an old-school Buddhist, I believe, and mostly uninterested in worldly concerns, so he wanders the earth near-penniless on purpose. He worked as a secret agent in most of his stories and presumably got paid, but I assume that he wouldn’t spend more than the bare minimum needed to stay alive. After decades of living on dollars a day he probably has a lot stored up.
The Question is an on-air TV personality in Hub City, although he is about as dedicated to that job as Homer Simpson is to his. He’s not much interested in money, though.
Sue Dibny is an heiress, so her and Ralph have no monetary concerns.
According to Wikipedia, Cloak and Dagger “live in churches, supported by friends and priests.” So they’re homeless.
The last couple years Peter Parker has been making big money as a research scientist. Back in the 80’s he did a Spidey-themed photography book that sold big, and in the 90’s MJ was apparently working as a supermodel.
Reed Richards was funding his research with a substantial inheritance before the FF came into existence. He makes millions off his inventions, but he also controls a pretty substantial merchandising machine because the FF are beloved and the members are stars.
Green Arrow has lost and regained his fortune more times than Iron Man, yeah.
Dr. Strange, all the Green Lanterns, Silver Surfer, Thor, etc., are all beyond worldly concerns. Hercules is not beyond worldly concerns, but he doesn’t really need money to survive, and anyway he’s an Avenger.
There are numerous Hourmen, but the original, Rex Tyler, still worked as a research chemist as far as I know.
Barry Allen kept on working as a CSI while he was the Flash. Wally West did nothing as far as I can tell. Apparently in the original version of his solo book he won the lottery and lived off that. I always thought after he revealed his identity that the city gave him a stipend or something.
I want to say that the L.O.S.H. come from a post-scarcity society, but I’m not sure. In the “threeboot” I recall that Princess Projectra’s fortune financed the team, but I don’t know about the original continuity.
Dazzler’s backstory has always included her being a pop star; she started as a disco singer, but the sliding timescale has changed up her specific style over the decades. Nowadays I guess you’d say she was like Pink or something up until a few years ago, but then was outed as a mutant and lost that gig.
Billy Batson’s radio gig is really more of a hobby.
Battling Jack Murdock saved his entire life so that Matt could go to the best law school there was, plus Matt probably had scholarships and stuff. While he was in said school he was still scrimping to get by, although he also had a rich roommate (Foggy) and a rich girlfriend (Elektra).
The Legion of Super-Heroes was originally financed by R.J. Brande, the thirtieth century’s wealthiest person.
In some versions, Billy Batson’s radio gig pays enough for his rent and groceries. When he needs an adult to sign legal documents, he transforms into Captain Marvel, changes to civilian clothes, and masquerades as his own father.
Among the Watchmen:
Ozymandias was a self-made millionaire.
The original Nite-Owl was a city policeman.
I’m not sure about the second Nite-Owl. I kind of got the impression he was a trust-fund baby. Then again, he was a brilliant inventor, so maybe he had some lucrative patents.
The original Silk Spectre was a wannabe actress and professional celebrity.
The second Silk Spectre generally seems to live off of her boyfriends.
“At least I don’t sleep with an H-bomb!”
“Jon is not an H-bomb!”
“Honey, the only difference is, they don’t have to get the H-bomb laid.”
They get something like “a thousand dollars a day” as I recall; it came up in a Spider Man comic way back when.
Who actually ended up being a Durlan, and Reep Daggle’s (Chameleon Boy)father, didn’t he? Of course, that was before the reboots started.
I never read anything about Sam being a pimp and/or a drug dealer, and Exile’s Island certainly wasn’t abandoned when he and Captain America liberated it.
I’ve always wondered how Wayne Enterprises survives. One good tax audit would put their accountants, and probably Bruce Wayne, in prison.
I’ve looked three times and still haven’t noticed the tacos.
Marshall Law- He’s paid by the city. But, it can’t be much judging from the apartment he lives in and the stores he shops at.
Madman- I gather he lives on some kind of stipend from the two mad scientists.
My guess is that’s supposed to be shredded cheese. Cheese on the taco, cheese on the nachos.
StG
I was under the assumption that when the superheroes were given out assignments in the first or second episode, that the arrangement included getting paid at least on a per crime stopped basis. It wasn’t specifically mentioned either way, however Arthur quit his job to be a superhero full-time, and none of the other heroes seemed to have another job IIRC. It couldn’t have been a huge amount, but they had to be getting income from somewhere.
Nitpick: It’s Spider-Man. Two words, hyphen, capital M.
Bolland always was big on Synthetti.
