I posted this in my LJ (not a plug), but thought that the question bore being asked where someone would actually know the answer:
In the movie “Fantastic Four,” (or at least in the trailer), there’s a shot of The Thing picking up a woman’s car, saying, “I’m gonna need to borrow your car.”
She replies, “The transmission sticks!”
The Thing answers, “Not a problem,” and throws the car at someone (I assume it’s Doctor Doom).
Here’s the question…
In the superhero world, do they have a form of auto insurance that covers “superhero intervention,” or is this woman shit out of luck?
And, if there IS superhero insurance, how does one file a claim? Would she have to track down The Thing, and get him to sign an affidavit?
And I suppose that The Thing would make an easy target, because he’s never really kept a “secret” identity.
It would be much more difficult if, say, Spider-Man or Batman destroyed her car.
It is established in the Marvel Universe that New York City has a multi-billion dollar insurance policy to cover the costs of repairing super-human battle damage. A lot of the work is done by a company called Damage Control, which had its own comic book a number of years ago. If such coverage is offered to a city, it might well be available to the general public too.
IRL a claim can be filed against one’s insurance without any other party being involved. In the case of a hit and run, for example, or a burglary, where the responsible party is unknown.
Granted. However, it seems to me that this could be greatly exploited by anyone by saying that The Thing (or someone else) threw their car when they were just driving drunk, say.
Well, I can see, say, Superman being upstanding and moral enough to shoot off a letter backing up someone’s claim for repairing the wall he threw the villain through. But it does raise the question: what happens if the damage is caused by a supervillain? Who’s gonna track down The Joker and ask for a deposition?
Well, in this world we have federally mandated flood insurance in some parts of the country. I am sure there is some kind of federally mandated hero/villain insurance in places like New York or Metropolis. And the insurance companies probably hate it.
Firestorm once got sued because he turned the roof of a building into a magnet to stop a bad guy and completely wiped out a computer company that was on the top floor.
He showed up as Firestorm, but the plaintiff just happened to be dating his father and realized who he was so she dropped the case.
“He’ll Never See Me Cry”. Colossus versus Juggernaut, while Wolverine (who’d been planning to smack Pete a good one for jilting Kitty) looks on approvingly. But Jug also left behind a roll of notes to pay for his fun, while telling Wolvie and Nightcrawler to (a) congratulate the kid for a good try and (b) stay the hell out of his way in future.
