#hideouts

Sewers and their Secrets

Why do I need to hide? It does not matter I simply. Want To

Being a superhero is obviously a very high profile job. If you’re going out on the town, protecting the planet and punching alien warlords in their multi-eyed, strangely bovine, faces, chances are people are going to hear about it and people are going to know who you are. Unless you choose to be one of those “I am the night” urban legend heroes that’s really good at avoiding cameras. Which is an impressive thing to do. They have cameras in cellphones now. They have cameras in traffic lights! Seriously how does anything stay hidden these days? How have we not found the Chupacabra? The photography community needs to stop slacking off on the job. To avoid being constantly hounded by adoring fans, talent agents, reporters and insurance companies (and/or dangerous criminals) you’re going to need to get yourself a hideout.

A hideout is the kind of place where a superhero can go to kick back and relax for a bit, store all their super-gear, conduct private, unsanctioned [illegal] investigations, keep souvenirs from all their adventures, host superhero get-togethers. All kinds of stuff that can’t just be done at your regular person home. Ok, I guess you could technically kick back and relax at your house. But it’s way cooler to kick back and relax in a superhero hideout. Trust me, I know about these things. Also just to be clear, you should keep an additional costume at your regular person home. You should try to keep a costume nearby at all times. You never know when an army of mind controlled elderly folks might go on a rampage.  

Your hideout should ideally be some place which you have complete control over but also which can’t be linked directly back to your normal person identity. Realistically speaking it’s hard to get both of these things so at least shoot for one. You also want it to be remote enough that it isn’t easily accessible. The last thing you want is the paparazzi (the superazzi?) finding it and then embarrassing pictures of you singing karaoke in nothing but a bathrobe and your mask showing up in every tabloid and gossip magazine in the country. Or also I guess supervillains might find it. That’s good to avoid too. 

There are several different kinds of bases you can make for yourself following these guidelines:

Caves: A cave is a great place to set up shop though be careful to make sure it’s empty before you claim it as your own. Caves are oftentimes home to bats, certain species of fungi, or smugglers, all of which would make for bad roommates in a covert base.

Jungles: Jungles are good remote places to set up a hideout. They provide for plenty of cover from surveillance due to dense tree coverage, but they can also be a hassle to get to in a hurry. Also you’ll have to deal with the various animals who might view you as a hostile intruder or their next meal.

Ice Castles: Ice castles are super cool if you can get yourself one. You can slip and slide around just like a penguin or an isolationist queen. But be careful, it would be super embarrassing to be taken out of commission by slipping and breaking a bone in your own base. Also ice castles and arctic bases in general are really only suitable for heroes who either can withstand freezing cold temperature or who can afford ginormous space heaters.

Deserts: The flip side of ^this is a giant sandcastle, the kind that wins sandcastle building competitions. However a common staple of deserts (at least on this planet) is that it’s really quite hot, and there’s not a lot of water. So bring a mini-fridge filled with water bottles with you. Hydration is key. Another downside of the desert base is getting sand in all your super suits. Also the only houseplant you’d be able to maintain is a cactus, and while that’s not really such a terrible thing, if you’re anything like me you’ll hate being boxed in to just that one houseplant option. 

Space: Check to see if there’s any open real estate on the moon. Ooh, or launch your own space station! That’s pretty remote! It’d be baller to have your own space station. Probably that would be expensive though (I don’t know for sure, admittedly I’ve never checked. I do like zero research for these things,) but you can always try crowdfunding.

Some superheroes designate portions of their own homes or install secret rooms or entire floors to be their superhero base. This can be dangerous because you run the risk of somebody discovering your identity anytime anybody enters your home. I suppose you could just become a shut in and cut ties with all your friends and cancel your mail service (all you have to do is tell your local post office to hold all your mail and they will! I learned that from the internet. Take that haters who say I don’t do any research). But that’s no way to live! Plus, that’s definitely going to lead to questions about why your superhero identity keeps coming by your house. So you better be really good at coming up with answers to that question. Maybe you can pretend that you’re cousins with yourself? Or that your superhero identity is actually your bodyguard? Or that you make the world’s best snickerdoodles and they’re soooo good that even superheroes come to your house to eat them? You should probably just establish your secret hideout somewhere else.

Some superheroes decide that they don’t want the location of their headquarters to be a secret. They want to keep their base public to provide a symbol of hope to the masses. To show that Everytown, USA is under the protection of Mr. or Mrs. Hero and to warn villains to stay the heck away. That’s ok I guess, but if you do that just know that you’re going to get a lot of unwanted attention. If you mess up at any point, no matter how insignificantly, you can expect there to be protests or rallies outside your front door. You’ll also have to deal with random people walking in off the street demanding that you perform feats of heroism for them. No other profession has to deal with that kind of thing. Imagine if someone came into your home and demanded that you practiced law for them or that you drive them around in a bus. You’d hate that. So keep that in mind before you buy office space on Main Street.