What do you think, Sup Forums?
Most superheroes have a tragic backstory; there are few who fight for good simply because it´s the right thing to do. What if Uncle Ben had never been shot? What if Bruce Wayne's parents were still alive? What if Krypton hadn´t blown up?
Would these iconic heroes still fight for justice if they had lived comfortable and pleasant lives?
Bumping for interest
If superman and batman weren't superheroes, there wouldn't be nearly as many supervillains
crime would still exist, but it'd be more like real life
Matt Murdock sempre vai estar certo
But they wouldn´t know that. And that´s a subject for another debate. What I wondered is if they would still be heroes if they hadn´t lost anyone.
Matt said human so supes doesn't count.
>soldiers who fight for those who can't
Politians and businessmen?
I suppose he means children and the elderly
Krypton's destruction wasn't a loss for Superman though, it was a mobile for his escape to Earth. Of course Superman would never be a thing if Krypton had never exploded, but that has nothing to do with loss.
Really? I always thought that one of his main reasons to protect Earth was so that his new home didn´t end up like his old one
Not really, Superman mostly fights the good fight because It's The Right Thing To Do. Even in Elseworlds where he's evil (like The Dark Side) he still ends up as one of the good guys for one reason or another. The only stuff where he's outright evil is edgy shit like Injustice.
You could argue that for Batman, but guys like Darkseid would still exist whether Superman was a hero or not.
I think most people don't want their home to explode. But Clark has had a good life and isn't really motivated by loss. He just generally wants to protect people. Captain America is a bit like that too, sure he has had some major losses but it's never been his motivation.
Naaaah.
Gotham's had crazies long before Bruce was ever born.
There's definitely loss. A number of melancholy stories feature Krypton.
Like one waaaay back in the Silver Age where he gets stranded there a few months before the whole thing explodes. Meets his mom and dad, gets a girlfriend, then he gets unwillingly torn away from the planet and fucking bawls all the way back to the present.
It was a gutpunch of a story.
Then darksied shows up and earth is screwed.
Obviously, Spider-Man wouldn't be a hero because he outright said so in his origin. Batman wouldn't start his war so he wouldn't be one either. Superman wouldn't even be on earth so he wouldn't have to be a hero.
I think if most heroes lived comfortable lives they wouldn't be a hero because their tragedy is built into many of their origin stories.
Maybe Daredevil might have become a hero had he not lost his father but I can't really think of anyone else that is very iconic.
>Don't ever say that to me or my son ever again
What about Captain America ? Nothing forced him into taking the serum.
Yes.
That was one of my favorite things about the Flash, no tragedy just wanting to help. Same with Superman, and the Legion of Superheroes.
Those specific heroes? Maybe not. But there'd be others. For every guy or girl that stands up and starts fucking shit up, there'll be another that'll put a stop to it.
Yeah, but thats after he had already started being a hero. Certainly there have been times that show he wishes he could have known the planet, but its not a sense of loss but more wish to know what could have been.
Well, unless you count the whole mom thing. Which is usually made double sad by the fact that if tries to save her he fucks the rest of the world
This is why I like Gotham. A continuity that shows most of Batman's rogues gallery as fucked up before he gets to them and it really pushes the NEED for Batman as far as the city's corruption goes.
>children and the elderly
here's the great thing about guns: they don't have age limits
>What do you think, Sup Forums?
I think I can't imagine someone getting that worked up over her POV or pulling off those lines without looking like a pansy.
What was Green Arrow's reason for fighting crime in person?
but they do dumbass
something about a peninsula
I can count the number of superheroes without tragic back stories on one hand and most people think their boring. So yeah.
His time on the island put everything in perspective. When he made it back home, he wanted to make a difference rather than just fuck around and party his life away.
Who do soldiers fighr for? Goldberg and Moneystein?
Rothschild, Bloomberg, and Monsanto
Well they're told it's to keep their nation's people safe.
He didn't say burgerland soldiers.
This is a dumb argument and will always be dumb. What if aliens invade? What if a meteor is about to hit the Earth? What about all the supervillains who weren't created through the direct actions of a superhero?
Gotham, for example, is an absolute shithole even without Batman and his villains. If anything, the villains actually make Gotham a better place because at least the bad guys are too busy catering to the mad whims of a penguin-themed crime lord instead of selling drugs to schoolchildren.
i forget moon knight's reason for being a hero but i believe it was hurting people, who doesn't enjoy tossing violent criminals down flights of stairs?
he was a mercenary that got backstabbed by his crew. the god konshu brought him back to life in exchange for becoming a protector that keeps the night safe. it's more poetic justice than tragic.
Rucka's Punisher run was okay
How about FF? The only one that really loses anything is Ben losing his outward humanity, but that doesn't really motivate him to do what he does. 3/4 of the team were given pretty much only advantages through an accident that didn't affect their loved ones but just themselves. Or is that not really applicable since they're not really focused at the street level but more so on a macro-level (cosmic shit and all that).
It was great. Standing on thw edge! Frank should form his own private army like Outer Heaven.
There was actually a story in the 70s where it turned out that Steve was a super-pacifist liberal that only changed his mind when his previously non-existent brother died at Pearl Harbor. Not only did this make no sense continuity-wise (Steve became Cap BEFORE PH), it was an insult to the character, changing his motivation from wanting to serve his country and help people to revenge.
The next writer realized this, and quickly retconned it away, explaining it as just being fake memories or something, he never had a brother.
If writers wanted that. For all we know, they could bullshit away with Speedforce, green flame, Orb of Ra or whatever.
Moon Knight just went full Monnman.
You can't have an entire society of soldiers. Someones got to grow the food, and run the utilities, and generally keep basic society going.
The Spartans tried it, and aside from needing an entire enslaved, non-fighting population anyway, what with that "needing food" thing I mentioned, and it all fell apart in the end.
I really like the implication here that Matt doesn't do what he does because of what happened to his father. Like, however much that tragedy might have put him on the trajectory of his current life he's moved past it as much as he can.
...
The reason you never see any "heroes" who want to do it without a cause is because that's a bully. Someone who has no reason or right to try and push others around and say what they can or cannot do.
If your(the character) rationale for being a hero is "I've been told this is what's right", you're just a drone. The bad guys feel the same way. However you set up the situation that they learn the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad, without loss of some kind, is going to be the same indoctrination that the villains do to henchmen or whatever.
Long story short? It's always "edgy vs. uneducated" and that's what sells.
Krypton blowing up had nothing to do with Superman's motivation to help people. That's basic decency he learned from Ma and Pa Kent. Captain America wasn't motivated by grief, he was standing up to oppressors on general principle. The O5 X-Men weren't taking revenge for loved ones, they were protecting the weak from bigotry. Wonder Woman came out into the world to show humanity that there was a better, more loving and peaceful way. Iron Man was standing up to tyrants and terrorists. Same goes for the Fantastic Four. Ghost Rider avenged innocent strangers. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Spidey and Batman are actually in the minority when it comes to hero motivations.
Krypton usually exploded due to inevitable natural causes. He protects Metropolis because people deserve to be protected.
>The reason you never see any "heroes" who want to do it without a cause is because that's a bully. Someone who has no reason or right to try and push others around and say what they can or cannot do.
The fuck are you on about? Most of the time it's villains trying to conquer/rule/fuck over the world, crime lords, people that don't care about others fucking over unrelated people. It's not about pushing your moral standards on them, it's about stopping objetive evil most of the time in cape comics
>If your(the character) rationale for being a hero is "I've been told this is what's right", you're just a drone.
Ah, fuck off with that edgy bullshit. People can think and have introspection about what they believe and that doesn't always mean you need to go through a huge loss. The funny thing is, people are surprisingly more empathetic than most believe, it's just that most people aren't adept at actually trying. Sometimes you yourself may cause somethign to go wrong and then you have to take a long hard look at what exactly yo uare doing and why.
There are a billion different ways to make a character or a person take up a cause, and not all of them require something inside the character to be broken or hurt. You're trying to oversimplify something complex.
Every literary character has tragedy in their past. It's easy drama 101. Need to write something dramatic? Make up some shit about a dead father or an alcoholic mother or a dead loved one, whatever
Sometimes a tragedy is required in order to create a hero or villain. If the heroes you mentioned never experienced those tragedies, they would most likely just be like the rest of us. Living our lives with only personal goals and nothing else.
>I can't empathise or assume moral responsibility: the post
Matt knows it best because his best buddy Foggy would follow him to the ends of the Earth and Watson to his Holmes Ben Urich didn't win any awards when he didn't publish his story about how he figured out his identity just because he knew that'd be a dick move to do.
Both are absolutely normal guys in this crazy world of heroes who stick around and stick their necks out for Matt.
for purchase, but not for use cockcheese
he's also a legit psycho
wow this is wrong
Well, Spider-man would have become a villain, almost certainly.
At least Spider-girl was a hero without needing someone to die. Then Spiderverse happened.
Spider-Man wouldn't be a villain, he'd probably be sort of a douchebag though. He was a nerd experiencing a power rush and letting it get to his head, but he was still mostly moral. He just didn't feel the need to stick his neck out for others because he thought the world was inherently selfish.