Why Superman Doesn't Take Over the World

by J. Brian O’Roark

  Moench, D. and Aparo, J. (1993). Batman, #497. DC Comics.

  O’Roark, B. and Wood, W. (2004). Safety at the Racetrack: Results of Restrictor Plates in Superspeedway Competition. Southern Economic Journal, 71(1), pp. 118–29.

  Peltzman, S. (1975). The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation. Journal of Political Economy, 83(4), pp. 677–726.

  Siegel, J. and Plastino, A. (1960). Adventure Comics, #271. DC Comics.

  Siegel, J. and Shuster, J. (1940). Action Comics, #23. DC Comics.

  Siegel, J. and Swan, C. (1961). Superman, #149. DC Comics.

  Superman: Doomsday. (2007). [Film] Hollywood: Timm, B., Montgomery, L., and Vietti, B.

  Taylor, T., Redondo, B., Sandoval, S., and Tarragona, J. (2016). Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year 4. Burbank, CA: DC Comics.

  Waid, M. and Ross, A. (2008). Kingdom Come. Burbank, CA: DC Comics.

  7

  Who’s Going to Clean Up This Mess?

  Civilian characters in comic books have a love-hate relationship with the heroes who defend their cities. There are the fan boys and girls like Flash Thompson,1 Snapper Carr,2 and Doreen Green who stand by their favorites through thick and thin.3 Even erstwhile protesters who fear meta-humans recant and shower heroes with adulation when they realize the supers have saved the planet from alien forces.4 Many heroes are capable liaisons to the civilian world. After meeting her, little girls want to be Wonder Woman, and Captain America embodies all that’s right with the land of the free and the home of the brave. Heroes aren’t always role models, but even if their motives may be questionable at times (think Batman, the Punisher, and Rorschach), in the end they seem to do so much more good than harm. Usually.

  Heroes almost always get their man when it comes to crime-fighting. One of the attractions of comics is that no matter how bleak the outcome, no matter how improbable the odds, the good guys come away at the end of the day with a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. They evacuate the burning buildings, get the civilians away from the lines of battle, and fight the fights that are unwinnable through established means. Nuclear weapons aren’t going to work against the planet-eating Galactus.5 He eats planets, what’s a nuclear warhead going to do to stop him? When magical forces from the great beyond that are not subject to the laws that govern this world appear, who you gonna call?6 If an intellect far beyond the normal human capacity develops technologies that dwarf those of the conventional military, how will you prevent the genius madman from taking over the world? To accomplish any of these things, you need more than a hero. You need a super hero.

  It’s a perfect solution to an unwinnable dilemma. The heroes want to hero. That’s what they do. Nevertheless, just about every hero runs into an unbreakable stone (or kryptonite, or adamantium) wall of community-wide resentment at some point in time. For some reason, the general public look askance at their champions and ask whether the presence of these masked marvels is at least as dangerous as the forces against which they are fighting.

  One of the more famous frictions between a person of influence and a hero is the antagonistic approach that editor J. Jonah Jameson takes towards Spider-Man. There are various explanations for his hostility but the original cause revolves around Jameson’s jealousy. His son, John Jameson, is a test pilot who has taken his share of risks. Test piloting is a harrowing business, but despite his efforts he toils in obscurity. The public is only interested in the exploits of the web-slinging, masked man. As a result, Jameson generates public antipathy towards Spider-Man by focusing on how only a miscreant would wear a mask, but the source of his deep-seated hatred really stems from Spider-Man stealing the spotlight from his son.7

  Mutants are particularly despised. It might be because they look different from everyone else; it might be because their powers were gained by a genetic mutation rather than coming from a science experiment gone wrong, or some cosmic force; or maybe it is due to the threat that continued gene mutations mean for the human species. Regardless, the X-Men and most mutants are “feared and hated by the world they have sworn to protect” (Claremont and Cockrum, 1975, p. 1). People understandably distrust the vigilantes as they seem to work outside the rules to which the rest of us must adhere. There are lots of reasons to worry about the existence of superheroes. In fact, if one lives in your town, you can bet that a protest mob is on its way.

  This might ruffle a hero’s feathers from time to time, but usually they don’t let the demonstrators get them down. The right to protest superheroes ranks right up there with freedom of the press and the right to a jury trial, but the general Sturm und Drang of anti-hero sentiment misses a significant economic point. J. Jonah Jameson, the anti-mutant crowds, and general hero-bashers would have a larger following if they spent a little less time in front of the cameras and a little more time in front of an economics book. The most effective argument against superheroes isn’t that their powers pose too great a danger to humanity, it isn’t that they represent a bastardization of the gene pool, it isn’t even that they dress strangely. There are two economic reasons that the haters should emphasize. First, heroes don’t have insurance. Second, heroes generate lemons.

  Why You Should Hate Superheroes Too—Part I: Insurance

  In the course of life people sometimes find themselves the beneficiaries of the activities of others. There is some remuneration that basically falls into their laps over which they had no control. For instance, due to the hard work and expense of a neighbor, your evening constitutional is improved because you stroll by their home, surrounded by its beautiful garden. The colors are impeccably balanced, the beds expertly mulched, and the lawn fed and watered to perfection. It is the highlight of the evening and you didn’t have to pull one weed.

  There is also the benefit that can spill over to the population from a more highly educated citizenry. This is one of the reasons why governments spend so much on the education system. If the populace is literate it means they are more employable. If they are employable, they can pay income taxes. If they can pay income taxes then government can spend more money on social programs. Those social programs can help those less fortunate. Thus, those less fortunate benefit tangentially from the jobs they didn’t get. In fact, much of society benefits from a governmentally-funded school system. People can understand a bit about civil responsibility, they can sign their names on contracts, and read enough to know who they are voting for on a ballot, even if they don’t fully recognize what the candidates stand for. Perhaps those educated on the public dime will go on to university and solve the world’s great problems.8 A cure for Alzheimer’s disease, a cost-effective way to desalinize water, a cure for the heinous traffic snarls on the roadways of major cities, or a way to let people with whom you are nominally friends see the cat video you made, are all possibilities that result from an educated workforce, and from which we all benefit. The problem with these good things is that the producer of them may not be paid properly for their altruism. Teachers aren’t paid enough based on the value they generate for society and the people who get the inoculation, or tend their gardens, almost always have to pay for it, yet they are providing benefits to others.

  Again, think about walking around your neighborhood. You pass this quaint bungalow with the charming garden. You stop to admire it and notice something that wasn’t there the night before. Strapped to the picket fence is an enchanting, little box with some words carved on the side. You step up to it and read “For your enjoyment. Please contribute what you can.” The homeowners, realizing what their garden means to those around them, are trying to monetize their work! You huff indignantly. The no-good deadbeats. Who would pay for this? It’s their choice to tend this garden, how can they dare ask for a handout? You pass by the box, as do most of the evening stroller crowd. Next year, you notice the garden isn’t quite as well maintained, and you think to yourself “those homeowners are slacking off, I wonder what their problem is.” The box is still there but for some reason it doesn’t look as cheery as it did the first t
ime you saw it (as if boxes could look cheery). The next year the garden looks a little more unkempt and you notice some crab grass in the lawn. The box is still there and now you are sure it looks menacing. The next year, there is no garden at all, but at least the box is gone.

  What happened here? Why did the homeowners let their garden slide? Keeping up a garden is hard work and can be very expensive. The attempt to crowdfund the gardeners’ work backfires for a reason we discussed earlier in Chapter 5. The garden is a public good. The homeowners are the source of something that certainly brings value to the neighbors, but in this case it is clearly non-excludable. In order to try to cover the costs of their efforts, your green-thumbed neighbors place a collection box on the fence, but because the view is non-excludable, free-riders, like yourself, can walk by without paying. Over the next few years, the financial and physical toll of keeping up the garden catches up with the homeowners and they no longer provide what everyone enjoyed. This garden is the classic case of something that generates a positive externality. A positive externality is a benefit to a third party that accrues even though they have no role in creating it. All you do is walk by the house, but the industriousness of the gardeners is what produces the benefit.

  Activities that beget positive externalities are viewed as good things, but sometimes, because the producer has difficulty finding users willing to compensate them financially, they aren’t as widespread as society would like. We might enjoy soothing musical performances while waiting for the subway, but musicians don’t oblige us because too many commuters pass by the suitcase without paying, and getting up early in the morning to make a small sum of money playing Vivaldi on the violin for the ungrateful cretins who populate the subway stations is a real drag. To address such underproduction, governments will sometimes subsidize activities. Education, the arts, and preventive medical care generate positive externalities, but the gains are difficult to capture fully. As a result, government writes a check to ensure these ventures continue. Similarly, superhero work, a public good, generates positive externalities. They presumably keep crime at bay and save us from becoming slaves to alien overlords.

  That’s all well and good, and to an extent we have covered this ground already. Where we haven’t gone is the dark side of externalities. As you may have already guessed, not all externalities are making people’s lives better. Sometimes people are the victims of a harm over which they had no control: A polluted water source, a construction project going on outside of the bedroom window, even someone’s overpowering perfume. These are examples of negative externalities. Negative externalities arise when, despite being an innocent third party minding your own business, an activity causes you some kind of harm. Be it the inability to use a body of water for swimming or drinking, a bad night’s sleep, or the nausea that results from the overpowering bouquet of Calvin Klein’s Obsession, negative externalities are difficult to avoid because, other than to be carrying on our day-to-day activities in the proximity of the source, we have no role in generating them. Consequently, society would prefer less of these activities, but because those who generate the harm do not bear the full costs of the production process, these things are made in excess.

  One explanation for why negative externalities exist is that the cost they are imposing upon the rest of the world is not accounted for in the production decisions of those who generate them. The reason a river is polluted is because that’s the easy, affordable way to dispose of toxic waste. No one holds title to the river, so there isn’t a litigious property owner taking the factory boss to court. The folks who live downstream might be prevented from using the water, but since that water isn’t theirs to begin with, their claims of being harmed might fall on deaf ears. What needs to happen, assuming we want there to be less pollution, is that the folks affected must be moved to another town. That way they are not harmed and the factory can pollute to its dirty heart’s content.

  Wait a minute! That doesn’t sound right. Why should the noble townsfolk be forced out of their homes? It isn’t their fault the evil factory is discharging such noxious emissions. Ah, but are you so sure? This is one of the points of Nobel Prize winner Ronald Coase’s work (1960).9 Coase notes that when property rights are unclear, we have a problem. In the case of pollution, the question is who has the right to the air, water, quiet, whatever is being damaged? This must be determined by a court if the property right is in question, and as established by precedent, a good jurist will apply the Hand Formula to the case and deduct an answer. Named after Judge Learned Hand, the practicable formula says that the burden should be placed on whoever can avoid the harm most easily (United States, 1947).10 If we know the pollution is coming from a factory, getting that plant to stop is almost certainly less costly than moving every town that is downstream from the pollution source. In essence, you have assigned the property right of clean water to the town, and you will force the factory to literally clean up its act.11

  Superheroes As the Factory

  Now, think of superheroes as the factory and everyone else as the town and you’ve got our first reason to hate superheroes. In the superhero world, there are lots of negative externalities, and failure to deal with them can cause disgruntled crowds to turn against heroes. In comics we see significant destruction when a hero battles a villain, especially when the villain possesses their own set of superpowers. For instance, in the epic Death of Superman (Jurgens and Breeding, 1993), the otherworldly Doomsday falls from the sky and is marching, like William Tecumseh Sherman, to Metropolis, demolishing roads, bridges, towns, and anything else that gets in his way. The damage is almost incalculable. The military is called out to no avail and it is up to the Man of Steel to stop the destruction. All the damage is in no way the result of the actions of people who will now find themselves homeless or stuck in traffic because they have to drive on alternative routes to school or work. They are subject to externalities. The Brobdingnagian battles depicted on the big screen of hero movies provide a more palpable context for the destruction imposed on the innocent bystander. When heroes and villains battle they engage in terrifying encounters that leave smoldering ruins, torn up highways, and precariously leaning structures. Rebuilding after the destruction will cost hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars, and the tantalizing question of “who’s going to pay for it all?” begins. If you’re lucky, the casualties will be minimal, but after the glow of being saved wears off, the remaining devastation is enough to invoke the ire of survivors and cause tremendous acrimony towards the perceived source of their discontent.

  One of the most poignant examples of the negative externalities imposed by superhero activity can be found in Astro City. With all of the tête-à-tête between good and bad actors, there have been many civilian casualties. In order to provide comfort to those who have lost loved ones, Mike Tenicek starts a support group called Miranda’s Friends, named after his deceased wife. As much as he wants to help others, this group is balm for his own soul. The members of the group are trying to find solace in a life turned upside down through no fault of their own. Like support groups for victims of diseases such as Parkinson’s or cancer, these people are trying to work out their grief, the source of which was beyond their control. The members of Miranda’s friends didn’t ask to be party to the travesties that took their sons, daughters, and spouses, but because of where they live they are put in harm’s way (Busiek and Anderson, 2018).

  So how do we deal with externalities? In the case of pollution, the goal of policy-makers is to get the polluter to consider what they are doing by making them pay the full cost of their actions. You want to pollute the river? That’s fine, but if you’re going to do it you must incur the cost of not only dumping your waste in the water, that obviously isn’t costing you much, but also the costs you are imposing on the folks downstream. This is what we call internalizing the externality. When you internalize the negative externality, you consider and deal with the full costs of the action. Governments might decide to
tax the polluting activity. Or, they might force the factory to install some sort of cleaning equipment to scrub the effluents of toxins prior to dumping any materials in the water. Perhaps they forbid dumping in the river altogether. Maybe they choose the nuclear option and shut the factory down, and for good measure condemn the executives to jail to set an example for anyone in the future who might dare to sully the pristine waters of the nation’s rivers. Whatever the punishment, the idea is to get the factory to consider the true costs of what they are doing so that they will cut back on production.

  So, how might heroes realize the costs they impose on others from battling evil? There are a couple of ways this can take place. In the Astro City situation, someone, presumably a remorseful hero, is secretly funding the activities of Miranda’s Friends and paying Mike’s bills. This personal response isn’t common though, nor is it practical. Trying to compensate every survivor out of pocket will bleed you dry quickly. Instead, heroes need to think on a grander scale, and that means insurance. Before explaining how that might work for hero activity, let’s take a slight detour and consider the draconian option of internalizing externalities: Superhero jail.

  Superhero Perp Walk

  As we have established, super-powered individuals might at any time be involved in a battle, resulting in considerable damage. This arouses the indignation of non-supers, especially if the good guys are unapologetic. Heroes could respond that if it wasn’t for them, people would have been killed or the world would have been destroyed, and they would, of course, be correct. But what if the heroes are battling each other, Greek god-style? What if the fights causing destruction aren’t life-altering conflicts of galactic proportion? What if it’s just bored and boorish heroes letting off some steam? In Mark Waid’s futuristic Kingdom Come, that’s just what is going on as the story gets under way (Waid and Ross, 2008). The protagonist, Norman McCay, explains that the children and grandchildren of the superheroes of the past lack the morals of their elders. They “no longer fight for the right. They fight simply to fight, their only foes each other” (p. 22). As he describes the scene in front of him, wanton destruction is occurring all around. There are some of the old guard, Flash, Hawkman, and Green Lantern, who continue to keep order, but they are more local patrols rather than protectors of the planet, and in the case of Batman, more a dictator than a hero. Wonder Woman finds Superman cloistered in a holographic reality where she tries to convince him to wrest control from those who are making chaos their own form of entertainment. Finally, Superman agrees, bringing with him the legends of yesterday. Their goal is to restore order to the world and their plan is a relatively simple one. Superman recruits those he believes can be redeemed and instructs them in the ways of heroes. He has those unwilling to be part of his new order incarcerated in a superhero prison constructed precisely to hold the most dangerous of criminals; however, if you’ve read Chapter 6, you know this won’t work.