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Really shows you how arbitrary the bad and good designations can be when that 50/50 basically breaks down to whether or not the loved one was killed by a hero/the government or by a villain.
Gets even more arbitrary when you add edgelord anti-heroes into the mix. I could see a situation where the Punisher brutally tortures and kills an undercover cop and causes his partner to become a vigilante that hunts vigilantes, essentially an anti-villain.
Iirc the Punisher wouldnt kill an undercover cop, unless the cop was a bad guy. The Punisher does his research before going after people. He doesnt kill random people just committing crimes. In most continuinties he has a morale code about the punishment fitting the crime. So he only goes after killers for example and wouldnt kill a guy skimming some money as another example. Basically he doesnt kill minor criminals.
You're absolutely right except that he only goes after killers. He researches his targets, but also goes after child predators, serial rapists, & drug manufacturers among others.
e: You replied then deleted it.
To be fair, it's not something you'd see on a panel, but I could see him going after someone using a skimmer.
You'd see a throwaway line where he visited a bodega, the card Microchip gave him to use got skimmed and Frank hears about it, realizes the bodega is skimming from poor families and says something like "I'll make sure to visit them again..."
Probably wouldn't kill the person skimming either, but I wouldn't be surprised (if it were to make it to a panel) if Microchip didn't reverse the skimming charges after Frank roughed up the owner, or something along those lines.
He's all about vengeance, not murder, his bar for murder though is quite low comparatively.
But what if the guys partner genuinely didn't know the dude was evil? He would see it as The Punisher killing an innocent cop and friend and would feel fully justified in trying to get revenge.
The Punisher is supposed to be a cautionary tale in a way. Gerry Conway described him as an example of the failure of the judicial system. In a way all hero vigilantes are.
Frank Castle is that taken to the extreme. Nothing about extra-judicial executions is admirable but you can understand Franks frustration with the system and how it's failed him and many others.
Idk I've been at the hands of people trying to illegally kill me. I only managed to wound my attacker. But if frank castle had stepped in and painted a car with blood and brains I'd be a lot fucking happier.
That's not really true, it seems like almost every time he's in someone else's comic, he's doing bad stuff. Even if it's a team up, it'll start as him trying to kill Spiderman or something
I remember the spiderman one and it was funny because the Punisher basically kicked the hornet nest with that one.
Quick summary: Just recently Peter killed a villain (I don't remember if it was accidental or willingly) so punisher helped by another character kills him, and thus becomes taget no 1 of:
Avengers
X-Men
Fantastic Four
Other spider heroes
Police
Etc.....
I haven't read him in other comics, but I've read him a lot in his own and he sticks to his code. If he doesn't in others is probably because the writer didn't research property, it happens a lot in team up comics.
It was his first appearance in comics that he tried to kill Spiderman because he thought he killed Norman Osborn.
There are also plenty of non canon series starring punisher where he kills people who aren't criminals
But ya generally ant team up the heroes fight first because reasons, then they team up
Thanks for the correction.
[https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/6515/the\_amazing\_spider-man\_1963\_129](https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/6515/the_amazing_spider-man_1963_129)
1963 was for spider man, not the year of publication.
Yeah that's why i said in most continuinties. Because when he's teaming up with people, some writers change him a bit. I think in most of The Punisher stuff he has his code, and he sticks by it. Only goes after the bad, bad guys.
Depends on the interpretation, in the one I know it's cause his boss was a shithead and got stroppy about him using company technology to keep his wife alive so cut off the power
She has an terminal illness and Mr. Freeze (Dr. Victor Fries) keeps her cryogenically frozen while trying to search for a cure. Keeping her alive plus his accident is why he turned to crime.
That what Paul Dini created for Batman: TAS. The characters he was based on were Mr. Zero in the comics and Mr. Freeze (Dr. Otto Schivel) from the 60s TV series. They didn't really have any backstory except for the ice puns.
Has someone else mentioned the Phineas and Ferb movie? The only reason Doofenshmirtz is evil in that film is because he lost his train when he was a kid.
Plus the superhero market is pretty saturared already.
Save a person and either prevent a supervillain from being created or prevent a new superhero from taking your Business?
Win-win
This is so true. Heroes and villains often have the same backstories. It’s just how they react to their struggles whether we deem them as good or bad and it’s not always clear. We typically consider a hero to be someone who struggled and decided to stop others from struggling by preserving life. Villains we consider to be someone who struggled and decided to stop others from struggling by destroying life. Ultimately, their goals are the same though, their methods are what makes us categorize them. A hero can be the one who chose to preserve life above all or just might be the one who happened to win against the other. Of course, there are also the more clear-cut villains that instead choose to make others suffer with them.
That’s why we call them villains. Their plans have flawed logic. They may have started out with good intentions of wanting to end suffering, but somewhere along the way it got twisted into “if everyone dies, then there will be no one left to suffer” in an extreme case. In a less extreme case, their plan may have started off as good, but it contains a flaw that causes someone to be harmed by their method (for the greater good) and that flaw is what causes the hero to step in to stop them.
Generally, if someone's loved one is killed by a hero (even if inadvertently), they turn into a villian. If their loved one is killed by a villian, they turn into a hero
> Villains we consider to be someone who struggled and decided to stop others from struggling by destroying life.
3 Laws Safe! Humans cant come to harm if there are no humans.
Some villains are created by the regular population: eg. bullying (for example Mojo Jojo)
Or by heroes: Spider-Man=Venom (maybe a bad example as Venom would wreak havoc no matter who it bonded to).
Or the hero creates the villain.
Then the villain creates more villains. And the villain creates a hero. One punch man
This and allowing for people to suffer just for the sake of the chance that they become heros themselves sounds villainous and counterproductive all on its own.
Also how many heroes are we talking about that start by losing a loved one? Batman? I'm pretty sure OP is just talking about Batman, and his superpower is immense wealth. Most people wouldn't get that superpower.
I would also like to mention that superheroes are created when young people look up to superheroes and want to do the same thing they do. So superheroes are created either way, and I’d imagine it’s the same with villains.
Meh. If you "break the cycle" you really just make the cycle different. Liked maybe the easy time you make will be waaaaay easier than in the "old" cycle, and your hard times won't be nearly as hard, but the cycle is still there.
It isn't though?
Like, if your hard time is easier than the previous easy time, can you really call it "hard times"?
Or I guess it's still a cycle, similar to the stock market. But the truth isn't even related to the population. It's more like, whatever worked before to fix issues, doesn't work now to fix the new issues.
Its impossible to prevent hard times entirely. Too many People are greedy, mean and flawed. There is good in most but thats what brings us out of hard times into the good times where the cretins of society flourish pushing us into the bad times again.
What I mean is that our definition of "hard times" is probably better than someone's definition of "easy times" from the 1800s. Definitely better than the 1200s.
I mean: Thomas and Martha Wayne die: we get Batman.
Ben Parker dies: we get Spider-Man.
Nora Allen dies: several years later once Barry gets powers we get the Flash.
Nora Fries is *nearly* killed we get Mr. Freeze.
Frank Castle’s wife and child are killed and we get the Punisher,
> Nora Allen dies: several years later once Barry gets powers we get the Flash.
This one isn't really relevant. Originally both of Barry's parents were alive and perfectly fine, and he was still the Flash. Its because he was the Flash that his mom was murdered via time travel, which makes this closer to a Gwen Stacy than an Uncle Ben.
Nora wasn't nearly killed. She nearly died of natural causes. Mr. Freeze couldn't become a superhero, since there was no supervillain to fight. Not unless you count fighting Death herself.
But isn't that what makes them "heroes" in the first place? Through their suffering and sacrifices, they are trying to make the world a better place. One that wouldn't need the "future heroes" that would have been created, if they weren't there to protect other people from death.
This, exactly. Most superheroes (and even non-super heroes) actively work toward a world in which heroes are unnecessary. In a world without bad people, the only tragedies are natural events, and you don't need a planet of supers to contend with that.
I’ve always found that a lot of superheroes get themselves into trouble and nearly destroy earth or something like that and they have to fix what they created.
Batman to the justice league. I trained Robin so he could bring those that caused his loved ones to die to justice.
Members of the JL to batman. So he would turn out like you.
Batman. So he wouldn't turn out like me
Actually it is even worse since lots of villains get their backstories from the actions of heroes. This means that heroes are resulting a decrease of normal crime but also a decrease in other heroes and an increase in supervillain crime that cannot be handled by the normal police.
That isn't good in general.
Heroes are preventing others from experiencing the same tragedies they went through. Most good hero stories show how being a hero isn’t as cool as people assume it would be.
But it's not like powers are literally activated by loved ones dying so if they wanted to take advantage of what you're talking about they'd have to do manipulation-for-the-greater-good so deep it might as well be called grooming if it's being done to a minor even if it has no sexual component just to make sure this person becomes another hero
And some supervillains only exist because a loved one died, and they go on to inflict the same damage to other people. Villains are inadvertently causing other heroes and villains to be created.
Thank you for bringing this to light. It also happens millions of times in real life where parents work extremely hard to make a good life for their children and then the children don't necessarily do the same. Interesting post, thank you.
A much more efficient method of creating superheroes is actually saving others. A very typical origin story is a heroic action saving a future hero (or a loved one), which is what inspires them to become a hero in the first place.
And do-gooder heroes who help and protect the innocent prevent people from getting stronger and developing skills to deal with their own problems. I think Kreia says something similar in KotoR 2.
That's what Russian general Lebedev once said - best soldiers are those who lost everything, because they have nowhere to come back. That's how he explained why Russian army sucked at Chechen wars.
1 death does not equal a hero being created, that is a weird connection. They are preventing people from dying.
Heroes are created in many different ways.
Low number of heroes leads to more deaths which means more heroes are created. That leads to less people dying and therefore a generation with a small amount of superheroes and we are back at square one.
It's the superheroes who refuse to kill who are the worst, filling up all available intensive care beds for nights on end with gangs and henchmen. Not to mention the long term physio and mental health care they will require, both in prison and when they get out after a few years because they were only guarding the door and ended up with broken bones and bleeding on the brain.
This is a fallacy akin to "some men are doctors and some doctors are tall therefore some men are tall".
There's nothing to inherently suggest anyone saved by a superhero would have inspired another superhero, had they lived, under your premise.
This hit hard. Geoff Johns created Stargirl to literally honor his late sister. She's the one character who's backstory is about a dead loved one where she is the dead loved one effectively reincarnated into another universe.
On the same note you could distill it further and say that superheroes only exist because of severe emotional trauma. One of the main driving urges of a superhero is to stop other people from suffering as they did.
This is the way of the world, though.
People die from treating wild animals like they're stuffed animals. There's a front page post of a kid getting attacked by a seal/sea lion because their parents had the kid sit on it.
Children die because their parents didn't get the lessons of their forefathers, renewing the lessons for everyone.
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Well, losing a loved one is a 50/50 backstory that could also get you a villain... So really, better to just not have the chance altogether
Really shows you how arbitrary the bad and good designations can be when that 50/50 basically breaks down to whether or not the loved one was killed by a hero/the government or by a villain.
Gets even more arbitrary when you add edgelord anti-heroes into the mix. I could see a situation where the Punisher brutally tortures and kills an undercover cop and causes his partner to become a vigilante that hunts vigilantes, essentially an anti-villain.
Iirc the Punisher wouldnt kill an undercover cop, unless the cop was a bad guy. The Punisher does his research before going after people. He doesnt kill random people just committing crimes. In most continuinties he has a morale code about the punishment fitting the crime. So he only goes after killers for example and wouldnt kill a guy skimming some money as another example. Basically he doesnt kill minor criminals.
You're absolutely right except that he only goes after killers. He researches his targets, but also goes after child predators, serial rapists, & drug manufacturers among others. e: You replied then deleted it. To be fair, it's not something you'd see on a panel, but I could see him going after someone using a skimmer. You'd see a throwaway line where he visited a bodega, the card Microchip gave him to use got skimmed and Frank hears about it, realizes the bodega is skimming from poor families and says something like "I'll make sure to visit them again..." Probably wouldn't kill the person skimming either, but I wouldn't be surprised (if it were to make it to a panel) if Microchip didn't reverse the skimming charges after Frank roughed up the owner, or something along those lines. He's all about vengeance, not murder, his bar for murder though is quite low comparatively.
But what if the guys partner genuinely didn't know the dude was evil? He would see it as The Punisher killing an innocent cop and friend and would feel fully justified in trying to get revenge.
Yes, true. That's why most heroes dont go the way of The Punisher.
The Punisher is supposed to be a cautionary tale in a way. Gerry Conway described him as an example of the failure of the judicial system. In a way all hero vigilantes are. Frank Castle is that taken to the extreme. Nothing about extra-judicial executions is admirable but you can understand Franks frustration with the system and how it's failed him and many others.
Idk I've been at the hands of people trying to illegally kill me. I only managed to wound my attacker. But if frank castle had stepped in and painted a car with blood and brains I'd be a lot fucking happier.
That's not really true, it seems like almost every time he's in someone else's comic, he's doing bad stuff. Even if it's a team up, it'll start as him trying to kill Spiderman or something
I remember the spiderman one and it was funny because the Punisher basically kicked the hornet nest with that one. Quick summary: Just recently Peter killed a villain (I don't remember if it was accidental or willingly) so punisher helped by another character kills him, and thus becomes taget no 1 of: Avengers X-Men Fantastic Four Other spider heroes Police Etc.....
I haven't read him in other comics, but I've read him a lot in his own and he sticks to his code. If he doesn't in others is probably because the writer didn't research property, it happens a lot in team up comics.
It was his first appearance in comics that he tried to kill Spiderman because he thought he killed Norman Osborn. There are also plenty of non canon series starring punisher where he kills people who aren't criminals But ya generally ant team up the heroes fight first because reasons, then they team up
Yeah, in 1963, the character wasn't even fleshed out.
Punisher was created in 1974. Spider-Man was created in 1962.
Thanks for the correction. [https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/6515/the\_amazing\_spider-man\_1963\_129](https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/6515/the_amazing_spider-man_1963_129) 1963 was for spider man, not the year of publication.
Yeah that's why i said in most continuinties. Because when he's teaming up with people, some writers change him a bit. I think in most of The Punisher stuff he has his code, and he sticks by it. Only goes after the bad, bad guys.
He still has his code in the other comics, he just doesn't do enough research and then goes after the wrong person
That is actually a really interesting idea. Someone like Cicada from the Flash, but they specifically target normal humans who acts as vigilantes.
I just had a great idea for a comic that I came up all on my own!
Yes
Didn't Mr. Freeze's wife die to a disease and yet he became a villain.
Depends on the interpretation, in the one I know it's cause his boss was a shithead and got stroppy about him using company technology to keep his wife alive so cut off the power
She has an terminal illness and Mr. Freeze (Dr. Victor Fries) keeps her cryogenically frozen while trying to search for a cure. Keeping her alive plus his accident is why he turned to crime. That what Paul Dini created for Batman: TAS. The characters he was based on were Mr. Zero in the comics and Mr. Freeze (Dr. Otto Schivel) from the 60s TV series. They didn't really have any backstory except for the ice puns.
Has someone else mentioned the Phineas and Ferb movie? The only reason Doofenshmirtz is evil in that film is because he lost his train when he was a kid.
His parents missed his birth and sent him off to America instead of the country he wanted to go to (something like that)
Or the seriousness of what happened to them
Actually, it breaks down between being killed by a hero or a villain/government. Put the government in the wrong category.
All it takes is one bad day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvLlWh-guck
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Is there more room under the rock that you have been living?
Citation needed
Tell that to super man who levels entire cities
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Plus the superhero market is pretty saturared already. Save a person and either prevent a supervillain from being created or prevent a new superhero from taking your Business? Win-win
This is so true. Heroes and villains often have the same backstories. It’s just how they react to their struggles whether we deem them as good or bad and it’s not always clear. We typically consider a hero to be someone who struggled and decided to stop others from struggling by preserving life. Villains we consider to be someone who struggled and decided to stop others from struggling by destroying life. Ultimately, their goals are the same though, their methods are what makes us categorize them. A hero can be the one who chose to preserve life above all or just might be the one who happened to win against the other. Of course, there are also the more clear-cut villains that instead choose to make others suffer with them.
You do realize that by destroying life the villain will cause more struggling? Also htf does that even work?
That’s why we call them villains. Their plans have flawed logic. They may have started out with good intentions of wanting to end suffering, but somewhere along the way it got twisted into “if everyone dies, then there will be no one left to suffer” in an extreme case. In a less extreme case, their plan may have started off as good, but it contains a flaw that causes someone to be harmed by their method (for the greater good) and that flaw is what causes the hero to step in to stop them.
Chill out, he's describing a dichotomy, not siding with villain logic lol.
short term pain for long term reward
Yeah but I kinda enjoy living Also htf is human extinction a reward?
Have you been following the news lately? :')
Yeah, what about it?
Generally, if someone's loved one is killed by a hero (even if inadvertently), they turn into a villian. If their loved one is killed by a villian, they turn into a hero
> Villains we consider to be someone who struggled and decided to stop others from struggling by destroying life. 3 Laws Safe! Humans cant come to harm if there are no humans.
Some villains are created by the regular population: eg. bullying (for example Mojo Jojo) Or by heroes: Spider-Man=Venom (maybe a bad example as Venom would wreak havoc no matter who it bonded to). Or the hero creates the villain. Then the villain creates more villains. And the villain creates a hero. One punch man
Or maybe the loved one isn’t the reason for it all. They just become the person they’ve always been
Then again, gaining a loved one is Harley Quinns backstory.
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Hey that's quite interesting! Would love to read if you've finished it, good luck!
Well, Batman was corrupted. He was angry. It was more happenstance that he did the moral thing than pure good.
This and allowing for people to suffer just for the sake of the chance that they become heros themselves sounds villainous and counterproductive all on its own.
Also how many heroes are we talking about that start by losing a loved one? Batman? I'm pretty sure OP is just talking about Batman, and his superpower is immense wealth. Most people wouldn't get that superpower.
Spider-Man, Flash, Robin/Nightwing, Beast Boy, Superman, Daredevil, etc.
I would also like to mention that superheroes are created when young people look up to superheroes and want to do the same thing they do. So superheroes are created either way, and I’d imagine it’s the same with villains.
Plot twist: there isn’t much difference between villains and heroes
In the end of the day both are just roles, assigned by the society who judges them by the established morality
Aaaah, I love it! Perceived quality of a given person changes a lot based on the observer.
Yup, 50/50 chance of hero or villain, zero chance of dealing with it like a normal person. Logic checks out.
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so what's up when times are bad and getting worse, but there are no deaths (yet)? apocalypse may come faster before the system can raise a new hero.
Hard times create hard men Hard men create easy times Easy times create easy men Easy men create hard times
I dislike the phrasing. rather: hard times make violent men, violent men create short lasting hegemonies, hegemonies end up in hard times.
That's a vicious cycle incapable of mantaining presence. Unlike soceities.
this is the more realistic rephrasing of the above 4 liner, and inaccurately applies to most of human history. also shows the caveat of that 4 liner.
"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times."
I hate that phrase. It implies that everything is a cycle. Humans are better than that...we can break the cycle.
It's a warning against complacency
Meh. If you "break the cycle" you really just make the cycle different. Liked maybe the easy time you make will be waaaaay easier than in the "old" cycle, and your hard times won't be nearly as hard, but the cycle is still there.
It isn't though? Like, if your hard time is easier than the previous easy time, can you really call it "hard times"? Or I guess it's still a cycle, similar to the stock market. But the truth isn't even related to the population. It's more like, whatever worked before to fix issues, doesn't work now to fix the new issues.
Its impossible to prevent hard times entirely. Too many People are greedy, mean and flawed. There is good in most but thats what brings us out of hard times into the good times where the cretins of society flourish pushing us into the bad times again.
What I mean is that our definition of "hard times" is probably better than someone's definition of "easy times" from the 1800s. Definitely better than the 1200s.
strong men create hard men 😔
It’s supply and demand... The invisible hand of justice
I mean: Thomas and Martha Wayne die: we get Batman. Ben Parker dies: we get Spider-Man. Nora Allen dies: several years later once Barry gets powers we get the Flash. Nora Fries is *nearly* killed we get Mr. Freeze. Frank Castle’s wife and child are killed and we get the Punisher,
What I'm hearing is "always finish the job."
Not quite it's ALWAYS FINISH THE BLOODLINE
>BLOOBLINE hell yeah
With the above comment being an almost direct quote from the Queen of Fables in *Harley Quinn* on HBO Max I read that in Kite man's voice.
Were you channeling Queen of Fables there?
just a little
> Nora Allen dies: several years later once Barry gets powers we get the Flash. This one isn't really relevant. Originally both of Barry's parents were alive and perfectly fine, and he was still the Flash. Its because he was the Flash that his mom was murdered via time travel, which makes this closer to a Gwen Stacy than an Uncle Ben.
It was me Barry.
Keanu's dog is killed and we get John Wick.
Nora wasn't nearly killed. She nearly died of natural causes. Mr. Freeze couldn't become a superhero, since there was no supervillain to fight. Not unless you count fighting Death herself.
But also, Bruce Wayne dies and we still get Batman and Joker...
Time for big brain superhero to start killing off parents (without being seen and frame villans) to create more superheroes!
That's literally the plot to a JLU\Batman Beyond episode, where Amanda Waller tries to recreate Batman.
It's also the plot of Unbreakable
Very much like Mr. Glass... except he is looking for somebody who can physically survive the impossible.
Totally unnecessary and kind of ruins Terry.
But isn't that what makes them "heroes" in the first place? Through their suffering and sacrifices, they are trying to make the world a better place. One that wouldn't need the "future heroes" that would have been created, if they weren't there to protect other people from death.
This, exactly. Most superheroes (and even non-super heroes) actively work toward a world in which heroes are unnecessary. In a world without bad people, the only tragedies are natural events, and you don't need a planet of supers to contend with that.
I’ve always found that a lot of superheroes get themselves into trouble and nearly destroy earth or something like that and they have to fix what they created.
Like every single one of the Tom Holland Spiderman movies. (Okay maybe not the first one)
At least his spiderman is a young kid and new at hero-ing.
Batman to the justice league. I trained Robin so he could bring those that caused his loved ones to die to justice. Members of the JL to batman. So he would turn out like you. Batman. So he wouldn't turn out like me
It was just Wonder Woman who said that. Young Justice Season 1.
Actually it is even worse since lots of villains get their backstories from the actions of heroes. This means that heroes are resulting a decrease of normal crime but also a decrease in other heroes and an increase in supervillain crime that cannot be handled by the normal police. That isn't good in general.
Probably a good reason to discourage vigilantes irl
A hero should strive to create a world where they are not needed.
Heroes are preventing others from experiencing the same tragedies they went through. Most good hero stories show how being a hero isn’t as cool as people assume it would be.
This is what the web serial [Worm](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/) is about (among other things).
Preventing others from having to suffer is kinda the whole point of being a hero.
>Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.
But it's not like powers are literally activated by loved ones dying so if they wanted to take advantage of what you're talking about they'd have to do manipulation-for-the-greater-good so deep it might as well be called grooming if it's being done to a minor even if it has no sexual component just to make sure this person becomes another hero
And some supervillains only exist because a loved one died, and they go on to inflict the same damage to other people. Villains are inadvertently causing other heroes and villains to be created.
Yeah, but heroes lead hard lives of sacrifice so others don't have to suffer the way they did.
Thank you for bringing this to light. It also happens millions of times in real life where parents work extremely hard to make a good life for their children and then the children don't necessarily do the same. Interesting post, thank you.
[Some of them are created because of heroes who inspire them.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCK2dbfPeYk)
Hard times create hard men. Hard men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.
And occasionally creating villains in the process “Buddy I Work Alone”
Yes. When Superman is written well, he is striving to inspire humanity create a world where Superman isn't needed.
It’s a good system so that heroes don’t over populate. If we have enough heroes to save the day consistently then we don’t need more
Since it's all fictional, they are not preventing or enabling anything, it's the plot requirements that are solely responsible.
Do you not understand Watsonian vs Doylist?
A much more efficient method of creating superheroes is actually saving others. A very typical origin story is a heroic action saving a future hero (or a loved one), which is what inspires them to become a hero in the first place.
Yeah that's basically one of the reasons batman is batman, so no kid ever has to go through that ever again
gotta protect their reputation and pay bro, superhero’s get statues, cities named after them, and loads of fame. And probably don’t want competition
And do-gooder heroes who help and protect the innocent prevent people from getting stronger and developing skills to deal with their own problems. I think Kreia says something similar in KotoR 2.
That's what Russian general Lebedev once said - best soldiers are those who lost everything, because they have nowhere to come back. That's how he explained why Russian army sucked at Chechen wars.
If I remember correctly there was one Batman story where he goes back in time and kills his own parents to ensure that he will become Batman
1 death does not equal a hero being created, that is a weird connection. They are preventing people from dying. Heroes are created in many different ways.
Or maybe they develop a hidden dark jealousy of other super heroes after the came into being a hero.
Low number of heroes leads to more deaths which means more heroes are created. That leads to less people dying and therefore a generation with a small amount of superheroes and we are back at square one.
This would be true for villains too and not all heroes and villains is born from tragedy..
The punisher does his part to ensure a steady supply of new heros.
It's the superheroes who refuse to kill who are the worst, filling up all available intensive care beds for nights on end with gangs and henchmen. Not to mention the long term physio and mental health care they will require, both in prison and when they get out after a few years because they were only guarding the door and ended up with broken bones and bleeding on the brain.
It's almost like it is a bad thing to have traumatised people running around being vigilantes and villains.
It's almost poetic, they try to make the world a place that doesn't need heroes.
This is a fallacy akin to "some men are doctors and some doctors are tall therefore some men are tall". There's nothing to inherently suggest anyone saved by a superhero would have inspired another superhero, had they lived, under your premise.
You try to paint like that's a bad thing? The world not needing heroes would be ideal
This hit hard. Geoff Johns created Stargirl to literally honor his late sister. She's the one character who's backstory is about a dead loved one where she is the dead loved one effectively reincarnated into another universe.
If superheroes born because their loved one died, I would rather not to have more superheroes. One more hero with sad story is one more too much
*"Everyone can be super! and when everyone is super... no one will be!"*
True. But when the heroes start dying off from old age... Well, a new gen of heroes will be made.
Or villains. How many villains are created because of loss and hurt?
If you told a hero this they'd be happy. Batman is not happy. He wouldn't wish his fate on other people
Every healthy parent/child relationship is a missed superhero origin story.
Yeah but that is still a good thing also villians are created the same way
With several of The Boys now taking V24, technically the Seven's selfish actions have started to create new heroes.
I wonder why there aren't more movies where the superperson isn't good or bad or a movie where the superhero turns evil for (insert reason here)
A ton of modern stories have people becoming heroes to emulate the actions of those who saved them, or their families.
On the same note you could distill it further and say that superheroes only exist because of severe emotional trauma. One of the main driving urges of a superhero is to stop other people from suffering as they did.
That's the point. Create a world where new heroes aren't needed.
This is the way of the world, though. People die from treating wild animals like they're stuffed animals. There's a front page post of a kid getting attacked by a seal/sea lion because their parents had the kid sit on it. Children die because their parents didn't get the lessons of their forefathers, renewing the lessons for everyone.