"The Psychology Of Super Heroes" or "The Depravity Of Super Villains"

[Seil]

So I just watched a documentary. It was kind of interesting, and even though we've talked about this sort of thing before, I thought it would be interesting to reboot the conversation.

Because what happened? Why are there so many psychologically damaged villains in the comic book universe, and the few that are on the right side of the law are ones who continue to triumph over and over?

Spiderman chose to do good. Batman chose to do good. Superman chose to do good. Iron Man chose to do good.

Where does nature versus nurture factor into this? In Spiderman's case, he was bullied all his life. Iron Man is a boozing womanizer. Hell, in Fantastic Four, the titular group just kind of decides "Hey, we've got crazy super powers. Time to fight crime!" (Movie version.)

[Krylo]

But super heroes don't really do good. They protect the status quo. They do neutral.

Superman could end pretty much every and any war instantly with minimal casualties, but he refuses to do so. Batman could put an instant end to political corruption with the tools at his disposal, but he chooses not to. Tony Stark or Reed Richards, probably even Peter Parker, could, with their minds, end the energy crisis, world hunger, and most space exploration issues--none of them do so.

All Super Heroes do is keep things going exactly as they have been.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Krylo

But super heroes don't really do good. They protect the status quo. They do neutral.

Superman could end pretty much every and any war instantly with minimal casualties, but he refuses to do so. Batman could put an instant end to political corruption with the tools at his disposal, but he chooses not to. Tony Stark or Reed Richards, probably even Peter Parker, could, with their minds, end the energy crisis, world hunger, and most space exploration issues--none of them do so.

All Super Heroes do is keep things going exactly as they have been.

Batman is a bit of an exception, since he's usually involved with stopping police corruption as well. Except in the Batmanverse police corruption is so bad it's...well it's probably equal to the police corruption in LA now that I think about it. So that further my argument that he's supposed to be doing a little more than the status quo.

I think with Superman the theme is often that he'd do more harm than good if he got involved in the politics between warring nations or within nations. Superman Earth One dealt with this somewhat--when he attempts to intervene in a third-world nation's civil war, the dictator has several children's arms chopped off in retaliation. So Superman ends up just helping the rebels raid arms depots so they can take the dictator down, which helps keep him from being seen as publicly interfering.

In fact one of the last story arcs of the Old 52 (lol) was that he renounced his U.S. citizenship in order to be able to do more internationally (which didn't really make sense, since apparently he retained the citizenship of his alter ego, Clark Kent, which if it were ever revealed would then render a U.S. citizen as having been involved...but whatever, not much thought was put into it).

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by Krylo

But super heroes don't really do good. They protect the status quo. They do neutral.

Superman could end pretty much every and any war instantly with minimal casualties, but he refuses to do so. Batman could put an instant end to political corruption with the tools at his disposal, but he chooses not to. Tony Stark or Reed Richards, probably even Peter Parker, could, with their minds, end the energy crisis, world hunger, and most space exploration issues--none of them do so.

All Super Heroes do is keep things going exactly as they have been.

I feel like that's dramatically discounting the good of just straight up helping people. Saving them from burning buildings and disasters and whatnot. It's one of the big things that separates vigilantes from Superheroes. Reed Richards and Tony Stark might not technically be Capital S Superheroes in any case. Further, Every superhero doesn't have infinitely useful capabilities and resources, Many of them go against the status quo for good or ill, lots of them both fight crime and attempt to tackle major social issues. And finally, the "status quo" within their narrative is not always the same as the one in our world.

[Seil]

Secondly, why are all heroes good looking, conventionally hot people?

[Aerozord]

I'm not so cynical as to think they dont do good, I just thing they try to avoid the obvious corruption that comes with being "proactive". When those with power are also the ones that decide who is right and who is wrong. Its less about status quo and more about clear viable threats.

As for their psychology, a real world analogy would be the old west. Psychologically a lawman and an outlaw were very similar and the line between them very thin. A simple matter of which side of the law do you want to be on. Batman could very easily have been the Punisher but a strict moral code is the only reason he didn't.

Now what motivates each individual hero varies. Batman's motivation is to keep anyone from dealing with what he had to go through. Now why does he do that dressed as a bat? Well he's insane obviously. He just channels that into doing good. Iron Man knows from personal experience what its like to be on the receiving end of an enemy weapons. Spiderman believe that those with power are obligated to do good with it.

Supervillain motivations are similarly varied

Originally Posted by Seil

Secondly, why are all heroes good looking, conventionally hot people?

Cause they are drawings and unless the story calls for it, why not draw them as being attractive? Many villains are attractive as well. Part of it might also be due to artistic bias. When learning to draw a face its usually an idealized face. You'll notice artists often have trouble drawing "average" people. Normally either attractive or hideous with little middle ground.

[Seil]

Batman could put an instant end to political corruption with the tools at his disposal, but he chooses not to.

This was already covered.

[Aerozord]

There was this one comic I saw that instead of fighting crime they just had superman turn a giant generator endlessly. The effectively limitless free eco-friendly power basically ended all of earths problems. Which I think shows the real reason we dont see super heroes doing that. It would make for a boring story.

Could Batman do alot more good if he focused on socio-economic reform? Probably, but then no one would buy his comics and he'd cease to exist.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Aerozord

There was this one comic I saw that instead of fighting crime they just had superman turn a giant generator endlessly. The effectively limitless free eco-friendly power basically ended all of earths problems. Which I think shows the real reason we dont see super heroes doing that. It would make for a boring story.

Could Batman do alot more good if he focused on socio-economic reform? Probably, but then no one would buy his comics and he'd cease to exist.

Are you talking about the Dark Knight Strikes Again? In that, they put the Flash on a treadmill to provide free electricity for the United States. But it was against his will, and it was all to the benefit of Lex Luthor who had become a dictator.

Like the thing about "Batman could use the tools at his disposal to put an end to all political corruption" is possible, but it takes a mindset like Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor owned the voting machines, used them to become President, declared martial law, basically did end everyone's problems by creating endless energy, but he also had to get rid of civil liberties and all that as well. So it takes the mindset of a fascist to really solve the problems.

On the other hand, the scenario was made up by Frank Miller who is a neoconservative libertarian fascist himself so he probably thought Lex Luthor was a communist.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

In some continuities. Tony does use his knowledge and tech to fix the world's problems. Things just usually go horribly wrong afterwards. Usually because his idea of fixing everything is putting a computer on or in it and connecting it to a world wide grid in some future/after years stories.