Just curious. I’m trying to imagine what would happen in real life if someone popped up who could fly or read minds etc. Have there been any comics with what you consider would be a realistic or accurate take on what would *actually *happen?
Let’s assume for argument’s sake the superpower in question is evidenced or advertised widely enough that the government does not have the ability to hide the person and pretend they do not exist.
Personally I think a good chunk of the more skeptical people would always think that the super power was a con of some kind like a David Blainemagician taken to the next level and who just so good no one would figure out what the trick was.
I think a lot of other people would think of this as evidence of a blessing by the divine in some way and look at the super as a prophet or avatar of God.
If the super was in country without much in the way of human rights I can imagine they might get taken to a government facility and tested for a long time to tease out what was going on and see if it could be weaponized. This might happen anyway in a first world county if the super was offered enough money to submit to analysis.
While the comics trope has always been “You MUST become a symbol of… and fight for …” I’m not so sure that’s the go to in the real world. If someone with Dr. Manhattan’ s actual near Godlike powers appeared I think the Government would be on bended knee begging for his help with science etc or being buddy buddy with him so he doesn’t kill them.
Turning him into some cartoonish super weapon/symbol as in the comic would not be on the list of real world choices to practical real world people.
One guy…and only one guy…gets super powers. (His body is made of stone: he’s incredibly strong, and damn tough.) The writer explores the first (panicky) reaction of the government and the military, transitioning, over time, to their benign neglect as he demonstrates absolutely no threat. The series is thoughtful, even insightful, and elegantly humanist. There’s also a good amount of humor.
I always liked Marvel’s Supreme Power take on the Superman story. A spacecraft crashes in Kansas and a childless farming couple find an infant inside. Any thoughts of raising him as their own are swiftly dashed as the US military swiftly shows up in force, confiscates the child, and takes him to a military base. Upon realising that the baby possesses super-powers, the military institute a secret project to raise and train him as a strategic military asset, code-named Hyperion. This includes indoctrinating him in “the American Way”, so he is given a civilian cover name of Mark Milton {which tested well with focus groups} and raised by a pair of actors who play his All-American parents. As Mark/Hyperion gets older and starts to question his role, of course, it all starts to unravel… Rather an excellent series, at least to begin with.
I’m not sure. I mean, the whole thing with Doc is that, before he got the powers, he seems to have just been a low-key researcher passively “doing what he was told” in general – and, well, “working for the government” in particular.
And as far as I can tell, the government apparently did offer to put him up in military housing while he kept doing scientific research and started synthesizing elements for them; and, for lack of anything better to do, he shrugged like a bookish pushover when asked to meet with presidents and appear on television and so on.
And, in addition to that, they also figured it’d be great if he could make some public appearances like a comic-book superhero, huh? Maybe shake a few hands at charity fundraisers, and fight crime two or three times – but that’s, like, it for a full decade, right? He does just enough to reassuringly fit into the existing pop-culture context of “Super-Powered Do-Gooder Who Fights For Truth And Justice And The American Way” – but spends the rest of his time pretty much acting like a nice Jewish boy who was content back when he was quietly earning a PhD at Princeton?
Miracleman by Alan Moore. Basically the Miracle Man family use their powers to take over the planet, after several failed government attempts to kill them.
The X-Men was conceived that way. They are considered freaks and the world fears and wants to destroy them. I think that’s pretty level headed given what we know about the populace/electorate…
But I always thought “Why does everyone hate the X-men but tolerate all the other costumed clowns?”
Yeah, I liked their take on speedster the Atlanta Blur, who was just happy using his powers to endorse sports drinks, but once it turned into the usual “let’s form teams and fight” stuff, I was out of there. Pity.
A super is created through science, which ends up going sideways, and the project is shut down to try and save the Earth. A few decades later, it kicks up again and some idiot is given powers, which he then uses to try and become his own god-king, all while being driven mad by the meshing of cosmic wisdom with a frail human brain. This sets off the US military to try and contain and then kill the super.
Overall, it’s a lot of stupidity and fear, resulting in massive political turmoil and giant disasters. There’s only maybe one or two people who are smart enough to really step back and realize how stupid the whole thing is, but ultimately, they’re too small to try and get things back on course.
The webcomic Grrl Power has an unusually realistic take on it in many ways (taking into account that it’s a comic with a strong comedic slant).
Rather than acting like cliche heroes and villains, most supers (who are very rare) simply use their powers to make money or do public service, like a guy with flight powers who rescues trapped mountain climbers and the like. For example there’s a fellow with “geokinesis” aka earth control who instead of trying to play superhero or rob banks as a supervillain, simply used it to suck “several Olympic swimming pools full” of gold out of the Earth’s core, and occasionally sells a few bars to pay for his “understandably lavish lifestyle”.
Trying to be a vigilante superhero is just as illegal as being any other kind of vigilante. On the other hand, the government does have its own team of powerful superheros to deal with the rare super who wants to play villain. A team which the government gathered using the unconventional for comics method of…paying them a really, really large salary.
It also includes such practical advice as to never throw cars at people; not only does somebody own that car, if you’re strong enough to throw a car you’ll do more damage if you just punch them. And don’t throw people through walls; not only might there be somebody on the other side, it does lots of expensive damage to private property. Throwing a bad guy straight down not only hits them harder, but there’s generally nothing but rock and municipal property down there.
Also going to plug Strong Female Protagonist. A nearly Superman-level superheroine retires young because she’s decided punching people isn’t really helping the world. She sets out to find some better way to do good and make ethical choices.
As the series develops, we see a villain whose terrible childhood explains, if not excuses, his rampages; several characters who make bad or questionable choices about vigilantism, and another character who performs one of the most dramatic acts of self-sacrifice for the common good I’ve ever seen in comics.
Meanwhile, “dynamorphs,” people with visible changes to their bodies (that may or may not grant them powers - animal heads, gills, scales, extra arms, and so on) deal with discrimination and marginalization.
A bit more introspective and more like what the real world is to a super (if you call him a super) is Steve Rogers’ American Captain. I think I learned about it from the Dope.
Indeed. It was a proto Astro City (by the same author).
It’s not a comic but while it’s not a perfect movie, I liked Unbreakable’s take on things. You don’t even really know you are seeing a superhero while you watch it.