# The Government bans superheroes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-books-manga\ **Created:** [July 14, 2025, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850 "2025-07-14T12:50:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/81 "2025-07-14T19:57:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In the 1978 Superman film, he even rescued a cat from a tree The 2025 Superman takes time out from battling a giant monster to rescue as squirrel ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/82 "2025-07-14T19:59:29Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Supe dont even generally arrest the perps- they stop the crime, then hand over the perp to some police. There’s an important legal distinction at work here. If you arrest somebody who you saw committing a crime, then you have a valid legal right to hold them in custody and transport them to the police. But if for some reason you don’t preform a citizen’s arrest then holding a person in custody and travelling around with them is an abduction and you’re the one committing the crime. So I assume Superman is arresting the people he captures, even if it’s happening off panel. Here’s another issue. Some people have mentioned superheroes getting deputized by the regular police. That’s a tricky issue. If the police department (or any other government agency) deputizes a civilian to act then the government becomes legally responsible for their actions. So if the Gotham PD deputizes Batman and Robin and then they arrest an innocent person, the person can then sue the city of Gotham (along with Batman and Robin) for their wrongful arrest and detention. Most government entities are no going to take this risk so they won’t deputize civilians except in extremely limited and temporary cases. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2025, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/83 "2025-07-14T20:06:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There’s an important legal distinction at work here. If you arrest somebody who you saw committing a crime, then you have a valid legal right to hold them in custody and transport them to the police. > > But if for some reason you don’t preform a citizen’s arrest then holding a person in custody and travelling around with them is an abduction and you’re the one committing the crime. > > So I assume Superman is arresting the people he captures, even if it’s happening off panel. Just noting that superhero comics and movies are _not_ documentaries, and not required to accurately depict real-world legal issues and procedures. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/84 "2025-07-14T20:17:42Z")
Senator Kelly? is that you? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/85 "2025-07-14T20:18:27Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Just noting that superhero comics and movies are _not_ documentaries, and not required to accurately depict real-world legal issues and procedures. The rule of thumb is that things are the same in the DC/Marvel worlds as they are in the real world unless it has explicitly been stated otherwise. So we can assume that DC America has the same laws as real world America unless you have a cite from a comic book. And the topic of the thread is how the government would handle superheroes. Discussing the effects laws would have is pretty central to that topic. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/86 "2025-07-14T20:24:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And the topic of the thread is how the government would handle superheroes. Discussing the effects laws would have is pretty central to that topic. While that’s what everyone is talking about, the actual topic from the OP was how many times the storyline had been done - not what any government would realistically do. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/87 "2025-07-14T20:28:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The rule of thumb is that things are the same in the DC/Marvel worlds as they are in the real world unless it has explicitly been stated otherwise. There are no rules in comic books; just what is best for the story. Legal nitpicking gets in the way of that and a good writer just ignores them. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/88 "2025-07-14T20:33:35Z")
One thing that seems to define supervillains whether they have paranormal powers or not is their seeming ability to defy the law at will. Take The Joker for example: what’s really terrifying about him isn’t that he’s an insane sadist, but that he’s an insane sadist whom the law seemingly can’t touch without the Batman’s assistance. The Joker is as far beyond say, Hannibal Lector as Batman is beyond say, James Bond. Batman and The Joker live in a reality in which something that might be termed “super-competency” is a sort of low-key superpower. They’re all but infallible except when pitted against each other. A distinction has to be made between a universe in which superpowers exist but reality is otherwise mundane versus a reality in which being a “suit” somehow, impossibly _works_. I believe the whole story arc about Doctor Manhattan visiting the DC reality was based on that Platonic distinction between their realities. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850/89 "2025-07-14T20:41:45Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Just noting that superhero comics and movies are _not_ documentaries, and not required to accurately depict real-world legal issues and procedures. Their legal issues and procedures are to real-world legal issues and procedures what their physics are to real-world physics. Anybody who gets truly disturbed by either doesn’t deserve superhero comics. When comic books debuted with original characters not derived from newspaper comic strips in the late 30s, most writers depicted them as vigilantes fighting for good in ways the officials were constrained. Their powers were haphazard and limited when they had any at all. Those who could fly without a machine were extremely rare; Superman famously jumped rather than flew until the radio show innovated, followed by the Superman cartoon series. Audiences were already disposed to look at vigilantes favorably, from comic strips, yes, but also from pulp magazines, western movie heroes, stories about amateur detectives, and crusading newspapermen in reality and fiction. They sometimes battled the police and sometimes worked with them; quite a few were on the force or the FBI or the DA’s office, and felt the need to do more. What would have happened if that continued is something to speculate about in the fanwanking world, but what really happened is WWII. Instantly after Pearl Harbor, and a great deal earlier in many books, all the heroes started fighting Nazi (or to a much lesser extent Japanese) soldiers or saboteurs. (So did the protagonists in mystery novels, making them doubly dull in retrospect.) Even vigilantes were heroes if they fought saboteurs, although many of them hurried into the military. Comic books were aimed at kids, but actual soldiers loved them. People today hold up that era as some sort of educational Golden Age but in truth fewer than a quarter of Americans under 25 had graduated high school in 1940. Writing for semi-literates had a gigantic potential audience. The boys grew up fast overseas and demanded more adult comics when they got home. Superhero comics died in droves in the late 1940s and would have even if the anti-comics forces didn’t try to shut down the whole field. Those that survived turned younger again. And sunnier. This was the era of Batman as the World’s Greatest Detective, a creature of the day rather than night, and allied with every police force. Being fiction, the status of superheroes change not because of intrinsic reasons but what the writers feel the zeitgeist demands. Superman’s alienness flips like the earth’s magnetic field. This page collects a variety of old pages that are fun to compare. > **[James Gunn Says Superman Is an Immigrant, but Is That Really the Case? -...](https://www.superherohype.com/comics/610605-james-gunn-says-superman-immigrant)** > > James Gunn's comments on his Superman movie being the story of an immigrant drew fire, raising questions as to the Man of Steel's citizenship. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-government-bans-superheroes/1020850.md?page=4)