violsva: Dottie Underwood from Agent Carter, in prison (Dottie)
[personal profile] violsva
So basically all of the dystopic takes on superheroes I've seen have the supers, or at least most of them, employed by either the government or a single shadowy organization and acting as law enforcement.

But why? Clearly their skills are more useful in the private sector.

Superhero teams are mercenaries organized by major corporations. Their celebrity status raises the companies' public image, they can attack other companies to distract them/discredit them/steal trade secrets, and of course then everyone needs their own team to fight off rivals.

This is all very inconvenient for the general public but of course the superheroes also do photo-ops cleaning up litter and volunteering at animal shelters. So that's fine.

Also there are reality TV shows, media interviews with the heroes, corporate award ceremonies, etc., etc.

And every so often a superhero team will deal with an actual threat to a nearby area, like cleaning up after a natural disaster, or stopping some terrorist whose exact plans and location the team just happened to find out about just in the nick of time. (The city is billed later.)

If a non-combatant sustains injuries during a superhero battle of course the company responsible will pay compensation! As long as you can prove that it was definitely one of their superheroes, that you could not possibly have known there would be a fight at that place and time, and that you were taking reasonable precautions to avoid it.

Each team's media releases claim that most/all of the other teams are full of supervillains. Alliances are constantly shifting.

Date: 2021-05-02 01:01 am (UTC)
niqaeli: cat with arizona flag in the background (Default)
From: [personal profile] niqaeli

Tiger and Bunny sounds like it's... not precisely what you're looking for, but highly relevant to your interests. I'm pretty sure there's at least one other anime that's probably in this vein, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

Date: 2021-05-02 06:03 am (UTC)
franztastisch: (mostly harmless)
From: [personal profile] franztastisch
This is SUCH a cool idea! Though I suppose my major complaint in a storyline like that would then be that the driving motivation for most of these teams would be capitalistic rather than 'the common good' (which I guess is the general motivation of people working for government bodies? Or the shorthand for working for government bodies? If that makes sense) But then, one of my complaints about superheroes working for government bodies is the sort of... Inherent approval of said gov/nation within the narrative, by virtue of those superheroes working for that country. International organisations are different, but then fictional international organisations are always just populated with Americans in popular media (it seems) which gives off the America Is Always Right vibe and edges into the limits of worldbuilding when faced with the constraints of filmmaking.

This is A LOT more thinky thoughts than I was expecting to have immediately upon waking on a Sunday morning. xD

May 2025

S M T W T F S
     123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 26th, 2025 12:43 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios