DCDreamBlog

All in all, I actually enjoyed the film!

That is, when I was able to shut off the part of my brain that has to do with my profession and professional education. Because otherwise every conversation I have about every "real" superhero movie would be like. Well, it would be like bringing anyone with a professional education to ANY movie that has to do with their particular wheelhouse. You wouldn't bring a climatologist to see the Day After Tomorrow and not expect them to bitch.

Well, one expects that you wouldn't have brought this question to my attention if you didn't want ME to bitch either. And so bitch I shall, balanced with my very genuine praise for the movie as a piece of art. But I just want to get that out of the way. I enjoyed it. All that follows below is couched within that understanding.

(The movie's poster, for obvious reasons)

I'll alternate this to see if it makes things a bit easier to swallow.

Positive: This cast is fantastic. David Corenswet's Superman is approachable, kind hearted and fun. Rachel Brosnahan is just the right side of incorrigible and crazy to play Lois Lane. Nicholas Halt was already an actor I liked for his portrayal of Beast in the X-Men movies but he is a HIGHLIGHT here as just all of the most slimy, reprehensible parts of the real life Lex Luthor wrapped up in the world's most pathetic package. Matt Bomer's Clark Kent, Skyler Gisondo's Jimmy Olsen and the rest of the Daily Planet crew round out the core heart of the film with aplomb. Not to mention Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi and Isabela Merced steal the show for large chunks of it as the "Justice Gang" although Gathegi deserves special mention for being just about the coolest tech superhero I've ever seen on screen who isn't in power armor. There's a reason he gets to be the centerpiece of Gunn's required mid-movie musical set piece fight scene. My jaw was on the FLOOR.

Negative: As far as "the history" goes, this movie is a mess. It's not based on ANY actual events, certainly not events from this early in Superman's career (which yes, DID involve Lex Luthor trying to fake a Kryptonian invasion to discredit Superman but not like this). Metamorpho was an active hero for YEARS before the modern Mister Terrific ever came on the scene, the "Justice Gang" is not a superhero organization that has ever actually existed, Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl, Guy Gardner and Metamorpho have never been on any version of the Justice League at the same time, the conflict between Boravia and Jarhanpur seems to have just been taken on vibes rather than being distinctly set in any specific span of conflict between the two. All those sorts of little tickles in the back of my brain that wouldn't leave me alone. Things being wildly out of order, out of place or out of time.

Positive: This movie's understanding of Superman, his philosophy and his outlook on the world is one of the best we've seen in any superhero movie. The idea that Superman is simply here to help, that he sees all life as equally precious, that he is willing to sacrifice and sacrifice again just to save ONE life. It reflects the Superman we see in our real lives. Building it around the philosophy of a 20 year old song from the Mighty-Mighty Crabjoys of all people was a distinctly Gunn flavored choice but Superman has since gone on record saying that he IS actually a fan of the Crabjoys with that being his favorite song. Whether it was a lucky guess on Gunn's part or one of the things he managed to interview out of Superman, who can say.

Negative: The Hawkgirl part of the ending and the movie's politics in general. Listen, I get that Gunn is a bit of a harsher film maker than one would expect to be making superhero movies, especially if you're familiar with the beginnings of his career. I ALSO know that we are in a moment of political stress between Boravia and Jarhanpur where the current Boravian president hasn't exactly come out smelling of roses. I know it got great big applause in the theatre, I'm sure. I went into this in more detail but this movie has, at best, a child's understanding of the Boravian-Jarhanpuri conflict. Jarhanpur is not a nation of helpless brown skinned orphans, Boravia is not a satanic juggernaut of snow white imperialists. Killing the president on one side of a war of grievance doesn't actually HELP anything. And putting those actions on the hands of a fictionalized version of Hawkgirl is just a little bit gross.

Positive: The REST of the plot of this movie, fictionalized though it may be is *chef's kiss*. It's a fun showing for Superman himself, it gives Lois plenty to do, there are other heroes running around. The last minute reveal of Bizarro was a tad obvious if you know the shape of these things but it makes for a great fight scene. Krypto is adorable beyond all possible human belief (even if they did get a dog of a VERY different breed than the real Krypto, who obviously isn't a member of any Earth dog breed but he's bigger and more Labrador-y than that). They even got permission to film the Fortress scenes in actual halls of the actual Fortress of Solitude, which is fun. Getting to see the real life Fortress robots "acting" was neat, even if the one we actually get to SEE was a CG creation played by Alan Tudyk, extras like that are always fun!

Negative: The sexual tension between Superman and Lois Lane in this movie is...weird. Like, yes I know we all remember when Lois and Superman were having a publicly white hot romance during the first handful of years Superman was around. However, it's probably good to remember that Lois Lane is a real woman, who also very publicly BROKE UP with Superman so that she could date, later marry, and even later have a child with her coworker Clark Kent who is ALSO a supporting character in the cast of this movie. No member of the Lane-Kent family has commented directly on the choice, and I get that they needed something to put IN the film during the end of the 2nd act when Superman is incapacitated and laying low from the law. It's just weird. But I guess it's a better choice than trying to force a fake secret identity plot.

Conclusion: I'd give this movie a solid 8/10. The only reason I can SOUND like I'm not enjoying it if you actually sat me down to WATCH it is because pointing out inaccuracy in these sorts of things is my JOB. I give it a lot more leeway though than I would, say, a Justice Society movie. This film isn't based in "history" so much as it is a DEEP fictionalization of current events. Superman and all the members of the Justice Gang are still active superheroes writing their own histories as we speak. It's not as if we're misrepresenting people who can no longer defend themselves or whose stories have some outsized effect on our modern history and society. Gunn is still a master of making movie's that are just FUN to sit through and he continues to have VERY good taste in music. His real life superhero universe project seems to be in good hands as we mean to go on.

Certainly can try!

Honestly a lot of what I would consider the "ethics" of superhero studies are the same kind of ethics I would put upon any other historian or historiographer. The things you need to keep in mind to make sure that your research into the past, present and future don't do more harm than good. But I can always put some more focus into the things I was taught in direct relation to my personal profession. After all, my focus is so new that whether it's history, anthropology or even an outgrowth of criminal science is still up in the air.

Because this is the internet, of course, I will organize it into a perfectly digestible numbered list. 3 for Do, 3 for Don't, alternated between one another just to keep interest I guess. Because I couldn't think of another way to do it, basically.

(A superhero/supervillain DnD alignment chart. To be taken as seriously as you should take ANY alignment chart)

1. DO remember that superheroes are people first. All else flows from that.

The worst mistake that you can make in this course of study is to forget this first and most golden of rules. Superheroes are not gods, or aliens, or monsters. Even when they are physically or biologically any combination of those things. The superhero phenomena was always and has always been an outgrowth of those with power seeking to use that power in defense of others against those with power who seek to lord it over those without.

Whether it be the hastily masked mystery men of the 1940s, or the hyper technological, world saving strike teams of the modern day superheroes are people who wish to help. Everything they've ever communicated to the world at large and every behavior they've ever manifested where we can see makes that clear. This can manifest in positive ways, such as banishing conspiratorial thought that tries to organize superheroic action into some kind of vast and inhuman conspiracy. But it can also mean remembering that our protectors have the same feet of clay as the rest of is. They are no more worthy of blind worship than anyone else, and they should be open to the same questioning.

1. DON'T seek out knowledge that isn't ours to share.

No matter what you think it might explain or uncover, gnawing into the private lives and business of those who risk their lives to keep us safe will never do anyone any good. Superheroes keep their identities secret for a host of VERY good reasons. And the same way that you wouldn't try to explain the actions of celebrity by breaking into their house at night, you won't gain anything from snooping into the private life of a person who is only protecting the people they love.

Whatever knowledge we might gain from finding out the Batman's real identity is dwarfed by the harm it would do. Not only to Batman, his allies and the people who presumably care about him outside of his masked activities. But also to the communities that Batman and those around him would no longer be able to protect as efficiently in the aftermath. We are not paparazzi. We are on their side. If you're not, you should be in another field of study.

2. DO keep an open mind as to how the superhero community manifests.

"Superheroes" or beings like them have existed for as long as human society has existed. And their forms, functions and actions are as diverse as the diversity of the communities that might house them. If you attempt to hold every superhero to the mold created by the Justice Society and later reinforced and strengthened by the Justice League and Teen Titans you're going to miss the majority of the work left to do. Superheroes did not function the same way they do now even 100 years ago, let alone 1000. Superheroes don't function in that fashion NOW in the majority of places where they exist across the non-American world.

If you go into a learning experience with an open mind, rather than a critical eye, you will find MUCH more than you ever imagined. Rather than seeing the Global Guardians as bloated and bureaucratic because of its large active membership in relation to the League, which could be playing into your biases of international organizations or supranational infrastructure. Instead ask yourself what benefits might come from having such a large roster that can be sent out from a central command structure. Interrogate what historical and social forces have forged that system as strong or even stronger than the one we have.

There are MANY wrong ways to be a superhero. But the ones that last tend not to be among them.

2. DONT allow yourself to be intimidated or dwarfed by your point of study.

Whether it comes in the form of obsession, paranoia or simple timidity you must not allow yourself to be crushed under some imagined enormity. The life you are living is not less meaningful simply because you're comparing yourself to Superman. You do not have to go out seeking your "way in". Our heroes are neither looking down on you in particular nor humanity in general. And the world is not going to end tomorrow just because you finally read a book about who Darkseid is.

The villains lost last time, they will lose next time, and the time after that, and that. There are indeed cosmic abominations, arcane aberrations, malicious criminals both here in our own societies and out among the stars. And just like death and taxes there is nothing you can do about them. UNlike death and taxes however, there are people who are making sure it never gets out of hand. They're doing it so that we, all of us, can live the lives we deserve. Take heart in that.

3. DO remember your morality.

If you're going to take anything from your points of study, make it inspiration in the way you treat others in relation to your work. "What Would Superman Do" is a cliche thought exercise but that doesn't make it a bad one. If an artifact has some providence that leads back to a living hero, extant organization, or direct carrier of their legacy you will save yourself and the rest of us a LOT of grief by just shooting off an email and asking them to comment first. Even if it's not animating enough for you to remember you should just be a good person, organizations like the League pay attention to who is doing right by whom. They can't stop you from putting a dubiously "recovered" artifact under glass without asking. But they WILL remember your name the next time you send them an inquiry.

Treating non-humans with basic empathy is just about the best way to show this manifestation on a daily basis. Use the same names, pronouns and titles for a being that they use for themselves in good faith. You don't gain anything from calling the Martian Manhunter an "it", you're not being "objective", you are being a dick. Take people's understanding of their own motivations at face value. Whether or not you AGREE with the idea that Wonder Woman is given her power by the actual, factual Greek Gods, SHE certainly does.

3. DONT get arrogant. Ever.

The one thing we have learned from the way our world has changed inside our lifetimes is that we know. NOTHING. And that everything we THINK we know can be tossed out tomorrow. If you think you're done learning, if you think you have it all figured out. You're not only wrong you are cruising for a very classical lesson in hubris.

If you are a Christian, seeing the actions of all heroes through a Christian lens is not only morally wrong it's bad science. The Kryptonian sun god was not "a misunderstanding of God". Stop that. Right now. And all the other ancient aliens nonsense with it.

And if the atheists plan on getting smug about that, it equally applies to the idea that all magicians are just woo-woo peddlers and fraudsters just because YOU can't wrap your head around how it works. You will do everyone more good by accepting that a purely rational and materialist worldview no longer functions the way you thought it did. Adapt. Accept. Move on.

The new generation of heroes is no more braindead than the old generation is objectively reactionary. The Justice Society and Young Justice are the same idea, manifesting through a lens of altered culture. They are on the same side and they would be the first to tell you so. Your generational fearmongering holds no power here, whether it be conservative or "progressive". Superheroes are not Randian ubermensch, and they are not Marxist revolutionaries. You make no point judging superheroes via your political morality other than showing everyone that you happen to be a fool.

Conclusion

As any historian or anthropologist must remember, history, culture and humanity at large are not here to be "solved". There is no gate you can draw around your own ideas of humanity that will include all those that fit and exclude all things that do not. Superheroes work this same way. All of your definitions will break down at the edges. All of your conclusions will become thorny and unwieldy the longer you look at them. There will never be any single period placed at the end of history. It is a 10,000 year run on sentence, stretching off into the horizon. Forever.

Turn over some rocks. Find something new. Toss out your old ideas and replace them with better ones. We are here to help the public do the same.

This should excite you down to your bones.

What happens if a superhero commits manslaughter? Like, for example, say Green Arrow is shooting at a guy's knee intending to (mostly) harmlessly disable him and prevent him from committing some kind of crime that would justify an arrow wound, but the guy moves last-minute and Green Arrow hits the leg artery. He now has one prevented crime but also one dead criminal, who did in fact have constitutional rights, as you noted in Joker Box.

Would a superhero in this situation have to unmask if put up for trial? Or would it be like "masked until proven guilty," because like, in the example I gave above there's a reasonable argument to be made for self-defense by proxy (that is, defending the target of the crime), so "yeah you're guilty" isn't guaranteed.

As unsatisfying of an answer as it might be, I don't actually have a good way of answering this question. Because there's no example to compare it to, and therefore no legal precedent. Because it's never happened. And if I were a bettering man I would put down a considerable amount of money on the fact that it never will. The superheroes of our world simply won't allow it to because they can't. Either morally or philosophically the heroes that defend our world are too focused on preserving sentient life in all its forms to ever allow it to come to pass.

(An art piece "The Fall of Green Arrow" by Mauro Cascioli in the aftermath of Green Arrow's murder of the supervillain Prometheus)

Let's take Green Arrow as an example (a COMPLICATED example, since Oliver Queen's identity is only publicly known because he committed an act of justifiable homicide (legally speaking) but it's the one you cited). If Green Arrow needed to shoot an arrow to disable a perp, he's not going to take the risk of shooting a sharp one at someone who is both twitchy and vulnerable enough to put themselves in that situation. He HAS arrows for that. Arrows that shoot knockout gas, or that set off disorienting strobe lights, magnet arrows that can rip a gun out of someone's hands or just a boxing glove arrow directly to the forehead in a pinch. It speaks to the level of care that superheroes MUST operate at that many of us don't appreciate because they make it seem so effortless.

Not killing someone in a fight to the death is REALLY hard, it turns out. Not only is human fight or flight instinct tuned by millions of years of evolution to go for the kill when we feel our lives are in danger, but the imbalance of power between those WITH superpowers and those WITHOUT only further magnifies the risk. Superman could kill somebody by standing stock still in front of them while they ran into him too hard, the Flashes could disintegrate people just by running beside them too fast, the amount of ways Firestorm's abilities could be used to turn human biology into Newtonian physics is too vast to quantify. So EVERYTHING they do is done with that understanding in mind. Every time. For everyone.

Superman, when holding a stance in front of a charging criminal will use his flight abilities to float backward with the impact absorbing most of it. The Flashes extend their control over the Speed Force to a large field around them as they run, halting the spread of inertia outside their control. Firestorm has a personal rule that he will never turn his powers against organic matter AT ALL for fear of what might happen. Every last one of them is painfully aware, with each passing second, how hard they have to hold back to keep any life from being put at risk. Whether it be the life of their allies, surrounding bystanders, or even the bad guys. Because make no mistake they could all DO IT if they so chose.

Superman doesn't struggle against Lex Luthor's latest gaudy warsuit because they're actually evenly matched. He struggles because he needs to find a way to disable the suit that ISN'T just forcing his hand through Lex's chest, suit and all, at six times the speed of sound. This becomes even MORE true with normal human criminals. Any bank robber or terrorist who thinks they have a leg up on the Green Arrow in their current situation should remember that he COULD have put a shaft of metal through their frontal lobe from a half mile down the street. And he doesn't miss. Ever. Heck if he REALLY didn't care there's nothing physically stopping him from aiming one of the explosive arrows he mostly uses for vehicles and walls DIRECTLY at someone's center mass. People don't think about things like that. One moment on the news we're watching Green Arrow lob enough plastic explosives to bring down a brick wall from three houses down the street. And then when he's on camera with the human bad guys he draws back a cartoon boxing glove like the bad guy actually might have the upper hand for half a second.

Because they don't MAKE us think about these sorts of things, they want us to know that we never have to worry about it. Unlike policemen who use "less lethal" methods of "crowd control" a superhero's methods will always be NON. LETHAL. Period. They will fight, and they will win, with both hands tied behind their backs if it means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anybody dies today.

Like...now what? Batman clearly didn't mean to kill. That's his entire thing. He's probably freaking out even harder than the police and it probably involves a lot of ugly crying. For that matter, he probably turned himself in, assuming he could muster the presence of mind to do more than scream. It wasn't even "less-lethal force" in the way police use it. It was something any guy in a bar fight might be up against. At absolute worst this might be involuntary manslaughter. It couldn't have been any more clearly unintentional and not at all the desired outcome.

My instinct would be "we're leaving you masked for now because we know you're a responsible citizen with a long track record of avoiding injury to others even at personal cost, we will consult with the Justice Society, we'll probably call you back here for further questioning and a determination of whether you need to be unmasked to undergo a criminal trial." (I don't think most prosecutors would even try to press charges against "this man who is famous for helping people was trying to protect others and caused a freak medical accident.") And that, precisely because we know superheroes are the kind of people who will in fact return for questioning and accept the consequences of their actions. But like...that's only my instinct.

The part up top where I said I can't answer this question because there's no good example to compare it to should be very demonstrative. In all the years, all the fights, all of the places that a superhero has been in a fight for their life against an opponent who means them or others lethal harm. There has never been a SINGLE instance of a criminal being unintentionally killed by the hero in question. Villains have ended up in lethal situations due to their own hubris, put themselves in situations where the hero isn't able to save them from their own consequences.

But there has never been a single documented instance of any hero, powered or otherwise, killing a sentient being with their own hands, no matter how accidental. Trust me I looked. I looked for HOURS. I called people. I emailed people. There's nothing that even broadly resembles the situation that you describe and if I were a betting man I'd say that in the NEXT 100 years of superhero history there won't be one there either.

But I am very worried about there not being an answer.

Because Nina has a point: sometimes there are circumstances that cause freak accidents. A heart attack, or stroke, allergy or asthma attack to a smoke bom, or simply falling wrong and snapping your neck. They might be very, very rare, but not completely preventable. That's why they are called freak accidents. Just because they have not happened before, does not mean it will never happen. We need a contingency for this scenario. We need a plan, this is not something we can just improvise on. Now, if I were a betting woman, (which I am not, I am a scientist), I would bet on Batman having plans for this. He must have.

Because here is the thing. Power corrupts. And superheroes are very powerful. Which means we need systems with real checks and balances, including for mistakes or accidents. We need to be able to do real investigations, and be able to start them quickly so evidence does not get lost while we figure out whether the lead detective can have nightwing's phone number.

It's not that the superheroes we know of have proactively come out and said they wouldn't submit to investigation. In fact there's plenty of examples of the heroes doing just that in smaller, or less lethal circumstances, like 6 of the core 7 Justice League members at the time submitting to government custody in a period where it seemed the weaponry of their Watchtower headquarters had been turned against mankind (in a time in which an arm of said government was trying to frame them, because isn't that always the way?).

The current legal system is also very touchy about opening any pandoras boxes in relation to trying to legislate or control superheroes through bureaucracy because it NEVER goes well. The most commonly citeable example is the Keene Act that put American superheroes in an interregnum for most of the latter 20th century doing immeasurable harm in the process. It comes up when it comes up, having to try a superhero for justifiable homicide in Green Arrow's case threw up a BUNCH of thorny legal questions about whether superheroes are considered peacekeeping agents who can even use justifiable homicide as a defense! (Yes, it turns out, although it does break basically every rule and code of conduct in the superhero community)

All in all, I actually enjoyed the film!

That is, when I was able to shut off the part of my brain that has to do with my profession and professional education. Because otherwise every conversation I have about every "real" superhero movie would be like. Well, it would be like bringing anyone with a professional education to ANY movie that has to do with their particular wheelhouse. You wouldn't bring a climatologist to see the Day After Tomorrow and not expect them to bitch.

Well, one expects that you wouldn't have brought this question to my attention if you didn't want ME to bitch either. And so bitch I shall, balanced with my very genuine praise for the movie as a piece of art. But I just want to get that out of the way. I enjoyed it. All that follows below is couched within that understanding.

(The movie's poster, for obvious reasons)

I'll alternate this to see if it makes things a bit easier to swallow.

Positive: This cast is fantastic. David Corenswet's Superman is approachable, kind hearted and fun. Rachel Brosnahan is just the right side of incorrigible and crazy to play Lois Lane. Nicholas Halt was already an actor I liked for his portrayal of Beast in the X-Men movies but he is a HIGHLIGHT here as just all of the most slimy, reprehensible parts of the real life Lex Luthor wrapped up in the world's most pathetic package. Matt Bomer's Clark Kent, Skyler Gisondo's Jimmy Olsen and the rest of the Daily Planet crew round out the core heart of the film with aplomb. Not to mention Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi and Isabela Merced steal the show for large chunks of it as the "Justice Gang" although Gathegi deserves special mention for being just about the coolest tech superhero I've ever seen on screen who isn't in power armor. There's a reason he gets to be the centerpiece of Gunn's required mid-movie musical set piece fight scene. My jaw was on the FLOOR.

Negative: As far as "the history" goes, this movie is a mess. It's not based on ANY actual events, certainly not events from this early in Superman's career (which yes, DID involve Lex Luthor trying to fake a Kryptonian invasion to discredit Superman but not like this). Metamorpho was an active hero for YEARS before the modern Mister Terrific ever came on the scene, the "Justice Gang" is not a superhero organization that has ever actually existed, Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl, Guy Gardner and Metamorpho have never been on any version of the Justice League at the same time, the conflict between Boravia and Jarhanpur seems to have just been taken on vibes rather than being distinctly set in any specific span of conflict between the two. All those sorts of little tickles in the back of my brain that wouldn't leave me alone. Things being wildly out of order, out of place or out of time.

Positive: This movie's understanding of Superman, his philosophy and his outlook on the world is one of the best we've seen in any superhero movie. The idea that Superman is simply here to help, that he sees all life as equally precious, that he is willing to sacrifice and sacrifice again just to save ONE life. It reflects the Superman we see in our real lives. Building it around the philosophy of a 20 year old song from the Mighty-Mighty Crabjoys of all people was a distinctly Gunn flavored choice but Superman has since gone on record saying that he IS actually a fan of the Crabjoys with that being his favorite song. Whether it was a lucky guess on Gunn's part or one of the things he managed to interview out of Superman, who can say.

Negative: The Hawkgirl part of the ending and the movie's politics in general. Listen, I get that Gunn is a bit of a harsher film maker than one would expect to be making superhero movies, especially if you're familiar with the beginnings of his career. I ALSO know that we are in a moment of political stress between Boravia and Jarhanpur where the current Boravian president hasn't exactly come out smelling of roses. I know it got great big applause in the theatre, I'm sure. I went into this in more detail but this movie has, at best, a child's understanding of the Boravian-Jarhanpuri conflict. Jarhanpur is not a nation of helpless brown skinned orphans, Boravia is not a satanic juggernaut of snow white imperialists. Killing the president on one side of a war of grievance doesn't actually HELP anything. And putting those actions on the hands of a fictionalized version of Hawkgirl is just a little bit gross.

Positive: The REST of the plot of this movie, fictionalized though it may be is *chef's kiss*. It's a fun showing for Superman himself, it gives Lois plenty to do, there are other heroes running around. The last minute reveal of Bizarro was a tad obvious if you know the shape of these things but it makes for a great fight scene. Krypto is adorable beyond all possible human belief (even if they did get a dog of a VERY different breed than the real Krypto, who obviously isn't a member of any Earth dog breed but he's bigger and more Labrador-y than that). They even got permission to film the Fortress scenes in actual halls of the actual Fortress of Solitude, which is fun. Getting to see the real life Fortress robots "acting" was neat, even if the one we actually get to SEE was a CG creation played by Alan Tudyk, extras like that are always fun!

Negative: The sexual tension between Superman and Lois Lane in this movie is...weird. Like, yes I know we all remember when Lois and Superman were having a publicly white hot romance during the first handful of years Superman was around. However, it's probably good to remember that Lois Lane is a real woman, who also very publicly BROKE UP with Superman so that she could date, later marry, and even later have a child with her coworker Clark Kent who is ALSO a supporting character in the cast of this movie. No member of the Lane-Kent family has commented directly on the choice, and I get that they needed something to put IN the film during the end of the 2nd act when Superman is incapacitated and laying low from the law. It's just weird. But I guess it's a better choice than trying to force a fake secret identity plot.

Conclusion: I'd give this movie a solid 8/10. The only reason I can SOUND like I'm not enjoying it if you actually sat me down to WATCH it is because pointing out inaccuracy in these sorts of things is my JOB. I give it a lot more leeway though than I would, say, a Justice Society movie. This film isn't based in "history" so much as it is a DEEP fictionalization of current events. Superman and all the members of the Justice Gang are still active superheroes writing their own histories as we speak. It's not as if we're misrepresenting people who can no longer defend themselves or whose stories have some outsized effect on our modern history and society. Gunn is still a master of making movie's that are just FUN to sit through and he continues to have VERY good taste in music. His real life superhero universe project seems to be in good hands as we mean to go on.

What happens if a superhero commits manslaughter? Like, for example, say Green Arrow is shooting at a guy's knee intending to (mostly) harmlessly disable him and prevent him from committing some kind of crime that would justify an arrow wound, but the guy moves last-minute and Green Arrow hits the leg artery. He now has one prevented crime but also one dead criminal, who did in fact have constitutional rights, as you noted in Joker Box.

Would a superhero in this situation have to unmask if put up for trial? Or would it be like "masked until proven guilty," because like, in the example I gave above there's a reasonable argument to be made for self-defense by proxy (that is, defending the target of the crime), so "yeah you're guilty" isn't guaranteed.

As unsatisfying of an answer as it might be, I don't actually have a good way of answering this question. Because there's no example to compare it to, and therefore no legal precedent. Because it's never happened. And if I were a bettering man I would put down a considerable amount of money on the fact that it never will. The superheroes of our world simply won't allow it to because they can't. Either morally or philosophically the heroes that defend our world are too focused on preserving sentient life in all its forms to ever allow it to come to pass.

(An art piece "The Fall of Green Arrow" by Mauro Cascioli in the aftermath of Green Arrow's murder of the supervillain Prometheus)

Let's take Green Arrow as an example (a COMPLICATED example, since Oliver Queen's identity is only publicly known because he committed an act of justifiable homicide (legally speaking) but it's the one you cited). If Green Arrow needed to shoot an arrow to disable a perp, he's not going to take the risk of shooting a sharp one at someone who is both twitchy and vulnerable enough to put themselves in that situation. He HAS arrows for that. Arrows that shoot knockout gas, or that set off disorienting strobe lights, magnet arrows that can rip a gun out of someone's hands or just a boxing glove arrow directly to the forehead in a pinch. It speaks to the level of care that superheroes MUST operate at that many of us don't appreciate because they make it seem so effortless.

Not killing someone in a fight to the death is REALLY hard, it turns out. Not only is human fight or flight instinct tuned by millions of years of evolution to go for the kill when we feel our lives are in danger, but the imbalance of power between those WITH superpowers and those WITHOUT only further magnifies the risk. Superman could kill somebody by standing stock still in front of them while they ran into him too hard, the Flashes could disintegrate people just by running beside them too fast, the amount of ways Firestorm's abilities could be used to turn human biology into Newtonian physics is too vast to quantify. So EVERYTHING they do is done with that understanding in mind. Every time. For everyone.

Superman, when holding a stance in front of a charging criminal will use his flight abilities to float backward with the impact absorbing most of it. The Flashes extend their control over the Speed Force to a large field around them as they run, halting the spread of inertia outside their control. Firestorm has a personal rule that he will never turn his powers against organic matter AT ALL for fear of what might happen. Every last one of them is painfully aware, with each passing second, how hard they have to hold back to keep any life from being put at risk. Whether it be the life of their allies, surrounding bystanders, or even the bad guys. Because make no mistake they could all DO IT if they so chose.

Superman doesn't struggle against Lex Luthor's latest gaudy warsuit because they're actually evenly matched. He struggles because he needs to find a way to disable the suit that ISN'T just forcing his hand through Lex's chest, suit and all, at six times the speed of sound. This becomes even MORE true with normal human criminals. Any bank robber or terrorist who thinks they have a leg up on the Green Arrow in their current situation should remember that he COULD have put a shaft of metal through their frontal lobe from a half mile down the street. And he doesn't miss. Ever. Heck if he REALLY didn't care there's nothing physically stopping him from aiming one of the explosive arrows he mostly uses for vehicles and walls DIRECTLY at someone's center mass. People don't think about things like that. One moment on the news we're watching Green Arrow lob enough plastic explosives to bring down a brick wall from three houses down the street. And then when he's on camera with the human bad guys he draws back a cartoon boxing glove like the bad guy actually might have the upper hand for half a second.

Because they don't MAKE us think about these sorts of things, they want us to know that we never have to worry about it. Unlike policemen who use "less lethal" methods of "crowd control" a superhero's methods will always be NON. LETHAL. Period. They will fight, and they will win, with both hands tied behind their backs if it means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anybody dies today.

Like...now what? Batman clearly didn't mean to kill. That's his entire thing. He's probably freaking out even harder than the police and it probably involves a lot of ugly crying. For that matter, he probably turned himself in, assuming he could muster the presence of mind to do more than scream. It wasn't even "less-lethal force" in the way police use it. It was something any guy in a bar fight might be up against. At absolute worst this might be involuntary manslaughter. It couldn't have been any more clearly unintentional and not at all the desired outcome.

My instinct would be "we're leaving you masked for now because we know you're a responsible citizen with a long track record of avoiding injury to others even at personal cost, we will consult with the Justice Society, we'll probably call you back here for further questioning and a determination of whether you need to be unmasked to undergo a criminal trial." (I don't think most prosecutors would even try to press charges against "this man who is famous for helping people was trying to protect others and caused a freak medical accident.") And that, precisely because we know superheroes are the kind of people who will in fact return for questioning and accept the consequences of their actions. But like...that's only my instinct.

The part up top where I said I can't answer this question because there's no good example to compare it to should be very demonstrative. In all the years, all the fights, all of the places that a superhero has been in a fight for their life against an opponent who means them or others lethal harm. There has never been a SINGLE instance of a criminal being unintentionally killed by the hero in question. Villains have ended up in lethal situations due to their own hubris, put themselves in situations where the hero isn't able to save them from their own consequences.

But there has never been a single documented instance of any hero, powered or otherwise, killing a sentient being with their own hands, no matter how accidental. Trust me I looked. I looked for HOURS. I called people. I emailed people. There's nothing that even broadly resembles the situation that you describe and if I were a betting man I'd say that in the NEXT 100 years of superhero history there won't be one there either.

All in all, I actually enjoyed the film!

That is, when I was able to shut off the part of my brain that has to do with my profession and professional education. Because otherwise every conversation I have about every "real" superhero movie would be like. Well, it would be like bringing anyone with a professional education to ANY movie that has to do with their particular wheelhouse. You wouldn't bring a climatologist to see the Day After Tomorrow and not expect them to bitch.

Well, one expects that you wouldn't have brought this question to my attention if you didn't want ME to bitch either. And so bitch I shall, balanced with my very genuine praise for the movie as a piece of art. But I just want to get that out of the way. I enjoyed it. All that follows below is couched within that understanding.

(The movie's poster, for obvious reasons)

I'll alternate this to see if it makes things a bit easier to swallow.

Positive: This cast is fantastic. David Corenswet's Superman is approachable, kind hearted and fun. Rachel Brosnahan is just the right side of incorrigible and crazy to play Lois Lane. Nicholas Halt was already an actor I liked for his portrayal of Beast in the X-Men movies but he is a HIGHLIGHT here as just all of the most slimy, reprehensible parts of the real life Lex Luthor wrapped up in the world's most pathetic package. Matt Bomer's Clark Kent, Skyler Gisondo's Jimmy Olsen and the rest of the Daily Planet crew round out the core heart of the film with aplomb. Not to mention Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi and Isabela Merced steal the show for large chunks of it as the "Justice Gang" although Gathegi deserves special mention for being just about the coolest tech superhero I've ever seen on screen who isn't in power armor. There's a reason he gets to be the centerpiece of Gunn's required mid-movie musical set piece fight scene. My jaw was on the FLOOR.

Negative: As far as "the history" goes, this movie is a mess. It's not based on ANY actual events, certainly not events from this early in Superman's career (which yes, DID involve Lex Luthor trying to fake a Kryptonian invasion to discredit Superman but not like this). Metamorpho was an active hero for YEARS before the modern Mister Terrific ever came on the scene, the "Justice Gang" is not a superhero organization that has ever actually existed, Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl, Guy Gardner and Metamorpho have never been on any version of the Justice League at the same time, the conflict between Boravia and Jarhanpur seems to have just been taken on vibes rather than being distinctly set in any specific span of conflict between the two. All those sorts of little tickles in the back of my brain that wouldn't leave me alone. Things being wildly out of order, out of place or out of time.

Positive: This movie's understanding of Superman, his philosophy and his outlook on the world is one of the best we've seen in any superhero movie. The idea that Superman is simply here to help, that he sees all life as equally precious, that he is willing to sacrifice and sacrifice again just to save ONE life. It reflects the Superman we see in our real lives. Building it around the philosophy of a 20 year old song from the Mighty-Mighty Crabjoys of all people was a distinctly Gunn flavored choice but Superman has since gone on record saying that he IS actually a fan of the Crabjoys with that being his favorite song. Whether it was a lucky guess on Gunn's part or one of the things he managed to interview out of Superman, who can say.

Negative: The Hawkgirl part of the ending and the movie's politics in general. Listen, I get that Gunn is a bit of a harsher film maker than one would expect to be making superhero movies, especially if you're familiar with the beginnings of his career. I ALSO know that we are in a moment of political stress between Boravia and Jarhanpur where the current Boravian president hasn't exactly come out smelling of roses. I know it got great big applause in the theatre, I'm sure. I went into this in more detail but this movie has, at best, a child's understanding of the Boravian-Jarhanpuri conflict. Jarhanpur is not a nation of helpless brown skinned orphans, Boravia is not a satanic juggernaut of snow white imperialists. Killing the president on one side of a war of grievance doesn't actually HELP anything. And putting those actions on the hands of a fictionalized version of Hawkgirl is just a little bit gross.

Positive: The REST of the plot of this movie, fictionalized though it may be is *chef's kiss*. It's a fun showing for Superman himself, it gives Lois plenty to do, there are other heroes running around. The last minute reveal of Bizarro was a tad obvious if you know the shape of these things but it makes for a great fight scene. Krypto is adorable beyond all possible human belief (even if they did get a dog of a VERY different breed than the real Krypto, who obviously isn't a member of any Earth dog breed but he's bigger and more Labrador-y than that). They even got permission to film the Fortress scenes in actual halls of the actual Fortress of Solitude, which is fun. Getting to see the real life Fortress robots "acting" was neat, even if the one we actually get to SEE was a CG creation played by Alan Tudyk, extras like that are always fun!

Negative: The sexual tension between Superman and Lois Lane in this movie is...weird. Like, yes I know we all remember when Lois and Superman were having a publicly white hot romance during the first handful of years Superman was around. However, it's probably good to remember that Lois Lane is a real woman, who also very publicly BROKE UP with Superman so that she could date, later marry, and even later have a child with her coworker Clark Kent who is ALSO a supporting character in the cast of this movie. No member of the Lane-Kent family has commented directly on the choice, and I get that they needed something to put IN the film during the end of the 2nd act when Superman is incapacitated and laying low from the law. It's just weird. But I guess it's a better choice than trying to force a fake secret identity plot.

Conclusion: I'd give this movie a solid 8/10. The only reason I can SOUND like I'm not enjoying it if you actually sat me down to WATCH it is because pointing out inaccuracy in these sorts of things is my JOB. I give it a lot more leeway though than I would, say, a Justice Society movie. This film isn't based in "history" so much as it is a DEEP fictionalization of current events. Superman and all the members of the Justice Gang are still active superheroes writing their own histories as we speak. It's not as if we're misrepresenting people who can no longer defend themselves or whose stories have some outsized effect on our modern history and society. Gunn is still a master of making movie's that are just FUN to sit through and he continues to have VERY good taste in music. His real life superhero universe project seems to be in good hands as we mean to go on.

What happens if a superhero commits manslaughter? Like, for example, say Green Arrow is shooting at a guy's knee intending to (mostly) harmlessly disable him and prevent him from committing some kind of crime that would justify an arrow wound, but the guy moves last-minute and Green Arrow hits the leg artery. He now has one prevented crime but also one dead criminal, who did in fact have constitutional rights, as you noted in Joker Box.

Would a superhero in this situation have to unmask if put up for trial? Or would it be like "masked until proven guilty," because like, in the example I gave above there's a reasonable argument to be made for self-defense by proxy (that is, defending the target of the crime), so "yeah you're guilty" isn't guaranteed.

As unsatisfying of an answer as it might be, I don't actually have a good way of answering this question. Because there's no example to compare it to, and therefore no legal precedent. Because it's never happened. And if I were a bettering man I would put down a considerable amount of money on the fact that it never will. The superheroes of our world simply won't allow it to because they can't. Either morally or philosophically the heroes that defend our world are too focused on preserving sentient life in all its forms to ever allow it to come to pass.

(An art piece "The Fall of Green Arrow" by Mauro Cascioli in the aftermath of Green Arrow's murder of the supervillain Prometheus)

Let's take Green Arrow as an example (a COMPLICATED example, since Oliver Queen's identity is only publicly known because he committed an act of justifiable homicide (legally speaking) but it's the one you cited). If Green Arrow needed to shoot an arrow to disable a perp, he's not going to take the risk of shooting a sharp one at someone who is both twitchy and vulnerable enough to put themselves in that situation. He HAS arrows for that. Arrows that shoot knockout gas, or that set off disorienting strobe lights, magnet arrows that can rip a gun out of someone's hands or just a boxing glove arrow directly to the forehead in a pinch. It speaks to the level of care that superheroes MUST operate at that many of us don't appreciate because they make it seem so effortless.

Not killing someone in a fight to the death is REALLY hard, it turns out. Not only is human fight or flight instinct tuned by millions of years of evolution to go for the kill when we feel our lives are in danger, but the imbalance of power between those WITH superpowers and those WITHOUT only further magnifies the risk. Superman could kill somebody by standing stock still in front of them while they ran into him too hard, the Flashes could disintegrate people just by running beside them too fast, the amount of ways Firestorm's abilities could be used to turn human biology into Newtonian physics is too vast to quantify. So EVERYTHING they do is done with that understanding in mind. Every time. For everyone.

Superman, when holding a stance in front of a charging criminal will use his flight abilities to float backward with the impact absorbing most of it. The Flashes extend their control over the Speed Force to a large field around them as they run, halting the spread of inertia outside their control. Firestorm has a personal rule that he will never turn his powers against organic matter AT ALL for fear of what might happen. Every last one of them is painfully aware, with each passing second, how hard they have to hold back to keep any life from being put at risk. Whether it be the life of their allies, surrounding bystanders, or even the bad guys. Because make no mistake they could all DO IT if they so chose.

Superman doesn't struggle against Lex Luthor's latest gaudy warsuit because they're actually evenly matched. He struggles because he needs to find a way to disable the suit that ISN'T just forcing his hand through Lex's chest, suit and all, at six times the speed of sound. This becomes even MORE true with normal human criminals. Any bank robber or terrorist who thinks they have a leg up on the Green Arrow in their current situation should remember that he COULD have put a shaft of metal through their frontal lobe from a half mile down the street. And he doesn't miss. Ever. Heck if he REALLY didn't care there's nothing physically stopping him from aiming one of the explosive arrows he mostly uses for vehicles and walls DIRECTLY at someone's center mass. People don't think about things like that. One moment on the news we're watching Green Arrow lob enough plastic explosives to bring down a brick wall from three houses down the street. And then when he's on camera with the human bad guys he draws back a cartoon boxing glove like the bad guy actually might have the upper hand for half a second.

Because they don't MAKE us think about these sorts of things, they want us to know that we never have to worry about it. Unlike policemen who use "less lethal" methods of "crowd control" a superhero's methods will always be NON. LETHAL. Period. They will fight, and they will win, with both hands tied behind their backs if it means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anybody dies today.

Like...now what? Batman clearly didn't mean to kill. That's his entire thing. He's probably freaking out even harder than the police and it probably involves a lot of ugly crying. For that matter, he probably turned himself in, assuming he could muster the presence of mind to do more than scream. It wasn't even "less-lethal force" in the way police use it. It was something any guy in a bar fight might be up against. At absolute worst this might be involuntary manslaughter. It couldn't have been any more clearly unintentional and not at all the desired outcome.

My instinct would be "we're leaving you masked for now because we know you're a responsible citizen with a long track record of avoiding injury to others even at personal cost, we will consult with the Justice Society, we'll probably call you back here for further questioning and a determination of whether you need to be unmasked to undergo a criminal trial." (I don't think most prosecutors would even try to press charges against "this man who is famous for helping people was trying to protect others and caused a freak medical accident.") And that, precisely because we know superheroes are the kind of people who will in fact return for questioning and accept the consequences of their actions. But like...that's only my instinct.

The part up top where I said I can't answer this question because there's no good example to compare it to should be very demonstrative. In all the years, all the fights, all of the places that a superhero has been in a fight for their life against an opponent who means them or others lethal harm. There has never been a SINGLE instance of a criminal being unintentionally killed by the hero in question. Villains have ended up in lethal situations due to their own hubris, put themselves in situations where the hero isn't able to save them from their own consequences.

But there has never been a single documented instance of any hero, powered or otherwise, killing a sentient being with their own hands, no matter how accidental. Trust me I looked. I looked for HOURS. I called people. I emailed people. There's nothing that even broadly resembles the situation that you describe and if I were a betting man I'd say that in the NEXT 100 years of superhero history there won't be one there either.

It’s well known that Gotham City is cursed twelve ways from Sunday. Toxic chemicals in Slaughter Swamp, the 679 demons that live there and intentionally make people’s lives worse (666+13), whatever is going on with Doctor Gotham, the Black Glove Society, Barbatos and the Court of Owls, yadda yadda.

And yet, despite all of this… most people I talk to agree that Hub City is worse.

What the hell is going on with Hub City?

Ok first thing's first, before we get into the socio-political part of this discussion, Gwen has something to say. I'm given to understand this is something of a bugbear of theirs. (this is basically two posts in one, be prepped for a long one, because political geography is also one of MY bugbears)

Gwen: EVERY AREA OF SUFFICIENT HUMAN HABITATION ABOVE *MAYBE* 100 PEOPLE IS CURSED. Curses manifest when a thinking being dies in a cloud of bad feelings, most often because the death itself is unjust. This can range from being hanged for a crime you didn't commit, to getting a poorly secured air conditioner dropped on your head at a moment in which you were not prepared to die. The worse the feeling at the exact moment of your death, the stronger the curse left behind. This is not the same as an area being HAUNTED I.E inhabited by the sapient and animate spirit of a once living being. Your spirit can pass on just fine while leaving a curse behind. The amount of cursed energy in an area and the amount of unquiet dead in an area tend to be CORRELATED but they're not actually CAUSED by one another.

You will note, this is an outline that matches a LOT of things. Especially things that happen in cities. Murder, poisonings, child abuse, a crotchety old bastard dying unfulfilled in their bed all alone. Curses accumulate ANYWHERE human gather as a simple function of many imperfect human beings being in the same place and dying there. The same can be said for demons. Demons REQUIRE human beings to do basically all of the things they do. Therefore the population of demons in a given space is directly correlated to the amount of HUMANS in that same area.

99% of the time an area of cursed energy is pretty unnoticeable in your daily life. The house you live in for 10 years could be cursed the whole time with that curse only manifesting as something glass in the house breaking on the same day every year. Many people who aren't attuned to such things live right on top of a curse hotspot and never even notice. Some people are more sensitive to curses then others and even then it will usually just manifest as a chill or bad vibes that make you want to leave more quickly than you otherwise might have. Someone with criminal intentions might choose to manifest those intentions in an area of cursed energy. The curse did not CAUSE the violent impulse, it just drew the impulse toward itself. Certain people can't be affected by cursed energy AT ALL unless it is directed specifically at them (observant Jews, good priests, basically anyone sufficiently pious fits this category).

Gotham and Hub City are not more dangerous because of magic. They're more dangerous because of crime and corruption, which is an UTTERLY mundane manifestation of equally mundane human action /Gwen

Thank you Gwen. And on the note of that VERY in depth cold open...

(A recent drone photo of Hub City. Like most dangerous cities, it doesn't look nearly so bad from the outside)

Really, the real, honest, socio-political answer as to why Hub City is in such a sorry state is because it's the Rust Belt city that was under the worst management for the longest amount of time. Like most other mid to large sized communities in Illinois and the rest of the upper midwest, Hub City used to be, well, a hub for manufacturing and the production of industrial goods.

Through the first half of the 20th century the idea that Hub was some dangerous place to be would have sounded ludicrous as quality of life continued to shoot up on the back of unionized, steady and well connected employment. And then the thing that happened to everyone else happened to Hub. The global market expanded, the introduction of an industrialized China, Southeast Asia and Africa attracted away most unskilled labor. The erosion of union membership under the Neoconservative movement allowed most factories to pick up stakes and relocate without consequences. An entire generation was left in a point of transition where the older members had tied up their retirement plans in a business that no longer existed, and the younger working class hasn't prioritized a transferable education because they assumed their career prospects were already secure. Poverty skyrocketed, and crime, as ever, grow outward from an increase in poverty.

Hub got the same bad deal as everyone else, and then just got the worst possible end of the collective shit stick. Under a series of mayors that were always somewhere on the crossed axes of corrupt and incompetent every attempt to mitigate the economic disaster in the city was either A-verted or SUB-verted. Money for social programs vanished into a culture of graft from the top down, community based assistance was co-opted by organized crime, the two systems feeding into and puppeteering one another until nearly every dollar spent in Hub City had somebody's blood attached to it.

Comparing it to Gotham might be HELPFUL but in the details it's not actually that TRUE. Gotham's corruption was both criminal and institutional, but Gotham's sheer size and economic dynamism meant it wasn't really POSSIBLE for the entire city to fall under criminal sway. Gotham, even at its worst, always had functional middle and upper class neighborhoods where people worked steady jobs, attended safe schools, and were able to give to charities that helped people. Wayne Enterprises ALONE made sure of that, and a company like Wayne Enterprises begets an economy made up of small players sheltered by its stability. A Wayne Enterprises worker makes clean money that they can spend on housing, groceries, clothing. And that clean money circulates and motivates businesses that are ALSO producing clean money. The problem was how bad things were getting in lower class neighborhoods, not that the entire town WAS a lower class neighborhood which is the situation Hub found itself in.

The solution, however, was identical. A masked vigilante (The Batman in Gotham and the Question in Hub) that was able to jar the stability of organized crime and institutional corruption. Removing the omnipresent threat of violence that reinforces the system, allowing reform minded politicians, public servants and regular citizens to began dismantling the larger ecosystem in their own ways. The bad guys became possible to HURT and every loss kicked off a death by 1000 cuts.

In the last 20 years, long term employment, life expectancy and educational outcomes in Hub have been going nothing but UP and violent crime, drug addiction and homelessness have been going nothing but DOWN. Often times (such as this year) these indicators have been changing for the better FASTER than they have in cities like Chicago. It still just LOOKS bad on a chart with everybody else on it because it STARTED from the lower position. I have heard reasonable young people musing about BUYING PROPERTY in Hub City because it's cheap and on the rise, that's a statement that could get you SECTIONED in 2000.

Certainly can try!

Honestly a lot of what I would consider the "ethics" of superhero studies are the same kind of ethics I would put upon any other historian or historiographer. The things you need to keep in mind to make sure that your research into the past, present and future don't do more harm than good. But I can always put some more focus into the things I was taught in direct relation to my personal profession. After all, my focus is so new that whether it's history, anthropology or even an outgrowth of criminal science is still up in the air.

Because this is the internet, of course, I will organize it into a perfectly digestible numbered list. 3 for Do, 3 for Don't, alternated between one another just to keep interest I guess. Because I couldn't think of another way to do it, basically.

(A superhero/supervillain DnD alignment chart. To be taken as seriously as you should take ANY alignment chart)

1. DO remember that superheroes are people first. All else flows from that.

The worst mistake that you can make in this course of study is to forget this first and most golden of rules. Superheroes are not gods, or aliens, or monsters. Even when they are physically or biologically any combination of those things. The superhero phenomena was always and has always been an outgrowth of those with power seeking to use that power in defense of others against those with power who seek to lord it over those without.

Whether it be the hastily masked mystery men of the 1940s, or the hyper technological, world saving strike teams of the modern day superheroes are people who wish to help. Everything they've ever communicated to the world at large and every behavior they've ever manifested where we can see makes that clear. This can manifest in positive ways, such as banishing conspiratorial thought that tries to organize superheroic action into some kind of vast and inhuman conspiracy. But it can also mean remembering that our protectors have the same feet of clay as the rest of is. They are no more worthy of blind worship than anyone else, and they should be open to the same questioning.

1. DON'T seek out knowledge that isn't ours to share.

No matter what you think it might explain or uncover, gnawing into the private lives and business of those who risk their lives to keep us safe will never do anyone any good. Superheroes keep their identities secret for a host of VERY good reasons. And the same way that you wouldn't try to explain the actions of celebrity by breaking into their house at night, you won't gain anything from snooping into the private life of a person who is only protecting the people they love.

Whatever knowledge we might gain from finding out the Batman's real identity is dwarfed by the harm it would do. Not only to Batman, his allies and the people who presumably care about him outside of his masked activities. But also to the communities that Batman and those around him would no longer be able to protect as efficiently in the aftermath. We are not paparazzi. We are on their side. If you're not, you should be in another field of study.

2. DO keep an open mind as to how the superhero community manifests.

"Superheroes" or beings like them have existed for as long as human society has existed. And their forms, functions and actions are as diverse as the diversity of the communities that might house them. If you attempt to hold every superhero to the mold created by the Justice Society and later reinforced and strengthened by the Justice League and Teen Titans you're going to miss the majority of the work left to do. Superheroes did not function the same way they do now even 100 years ago, let alone 1000. Superheroes don't function in that fashion NOW in the majority of places where they exist across the non-American world.

If you go into a learning experience with an open mind, rather than a critical eye, you will find MUCH more than you ever imagined. Rather than seeing the Global Guardians as bloated and bureaucratic because of its large active membership in relation to the League, which could be playing into your biases of international organizations or supranational infrastructure. Instead ask yourself what benefits might come from having such a large roster that can be sent out from a central command structure. Interrogate what historical and social forces have forged that system as strong or even stronger than the one we have.

There are MANY wrong ways to be a superhero. But the ones that last tend not to be among them.

2. DONT allow yourself to be intimidated or dwarfed by your point of study.

Whether it comes in the form of obsession, paranoia or simple timidity you must not allow yourself to be crushed under some imagined enormity. The life you are living is not less meaningful simply because you're comparing yourself to Superman. You do not have to go out seeking your "way in". Our heroes are neither looking down on you in particular nor humanity in general. And the world is not going to end tomorrow just because you finally read a book about who Darkseid is.

The villains lost last time, they will lose next time, and the time after that, and that. There are indeed cosmic abominations, arcane aberrations, malicious criminals both here in our own societies and out among the stars. And just like death and taxes there is nothing you can do about them. UNlike death and taxes however, there are people who are making sure it never gets out of hand. They're doing it so that we, all of us, can live the lives we deserve. Take heart in that.

3. DO remember your morality.

If you're going to take anything from your points of study, make it inspiration in the way you treat others in relation to your work. "What Would Superman Do" is a cliche thought exercise but that doesn't make it a bad one. If an artifact has some providence that leads back to a living hero, extant organization, or direct carrier of their legacy you will save yourself and the rest of us a LOT of grief by just shooting off an email and asking them to comment first. Even if it's not animating enough for you to remember you should just be a good person, organizations like the League pay attention to who is doing right by whom. They can't stop you from putting a dubiously "recovered" artifact under glass without asking. But they WILL remember your name the next time you send them an inquiry.

Treating non-humans with basic empathy is just about the best way to show this manifestation on a daily basis. Use the same names, pronouns and titles for a being that they use for themselves in good faith. You don't gain anything from calling the Martian Manhunter an "it", you're not being "objective", you are being a dick. Take people's understanding of their own motivations at face value. Whether or not you AGREE with the idea that Wonder Woman is given her power by the actual, factual Greek Gods, SHE certainly does.

3. DONT get arrogant. Ever.

The one thing we have learned from the way our world has changed inside our lifetimes is that we know. NOTHING. And that everything we THINK we know can be tossed out tomorrow. If you think you're done learning, if you think you have it all figured out. You're not only wrong you are cruising for a very classical lesson in hubris.

If you are a Christian, seeing the actions of all heroes through a Christian lens is not only morally wrong it's bad science. The Kryptonian sun god was not "a misunderstanding of God". Stop that. Right now. And all the other ancient aliens nonsense with it.

And if the atheists plan on getting smug about that, it equally applies to the idea that all magicians are just woo-woo peddlers and fraudsters just because YOU can't wrap your head around how it works. You will do everyone more good by accepting that a purely rational and materialist worldview no longer functions the way you thought it did. Adapt. Accept. Move on.

The new generation of heroes is no more braindead than the old generation is objectively reactionary. The Justice Society and Young Justice are the same idea, manifesting through a lens of altered culture. They are on the same side and they would be the first to tell you so. Your generational fearmongering holds no power here, whether it be conservative or "progressive". Superheroes are not Randian ubermensch, and they are not Marxist revolutionaries. You make no point judging superheroes via your political morality other than showing everyone that you happen to be a fool.

Conclusion

As any historian or anthropologist must remember, history, culture and humanity at large are not here to be "solved". There is no gate you can draw around your own ideas of humanity that will include all those that fit and exclude all things that do not. Superheroes work this same way. All of your definitions will break down at the edges. All of your conclusions will become thorny and unwieldy the longer you look at them. There will never be any single period placed at the end of history. It is a 10,000 year run on sentence, stretching off into the horizon. Forever.

Turn over some rocks. Find something new. Toss out your old ideas and replace them with better ones. We are here to help the public do the same.

This should excite you down to your bones.

It’s well known that Gotham City is cursed twelve ways from Sunday. Toxic chemicals in Slaughter Swamp, the 679 demons that live there and intentionally make people’s lives worse (666+13), whatever is going on with Doctor Gotham, the Black Glove Society, Barbatos and the Court of Owls, yadda yadda.

And yet, despite all of this… most people I talk to agree that Hub City is worse.

What the hell is going on with Hub City?

Ok first thing's first, before we get into the socio-political part of this discussion, Gwen has something to say. I'm given to understand this is something of a bugbear of theirs. (this is basically two posts in one, be prepped for a long one, because political geography is also one of MY bugbears)

Gwen: EVERY AREA OF SUFFICIENT HUMAN HABITATION ABOVE *MAYBE* 100 PEOPLE IS CURSED. Curses manifest when a thinking being dies in a cloud of bad feelings, most often because the death itself is unjust. This can range from being hanged for a crime you didn't commit, to getting a poorly secured air conditioner dropped on your head at a moment in which you were not prepared to die. The worse the feeling at the exact moment of your death, the stronger the curse left behind. This is not the same as an area being HAUNTED I.E inhabited by the sapient and animate spirit of a once living being. Your spirit can pass on just fine while leaving a curse behind. The amount of cursed energy in an area and the amount of unquiet dead in an area tend to be CORRELATED but they're not actually CAUSED by one another.

You will note, this is an outline that matches a LOT of things. Especially things that happen in cities. Murder, poisonings, child abuse, a crotchety old bastard dying unfulfilled in their bed all alone. Curses accumulate ANYWHERE human gather as a simple function of many imperfect human beings being in the same place and dying there. The same can be said for demons. Demons REQUIRE human beings to do basically all of the things they do. Therefore the population of demons in a given space is directly correlated to the amount of HUMANS in that same area.

99% of the time an area of cursed energy is pretty unnoticeable in your daily life. The house you live in for 10 years could be cursed the whole time with that curse only manifesting as something glass in the house breaking on the same day every year. Many people who aren't attuned to such things live right on top of a curse hotspot and never even notice. Some people are more sensitive to curses then others and even then it will usually just manifest as a chill or bad vibes that make you want to leave more quickly than you otherwise might have. Someone with criminal intentions might choose to manifest those intentions in an area of cursed energy. The curse did not CAUSE the violent impulse, it just drew the impulse toward itself. Certain people can't be affected by cursed energy AT ALL unless it is directed specifically at them (observant Jews, good priests, basically anyone sufficiently pious fits this category).

Gotham and Hub City are not more dangerous because of magic. They're more dangerous because of crime and corruption, which is an UTTERLY mundane manifestation of equally mundane human action /Gwen

Thank you Gwen. And on the note of that VERY in depth cold open...

(A recent drone photo of Hub City. Like most dangerous cities, it doesn't look nearly so bad from the outside)

Really, the real, honest, socio-political answer as to why Hub City is in such a sorry state is because it's the Rust Belt city that was under the worst management for the longest amount of time. Like most other mid to large sized communities in Illinois and the rest of the upper midwest, Hub City used to be, well, a hub for manufacturing and the production of industrial goods.

Through the first half of the 20th century the idea that Hub was some dangerous place to be would have sounded ludicrous as quality of life continued to shoot up on the back of unionized, steady and well connected employment. And then the thing that happened to everyone else happened to Hub. The global market expanded, the introduction of an industrialized China, Southeast Asia and Africa attracted away most unskilled labor. The erosion of union membership under the Neoconservative movement allowed most factories to pick up stakes and relocate without consequences. An entire generation was left in a point of transition where the older members had tied up their retirement plans in a business that no longer existed, and the younger working class hasn't prioritized a transferable education because they assumed their career prospects were already secure. Poverty skyrocketed, and crime, as ever, grow outward from an increase in poverty.

Hub got the same bad deal as everyone else, and then just got the worst possible end of the collective shit stick. Under a series of mayors that were always somewhere on the crossed axes of corrupt and incompetent every attempt to mitigate the economic disaster in the city was either A-verted or SUB-verted. Money for social programs vanished into a culture of graft from the top down, community based assistance was co-opted by organized crime, the two systems feeding into and puppeteering one another until nearly every dollar spent in Hub City had somebody's blood attached to it.

Comparing it to Gotham might be HELPFUL but in the details it's not actually that TRUE. Gotham's corruption was both criminal and institutional, but Gotham's sheer size and economic dynamism meant it wasn't really POSSIBLE for the entire city to fall under criminal sway. Gotham, even at its worst, always had functional middle and upper class neighborhoods where people worked steady jobs, attended safe schools, and were able to give to charities that helped people. Wayne Enterprises ALONE made sure of that, and a company like Wayne Enterprises begets an economy made up of small players sheltered by its stability. A Wayne Enterprises worker makes clean money that they can spend on housing, groceries, clothing. And that clean money circulates and motivates businesses that are ALSO producing clean money. The problem was how bad things were getting in lower class neighborhoods, not that the entire town WAS a lower class neighborhood which is the situation Hub found itself in.

The solution, however, was identical. A masked vigilante (The Batman in Gotham and the Question in Hub) that was able to jar the stability of organized crime and institutional corruption. Removing the omnipresent threat of violence that reinforces the system, allowing reform minded politicians, public servants and regular citizens to began dismantling the larger ecosystem in their own ways. The bad guys became possible to HURT and every loss kicked off a death by 1000 cuts.

In the last 20 years, long term employment, life expectancy and educational outcomes in Hub have been going nothing but UP and violent crime, drug addiction and homelessness have been going nothing but DOWN. Often times (such as this year) these indicators have been changing for the better FASTER than they have in cities like Chicago. It still just LOOKS bad on a chart with everybody else on it because it STARTED from the lower position. I have heard reasonable young people musing about BUYING PROPERTY in Hub City because it's cheap and on the rise, that's a statement that could get you SECTIONED in 2000.

I am DEEPLY flattered that you think I am a PROFESSOR of anything. My highest education is a bachelor's degree. But this does seem like a fun activity for just listing some of my favorite heroes and heroines. Even if I think this might be a little taboo for the level of content I usually produce. Not that I haven't talked about my superhero crushes before they just haven't usually been very contemporary. Let's see if I can shake my brain well enough that something interesting falls loose.

And that last question is one I can answer without actually having to think but we'll get there.

(Some random superhero themed valentines I was able to find online. Because I did not know what else to put here.)

"your childhood superhero/sidekick crush" - CHILDHOOD? The original Bulletgirl, Susan Kent-Barr. Learning about her for a school project was the first time I ever really considered superheroes as something more than just a function of the world I was living in. Learning about her history, seeing old newspaper stories and microfilms about her, just seeing that a heroine who might have been totally forgotten by history still had so much to learn captured my childhood heart AND my imagination. Without her I almost certainly wouldn't be sitting here, doing this thing that I'm doing right now. There is also probably the matter of her movie starlet level legs being squeezed into some VERY short shorts... Yes it IS slightly weird admitting all of this when I know she's been happily married for most of her lifetime, is close to four times my age AND has an adult daughter who is also a superheroine I respect. I can't help the honest answer.

"your top 5 hottest hero picks currently" - 5, Wonder Woman: I'm putting her at the bottom of the list because it seems like a total cop out. Oh, I think the woman formed from clay and given gifts of beauty by a literal Greek goddess is attractive? Shock-horror I know but we're all thinking it. 4, Nightwing: Yes we have all heard the jokes about his perfect ass. And I am not immune to the pull of gravity any more than the rest of us. The fact that the REST of his perfectly muscled body is perfectly poured into a black spandex outfit that I don't think you could fit a dollar bill in the slack of doesn't hurt. He's got tussled hair and pretty eyes and a good sense of humor. This one is also here to pre-empt the obvious 3, Crimson Fox: Either one, doesn't matter. Flexible, muscular, with the cheat code for bagging an American that is an exotically interesting accent. The women who were known as the Crimson Fox are the only reason I ever need to be told as to why French people are considered glamorous and unattainable. Also, yknow. Twins. I am a twin so you think that wouldn't do anything for me but two of something is always better than one. 2, Wildcat: No, it is not the younger woman. No it is not the one who transforms into a literal catman. Yes it is weird that I am into the idea of a man who is physically older than my grandparents. As has been established on this blog before I am attracted to two things in a person. A muscular body and a sarcastic attitude. Despite being over 100 Ted Grant still has pecs you could bounce a quarter off of and I don't think he's gone 10 minutes without a sarcastic comment since sometime in 1944. Let me have this. 1, Hawkgirl: This one is so weird I don't even have the words to describe WHY it's weird. Like, yeah she is magically promised to another man through a reincarnation curse lasting centuries. On the other hand did you hear what I said about my preference for muscular bodies? This is the heroine most famous for hanging her 10 pack abs out for all to see in basically all of her costumes, wearing low riding pants, and being physically requires to show off her arms and shoulders in order for her powers to work right. I was set up to fail here and you know it!

"kiss marry kill your top 3" - I will not be doing that. The section above feels all in good fun but between the second and third option there I would remind people I am already IN a committed relationship with a man I adore AND these are all people I deeply admire and respect. If another ask can find a way to rephrase this, maybe, but this particular answer game has always made me deeply uncomfortable. Sorry.

"between your #4 and #5 pick which would you rather be related to (as a sibling/parent/ect.)" - Anyone who claims they don't want to have Wonder Woman as a parent or big sister is lying to themselves. She's kind, she's patience, she gets to go on fun adventures all the time, she knows all sorts of interesting people. Though I have to imagine that for me in particular it would be

Also I uh didn't expect anyone at your work to actually have the tangible ability or resources to be a supervillain, but guess it makes sense at least one person with powers would wanna study superheroes.

Yep! That's Gwen! They are my magical advisor-consultant buddy! They've answered a bunch of questions or intervened on them a bunch of times around here. Something of a more magically educated co-host!

Certainly can try!

Honestly a lot of what I would consider the "ethics" of superhero studies are the same kind of ethics I would put upon any other historian or historiographer. The things you need to keep in mind to make sure that your research into the past, present and future don't do more harm than good. But I can always put some more focus into the things I was taught in direct relation to my personal profession. After all, my focus is so new that whether it's history, anthropology or even an outgrowth of criminal science is still up in the air.

Because this is the internet, of course, I will organize it into a perfectly digestible numbered list. 3 for Do, 3 for Don't, alternated between one another just to keep interest I guess. Because I couldn't think of another way to do it, basically.

(A superhero/supervillain DnD alignment chart. To be taken as seriously as you should take ANY alignment chart)

1. DO remember that superheroes are people first. All else flows from that.

The worst mistake that you can make in this course of study is to forget this first and most golden of rules. Superheroes are not gods, or aliens, or monsters. Even when they are physically or biologically any combination of those things. The superhero phenomena was always and has always been an outgrowth of those with power seeking to use that power in defense of others against those with power who seek to lord it over those without.

Whether it be the hastily masked mystery men of the 1940s, or the hyper technological, world saving strike teams of the modern day superheroes are people who wish to help. Everything they've ever communicated to the world at large and every behavior they've ever manifested where we can see makes that clear. This can manifest in positive ways, such as banishing conspiratorial thought that tries to organize superheroic action into some kind of vast and inhuman conspiracy. But it can also mean remembering that our protectors have the same feet of clay as the rest of is. They are no more worthy of blind worship than anyone else, and they should be open to the same questioning.

1. DON'T seek out knowledge that isn't ours to share.

No matter what you think it might explain or uncover, gnawing into the private lives and business of those who risk their lives to keep us safe will never do anyone any good. Superheroes keep their identities secret for a host of VERY good reasons. And the same way that you wouldn't try to explain the actions of celebrity by breaking into their house at night, you won't gain anything from snooping into the private life of a person who is only protecting the people they love.

Whatever knowledge we might gain from finding out the Batman's real identity is dwarfed by the harm it would do. Not only to Batman, his allies and the people who presumably care about him outside of his masked activities. But also to the communities that Batman and those around him would no longer be able to protect as efficiently in the aftermath. We are not paparazzi. We are on their side. If you're not, you should be in another field of study.

2. DO keep an open mind as to how the superhero community manifests.

"Superheroes" or beings like them have existed for as long as human society has existed. And their forms, functions and actions are as diverse as the diversity of the communities that might house them. If you attempt to hold every superhero to the mold created by the Justice Society and later reinforced and strengthened by the Justice League and Teen Titans you're going to miss the majority of the work left to do. Superheroes did not function the same way they do now even 100 years ago, let alone 1000. Superheroes don't function in that fashion NOW in the majority of places where they exist across the non-American world.

If you go into a learning experience with an open mind, rather than a critical eye, you will find MUCH more than you ever imagined. Rather than seeing the Global Guardians as bloated and bureaucratic because of its large active membership in relation to the League, which could be playing into your biases of international organizations or supranational infrastructure. Instead ask yourself what benefits might come from having such a large roster that can be sent out from a central command structure. Interrogate what historical and social forces have forged that system as strong or even stronger than the one we have.

There are MANY wrong ways to be a superhero. But the ones that last tend not to be among them.

2. DONT allow yourself to be intimidated or dwarfed by your point of study.

Whether it comes in the form of obsession, paranoia or simple timidity you must not allow yourself to be crushed under some imagined enormity. The life you are living is not less meaningful simply because you're comparing yourself to Superman. You do not have to go out seeking your "way in". Our heroes are neither looking down on you in particular nor humanity in general. And the world is not going to end tomorrow just because you finally read a book about who Darkseid is.

The villains lost last time, they will lose next time, and the time after that, and that. There are indeed cosmic abominations, arcane aberrations, malicious criminals both here in our own societies and out among the stars. And just like death and taxes there is nothing you can do about them. UNlike death and taxes however, there are people who are making sure it never gets out of hand. They're doing it so that we, all of us, can live the lives we deserve. Take heart in that.

3. DO remember your morality.

If you're going to take anything from your points of study, make it inspiration in the way you treat others in relation to your work. "What Would Superman Do" is a cliche thought exercise but that doesn't make it a bad one. If an artifact has some providence that leads back to a living hero, extant organization, or direct carrier of their legacy you will save yourself and the rest of us a LOT of grief by just shooting off an email and asking them to comment first. Even if it's not animating enough for you to remember you should just be a good person, organizations like the League pay attention to who is doing right by whom. They can't stop you from putting a dubiously "recovered" artifact under glass without asking. But they WILL remember your name the next time you send them an inquiry.

Treating non-humans with basic empathy is just about the best way to show this manifestation on a daily basis. Use the same names, pronouns and titles for a being that they use for themselves in good faith. You don't gain anything from calling the Martian Manhunter an "it", you're not being "objective", you are being a dick. Take people's understanding of their own motivations at face value. Whether or not you AGREE with the idea that Wonder Woman is given her power by the actual, factual Greek Gods, SHE certainly does.

3. DONT get arrogant. Ever.

The one thing we have learned from the way our world has changed inside our lifetimes is that we know. NOTHING. And that everything we THINK we know can be tossed out tomorrow. If you think you're done learning, if you think you have it all figured out. You're not only wrong you are cruising for a very classical lesson in hubris.

If you are a Christian, seeing the actions of all heroes through a Christian lens is not only morally wrong it's bad science. The Kryptonian sun god was not "a misunderstanding of God". Stop that. Right now. And all the other ancient aliens nonsense with it.

And if the atheists plan on getting smug about that, it equally applies to the idea that all magicians are just woo-woo peddlers and fraudsters just because YOU can't wrap your head around how it works. You will do everyone more good by accepting that a purely rational and materialist worldview no longer functions the way you thought it did. Adapt. Accept. Move on.

The new generation of heroes is no more braindead than the old generation is objectively reactionary. The Justice Society and Young Justice are the same idea, manifesting through a lens of altered culture. They are on the same side and they would be the first to tell you so. Your generational fearmongering holds no power here, whether it be conservative or "progressive". Superheroes are not Randian ubermensch, and they are not Marxist revolutionaries. You make no point judging superheroes via your political morality other than showing everyone that you happen to be a fool.

Conclusion

As any historian or anthropologist must remember, history, culture and humanity at large are not here to be "solved". There is no gate you can draw around your own ideas of humanity that will include all those that fit and exclude all things that do not. Superheroes work this same way. All of your definitions will break down at the edges. All of your conclusions will become thorny and unwieldy the longer you look at them. There will never be any single period placed at the end of history. It is a 10,000 year run on sentence, stretching off into the horizon. Forever.

Turn over some rocks. Find something new. Toss out your old ideas and replace them with better ones. We are here to help the public do the same.

This should excite you down to your bones.

What happens if a superhero commits manslaughter? Like, for example, say Green Arrow is shooting at a guy's knee intending to (mostly) harmlessly disable him and prevent him from committing some kind of crime that would justify an arrow wound, but the guy moves last-minute and Green Arrow hits the leg artery. He now has one prevented crime but also one dead criminal, who did in fact have constitutional rights, as you noted in Joker Box.

Would a superhero in this situation have to unmask if put up for trial? Or would it be like "masked until proven guilty," because like, in the example I gave above there's a reasonable argument to be made for self-defense by proxy (that is, defending the target of the crime), so "yeah you're guilty" isn't guaranteed.

As unsatisfying of an answer as it might be, I don't actually have a good way of answering this question. Because there's no example to compare it to, and therefore no legal precedent. Because it's never happened. And if I were a bettering man I would put down a considerable amount of money on the fact that it never will. The superheroes of our world simply won't allow it to because they can't. Either morally or philosophically the heroes that defend our world are too focused on preserving sentient life in all its forms to ever allow it to come to pass.

(An art piece "The Fall of Green Arrow" by Mauro Cascioli in the aftermath of Green Arrow's murder of the supervillain Prometheus)

Let's take Green Arrow as an example (a COMPLICATED example, since Oliver Queen's identity is only publicly known because he committed an act of justifiable homicide (legally speaking) but it's the one you cited). If Green Arrow needed to shoot an arrow to disable a perp, he's not going to take the risk of shooting a sharp one at someone who is both twitchy and vulnerable enough to put themselves in that situation. He HAS arrows for that. Arrows that shoot knockout gas, or that set off disorienting strobe lights, magnet arrows that can rip a gun out of someone's hands or just a boxing glove arrow directly to the forehead in a pinch. It speaks to the level of care that superheroes MUST operate at that many of us don't appreciate because they make it seem so effortless.

Not killing someone in a fight to the death is REALLY hard, it turns out. Not only is human fight or flight instinct tuned by millions of years of evolution to go for the kill when we feel our lives are in danger, but the imbalance of power between those WITH superpowers and those WITHOUT only further magnifies the risk. Superman could kill somebody by standing stock still in front of them while they ran into him too hard, the Flashes could disintegrate people just by running beside them too fast, the amount of ways Firestorm's abilities could be used to turn human biology into Newtonian physics is too vast to quantify. So EVERYTHING they do is done with that understanding in mind. Every time. For everyone.

Superman, when holding a stance in front of a charging criminal will use his flight abilities to float backward with the impact absorbing most of it. The Flashes extend their control over the Speed Force to a large field around them as they run, halting the spread of inertia outside their control. Firestorm has a personal rule that he will never turn his powers against organic matter AT ALL for fear of what might happen. Every last one of them is painfully aware, with each passing second, how hard they have to hold back to keep any life from being put at risk. Whether it be the life of their allies, surrounding bystanders, or even the bad guys. Because make no mistake they could all DO IT if they so chose.

Superman doesn't struggle against Lex Luthor's latest gaudy warsuit because they're actually evenly matched. He struggles because he needs to find a way to disable the suit that ISN'T just forcing his hand through Lex's chest, suit and all, at six times the speed of sound. This becomes even MORE true with normal human criminals. Any bank robber or terrorist who thinks they have a leg up on the Green Arrow in their current situation should remember that he COULD have put a shaft of metal through their frontal lobe from a half mile down the street. And he doesn't miss. Ever. Heck if he REALLY didn't care there's nothing physically stopping him from aiming one of the explosive arrows he mostly uses for vehicles and walls DIRECTLY at someone's center mass. People don't think about things like that. One moment on the news we're watching Green Arrow lob enough plastic explosives to bring down a brick wall from three houses down the street. And then when he's on camera with the human bad guys he draws back a cartoon boxing glove like the bad guy actually might have the upper hand for half a second.

Because they don't MAKE us think about these sorts of things, they want us to know that we never have to worry about it. Unlike policemen who use "less lethal" methods of "crowd control" a superhero's methods will always be NON. LETHAL. Period. They will fight, and they will win, with both hands tied behind their backs if it means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anybody dies today.

If you use the right search keywords, you can, without much difficulty find a video of what appear to be The Flash and Green Lantern getting their asses kicked by the Rainbow Raiders, only surviving because a bunch of nearby civilians pitched in to help.

This video is real, but it was NOT The Flash and Green Lantern, but their evil, interdimensional doppelgangers* Johnny Quick* and Power Ring impersonating them as part of some Nefarious Scheme. And it happened because, the villains simply could not figure out how to beat them without breaking their cover by using lethal force. Again, THE RAINBOW RAIDERS, the guys so memetically pathetic that any hero can safely be assumed to be able to defeat them in their sleep.

*Have I Asked about these guys yet? Or someone else? Or do I have to add to your extant workload again, Sid?

No, no one has asked me about them, I assume for lack of meaningful things to ask.

What happens if a superhero commits manslaughter? Like, for example, say Green Arrow is shooting at a guy's knee intending to (mostly) harmlessly disable him and prevent him from committing some kind of crime that would justify an arrow wound, but the guy moves last-minute and Green Arrow hits the leg artery. He now has one prevented crime but also one dead criminal, who did in fact have constitutional rights, as you noted in Joker Box.

Would a superhero in this situation have to unmask if put up for trial? Or would it be like "masked until proven guilty," because like, in the example I gave above there's a reasonable argument to be made for self-defense by proxy (that is, defending the target of the crime), so "yeah you're guilty" isn't guaranteed.

As unsatisfying of an answer as it might be, I don't actually have a good way of answering this question. Because there's no example to compare it to, and therefore no legal precedent. Because it's never happened. And if I were a bettering man I would put down a considerable amount of money on the fact that it never will. The superheroes of our world simply won't allow it to because they can't. Either morally or philosophically the heroes that defend our world are too focused on preserving sentient life in all its forms to ever allow it to come to pass.

(An art piece "The Fall of Green Arrow" by Mauro Cascioli in the aftermath of Green Arrow's murder of the supervillain Prometheus)

Let's take Green Arrow as an example (a COMPLICATED example, since Oliver Queen's identity is only publicly known because he committed an act of justifiable homicide (legally speaking) but it's the one you cited). If Green Arrow needed to shoot an arrow to disable a perp, he's not going to take the risk of shooting a sharp one at someone who is both twitchy and vulnerable enough to put themselves in that situation. He HAS arrows for that. Arrows that shoot knockout gas, or that set off disorienting strobe lights, magnet arrows that can rip a gun out of someone's hands or just a boxing glove arrow directly to the forehead in a pinch. It speaks to the level of care that superheroes MUST operate at that many of us don't appreciate because they make it seem so effortless.

Not killing someone in a fight to the death is REALLY hard, it turns out. Not only is human fight or flight instinct tuned by millions of years of evolution to go for the kill when we feel our lives are in danger, but the imbalance of power between those WITH superpowers and those WITHOUT only further magnifies the risk. Superman could kill somebody by standing stock still in front of them while they ran into him too hard, the Flashes could disintegrate people just by running beside them too fast, the amount of ways Firestorm's abilities could be used to turn human biology into Newtonian physics is too vast to quantify. So EVERYTHING they do is done with that understanding in mind. Every time. For everyone.

Superman, when holding a stance in front of a charging criminal will use his flight abilities to float backward with the impact absorbing most of it. The Flashes extend their control over the Speed Force to a large field around them as they run, halting the spread of inertia outside their control. Firestorm has a personal rule that he will never turn his powers against organic matter AT ALL for fear of what might happen. Every last one of them is painfully aware, with each passing second, how hard they have to hold back to keep any life from being put at risk. Whether it be the life of their allies, surrounding bystanders, or even the bad guys. Because make no mistake they could all DO IT if they so chose.

Superman doesn't struggle against Lex Luthor's latest gaudy warsuit because they're actually evenly matched. He struggles because he needs to find a way to disable the suit that ISN'T just forcing his hand through Lex's chest, suit and all, at six times the speed of sound. This becomes even MORE true with normal human criminals. Any bank robber or terrorist who thinks they have a leg up on the Green Arrow in their current situation should remember that he COULD have put a shaft of metal through their frontal lobe from a half mile down the street. And he doesn't miss. Ever. Heck if he REALLY didn't care there's nothing physically stopping him from aiming one of the explosive arrows he mostly uses for vehicles and walls DIRECTLY at someone's center mass. People don't think about things like that. One moment on the news we're watching Green Arrow lob enough plastic explosives to bring down a brick wall from three houses down the street. And then when he's on camera with the human bad guys he draws back a cartoon boxing glove like the bad guy actually might have the upper hand for half a second.

Because they don't MAKE us think about these sorts of things, they want us to know that we never have to worry about it. Unlike policemen who use "less lethal" methods of "crowd control" a superhero's methods will always be NON. LETHAL. Period. They will fight, and they will win, with both hands tied behind their backs if it means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anybody dies today.

If you use the right search keywords, you can, without much difficulty find a video of what appear to be The Flash and Green Lantern getting their asses kicked by the Rainbow Raiders, only surviving because a bunch of nearby civilians pitched in to help.

This video is real, but it was NOT The Flash and Green Lantern, but their evil, interdimensional doppelgangers* Johnny Quick* and Power Ring impersonating them as part of some Nefarious Scheme. And it happened because, the villains simply could not figure out how to beat them without breaking their cover by using lethal force. Again, THE RAINBOW RAIDERS, the guys so memetically pathetic that any hero can safely be assumed to be able to defeat them in their sleep.

*Have I Asked about these guys yet? Or someone else? Or do I have to add to your extant workload again, Sid?

No, no one has asked me about them, I assume for lack of meaningful things to ask.