# How people with superpowers earn money? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 9, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607 "2012-06-09T12:07:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/21 "2012-06-09T20:34:54Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Peter Parker made a living as a wrestler at first.. I thought that he failed to make money doing it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/22 "2012-06-10T00:28:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Wonder Man worked security at some super-science lab for a while. He was also one heck of a stuntman. ---
**Author:** ![cletus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@cletus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cletus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/23 "2012-06-10T05:56:19Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Also Thor used to go to amusement parks and use his hammer to max out the high striker games then sell the giant stuffed animals on ebay. Made a few hundred a month I believe. What a horribly inefficient way of using superpowers to make money. Did anyone else get a big laugh out of this or just me? ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/24 "2012-06-10T06:08:16Z")
> [@cletus](#): > > What a horribly inefficient way of using superpowers to make money. Did anyone else get a big laugh out of this or just me? I laughed, but… did you get whooshed? Thor doesn’t even know what e-bay is. It never happened in any continuity. **Wesley Clark’s** post was funny as hell, though. It almost inspired me to start a new thread about what ridiculous jobs superheroes _should_ have. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/25 "2012-06-10T10:22:30Z")
Superheroes would just make money by sponsorship and endorsements I’m afraid. You’d see super teams split along Coke/Pepsi lines. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/26 "2012-06-10T12:55:43Z")
Captain Amazing had corporate sponsorship and logos all over his uniform. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/27 "2012-06-10T12:57:45Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > I thought that he failed to make money doing it. As I recall, the promoter made out the check to Spider-Man, and he couldn’t cash it without ID. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/28 "2012-06-10T14:15:40Z")
Superman could dig a five mile deep mine shaft in an isolated, geologically stable area (presumably one where no Mole People or anything were living—this is a comic book world, after all), and ferry nuclear waste there a couple of times a year. Bam. Easy living, and you solve a couple of energy crises. Or he could just [cut out the middleman](http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2305). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/29 "2012-06-10T15:14:28Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Superman could dig a five mile deep mine shaft in an isolated, geologically stable area (presumably one where no Mole People or anything were living—this is a comic book world, after all), and ferry nuclear waste there a couple of times a year. Bam. Easy living, and you solve a couple of energy crises. “Superman, be a dear and hurl these 65,000 tons of nuclear waste into the sun. We’ll pay you $1 billion for your time.” Things like that would then allow **The Superman Foundation** to be liberally funded and do good works that one really strong and fast guy couldn’t do. Of course, we’d have to live with the ignorant morons who would then picket Superman and spam websites claiming we were damaging the sun… ---
**Author:** ![Ashley\_Pomeroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashley_Pomeroy)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/30 "2012-06-10T18:13:02Z")
'course, you have to wonder what Superman would do with all that money. He doesn’t really need it. He has a pretty cool house that he built himself. He doesn’t appear to need food, and he only wears clothes for modesty. A flash car or yacht would actually be slower than flying, so he doesn’t need them either, or a private jet. Space tourism? He can just fly there. Diamonds, for his girlfriend? He can make them with his own two hands. And he doesn’t even need to buy things to impress the ladies. He’s devastatingly handsome, charismatic, and he can probably drill holes in sheet metal with his cock. He would have women queuing up to see inside his super-pants. And in addition to all of that he’s a great guy. Men want to be him, women want to be with him, and some men probably want to be with him as well. So, food, material possessions, women, transport, he has all of those already. What is there that Superman wants, that he doesn’t already have? ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/31 "2012-06-10T18:59:43Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > The ones who make money are generally called super-villains. :dubious: Or did you mean that as a joke?? Super-villains usually **take** money, which isn’t usually referred to as making it. “Making money” is open to interpretation, although the OP clearly meant personal income. In the broadest sense, it would include raising funds for charity. I seem to recall no end of scenes with Silver Age J.L.A. or Legion of Superheroes members performing for an audience with their powers and skills. Phantom Girl with the old sword-through-a-sealed-box routine comes to mind. I just remembered that, more than a publication decade earlier, Superboy threw a huge, heavy cube at her, momentarily shocking the kids in the audience, who wondered if he was killing her. Well, you sometimes can’t keep track of powers without a scorecard, I guess. ISTR that they were surprised that Supie could lift such an impressively large object, though. That’s harder to believe. Were they sleeping during Ancient History class? * * * Wonder Woman was shown at least twice during the Silver Age revisiting of the Golden Age (late 60’s) performing feats of power or acting in a movie for charity. While recalling that it came to me that when the Golden Age version first appeared, she agreed to perform for\*\* personal income\*\* for an unsavory-looking character. He witnessed her both outracing autos and using her bracelets, and offered her money for either performance on stage. “I don’t care which.” He then tried to skip town with her earnings. Bad move. I believe that this was the first encounter with crime for WW, right in the middle of her origin story. Of course, this was before she settled into her military career. ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/32 "2012-06-11T00:39:44Z")
Adam Warren’s [**Empowered**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empowered) is so screwed for money that one of her part-time gigs involved playing _herself_ for a company that hired out superhero lookalikes for promotions etc. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/33 "2012-06-11T13:56:38Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Wonder Man worked security at some super-science lab for a while. One of my favorite Wonder Man jobs (he’s held a lot of odd jobs) was working for a weapons development lab. See, Wonder Man is incredibly invulnerable (his skin is harder than The Thing’s, and he can survive in the vacuum of space). His job was testing flak jackets. He’d basically put on a jacket and let them shoot him with a bazooka. Then, he’d tell the engineers how well the jacket performed. Edit: I’ve always thought Kitty Pryde would have a great career in construction. She could reinforce buildings by phasing rebar into concrete. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/34 "2012-06-11T14:52:43Z")
Duh…licensing from DC and Marvel. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/35 "2012-06-11T14:57:47Z")
In DC, there were a trio of speedsters called Blue Trinity (I think they were Soviets called Red Trinity and then went capitalist after the collapse of the USSR) who ran a delivery service. And then there’s Buk-50, the (fake) Green Lantern who used his ring to become the greatest furniture mover in the universe. Why doesn’t he just use his ring to create the money? What, and give up his time-and-a-half on weekends? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/36 "2012-06-11T16:08:54Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > One of my favorite Wonder Man jobs (he’s held a lot of odd jobs)… This reminds me of his attempt to be an actor, when he wound up working briefly as, essentially, a super-strong Sideshow Mel on a kid’s show. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/37 "2012-06-11T16:18:31Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > Superheroes would just make money by sponsorship and endorsements I’m afraid. The Booster Gold approach. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/38 "2012-06-11T16:25:48Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > Superheroes would just make money by sponsorship and endorsements I’m afraid. You’d see super teams split along Coke/Pepsi lines. Booster Gold has made a good living through endorsements. > [@cmkeller](#): > > And then there’s Buk-50, the (fake) Green Lantern who used his ring to become the greatest furniture mover in the universe. Why doesn’t he just use his ring to create the money? What, and give up his time-and-a-half on weekends? Because the GL ring doesn’t “create” anything but “solid light” objects, and those objects can only last as long as the ring is charged. This was covered back in Justice League International in the late 1980s (this was during the “comedic” incarnation of the Justice League). The JLI was helping build a house for a couple teammates who were married, and when GL Guy Gardner ran out of nails he started making them with his ring instead of fetching more _real_ nails. Once the house was built, somebody noticed the green nails … right about the same time Guy noticed that his ring’s charge was almost gone. It ran empty before he could get his lantern out to recharge it, and everybody stared in dumbfounded disbelief as most of the house fell down 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/39 "2012-06-11T17:00:45Z")
**Superman** : X-Ray technician. **The Flash** : Pizza delivery **Wolverine** : Medical test subject **Cyclops** : Artist. Makes pictures on toast from an NEA grant **Aquaman** : Doesn’t have a side job. He lives in the sea! You don’t need no money if you live in the sea! Gawh. **Joker** : Models as the “before” picture in medically related ads. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/40 "2012-06-11T17:42:34Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > **Wolverine** : Medical test subject Better yet: organ donor. They take a kidney, he grows a new one, see ya again tomorrow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607.md?page=3)