Crimefighting with Cash: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* While they don't fight ''crime'' per se (please, don't give Haruhi ideas), the Espers in ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya|The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' have such limited situational powers that their real impact is how they're organized and can apparently pay for any event they want to happen.

* Sylia Stingray, founder and leader of ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]''' Knight Sabers. They never have to worry about money.

** In games without ''Daitarn'', [[The Big O|Roger Smith]] takes up this role.

* At one point [[Black Jack]] ''buys a hospital'' with the spare cash he's got lying around, just so he can get to a dying patient [[I Owe You My Life|to whom he owes a great debt of gratitude]]. (He later sells it back, though.)

 

* ''[[Batman]]'' is the [[Ur Example]].

** In a humorous variation, Batman has also used his fortune to simply bribe the villains to stop whatever it is they're doing. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Arguably the best moment]] came in an episode of ''[[Justice League]]'', when the Ultra-Humanite agreed to betray the rest of the villains after Batman offered to make a huge donation to American public broadcasting. Unlike the rest of the villains, who were all shown to be in a bad mood in jail at the end of the episode, the Ultra-Humanite was happy and content as [[Luxury Prison Suite|classical music was piped into his cell.]]

** Which is why Ozymandias decides to take it to the next level by {{spoiler|actually deciding to save the world with all the money he has}}. Sort of.

 

* [[Iron Man]] is the poster child for this in the Marvel Universe.

* Kate Bishop of ''[[Young Avengers]]''. At the end of the first arc, she sets the team up in a run-down building owned by her family's business and uses a few connections in the fashion industry to replace their ruined costumes (or, in her case, just make one).

* [[Black Panther]] may have inherited his powers, but his incredible wealth and political power are some of his greatest advantage in crime fighting.

 

* The Revenant is the Batman analog with a heavy dose of [[Genre Savvy]] in the comic ''[[PS238]]''. At one point he muses "I sometimes think access to cash is the greatest superpower of all".

* Manticore of ''[[City of Heroes]]''. The "charities" part was lampshaded in one of the comics, where he notes that he feels guilty every time one of his [[Trick Arrow]]s misses and a couple thousand bucks that "could have fed and clothed a whole village in Ethiopia" goes down the drain.

* [[Richie Rich (comics)|Richie Rich]] (although usually, in his titles, trouble comes to him, rather than him looking for trouble).

 

* In ''[[Mystery Men]]'' (1999), a deliberate parody of superhero tropes, Lance Hunt pretends to be the millionaire benefactor of Captain Amazing when he is actually himself Captain Amazing. This character also fits the [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] trope.

** It's implied that he made a lot of his money with advertising. Basically, imagine a Nascar racer fighting crime.

* Yet another Batman example can be seen in the [[Justice League (film)|2017 ''Justice League'' movie]] (and before that, its trailer), when the Flash asks Batman "What're your powers again?", to which he responds, "I'm rich."

 

* The spoof guidebook ''How to Be a Superhero'' features an example of a character who ''literally'' crimefights with cash; he offers the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Mooks]] higher wages, paid vacations, and [[Signed Up for the Dental|a health plan]], then orders them to beat up their former boss.

* [[Older Than They Think]] example: in ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'', while tracking down the Count, the private fortunes of the Harkers, Dr. Seward, Quincey Morris, and especially Arthur Holmwood (being, respectively, a partner of a law firm and sole inheritor of the estate of the other partner, a physician and sole owner of a mansion which he converted to an insane asylum, an American entrepreneur who regularly travels the world, and a British lord) are used to rapidly equip the entire party with whatever tools they need nearly instantaneously, as well as fund several necessary bribes both in England and abroad. At one point in the novel, Mina lampshades the incredible utility of cold, hard cash.

 

* ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'' was formed by billionaire Andrew Hartford, who originally planned to take the role of the Red Ranger. While unsaid, he obviously spent his own money building the tech needed.

** But since several teams had theirs built on the cheap, and at one point a cybercafe owner is shown to be able to fund the construction and maintenance of morphers, zords, bikes, and other assorted doodads, it's unlikely that Andrew spent a vast sum on his ops center.

*** Hayley (the aforementioned cybercafe owner) was a rocket scientist ("among other things") who ''built them herself''. Hartford would have had to hire rocket scientists. Also, the base in ''Operation Overdrive'' was a lot more elaborate than Dr. Oliver's basement in ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder|Dino Thunder]]'', and the zords in ''Dino Thunder'' were found and tamed, not built.

* In the [[Christmas Episode]] of ''[[Misfits]]'', the gang come across '''a lot''' of money, and the episode ends with them using that money to {{spoiler|buy completely new powers}}. It makes sense in context.

* Declan Rand does this in ''[[Psych]]''. He uses his cash and time to pretend to be a [[The Profiler|criminal profiler]] in two episodes to help the cops and stave off boredom.

 

* In White Wolf Game Studios' ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' tabletop RPG, one group of mages (called "The Syndicate") use the symbolic value of money to guide (and hide) magical power. Given the kinds of results that every entry on this page can generate, it's very difficult to argue with that philosophy... except for the fact that this group is a member of the supposed "bad guys", the Technocracy.

** This tradition was carried on in ''[[Unknown Armies]]'' with the plutomancers, whose magic is fueled by having money.

** The 2nd Edition ''Al-Qadim'' supplement ''The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook'' introduces the Clockwork Mage. A very versatile class for an imaginative player, although one that needs lots of cash to build [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?|All Those Wonderful Toys]].

 

* Mention must be made of Colin in ''[[Advance Wars]]'', whose main powers are 1) getting all his troops at a 20% discount, albeit with reduced power 2) increasing his money by 50% with basic power and 3) displaying so much money his men suddenly gain the ability to rip Neotanks in half bare-handed.

** His sister Sasha can use the family economic influence to crash her foes' CO Power bars. Between the two, they're total [[Game Breaker]]s.

* ''[[Mega Man Star Force]] 2'': while you might have super-powers by default of [[The Power of Friendship]], if you want to go from "badass" to "''really'' badass", you need to fork over some Zennys. Board-sweeping landmines, HP increases, and even Giga Cards are available to those who equip the Zenny Finder weapon, track down a repeatable [[Bonus Boss]] like Kung Foo Kyd or Cancer Bubble who's weak to their chosen element, and then kick them around many, many times.

 

* All superheroes so far in ''[[The List]]''. Powers bought include augmented senses, augmented muscles, exoskeleton armor, nanotechnology weaponry and armor, telepathy, telekinesis, and a [[Improbable Weapon User|sound barrier breaking guitar]], just to name a few.

 

* Phase, of the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'', is only fourteen, still a freshman at [[Super-Hero School|Whateley Academy]], and already doing this. She's paying Whateley inventors to build weapons for her, including a utility belt that has nearly zero external volume but is chock full of [[Hammerspace]], a specialized throwing dart made out of ''depleted uranium'', and the latest thing is a collapsing tactical baton. Made out of adamantium. With osmium for weight in the tip. It cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

** And Splendor of the Cadet Crusaders, a [[Rich Bitch]] who used daddy's money to buy herself power gems so she could be a superheroine. Yes, she hates She-Beast just that much.

* The Rocket was bequeathed 11 million dollars earmarked for 'Fighting Evil' in ''[[Legion of Nothing]]''. He makes good use of it.

* While not actually a super hero game, ''[[Spirit of the Century]]'' allows characters with high Resources to buy awesome gadgets (though not so easily as a high Engineering character can make them) and anything else they desire (the upper end of the scale includes zeppelins and private islands, and character can reach it reliably on a given roll with a careful selection of stunts, or expenditure of FATE Points).

 

* Xander Crews (a.k.a. Awesome X) of ''[[Frisky Dingo]]'' is a decided sendup of this type of hero.

** When someone points argues that he's not a superhero because he doesn't have any powers, Crews claims that being able to manage his team of super-mercenaries (the Xtacles) counts as a power.

** Ah, so that's why she's there.

* ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'' tries this when he discovers a money tree. It doesn't turn out well. Odd in that he isn't portrayed as horribly rich, yet fights crime similarly to Batman.

** Some fans also believe that the Professor is sufficiently wealthy from patenting his own inventions, to the point that he doesn't appear to have a day job and instead just works in his basement lab all the time, as and whenever he likes.

** Except when they had to move to Citiesville because of his new job.

* In the animated version of ''[[Wild CATS]]'', when the team itself was temporarily unavailable and with no evidence strong enough to bring the government in to stop the Daemonites, their corporate sponsor, Jacob Marlowe crippled the villain's plan by figuring out what highway the enemies were going to have to travel down, buying it, and turning it into a toll road (somehow managing to do this in one night). When the Daemonite transport runs the tollbooth without paying, this provides him with the evidence he needs to bring the government down on them.

 

* In particularly lawless areas, some companies (including the U.S. government) will hire mercenaries to keep crime under control.

* A handful of wealthy philanthropists, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are trying to ''really'' address major problems like cancer and famine by pouring money into research. They're actually getting somewhere...