Not surprising, I’m late to the game. OK, I’m just putting him in the basement of the Lubyanka 24/7, drilling people in the back of the head with his heat-vision.
Interesting site. I’m amazed to see that there has been a legal case which ruled that mutants are not human beings. I’m not talking about a legal case in the Marvel universe; this was a real legal case here in the United States.
There’s a Wondermark comic directly on point for this one: Note from Batman says you’re the perp, you’re the perp.
Isn’t this mentioned in the movie Superman Returns? As I recall, it’s said early on that Lex is free because Superman had disappeared before testifying against him at his trial.
It should be noted, before people get the wrong impression, that it was a case about toys. Dolls (aka representations of humans) got taxed at a higher rate than toys (and before anyone starts - apparently actions figures counted as dolls). They argued and won that the X-men didn’t represent humans and thus didn’t count as dolls. This whole thing is moot at this point, as dolls and toys are taxed the same.
I was just thinking this also. There were at least two times something like this was mentioned in the TV show. Either Commisioner Gordon or Batman says that the Dynamic Duo is deputized and another where a citizen complains to a traffic cop that she has to pull over for the Batmobile.
Of course, this is the 60s Batman TV show, so take that with as many grains of salt as needed.
I remember that. But in the previous films, didn’t Luthor escape from jail? Even if he wasn’t convicted of stuff that happened in Superman II, you’d think there would’ve been enough stuff related to his previous crimes (recall that he’d stolen a nuclear weapon and fired it at California!) and prison escape to keep him in prison for life.
If they were deputized, I’d think they’d need to do things like get a warrant before executing a search, marandize his prisoners, etc. A batman that can’t tresspass without getting permission from a judge is pretty toothless.
Often they tie them up and leave them for the cops to find. The evidence from the crimes is usually abundant, especially for the bad guys that leave their calling card at the scene, or go on TV to threaten Gotham City with imminent destruction.
But it doesn’t seem to work all that well. They all seem to get off with light sentences and return to commit more crimes.
Superman was explicitly a special deputy of the Metropolis police force, both pre-Crisis and in the Byrne reboot. I don’t know about the current reboot; it annoys me too much to read more than a few pages. Anyway, I assume it’s a virtue of not wearing a mask and not seeming to have a secret identity. He can even be called to testify and just give his name as Kal-El.
Spider-Man sometimes just leave crooks webbed up with photos of their wrongdoing.
The Fantastic Four don’t generally deal with muggers and bank robbers and such.
I imagine hte average mugger, burglar, or attempted rapist, captured by Batman, confesses so as not to have to deal with him again. Not to mention positively begging their lawyers not to put up too strong a defense, lest Batman get wind of an acquittal and come after them again.
The Legion of Super-Heroes are explicitly an arm of the Science Police.
Other than Wolverine, I can’t imagine the X-Men dealing with ordinary criminals. And anyone Logan deals with, if lucky enough to emerge alive, is going to reacting not unlike thugs Batman captures.
Neither does Doctor Strange, but he’s repeatedly sidestepped it by using his hypnotic powers so caught-in-the-act crooks confess to the authorities. (And, building on what Noel Prosequi said, we not only get to see 'em break the law, but also see Doc task 'em – in content-free terms – with confessing what they’ve actually done.)
You are correct. Strange doesn’t see fighting bank robbers and muggers as his job, though, the way Spider-Man and Daredevil do. In fact, among prominent New York Marvel Heroes, I expect those two are in the minority in what they’d describe as their primary mission.
What I wonder about is how do police in Metropolis deal with captured supervillains that have lamp-posts wrapped around them and such, as Superman is wont to deliver them.
I believe it was also mentioned in the 1960s movie (the one where all the UN diplomats are turned into powder). It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I seem to recall there’s a scene where Catwoman, posing as a foreign journalist, makes some snide remark about vigilante justice in America, and it’s mentioned that Batman and Robin are deputized members of the Gotham City Police Department.
Not only did he engage in what was essentially nuclear terrorism, but he colluded with Zod, which I assume would count as treason. And he gets after only five years on a technicality because Superman failed to testify at his parole hearing?
The one time they attempt address Superman’s role in the criminal justice system, it comes off as one of the most ridiculous and hamhanded parts in a movie that’s full of ridiculousness and hamhandedness (surpassed perhaps only by the scene where he lifted the Kryptonite island).
Batman specifically refers to Commissioner Gordon as his and Robin’s immediate superior in one episode. That always sounded weird to me.
I think it was an appeal hearing, which doesn’t make much more sense. But Luthor refers specifically to his not being Mirandized. That would only matter, methinks, if Superman were deputized. As I think on it, I can imagine Luthor volunteering a confession as soon as Superman brought him in so the case would be built on that, with that eventuality specifically in mind.
Superman Returns is still an awful movie, though.
One of the (excellent) Astro City stories dealt with an element of this. I don’t have the story in front of me, but here’s my hazy recollection.
A mobster killed a guy in front of dozens of witnesses. His lawyer claimed that he was actually framed by a shapechanger who took his form and did the killing.
In a world with shapechangers (who can even change their fingerprints), this was sufficient to get him off.
They were deputized in the comics, as well. Specifically, Batman #7 (October/November 1941). in a story entitled “The People Versus the Batman.”
Of course, this is part of Daredevil’s schtick. By night, he goes after crooks himself, but by day, he argues in court to convict them. And his superpowers often give him insight into the right questions to ask, so he’s got a pretty good conviction rate.
Last I checked, Daredevil’s not a prosecutor.
In one issue of The New Teen Titans, it was stated that Robin had been duly deputized. Presumably, the same held true of Batman.