What is the trope of "you have powers so you have a 50/50 chance of being evil?"
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
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Molecule Man, the most powerful entity in the Marvel Universe, is a janitor, but his version of perfection is watching F-Troop reruns on the couch with his girlfriend Marsha.
Has Marvel updated that reference?
The thing is, Khan and his ilk were specifically made to wield power. They can't NOT rule. It's literally in their genes.
Molecule Man, the most powerful entity in the Marvel Universe, is a janitor, but his version of perfection is watching F-Troop reruns on the couch with his girlfriend Marsha.
Has Marvel updated that reference?
You're referring to the Jim Shooter-written '80s version (and his ''honeypot''). Two or three years before that, he was a standardized FANTASTIC FOUR villain. He might have even been taller then. Now, I can't say.....
Different writers will alter heroes and villains to suit their stories, but some Marvel writers, Shooter included, will make heroes into instant-extra-jerks (see Hank Pym's Yellowjacket in AVENGERS 212). Stan Lee's take on Hawkeye was the wildest in issues 16 and 17. Issue 16: noble, reformed, well-spoken, honored to join. 17: wise-cracking, arrogant, cocky, disrespectful of elders. I guess he figured once he was officially in, there was no point in behaving himself.
Not necessarily a superhero per se, but typically because at some point if you have superhuman abilities and you have the ability to make a significant positive difference in the world (e.g. saving people from a fire), then it's at best morally ambivalent to opt not to do so.
You're referring to the Jim Shooter-written '80s version (and his ''honeypot''). Two or three years before that, he was a standardized FANTASTIC FOUR villain. He might have even been taller then. Now, I can't say.....
Different writers will alter heroes and villains to suit their stories, but some Marvel writers, Shooter included, will make heroes into instant-extra-jerks (see Hank Pym's Yellowjacket in AVENGERS 212). Stan Lee's take on Hawkeye was the wildest in issues 16 and 17. Issue 16: noble, reformed, well-spoken, honored to join. 17: wise-cracking, arrogant, cocky, disrespectful of elders. I guess he figured once he was officially in, there was no point in behaving himself.
Sorry.
You misunderstand.
I was shitting on F-troop.
What newer old Sitcom could they have binged in syndication today?
Friends, Scrubs or Brookyln 99?
Although unless Owen had homemade VHS recordings of F Troop, no tool really existed in 1986 to watch the same show on demand in a loop unless he was using the powers of the Molecule Man manipulate reality or control the minds of every one working at the local TV station affiliate, but I think what he must have been doing was time travelling back into the same 20 minutes over and over again, because the Marsha inside that block of time was the cuddliest, which is the only way a sane person would not complain about being FORCED to watch 900 episodes of F-Troop per week, every week for decades.
Although she did wig out a little when Reed Richards explained that her job was to stop him wigging out and destroying the universe.
Molecule Man, the most powerful entity in the Marvel Universe, is a janitor, but his version of perfection is watching F-Troop reruns on the couch with his girlfriend Marsha.
Has Marvel updated that reference?
F-Troop RULED
DON’T YOU DARE!!!
Societal obligation.
Power tends to corrupt more because otherwise heroes wouldn't be as special.
And that's in fiction.
In our world, heroes (with power) are a fucking endangered species.
And that's in fiction.
In our world, heroes (with power) are a fucking endangered species.
Each of us has the power to help others. If one wants to do it, he can volunteer in a soup kitchen for the homeless once a week. There is no need to be able to shoot laser beams from your eyes or fly to be useful to society. Do you want to save people from fires? Then join the fire department without waiting to be bitten by a radioactive possum.
It would be like saying that if someone were an exceptional shooter with an infallible aim and a champion of 15 martial arts, he would have the social "obligation" to become a policeman to help the others. Because the alternative otherwise would be to become a very dangerous criminal. Instead of wanting just to mind his own business. It makes no sense.
Another detail: superheroes are not full-time firefighters. They are vigilantes who take the law into their own hands. Why would having superpowers give him permission to move outside of society's rules?
No, but I don't think I'm unusual in finding that I've come across a disproportionate number of obnoxious and/or incompetent people in senior positions.
I don't trust or like ambitious people.
I would hope it's obvious that there's a difference between a normal person trying to fight a housefire and someone who can't possibly be seriously harmed by a hoursefire trying to fight a housefire.
But fine, let's pick another example right out of the movies: You're walking along a city street minding your own business when you see Lois Lane dangling over the edge of a skyscraper. Not doing anything and letting the chips fall where they may won't make you a villain, but it sure as hell would be pretty morally ambiguous if you had the ability to simply fly up and rescue her and made the conscious choice not to do so.
It would be like me saving a child from being hit by a truck by giving him a little push. Of course I would. But why should it become a full-time job to search the whole city for children who are about to be run over while perhaps wearing colored tights? Why should a hypothetical child who would risk his life because I'm not spending all my free hours looking for him be a burden on my conscience?
This is a concept I've never understood. Let's assume I was the world champion in weightlifting (the closest thing to a superpower in real life). So would I have, I don't know, the responsibility of carrying people who can't walk or beating up pickpockets? Sure, that would be a nice thing to do, but why should that be a "responsability"?
Obviously I would have a responsibility not to use my strength to break the law or abuse the weakest, but that's a responsibility we all have, it's part of the social contract.
Superheroes are superheroes precisely because they feel a moral imperative to try to make the world a better place to the best of their abilities, versus "living quietly with what they can do"...but I don't think any superhero has been portrayed as "spending all [their] free hours looking" for ways to do so. That would be an unrealistic burden to place upon anyone...but of course, there are times where superheroes have been called to task for failing to avert crises of various magnitudes that they might have been able to prevent as well, whether or not the accusations were justified. There are also superheroes who've been shown to suffer mental illness as a result of the burdens they faced, self-imposed or otherwise.
As a more human (and real-world) example: Oskar Schindler as depicted in "Schindler's List" saves Jewish lives at first because it's economically prudent for him to do so, without any consideration for the ethics of the matter. However, by the end of the film he's going out of his way and damaging himself financially by saving Jews from certain death, and he's developed enough of a conscience about the matter that he suffers a breakdown when he starts to feel that he could have done more than the huge amount of good that he did. Schindler is a hero because of what he chose to do without being under any practical obligation to do so, in a circumstance where he would have faced little if any repercussion for failing to act; he acted because his conscience dictated that he must act.
If you can't understand that there are people out there who perform acts of good because their morality demands that they do so, I don't really know what to tell you.
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Were I said something similar? Can you point the exact phrase please? Of course I understand that if a person's morals push him to do good things he is right to follow it. I'm not a sociopath. What I don't understand is why it has to
a) be a "responsibility" (as someone said above)
b) a social obligation (as, again, someone said above)
There is an idea I've seen, especially in different cultures, that to whom much is given much is expected. It's why I see people whine and comain over millionaires not sharing more of their wealth, or people being expected to "give back."
Having certain resources brings in obligation, and superpowers have been drilled in to us as something people are expected to "give back."
Good question. Depends on the story. In some Batman stories Batman is a sworn officer of the law.
Sort of like choosing not to save your father from a tornado.
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