Comics, TV, movies, books (both lit and art) and numerous other mediums that depict hero's in all their glory have always shown massive battles, destruction on a global scale and ultimately the hero (or heroes) winning the day.
There's been millions of pages of comics and books, both written and drawn, thousands of hours of television produced; all dedicated to the "superhero". Now this is all done for fun and entertainment but the one thing that I have noticed is that there are no repercussions when it comes to the "superheroes" destroying a city. The heroes get thanked or are given a key to the city or medals or whatever they're given to prove their heroicness. Let me be more specific.
Going with the DC Animated Universe first -
In Batman:The Animated Series - Batman's rogues gallery, which consists of Penguin, Joker, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Clay Face, Bane, The Mad Hatter, The Scarecrow and other's have routinely blown up buildings and parks, killed many citizens, released toxic gasses into their river system as well as airborne toxins to pollute and destroy or freeze the entire city to prove a point or cause the populace to go completely insane.
In Superman The Animated Series - Superman battles highly powered super beings and aliens who unleash mass destruction on the city of Metropolis. Hell even Darkseid comes to earth and destroys parts of Smallville. There isn't an episode of S:TAS that a flying vehicle doesn't crash or a building doesn't rain destruction down on the populace or an alien attacks and proceeds to kick Superman through multiple buildings or through the surface of a street.
The Justice League - same exact as Batman or Superman - mass destruction on a scale that would cause the United States to think twice about letting these over powered maniacs out in public. It's even depicted in several episodes that the government has started keeping tabs on them because of their power and the amount of destruction they have done to the various cities.
It's all the same in the Marvel Universe as well.
The Hulk - an unchecked maniac with anger management issues that runs uncontrolled throughout the world beating ass on his rivals and even his friends. This guy can chuck tanks like they are nerf footballs hundreds of miles away, create devastating earthquakes just by clapping his hands and is nigh invulnerable.
Spider-man - well, he's an over powered mutant that can lift several tons over his head, but that's not why he's on here. He swings through New York City on a high tensile wire, perilously close to the ground, distracting drivers, his enemies continuously destroy the tram systems, topple buildings and in one case caused a massive sand storm through one of the major streets just because they could.
Iron Man - He's a man in flying armor that has no less than destroyed downtown New York, the World's Fair and the Grand Prix... nuff said.
The Avengers - New York City or any city that they travel to?
I could go on, but I wanted to use these examples to bring up the big question of -
"To whom are the heroes held accountable?"
With the amount of physical destruction done by these super heroes (See The Incredibles for a good answer to this) who pays to rebuild the cities and transportation systems that these people willfully destroy. It has to cost the insurance companies trillions (or more) of dollars just to be able to fix all the damage done by the heroes and their enemies. Is there even a policy for "intergalactic invader destruction"?
There are a few comics out there that have attempted to answer the question of who is responsible, one of the best being Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. It's only a few scenes where Superman/Clark Kent is speaking with the President of The United States and with Bruce/Batman, but it's pretty poignant in what was said (or not said) and that all the heroes have been essentially decommissioned unless they are willing to live under strict government rule.
Do the heroes have to pay for the destruction? Where do they get the money to build their super powered space stations or armor or gadgets? We all know Batman and Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) and Tony Stark and a couple of other's are billionaires - so we'll take them out of the equation. But what about Superman, The Flash, The Question, Black Canary, Spiderman, S.H.I.E.L.D, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Scarlet Witch, Hawk-Eye, Black Widow, Bruce Banner, The Fantastic Four, The Punisher or any of the other non-billionaires out that are out there? Where do they get the money from to fund their projects or pay their insurance premiums? Most of them have to be uninsurable, just by reputation alone. Unless they're bonded and have private insurance set up through a fund. How do the super heroes raise money to build their awesome vehicles or space stations? Bake sales? I mean that has to be some super tasty snacks. I mean if the girl scouts can make a billion dollars on cookie sales, why couldn't the super heroes do the same. Hire children to go door to door doing your charity work by selling cookies and snack foods and then take that same money and turn around and invest it infrastructure, buying land and building your super powered space station.
It could work.
Would anyone be interested in buying some Boring Tuna cookies?
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