# 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:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**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, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/41 "2012-06-11T17:45:23Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > Better yet: organ donor. They take a kidney, he grows a new one, see ya again tomorrow. Sure, but how does he earn money that way? Organ purchasing is illegal. But he can earn up to $3,500 for six office visits and 4 overnight stays. That’s just giving money away! And wolverine’s practically immortal so what’s a few days to him? ---
**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, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/42 "2012-06-11T20:33:29Z")
Mister Rik: > [@](#): > > 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 It’s probably significant, then, that it was Guy who asked him why he didn’t just use his ring to make the money. It would certainly be strange for any Green Lantern to not understand the impermanence of ring-structures, but maybe Guy didn’t really get it back then. ---
**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, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/43 "2012-06-11T20:49:05Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > Sure, but how does he earn money that way? Organ purchasing is illegal. But he can earn up to $3,500 for six office visits and 4 overnight stays. That’s just giving money away! And wolverine’s practically immortal so what’s a few days to him? Well, it’s illegal _here_… ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/44 "2012-06-11T20:59:46Z")
Wolverine would do best in dangerous lines of work, like a stuntman, crab fisherman, or underwater welder. He’s probably the most blue-collar superhero too. The little guy would find happiness; right up until Sabertooth shows up. ---
**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, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/45 "2012-06-11T22:06:21Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Mister Rik: > > It’s probably significant, then, that it was Guy who asked him why he didn’t just use his ring to make the money. It would certainly be strange for any Green Lantern to not understand the impermanence of ring-structures, but maybe Guy didn’t really get it back then. Ah, well see, I thought it was _you_ asking the question 😉 When did this Buk/Guy encounter take place? ---
**Author:** ![waynemcdougall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b77776/32.png) [@waynemcdougall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waynemcdougall)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/46 "2012-06-11T22:12:40Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > Treasure hunting and deep sea salvage would be lucrative, exciting, easy, and morally sound. Sorry. Sole rights go to Aquaman. You didn’t think the fabulous riches of Atlantis were accumulated by hard work, did you? :dubious: An Aquaman is a hoarder - doesn’t put it back in the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/47 "2012-06-11T22:36:11Z")
Some of them have utterly mundane day jobs. Iceman, IIRC, grew up to be an accountant. Pretty sure Kitty Pryde and Johnny Storm went to college; some of the other teens may eventually have done, too. The “Doc” part of Doc Samson refers to his MD – he’s a working psychiatrist. She-Hulk and Daredevil are lawyers; I think both normally handle criminal defense cases, but they’ve also both been known to dabble in corporate law, i.e., fix Tony Stark’s life for him. I think a fair amount of Northstar’s income is from his previous work as a professional athlete, and then a memoir he wrote about it, although its popularity was partially because he talked a lot about being a mutant. Beast is a semi-professional researcher, but his supergenius isn’t part of his mutation, just an amusing coincidence. Being on the run also tends to interfere with long-term employment. Bruce Banner, who is chronically stuck avoiding the authorities, does a lot of anonymous odd jobs while hitchhiking around. (One of his alter egos, Joe Fixit (the gray Hulk), likes to work for the mob, much to Banner’s horror.) Wolverine used to do much the same hitchhiking-and-picking-up-work bit, but as he was not a weenie government researcher, his work tended to be… er, a little rougher. A few of them do actually use their superpowers. Nightcrawler used to be a circus performer before he got sucked into saving the world, as did his foster sister Daytripper. Stephen Strange sort of works as a consulting sorcerer-for-hire. Captain America started out fully owned and operated by the US Army, and I imagine all of the active Avengers are getting their paychecks, openly or otherwise, from someone in the government specifically in charge of paying unusual but useful people like them. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/48 "2012-06-11T22:37:37Z")
> [@waynemcdougall](#): > > Sorry. Sole rights go to Aquaman. You didn’t think the fabulous riches of Atlantis were accumulated by hard work, did you? :dubious: > > An Aquaman is a hoarder - doesn’t put it back in the economy. I’d place my bet on Namor if it’s all the same to you. ---
**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, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/49 "2012-06-11T22:41:36Z")
Mister Rik: > [@](#): > > When did this Buk/Guy encounter take place? A Guy-G’nort story that ran in Green Lantern (1990 series) # 9-12. I’m not sure precisely which of these issues that happened in. Most likely one of the middle two. ---
**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 12, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/50 "2012-06-12T00:00:19Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. IIRC, Captain America has used his steroid-enhanced physique to work not as a professional boxer – which would presumably be unfair – but as a professional boxer’s sparring partner. (He’s also earned paychecks as a comic-book illustrator, gaining praise for drawing fight scenes as if he’d experienced them first-hand.) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/51 "2012-06-12T01:46:37Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Iron Man is a bit of an exception to that, though. He has no secret identity and certainly doesn’t want to live as normal a life as possible. Though, that hasn’t always been the case…at least in the 1980s, when I was reading _Iron Man_, Stark still maintained the fiction that the guy in the Iron Man suit was his bodyguard (and, for a while, it was James Rhodes in the suit, while Stark was battling alcoholism). ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/52 "2012-06-12T03:17:05Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Though, that hasn’t always been the case…at least in the 1980s, when I was reading _Iron Man_, Stark still maintained the fiction that the guy in the Iron Man suit was his bodyguard (and, for a while, it was James Rhodes in the suit, while Stark was battling alcoholism). Wasn’t he still pretty well out as a major supplier of tech for the government (read: the Avengers), though? Given that his only real “superpower” is having enough IQ points for two or three normal people, that might kind of count. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/53 "2012-06-12T05:22:21Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Though, that hasn’t always been the case…at least in the 1980s, when I was reading _Iron Man_, Stark still maintained the fiction that the guy in the Iron Man suit was his bodyguard (and, for a while, it was James Rhodes in the suit, while Stark was battling alcoholism). And at one point during the “Armor Wars” arc Stark publicly fired Iron Man. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/54 "2012-06-12T10:16:38Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > Better yet: organ donor. They take a kidney, he grows a new one, see ya again tomorrow. Then the person who got the kidney gets killed by the few Wolvie white cells left in it. Doesn’t sound healthy. ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/55 "2012-06-12T17:39:44Z")
> [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](#): > > 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. Better go read Larry Niven’s “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” :eek: ---
**Author:** ![smokey78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@smokey78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smokey78)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607/56 "2012-06-12T22:53:19Z")
I can’t recall Wolverine having a real job in comicverse. However, the X-men really fought/worked/defended universe/taught for free. Not only Prof.X funded his school, but his former student, Warren Worthington/Arcangel was of old money. So was the White Queen, Emma. Other members had side gigs: Gambit-thief, Rogue-owned property inherited from Mystique, Banshee-NYC cop, etc. (20-year-fan of X-Comics) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-people-with-superpowers-earn-money/624607.md?page=2)