"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.)