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Thread: Superhero Registration Act

  1. #1
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    Default Superhero Registration Act

    The thread that intially brought me to the SDMB was the debate on the Mutant Registration Act in GD - I thought it might be a nice thing to have at the beginning of this board, as well. Especially considering the (relatively) recent events wherein a Superhero Registration Act took pride of place in one of Marvel's big crossover events.

    Even if you're not a big comics fan, i'm sure most people are familiar with Superman, or Wolverine, or some particularly notable powered character that's made it to mainstream pop culture. Imagine that we suddenly discover that people today in the real world are developing superpowers - running the gamut from Superman's occasionally godlike abilities to Arm-Fall-Off Boy. What steps should be taken to control them, if any? How would the law differ between us mere mortals and superpowered folks - or should it not?
    Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Thomas Edison

  2. #2
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    The question is, how would you stop Superman if he wasn't entirely altruistic? It's not like you can stop him or hold him up anywhere.

    For X-Men type abilities, where most aren't Godlike, but some are far more destructive than others, you would need to classify what kind of a threat they are, and restrictions and/or surveillance would have to be administered likewise.
    ????

  3. #3
    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    Part of the problem with this is enforcement. Inevitably some Libertarian demigod is going to tell the government to fuck off.

    Lets go with a hypothetical scenario here.

    Say your are this Libertarian demigod. You grew up in Nazi Germany as a Jew and have some ideas about what registration of unique people ultimately leads to you even have the serial number to prove it. Now lets say your power is a mastery over the magnetic force. You also happen to be very eloquent, charismatic and quite capable of appealing to the resentment of others of your kind. Say you form a 'Brotherhood' of sorts, filled with the types of characters who can say torch a house at will, run faster than the speed of sound or bend perceived reality.

    The problem here is that they rarely address this issue in the comic books. Magneto never goes total war. You know why he never goes total war? Because he'd win. He'd win decisively and within a couple of days. A massive hunk of iron would randomly slam into the White House or the Capital building while Congress was in session. This is a guy who can make bullets out of the iron in a person's blood and he's leading other demigods. The thing that usually hinders Magneto is that he leads a rag tag fighting force that gathers in the woods. If Magneto ever assembled a real organization like Professor X did, it would be a powerful paramilitary force and he would remove the government doing the registration in very short order.

    The more likely scenario would be something like in Heroes where a bunch of supers create a Cabal to dominate other supers and take hold of the levers of power in the world. Why wouldn't a mutant keep their power secret and get a job in the White House? Why wouldn't a mutant with a preternatural presence get elected President? (Maybe it's happened in the real world eh?)

    The heroes are so often hamstrung by a hokey morality that tells them they should allow them to be abused by the humans who they see as 'children' though the situation isn't that the humans are children, it's that they are the prior stage of evolution, an intolerant species that is doomed to this world. Within a generation or three, EVERYONE will be a mutant and there will be very few humans left.

    If the mutants ever went total war, it would ravage the Earth, humans wouldn't survive and neither would civilization. It's a really terrible fucking idea.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

  4. #4
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    I'll probably have a detailed response after I finish re-reading Watchmen. Give me a couple of days.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    This thread needs Bricker.
    Nothing is impossible! Not if you can imagine it. That's what being a scientist is all about!

  6. #6
    Obeah Man, Mischief Maker, Lord of Bees Skald the Rhymer's avatar
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    Ignoring the fact that it was all a Skrull plot, the problem with the Super-Hero Registration act isn't registration as such. Registration is entirely reasonable, particularly for earthtech-based heroes. I see no reason why Tony Stark or John Henry Irons, both using weaponry enormously more dangerous than a Smith & Wesson, should be allowed to operate anonymously. The problem is that it also involved press-ganging super-humans into government service.

    Luke Cage demonstrated it perfectly. He was defacto registered from the get-go. Not merely his identity but his ADDRESS was public knowledge. He needed no training. They wanted to arrest him because he wasn't willing to work for them. If the Act had been "register yourself and get a license," he wouldn't have cared. The Act was "work for us, and if you deviate from the company line one iota, we're shipping you to the super-version of Gitmo." It was slavery under the guise of national security.

    And it was also exactly what would happen in the real world to every metahuman less powerful than, say, the Batsons.
    "Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." (Chesterton)

  7. #7
    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    Skald How would they enforce it? How will the intelligence agencies outspy a telepath? How will tanks defeat the Hulk or the Thing? How will special forces go up against Deadpool and Wolverine? Even people will powers as lame as Jubilee and Dazzler have a tactical advantage given the proper training. The X-Men for instance are a paramilitary organization. They are all trained like special forces to be an elite fighting force. A fully trained Dazzler should be able to take out a marine in hand to hand combat without breaking a sweat. There's also the problem with technology, it benefits both sides equally, so the humans have no real asset.

    Part of the problem with these scenarios is that they always depend upon the supers to be reckless and impulsive, like the scene in Heroes where Ally Larder's character who was a smooth beltway operator murdered a soldier within sight of the woman who was going to shut the whole facility down. That character would have played that smoothly and walked out the front door legally. The idea that the government wouldn't already be filled with fifth column mutants is kind of silly. Why couldn't Cyclops be a Government bureaucrat?

    The whole idea that people would have to register themselves would be fought tooth and nail and if they tried to enforce it against Mutants who didn't want it to happen, well just think Al Qaeda or FARC filled with people who can shoot razors from their backs, melt cars with their hands and cause earthquakes at will.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

  8. #8
    Elephant
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    [mod latex boots ON]I'm partial to the X-Men myself. Which is why this is going to The Guggenheim.[mod latex boots OFF]
    There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. -- Ray Bradbury's "Coda"

  9. #9
    Obeah Man, Mischief Maker, Lord of Bees Skald the Rhymer's avatar
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    Quote Originally posted by Tinker
    Skald How would they enforce it? How will the intelligence agencies outspy a telepath? How will tanks defeat the Hulk or the Thing? How will special forces go up against Deadpool and Wolverine? Even people will powers as lame as Jubilee and Dazzler have a tactical advantage given the proper training. The X-Men for instance are a paramilitary organization. They are all trained like special forces to be an elite fighting force. A fully trained Dazzler should be able to take out a marine in hand to hand combat without breaking a sweat. There's also the problem with technology, it benefits both sides equally, so the humans have no real asset.
    I didn't say they'd be able to enforce it against all supers. But most supers could be overwhelmed. The Thing isn't that tough; it would just take a lot of tanks and a ruthless commander. And what kind of lunatic commander tries to take on the X-Men in HAND-TO-HAND? Even if it were just Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, and Jubilee, they massacre up to, I'd guess, three times as many normals who try to take them on that way.
    "Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." (Chesterton)

  10. #10
    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    The problem as I see it is that the mutants are generally at a technological and tactical disadvantage. The advantage the humans have is that they control the government and the powers of state. This is a silly assumption. Why wouldn't there be normal looking mutants already with political power when this goes down? The mutants are always portrayed as being outsiders to the system, rather than being involved with it at every level. Certainly the Thing can be taken down, but what if you have a platoon of infantry that includes, the Thing, The Hulk, Colossus, etc... all using military tactics coordinated with air support from Magneto, Jean Grey, etc... Your entire premise depends on the mutants being unorganized, and while it's a trope in comic books that people with super powers can only organize on small scales of a few dozen, there is no logical reason as to why this should be so. What about a Mutant intelligence agency made up of Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Psylocke and others?

    I'm purposely leaving out Professor X from this, because generally I think it can be assumed that he imposes his sentimental morality on mutants to keep them from killing humans, and that might be a reason for their lack of organization. He's way too much of an X Factor in all this to really account. If Professor X ever were willing to fight an actual war, and join with Magneto, unevolved humans who have no shot, the war would last about a week.

    You just never see organized military forces with super powers. I'm not talking about paramilitary organizations like the X-Men or the Brotherhood, but full on armies with a central command, power armor, corporate manufacturing powerbase, intelligence apparatus, air, sea, land and space forces. This is the problem with the idea of forced registration.

    Sure a tank division could hurt the Thing by himself, but there's no reason to believe he wouldn't command a division of Reed Richards designed hovertanks or power armor.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

  11. #11
    Stegodon Fenris's avatar
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    Default Re: Superhero Registration Act

    Quote Originally posted by Skald the Rhymer
    Ignoring the fact that it was all a Skrull plot, the problem with the Super-Hero Registration act isn't registration as such. Registration is entirely reasonable, particularly for earthtech-based heroes. I see no reason why Tony Stark or John Henry Irons, both using weaponry enormously more dangerous than a Smith & Wesson, should be allowed to operate anonymously. The problem is that it also involved press-ganging super-humans into government service.

    Luke Cage demonstrated it perfectly. He was defacto registered from the get-go. Not merely his identity but his ADDRESS was public knowledge. He needed no training. They wanted to arrest him because he wasn't willing to work for them. If the Act had been "register yourself and get a license," he wouldn't have cared. The Act was "work for us, and if you deviate from the company line one iota, we're shipping you to the super-version of Gitmo." It was slavery under the guise of national security.
    That was what KILLED me about the whole "CIvil War" thing--it was SUCH a good, debate worthy idea--except that the writer had a political agenda*

    Imagine if the act had been written as follows:

    1) If you have powers and DON'T USE THEM (self-defense/emergency rescues aside), go on with your life. See most mutants (before the Decimation thing), the "has the powers of a radioactive bunny rabbit guy and others.
    2) If you have powers and want to use them, you MUST be registered and trained (remember the whole thing got started when some super-punks were horsing around and showboating, resulting in the death of a bunch of kids). If you're registered and trained:
    a) You can "freelance"--IE it's similar to a concealed-carry license. Advantage: you get a real life, have a secret-identity (the government identifies you by elbow-print or something not on file elsewhere), you're your own boss. Disadvantage? You are REQUIRED to let the official super-heroes take the lead on demand--same way a cop can tell a civilian to back off.
    b) You can join up--you get a salary (you're not on hourly--can you imagine overtime? ), medical and other bennies, a pension. Advantage: you're sanctioned by the Gov. You can (and must) testify in court (in your mask is fine--the government knows who you are--your super-personna is a legitimate identity so the "face your accuser" thing is covered. Disadvantage: the government knows who you are. You're on call. You have some restrictions on politic-ing (the whatsitcalled act that stops congressional staffers from lobbying).

    What's sad is that this is similar to what a bunch of writers thought the idea was in the early issues of Civil War--there was a coordination/communication problem so in one book you have Cap freaking out about "Omigod! They're requiring us to GET TRAINED!" and in another book, Tony Stark's gestapo is hunting down nobodies like "American Eagle" (not him in specific).

    What a wasted opportunity for what could have been a great (and nuanced) book dealing with the transition from (metaphorically) the rough-n-tumble Old West to a modern "civilized" society.

    *Mark Millar point blank said it was an attack on Bush--and like Bush or don't, that doesn't make for a solid story.

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