It is in these moments where the tension level rises. It is almost like there is a hero code that has been violated by the mere suggestion that a payment is expected. Fans of heroes balk at the idea of money changing hands. Even if the hero is in dire straits, the thought of making money from their powers only crosses their minds occasionally, unless there is a business model set up, and even if there is, accepting money is frowned upon. When it is accepted, the price paid is usually far below market value.
We expect more from heroes than a hand extended for a money grab. If they say anything less than “Just doing my job mam” it is a bit off-putting. Really though, a hero has to eat too (except a couple of them who don’t actually need to eat), so who are we to deny them a living? Well, as has been the case throughout this book, there is something that economics can offer to explain why a hero is better off not trying to earn a living through their powers alone. Hero work won’t pay the bills unless you’re willing to enter the protection racket. To understand why, let’s first explore the world of the working superhero stiff. Then we’ll discuss the problems they face when trying to charge the ungrateful masses.
Working for a Living
Some hero aliases are known by their occupations. Clark Kent—reporter. Peter Parker—photographer. Jessica Jones—private investigator. Hal Jordan—Air Force pilot. Barry Allen—crime scene investigator. Matt Murdock—lawyer. Diana Prince—Army nurse. Donald Blake—medical student.8 Unless you are part of the X-Men with a salary and benefits, it can be hard to make ends meet. Costumes need to be patched, accessories need to be purchased or produced, wounds need to be mended. Being a hero means you need a source of funding to keep fighting evil and to look the part. As a result, heroes go to work.
Peter Parker is an interesting case study here. After his close encounter of the arachnid kind, Peter notices his enhanced abilities almost immediately. In Spidey’s origin story, portrayed in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Lee and Ditko, 1962), he also conveniently comes across an advertisement offering $100 to anyone who can stay in the wrestling ring with the famous Crusher Hogan for three minutes. Seeing a chance to test his new abilities and make some money, Peter whips up a costume and takes to the ring. His amazingly easy time with Crusher and spider-like stunts attract the attention of a television producer looking for someone to put on the small screen. With the promise of big money, Peter thinks he is on easy street, and in a moment of egotism he lets a criminal escape. The money is talking and he thinks he doesn’t owe it to anyone to offer help. Comic book karma rears its head and the escaped crook ends up killing his Uncle Ben. It’s the money that made him do it, or, in this case, not do it.
Some heroes are more, shall we say, entrepreneurial. When asked which hero would accept payment for services rendered, many comic fans would put Deadpool at the top of the list. Perhaps it’s his cavalier attitude about hero work, or maybe it’s his history as a mercenary (or his tendency to become unhinged). Deadpool forms a team of vigilantes who dress as him to conduct business under the shingle “Heroes for Hire” (Duggan and Hawthorne, 2016). Unfortunately for the hired mercenaries, Deadpool isn’t prompt on payments and he often negotiates with clients on prices. In a great scene where a number of the mercs are busy evicting deadbeats from a tenement, the owner reveals that Deadpool had agreed to accept what amounts to a positive rating on social media in exchange for services rendered. Understandably the mercs are annoyed. When they confront Deadpool he says that business will be turning up soon, only to be contradicted by his accountant who tells him he needs to get some paying customers or his business will go under. Add to this a cease and desist order from Luke Cage for the use of Luke’s and Danny Rand’s company name, and Deadpool changes the shingle to the blunter “Mercs for Money.” Deadpool notes that “Saving the world ain’t cheap, and what you’re not making in money, you might make in fame” (p. 5).
Other heroes obviously use their skills to earn a living. The real “Heroes for Hire” is staffed by Power Man and Iron Fist. Jessica Jones runs a detective agency but tries to keep her use of powers to a minimum. In these situations, there are people who willingly enter into contracts with super-powered individuals who are running businesses. It is a voluntary transaction on both parts. While some heroes could follow this track, they may be less willing to meet the conditions of running a business.
For one thing, if heroes were to be paid there might be a concern about compromising their secret identities. Luke and Jessica aren’t particularly discreet with their aliases so this isn’t an issue for them. Other heroes are more protective, as we discussed in Chapter 2. Spider-Man runs into the problem of simply cashing a check—made out to Spider-Man—after being paid as an entertainer prior to his uncle’s death (Lee and Ditko, 1963). If payment is obtained, presumably taxes would be due, and that also opens up the potential for revealing an identity (just think about the field day a group of computer hackers could have if they infiltrated the Internal Revenue Service’s database and determined the identities of heroes). The main impetus of the Superhero Registration Act, the proposal to force heroes to basically become employees of the federal government, was to control hero activity. Heroes would be put on the government payroll where they would be paid and taxed. To do this, however, the heroes would have to reveal their identities. This raises the question of whether heroes would be subject to negligence if they failed to save someone when they weren’t officially on the job. Or perhaps more interestingly, what if they are on the clock and someone is injured when the hero steps in to save the day? If the police today are facing a backlash based on the way they conduct themselves, would heroes be any different?
Maybe the government shouldn’t pay heroes, but what would prevent private citizens or firms from doing this? A job as a security guard at STAR Labs might be just what the doctor ordered for Green Arrow after he loses his fortune.9 But what about a job working in security for the Falconi crime family of Gotham? Accepting payment can put you into the service of unscrupulous people. If you think paying a hero is unethical, what about being paid by a crime boss? If you think government is the way to go, as Captain America noted when presented with the option of being registered, what happens when your boss wants you to do something you know is wrong?
Nevertheless, there are certainly some unscrupulous, or perhaps naïve, anti-heroes who would accept payment for their services. In the hopes of being part of a team, the Tick joins a group called the Justly Compensated League of Heroes. His friend Arthur tries to dissuade him, questioning whether a group who would charge those they saved can really be called heroes. Tick reasons that they are saving money for some superhero equipment, but Arthur is resolute in thinking that “it’s not right for superheroes to charge for doing good” (Griffith and Hopkins, 1997, p. 6).
I Suppose Now You Want to Be Paid
So heroes aren’t getting paid, at least not for hero work. Much of the time, sleuthing and protection are left to the civilians. When heroes are really needed is when a cataclysmic event is about to occur. Think big, such as the X-Men battling the Dark Phoenix, or Superman fending off an attack from General Zod to save planet Earth.10 A smaller situation might be the Green Goblin riding around New York lobbing pumpkin grenades everywhere, or Black Manta setting off undersea explosions to generate tsunamis.11 Whenever there is treachery and destruction afoot, a hero is called to save the day. Here’s the economic catch: If heroes were to wait for payment prior to doing their thing, a lot of death and destruction would likely ensue. Heroes need to jump into action at a moment’s notice. This is one of the concerns of Captain America when presented with the Superhero Registration Act. What if hero services are needed but the bureaucracy prevents them from getting where they need to go quickly? Cap’s position is that it’s better to deal with the politics after the situation has been resolved.
If heroes charge potential victims prior to saving the world they are in an unfair bargaining position. Ruminate on this: If you are allergic to wasp stings, you kno
w the importance of getting to your EpiPen as quickly as possible after you are stung. If you don’t get the injection there is a real possibility that you will die. Now, let’s say that you are out on a beautiful spring day, enjoying the mild temperatures after a brutal winter. In the rush to get to the great outdoors you left your epinephrine at home and, of course, while sitting on a red and white gingham tablecloth enjoying a tasty lunch, you are stung. Fortunately for you, a few tablecloths away is a couple also out basking in the spring sunshine. It just so happens that one of them is also allergic to wasp venom and happens to have an EpiPen, just the thing you need to potentially save your life. How much would you be willing to pay for this? As you stand there, throat swelling closed, the answer is whatever the owner of the medicine wants. If you don’t like the price they offer you don’t have time to negotiate. In economic lingo, this is called an inelastic demand. Because your need for the item is acute, it doesn’t matter what the price is. Normally if prices rise, the amount that we are willing and able to buy drops. That is called the law of demand. If price moves in one direction, the amount of the good we are willing and able to purchase goes in the other direction. When we bring elasticity into the mix we are addressing the intensity of the change in how much you are willing and able to buy.
If price goes up and you buy a lot less, we say demand is elastic. There is a large change in the amount you buy when the price goes up, even if it rises just a little bit. Usually this is because you have lots of options on which you can spend your money. If the price of petunias goes up, you are likely to buy a lot less because there are many other types of flowers you can plant in your garden. However, if a higher price leads you to buying just a little bit less, then demand is inelastic. That’s what you are facing with the EpiPen. You have exactly zero options for the medicine, and even if they existed, you have very little time to find alternatives. The life-saving injection in the possession of this nice, young couple is worth more than its weight in gold.
When a cataclysmic event is on the doorstep of Earth, or Gotham, New York, or Star City, heroes are like the couple with the medicine. They have the power to stop the destruction. No one else is capable of emerging victorious from a battle with what might become your alien overlords. Our demand for them is very inelastic. If they were to charge us prior to the fight, we might be willing to give them all of our money, our possessions, our children, maybe even sell ourselves into slavery to prevent losing all these things, including our lives, to an invasion.
The other problem facing a pre-battle payment plan is that finding the right price will certainly be tricky. Who is going to negotiate on behalf of the civilian population? Will I be subject to the payment plan adopted by the mayor of New York to entice Spider-Man to stop the Green Goblin? What if I steadfastly refuse to pay? What if I am financially unable to comply? What if I agree to a payment but don’t have the money on me at the time, and after the fact I renege? If the Flash is negotiating over a price while Grod the gorilla is rampaging down the streets of Keystone City, how much more destruction will be wrought until a bargain is struck? While the haggling is going on, Flash is surely engendering ill will. He could be stopping the primate’s fury but instead is trying to line his own pockets. Similarly, the negotiator for the city is sure to come under scrutiny, since he tried to drive a hard bargain at the expense of shattered windows, smashed storefronts, bashed police cars, and all sorts of monkey mayhem. In short, trying to determine how much to pay a hero immediately prior to an attack is fraught with peril.
On the other hand, perhaps heroes could do their jobs first and then ask for some financial compensation. That would eliminate the need to wait for civil servants to cut through the red tape and then people can settle-up afterwards when tensions are low. This course of action is also tremendously problematic due to a predicament known as the free-rider problem. Free-riders are the type of people who want something but don’t want to pay for it. They aren’t necessarily bad people. It isn’t as if they believe that society owes them something, and in reaction to the cruel circumstances of life they simply take what they want. No, such backstories are often reserved for the villains against whom the hero is struggling. Free-riders typically do not do anything illegal. It isn’t as if they are ignoring a bill or neglecting to pay their taxes. Free-riders just sit back and let others pay for something that the free-rider would pay for if they absolutely, positively had to. Free-riding after the world is safe is easy because the villain has been banished and the hero would not consciously allow them to return in revenge for not being paid. Therefore, if everyone free-rides, the hero does not get paid and has no recourse.
You Need to Produce Something Different
Underlying the problem facing heroes in getting paid for hero work is what they are providing. It is safe to say that almost everyone is grateful for the work heroes do, even if thanks are given begrudgingly. At the outset of DC’s The New 52, the individual members of the Justice League find themselves in the midst of protests and general discontent as civilians bemoan the incursion of those with superpowers into their daily lives (Johns and Lee, 2011). The destruction that results from the supers’ activities and the threat they pose to the world order is disconcerting, even if that threat is psychological rather than actual. When a new menace appears in the form of Darkseid, the heroes team up to defeat it. Much to the heroes’ surprise, they find themselves surrounded by thankful people cheering them after a particularly dangerous battle.
But what are the heroes producing? If we could relate it to something in the non-comic world, heroes are in the protection business. Not the organized crime type of protection, rather they are more like national defense. Superman, Wonder Woman, Ironman, and Green Lantern comprise the Airforce. Hal Jordan, aka the Green Lantern, was literally an Air Force pilot. Aquaman and Namor make up the Navy. The Hulk, Black Canary, and the Flash, with Green Arrow and Hawkeye as marksmen, constitute the Army. The Marines are composed of Black Panther, The Punisher, and Wolverine. Batman and Captain America are the officers who run the show.
Protection falls under a class of goods referred to as public goods. These are things that consumers want to have. With defense we’re dealing with one of the most basic services governments are expected to provide. To wit, the economic godfather, Adam Smith, considers the proper role of government in Wealth of Nations ([1776] 1994).12 He stipulates that if government doesn’t do three things, it is a failure. Government must provide for the national defense. That’s protection for citizens from foreign threats. To this end, government can legitimately build an army. It must also protect citizens from domestic threats. This is accomplished through law enforcement and judicial bodies. Finally, it should provide some public goods, chief among them are commerce-inducing activities. That means that government should put in place an infrastructure to make it easier for citizens to conduct business. It isn’t that these items can’t be supplied by private enterprise as there are private security firms and private roads. Rather, they are more efficiently provided and maintained by the public sector.
We’ll leave the discussion of infrastructure spending for a minute to focus on defense. The idea of having government provide defense, and to a lesser extent the police and courts, makes sense because of two key components that make them public goods. Since public goods have these two specific characteristics, the market is not likely to produce them, as these features make it difficult for the producer to earn a profit. The first attribute is non-excludability. This means that if you don’t pay for something, the seller cannot stop you from consuming it. Free-riders love this aspect of public goods. You get all the benefits and incur none of the costs. For example, if Canada decided it was going to try to invade the United States, the U.S. Army would mobilize on the border to repel the red coat-clad Canadian Mounties (after getting over the initial surprise that the good people from north of the border were engaging in hostilities, of course).
Even for those who don’t pay taxes or wh
o despise the military, defense would be provided because it is national defense, not “individuals who pay taxes” defense. Yet, imagine a circumstance where, due to the proliferation of data analytics, the U.S. government decides to change its tactics and use this unexpected incursion to handle a particular problem. Scanning taxpayer data, the executive branch has noticed that there is an enclave of tax dodgers clustered in eastern Ohio.13 Due to their religious beliefs, this group of people have shunned modernity. They don’t use electricity, they ride around in horse-drawn carts, and embrace pacifism. That must stop! So while the U.S. didn’t invite the Canadian invasion, it is possible that it could be used to wipe out…the Amish.
To implement the plan, the executive branch orders the Army to stop defending eastern Ohio, but only eastern Ohio. The non-confrontational Amish will put up no resistance and will ostensibly become a southern province of Canada. This failure to defend U.S.territory will be explained with a shrug of the shoulders and the official government line: “That’s what happens when you don’t pay your taxes.”
Of course, this is a preposterous scenario. If it were to be adopted, it provides the enemy a foothold from which to launch other attacks. It is also quite possible that the Canadian invasion force would damage tax payers’ property along their march south. Perhaps the Amish are well treated and word gets out about how much better life is under Canadian rule, fomenting rebellion outside the Amish enclave. Maybe the Amish become a paramilitary force to be reckoned with. Who knows? The point is, allowing the enemy even a modicum of safety within your territory is at best a foolish military strategy, and at worst a maneuver to ensure your own demise.
Why Superman Doesn't Take Over the World Page 12
