Cardboard Prison: Difference between revisions

* In [[Marvel Comics]], the authorities have a history of building prisons for supervillains that are supposed to be inescapable, but never seem to work out.

** "The Vault" was the [[Marvel Universe]]'s most secure prison, but it was still a Cardboard Prison, with pretty much any villain escaping as needed for various comic book plots. [[Trope Namer|Its cardboard nature]] was actually [http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/97d5f38002cf6fde commented on] by writer [[Kurt Busiek]], as the reason the writers had it destroyed. After its destruction and the resulting mass escape (the final shredding of the cardboard, if you will), supercriminals were incarcerated in lesser prisons nationwide, with predictable results.

*** Subverted in the alternate reality story ''Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe'', where Punisher kills most if not all of the Vault's inmates by teleporting a giant flood inside the prison.

*** The Vault has now been replaced by the Raft. It was first introduced in the first arc of ''New Avengers''. Said arc is about a massive jail break.

** The cube is a federal penetentiary operated by S.H.I.E.L.D. which originally had been created to hold a specific type of superhuman inmate - aliens. In this case though, it's cardboard quality was entirely the staff's fault. The warden was something of a sadist and bigot, who did illegal experiments trying to brainwash the inmates and use them as weapons. Eventually, after the [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]], [[Lovable Rogue| Noh-Varr]] (aka the Kree hero Marvel Boy) took over the place and used it as a capital of a new Kree empire. Eventually, he abandoned the place, S.H.I.E.L.D reclaimed it, and it is currently being used as a generic facility for superhuman criminals, with [[Iron Man| Tony Stark]] petitioning for converting it into a more humane facility.

** Pleasant Valley was an attempt by S.H.I.E.L.D. to build a [[Stepford Suburbia]] type of town for noble purposes, a prison that focused on rehabilitation. With the help of [[Cosmic Entity| Kobic (a flawed evolved form of a Cosmic Cube)]] inmates were transformed both physically and psychologically, and then incorporated into this pleasant and serene town, in hopes that they could eventually be reformed. For example, the Absorbing Man was working as a ice cream vendor, the Wrecking Crew became actual construction workers, and Scorcher (ironically) worked as a firefighter. While all this seemed to work at first, the flaw was how much it depended on Kobic. Despite having potentially limitless cosmic power at her disposal, [[Enfant Terrible| she had the personality and naivete of a little girl]]. Thus, when Baron Zemo (potentially the most dangerous inmate, being a high-up leader of [[A Nazi by Any Other Name| HYDRA)]]), and his henchman the Fixer managed to regain their true forms, he started a plan to not only cause a mass break out, but getting revenge on S.H.I.E.L.D. When their coordinated rebellion started, Kobic panicked and fled the town, but this only made the situation worse. Several of the villains formed a posse (led by Kraven the Hunter) who managed to trap Kobic, and Zemo implemented a plan to turn her into a proper cosmic cube and use it to overwrite reality. (Kobic had already inadvertently caused this nightmarish scenario in the ''[[Secret Empire]]'' storyline, Zemo intending to do it ''right'' this time.) Eventually, the villains discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D. was smart enough to use a high-tech surveillance system and a place a force dome around the town, so the bad guys were apprehended, and in this case, Pleasant Valley subverts the Trope by technicality. However, the experience caused Kobic to become disgusted by humans in general (again, this wasn't the first time her experiences with them almost caused a disaster), and left to do some serious soul searching. Thus, it is unlikely the Pleasant Valley community could be continued.