Okay Sup Forums, let's pretend that real life superheroes could be actually successful in stopping crime...

Okay Sup Forums, let's pretend that real life superheroes could be actually successful in stopping crime. I noticed in Captain America Civil War, there was a conversation where Ross mentioned that as soon as Iron Man established himself, world ending threats starting popping and people with extraordinary abilities became the norm.

This is also a recurring theme with Batman. As soon as Batman showed up, the mob lost their power and freaks started to appear all over Gotham.

I'm not saying that people who can shoot fire from their hands will appear in today's world. However, would it be possible for the criminal element to adapt to the presence of real life superheroes? Assuming that real life superheroes could somehow be successful in fighting crime.

This thread is probably retarded

Factions like pic related or Argus or whatever would form, if partially to counter and (ideally) pacify the threats powered people represent-----but also to counteract the very real possibility that a bunch of new factions would arise after Sokovia or the Battle of New York or the events of MoS.

>as Iron Man established himself
Red Skull was a thing long before then. And frost giants.

I think it depends on how successful you mean in stopping crime. A few vigilantes stopping an occasional robbery or preventing an assault might not be enough to warrant an opposing side, though I could imagine a few people getting wrapped up into the frenzy and dressing up as "super villains". Now if some mob-like superhero force came out and started wrestling for power out of another crime syndicate, then in that scenario you would most likely see crime elements appearing in regular fashion to combat against the heroes.

That's similar to what's happening in Mexico. There's a lot of gangs controlling drugs traffic and such. Then the president decides to made a war against drugs for reasons, and what happens next? When a group goes down, another group tries to take its place, learn from their mistakes and improve where they can. At one hand, you have guys going more brutal executions to intimidate the opposite, and show their power, and at the other they begin to carry bigger and bigger guns. Like cockroaches, once you shed light on a group and stomp a few, the survivors run into wherever they can and grow bigger and more resistant to insecticides.

So, in a world with theoretical heroes doing a difference, organized crime will recruit specialized people to counter them (seriously, the drug cartels in Mexico have telecommunication networks installed by engineers and have doxxed potential snitches who used to operate through internet), so the thing would become pretty ugly.

So really, you can't beat that world back huh? All you can do is make the environment a better place so that people are educated and have more opportunities to do what they like, rather than participate in high risk, high reward activities like drug trafficking.

I've thought about this a lot. Realistically, if we're talking non-powered street vigilantes, I could see gangs dedicated to beating masked crimefighters. Though that would assume there's enough people doing that shit and it has enough of an effect to warrant the criminals having to retaliate.

If you're talking actual superpowers randomly popping up in a population? I wouldnt be surprised to see the entire criminal enterprise to change gears towards superhuman trafficking.

Pretty much these. Superpowers are really just a step up in the arms race between law enforcement and criminals. Sadly, the cure for crime isn't punching it into submission. Not even superpunching it. If it did work, Humans would've figured it out long ago and very quickly.

the most profitable solution will always have a contingent of high risk high reward idiots.

t. Been watching Narcos.

Master Legend is a real hero.

Superheroes in the real world don't have powers and are against an endless supply of street criminals which are mostly born of socioeconomic and drug issues that can't really be punched. At best rlsh are people who do neighborhood watches are donate shit to people. The costume is a gimmick and they won't actually alter the world in any significant way apart from helping a few dozen people at best.

Also you're right OP, this thread and you = retarded.

organized crime, sure

but domestic violence, home invasions, rapes, your average murder? fuck no, not unless Batman is listening in to every hovel in the trailer park and has eyes inside every house in Gotham suburbs, which is an egregious invasion of basic human rights and would immediately render him a villain

Dark Knight Rises

I barely remember anything beyond the memes anymore, what do you mean?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

I also found it jarring that nobody at any point *really* made any effort to argue back that "This stuff happened while fighting threats and beings who endangered millions of lives and/or the entirety of earth".

Like, even if you could fire back with "Tony made him" it'd still be an obvious defense to say "It wasn't US dropping Sokovia from the sky and killing people, it was an omnicidal Ultron" and work from there.

Basically what this user has said, it's already happening in Mexico. The cartels started warring with each other and became more and more brutal to take each other out, then when the military got involved they started fighting back by altering their strategies and using technology and information gathering to counter superior arms and training. Now in the same vein there have been groups forming up the "Autodefensas" if I remember correctly who are basically masked vigilante groups who are anonymous normal people for the most part who target cartels members, dealers, meeting points and exact vigilante justice. They've basically taken over small rural villages by making entire "cells" of cartels disappear. Then when they're done they take off their masks, put away their guns and go back to whatever villager shit they were doing until the next time.

That the guy with the icicle launcher? He was cool.

Basically good guys are empowered by something. Maybe they're an alien, or have access to some super science, or magic, or they're just a strong individual.

Science isn't a limited field, anyone can do it, just like magic, and if someone's an alien it stands to reason there's an entire planet of them (and likely more). And for every celebrity you'll have knockoffs.

They won't necessarily be world-ending threats (if you actually look at some of the world or universe-ending threats in comics, they are very, very far fetched, requiring a multiverse and new gods or infinity gems).

While you'd get the occasional death cultist like in ISIL, you'd mostly get bank robbery or financial crimes. But, again, at that point, realistically, why should someone who can develop a death ray try to rob a bank with it, when they can sell it to the military and be a millionaire?

Comics answer this with mental illness, some people are just super evil, or super crazy. And that mental illness doesn't really reflect real mental issues.

But, it's interesting to note, that while these 'bad guys' can pop up and quickly sell out, it's not something a hero can do. I mean, they CAN do it, but a hero confined by a policeman's badge is going to be severely limited in what they can and cannot do. While you can sell an earthquake machine to north korea and be paid a billion dollars in gold and never have to lift a finger again.

it's escalation, now when people are trying to do a big crime they have the added fear of an Avenger or a Defender busting through the door so they need to up the ante with the crime (take hostages, more dangerous weapons, lots of potential collateral damage, etc)

Oh man i remember this documentary guy is based

Basically wherever there is poverty or famine there will be crime and war. Always.

If superheroes could give themselves powers, violent assholes could too, and you would have instant supervillans.

Yes, Prohibition was basically a Punisher comic.

The hockey mask under the regular mask looks bad

He probably means The Dark Knight, actually, where he and Lucius Fox used a system to spy on every cellphone to locate the Joker.

Though Fox destroyed this system afterwards, as it went against his morals.

Actually on real world the "villains" are the ones that are always ahead of Police. They are always inventing new methods and the Police is who have to search for new ways of action, new procedures, new equipment.

So if hypothetically superheroes appeared would be because supervillains appeared first. They would be the ones that had to adapt to the villains instead.

>So if hypothetically superheroes appeared would be because supervillains appeared first. They would be the ones that had to adapt to the villains instead.
Exactly. The villains create the heroes, not the other way around. This is why it is always important to portray the environment properly where villains exist, forcing someone to become a vigilante to stop them.

Some amateur stories have heroes appearing first, and that is ass backwards. A world without supervillains would mean a superhero has no place in the world. A superhero appear in answer to a need.

I really liked how Lobster Johnson in Mignola-verse, despite being practically a parody of superheroes actually has a very realistic way of operation. He isn't just one guy, at most with a sidekick or helper waiting at the hideout to patch him up. Although there is only one lobster, he has a whole group of people secretly helping him in organising actions, gaining information, preparing equipment etc. I think that's how real life superhero/villains would operate or would have to operate to actually work efficiently. Basically being a small organization instead of a single individual.