Meanwhile, back at the Lloyds Exchange
(where Actuaries chew on Rates)
I haven’t forgot to book a suite o rooms
for Miss Adventure and her Mates
(Enjoy prison bars and gates…!)
Bob didn’t beat up ANY cultists. Arnie did that. Bob killed the monster.
Since Arnie has been arrested before, and is now running around a free man, obviously whatever jurisdiction supers fall under either practice the Gotham model of prisoner supervision, or just have really low punishments for theft.
Since he’s proven himself to be more or less incorrigible, the rehabilitation argument doesn’t fly either.
Clearly, the only thing gained from handing him over to the authorities is to keep him out of trouble for a couple of months to years a most. So this gets a big fat whatever from me - of Bob just wants to keep Arnie out of his hair for a while, he can ask Arnie if he consents to being GPS-chipped in return for going free. If not, prison. Or he can let him go, it really doesn’t matter that much, he’ll be out in five issues, tops.
My bad. Am I right in thinking, then, that Bob doesn’t take it on himself to beat up bad guys ever, or to make calls of whom to detain to turn over to cops and whom not to turn over to cops?
Anyone has the right, but not the obligation, to make a citizen’s arrest. And in a handful of states IIRC, if a police officer directly asks you to help him to, say, subdue a struggling criminal and you refuse, you can be prosecuted.
“After all, Watson,” said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies.” - Conan Doyle, “The Blue Carbuncle”
Strictly speaking, Bob is not a citizen of the United Kingdom and therefore cannot make a citizen’s arrest within the United Kingdom. I’m sure a Doper lawyer who understands the Police & Criminal Evidence Act et al will be along shortly to determine if Bob can make a civilian’s arrest.
One: Great Britain’s home dimension? Is that literally Hell, or is that confusion on the characters’ part? And was it called Tol Eressëa there?
Two: He looted Samsung into insolvency? Wow, yeah, that’s pretty bad. Of course, maybe Samsung is a particularly evil Silicon Valley firm in this reality. (Stealing la Gioconda is a stunt theft, and not that important.)
Three: If Arnie hadn’t gotten involved, someone else could have supplied the jewels. So Arnie’s involvement ended up working like a sting. The world is safer if Arnie is out there doing his thingeven leaving aside his superheroics saving the virgins.
So, as a consequentialist, I have to consider that Arnie’s mix of powers and…particular conscience is really useful to have, and highly scarce; but he’s also dangerous to anyone with tempting burglables. (Is that a word?)
In Bob X’s shoes, I could probably figure out how to “take him in” while actually letting him get out, but it might be better to make it clear that I’m grateful…*this *time.
Crap, sorry, Samsung, I think I have to let Arnie go.
You do recall correctly, but the sheriff’s rationale (that in these tough times, if a man can get a job, he might not look too closely at the details…but when he learns those details, then he has a choice) doesn’t really apply here. Granted that Arnie didn’t know what the jewels were for – but you can’t really describe Arnie as being beset by tough times, either.
“Its home dimension” means "“Zahhak’s home dimension.” I’m working under the assumption that evil ancient immortal Persian dragons don’t have genitals.
)
I figure Steve Jobs or some other competitor paid Arnie to steal Samsung prototypes & product plans and to screw with their factories and design labs, et cetera, until the company went under.
Three: If Arnie hadn’t gotten involved, someone else could have supplied the jewels. So Arnie’s involvement ended up working like a sting. The world is safer if Arnie is out there doing his thing—even leaving aside his superheroics saving the virgins.
I edited the following out of the OP for the sake of brevity, but since you ask…
There’s about 100 known superhumans in Bob’s world. But other 99 are nowhere near Bob’s power level. The number-two strongman is about as strong as Buffy Summers; the second-place energy wielder is basically a living taser; and so forth; while Bob, of course, is pretty much a god. Arnie’s teleportation probably makes him one of the most powerful of the lesser, but even he’s pretty much a norm in Bob’s eyes. Some of the lesser superhumans are cops, some are crooks. There may be some who are in the closet and quietly making fortunes in the NBA, of course
Physical contact with lead prevents Arnie from teleporting, so I figure after Bob pinkie-finger-thumps him out and shackles him, some tech person could devise a longer-term solution–a subdermal implant, say. How healthy that would be, I dunno.
100 supers out of 7 billion people is not enough to be a social group of any consequence; I expect it’s simply not an issue. Except for Bob, who acts as if that the law applies to him, a polite fiction I expect the world’s governments are happy to go along with.
Or the tech types only recently figured out how to contain him. The fact that Arnie is asking for mercy implies that he knows he can be imprisoned, perhaps not in a pleasant way. You don’t see the Joker or the pre-Crisis Luthor fretting about going to the asylum or jail, because they know they can bust out.
He might. It’s not part of the OP so you don’t have to accept it, but Bob might be like Silver Age Superman, who had been granted free passage over all the world’s borders.
Why not? Arnie confessed the whole deal to him on the phone when calling for help. Also, when Bob accuses him of stealing the Mona Lisa he doesn’t say, “Hey, that wasn’t me, it was that hot blonde who turns invisible.” Surely Arnie’s wanted for SOMETHING.
As I recall, part of the reason the sheriff let Mal & Zoe go is because they didn’t perceive that they had any choice once they knew the consequences of their acts; they were going to return the drugs even if it meant prison or death, and didn’t ask for mercy. Arnie’s whining, and given that he points out that he could have 'ported away, he probably thinks he was doing Bob and the kids a favor rather than fulfilling any moral duty.