Scenario: A ship containing an alien baby lands in a cornfield owned by Jim and Penelope Clark, and they decide to secretly raise the little tyke. They call him “Kent” and somehow raise him to adulthood without any major incidents, despite the fact that over the years he acquired certain powers and abilities that equate to those of the fictional character “Superman”. He moves to New York to get a job to support himself and decides to put his abilities to good use helping others. At first he tries to keep it a secret, but stories spread and he finally decides to go public.
I’m pretty sure foundlings are given the citizenship of their parents.
I’d say the US gov’t spends a lot of time sucking up to him, since we’d be pretty screwed if he, say, converted to radical Islam and joined Al-Queda, or decided to go help the Chinese retake Taiwan or whatever.
His friends all become hostages of various government or organizations.
Some die, others are torture, to compel him to do things.
Very quickly, his outlook changes.
I don’t think in real life such a person would have the same kind of positive public perception as the other guy enjoys. He’s simply too powerful and dangerous to be allowed to function with complete autonomy. Furthermore, any evil doers he brought to justice would probably walk out of the courtroom free and clear. It would be virtually impossible to prove that the evidence hadn’t been tampered with.
The various deconstructionist comic writers have pretty much nailed it. Such a super-man would either have to work with the federal government as a sort of military asset, or resort to taking justice into his own hands. The latter option would be decried by all Americans, right or left wing. The former one would earn the US the enmity of the rest of the globe. Either way, the government would also secretly attempt to find a way to neutralize this potential threat, and eventually they would find one. If not them, some other country or group of countries would, even if it meant a nuclear strike.
If it were me, I’d set up some fake nuclear power plants to be used as research facilities for dealing with Mr. Clark. If there were a version of Kryptonite in this scenario, I’d concentrate on ways to synthesize its radiation. The comics have habitually hand-waved away that option by insisting that K radiation is somehow incredible difficult to simulate, but that’s just dumb. It should be part of the elctromagnetic spectrum, and thus reproducable.
And once the life expentancy of everybody involved with such governments and organizations is known to be best measured in minutes, the kidnapping shit stops.
If he has time to prepare, I think he could hire an agent, who would market him properly. He could emphasize in air-sea rescue. (Y’know that missing Malaysian Airlines jet? Found it in half an hour.)
He could sideline in lifting heavy things to orbit. (If he’s at the high-end of the spectrum. A lesser superman could fly scientific equipment to volcanos.) He could do the Red Adair thing and put out oil-well fires. He’d be good to have around in a toxic chemical spill. On quiet days, he works with fire departments to get people out of upper floors of burning apartment buildings.
It’s all in the marketing. Done right, he gets a fortune from product endorsements, and everybody loves him. This is his best protection against being exploited. He’s a mega-star, bigger than Tom Cruise. The money, meanwhile, goes right back into image. A big P.R. firm makes sure everybody loves him.
If he’s really as powerful as the most potent versions of the comic book/ movie Superman (fast-as-light-speed, nearly unlimited strength), I’d say he does whatever he likes, comes and goes as he wants, until someone, somewhere devises a means of shackling or destroying him. Pretty much like the comics minus the other super/ mutant allies and villains.
Liberals, based on his actions, would accept him as an alien with superpowers coupled with the desire to do good. Conservatives, on the other hand, would become embroiled in riotous, gun play filled demonstrations as they are split on defining him as either God or the anti-christ. Comic book hilarity ensues.
Every government on the planet would launch secret programs to figure out a way to destroy him. The second such a way was discovered, it would be used. In the meantime, he would be buried under legal injunctions and the like.
“Frivolous”? Did you watch the last 30 minutes of Man of Steel? His battle with Zod was like a “9/11” happening every 6 seconds.
“Thanks for ‘saving’ Metropolis…dick.”
After he goes public he declres he is destroying all nukes. A couple of minutes later he has accomplished this.
A couple of minutes later Russia, China, North Korea, and Al-Queda claim that he is actually one of their citizens and that he needs to be handed over. They get pissy with each other and a couple of weeks later they are bombing the crap out of each other. He decides this is bad and takes out there governments and all know “bases” of Al-Queda.
The world then enjoys several decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
Then the hippies get bored because they have no one to protest and RO against and since they don’t have jobs and just smoke weed all day they start to get upset. They start protesting that they have no one to protest and look even more like douches. Practically no one cares and the few that give them even a minute of consideration just laugh.
A couple of decades later world hunger, poverty and governmental oppression is wiped out. Finally having solved all our petty differences the Vulcans show up and teach humans how to build faster than light star ships.
As humans are exploring the galaxy they run into Galactus. Then shit gets real.
I’m glad we dont. I read where the fight scene in the last Superman movie would result in the following:
“All told, WTC estimated that 129,000 people would be confirmed dead after the battle, 250,000 would be missing (though most would ultimately be found deceased) and 1 million residents would be injured. In terms of monetary cost, Metropolis is looking at $750 billion in physical damage and $2 trillion in overall economic impact. Let’s hope Superman also has a super credit card to help the city recover.”