Superhero Paradox: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Superheroes try to make the world safer for innocents, but in the short term, they ''seem'' to make the world more dangerous.

 

 

Elements of this include:

 

But underneath the surface, the ''real'' cause of this is a cabal of extradimensional intelligences, intent on preventing the hero from hanging up their cape and retiring: the authors and readers.

 

 

Pretty much ''every'' [[Long Runner]] superhero franchise has succumbed to this to some degree or other; consequently a number of series have addressed this issue. Of course, all it takes is ''one'' averted planet-devouring menace (whose appearance the hero's actions did not invite, admitted) to obviate the basic logic of the complaint: once the hero's presence has been directly responsible for preventing the local [[Galactus]] [[Expy]] from eating the planet, then the statement 'We'd have been better off if you'd never showed up!' ceases to be a true fact. Constant superhero battle is bad, yes, but total planetary annihilation is the "worse".

 

In many cases there is a [[Meta Origin]] or an implied [[Magnetic Plot Device]] working alongside this theory.

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' has this: until Son Goku showed up, there weren't that many villains. In fact, the other Saiyans, Freezer, Cell, and Buu only threaten Earth because of the heroes.

** This was lampshaded in the Cell saga, and given as a reason why Goku didn't want his life restored.

 

== Comic Books ==

* This happens with [[Batman]] so often that we might as well have called this the Batman Paradox. Batman's greatest success is breaking the mob's hold on Gotham and its government, but the question of whether its his fault that a [[Rogues Gallery]] of costumed freaks has risen to take its place is always present.

** Noted in ''[[The Long Halloween]]'', as seen on the [[Superhero Paradox/Quotes|Quotes page]].

** In the ''Penguin Triumphant'' graphic novel, a psychologist postulates that Batman is like a lightning rod for supervillains. But he argues that this a good thing, [[Analogy Backfire|pointing out what happens to buildings that don't have lightning rods]]. Essentially he argues that the villains concentrate on Batman rather than doing even worse damage to Gotham.

*** This is directly referenced in Superman's {{spoiler|story of Batman's death}} in [[Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?]]?

{{quote|[[Superman]]: I told him, "They've made a treaty. ''All'' of them. If I take you back to Gotham, they'll ''kill'' you. They won't stop until you're ''dead.''" He smiled that scary smile. He said, "And while they're trying to kill me, they aren't killing innocents. Now take me home."}}

** Although Batman is often accused of this, when you start examining his rogues you see that he actually had less involvement in his villain's origins than most other superheroes. Two-Face was a dual personality anyway, and is often associated more with Bruce Wayne than Batman. Also, his disfigurement is due to a mob trial, not Batman. Poison Ivy usually isn't even in Gotham when she's transformed, Harley is made by the Joker, Croc is just insane, the Ventriloquist is another split personality, Solomon Grundy had nothing to do with Batman, the Penguin, Zsasz, Ra's and Red Hood were all criminals beforehand. Really, the only rogues who can really be traced directly to Batman are the Riddler, Bane, Hush, and possibly the Joker, but who really knows about him? And if we accept the original Joker origin story at face value, he, too, was a pre-existing criminal gang leader who ran afoul of Batman (and ''accidentally'' became a supervillain thereby). And even Riddler, Bane, and Hush were already evil long before they fought Batman.

* The [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] aren't far off. When mutants were defenseless, they weren't a big target. Once the X-Men came around and started defending mutants, anti-mutant crime exploded. William Stryker, The Sentinel Project and even some aspects of Weapon X probably wouldn't be nearly so strong in-universe if not for humans (unreasonably) feeling threatened by the X-Men, whom some in-universe view as a private mutant army. Even the Brotherhood has seemingly grown more powerful in backlash against the X-Men. And one could go on for ''ages'' about all the alien threats brought to Earth as a result of the X-Men.

** One X-Man villain is even genre-savvy enough to take advantage of this. Cameron Hodge has the first five X-Men form X-Factor, which is supposed to be a mutant neutralization group, but secretly finds mutants and trains them. The amount of good X-Factor did (a lot) was far outweighed by the amount of anti-mutant hysteria they stirred up.

* In ''[[Kingdom Come]]'', the new batch of [[Nineties Anti-Hero|Nineties Antiheroes]] kill off all of the old supervillains and then proceed to tear up the world fighting each other because there aren't any more supervillains to fight.

* In ''[[Watchmen]]'', the presence of costumed vigilantes (particularly the genuinely superpowered Dr. Manhattan) tips the [[Cold War]] balance of power enough to bring the world to the brink of [[World War III|nuclear war]].

** And on a smaller scale, their existence causes a police strike <s> in New York</s> across the country, which in turn encourages rioting and looting, and requires an act of Congress to rectify (outlawing vigilantes).

** J. Jonah Jameson had been claiming Spider-Man was an example of this for years before that whole storyline. This is actually true in the case of Mysterio, since he wanted to take out a superhero to become famous and picked Spider-Man since he thought he was weak and inexperienced. Jameson himself also helped create the Scorpion and the Spider-Slayers specifically to capture Spider-Man.

* While [[Superman]] is a magnet for criminals and alien powerhouses, it's worth noting that the "normal" human Jimmy Olson is not harmless. Marvel's Rick Jones is an even more blatant counterpart.

* [[The Hulk]] brought this up in ''[[World War Hulk]] : Gamma Corps'', while talking down the team sent to kill him. He mentioned that the greatest threats earth had ever faced, namely Dormammu, Galactus, and Ultron, had nothing to do with him. Dormammu was usually chasing [[Doctor Strange]], [[Fantastic Four|Reed Richards]] had actually brought Galactus back to life so he could keep eating planets, and [[Ant-Man]] had built Ultron. Comparatively, the threat the Hulk posed at his worst and the threat his whole [[Rogues Gallery]] posed to the world combined didn't add up to the threat posed by a single one of those guys.

 

* Inverted and subverted in ''[http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dw2.shtml Drunkard's Walk II]'' by [[User:Looney Toons|Robert M. Schroeck]], when [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] [[Big Bad]] Quincy of the anime ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]'' reveals that {{spoiler|he is a superhero fan who built himself up into a Lex Luthor-style supervillain in order to ''force the universe to spawn real superheroes to oppose him''}}. {{spoiler|It worked.}}

 

== Film ==

* [[The Dark Knight Saga]] is dealing with this head on. It begins at the end of ''Batman Begins'', when Gordon wonders aloud about what the criminals will do to keep up with Batman being on the side of the police, and then mentions this weird new hitter going around who uses [[The Joker|a playing card as his signature]]. Then, in ''The Dark Knight'', Escalation is the main theme. The cops and organized crime were locked in a stalemate. Then Batman came and tipped the scales, and the existing criminal element didn't stand a chance against him. The Joker is explicitly named as crime's response to the Batman, a monster that didn't -- couldn't -- exist before Batman did. Nobody's very pleased with the thought.

** At the same time, the series also provides a strong argument for Batman's necessity. In ''Batman Begins'', the League of Shadows intended to completely destroy Gotham, and had been planning to do so long before Batman came on the scene. Without Batman, they would have surely succeeded. Gotham City with the Joker, and the new age of supervillainy he heralds, is undeniably bad, and Batman caused it. But without Batman, there wouldn't ''be'' a Gotham City to terrorize.

** This happens again in the animated series; one episode begins where Egon announces the Ghostbusters are out of work....because they have eradicated all paranormal activity in New York. Their solution? Rebrand themselves as the ''[[They Fight Crime|Crimebusters]]'' and clean up New Yorks criminal underworld. Turns out they are even ''better'' at that because by the end of the episode New York is ''crime free'' and they are once again unemployed...fortunately, right as they realize that, [[Status Quo Is God|the ghosts have come back.]]

 

* Addressed and averted by ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]''. Sunnydale had as much trouble before Buffy moved there, because Sunnydale stands on a Hellmouth and was specifically built to be a feeding ground for demons and what have you.

** Angel also averts this because he is attempting to atone for the sins of Angelus, leading him to ''seek out'' a lot of the bigger threats that pop up. He later plays it straighter, many later threats are the result of Wolfram & Hart taking an interest in pissing him off, or the result of prophecies relating to him.

*** Also, Sunnydale was run by Mayor Wilkins for over a century, and since Wilkins was playing the long game, it's likely any trouble makers before Buffy were put down with extreme prejudice.

** And in the episode [[It's a Wonderful Plot|"The Wish"]] we get to see that Sunnydale [[For Want of a Nail|most definitely]] ''[[For Want of a Nail|is]]'' better off with Buffy around.

* In ''[[Supernatural]]'', monsters, vengeful gods, and other beings have always existed, long before hunters. Even though the Winchesters had a hand in causing it, the [[Apocalypse How|Abrahamic religion apocalypse]] (or the little of it we saw) could even be excused as being fated. However, that's only one arc that was fated. The unleashing of {{spoiler|the high demons in hell (season 3), the monster armies (season 6), the vengeful new "god" (season 6, 7), and the leviathans (season 7)}} were all directly caused by the Winchester's actions. For good measure, some [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] and loose lips even enabled [[Magnificent Bastard|Azazel]] to set all the fated stuff in motion.

 

== Video Games ==

* In the [[Visual Novel]] ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', part of the main character's angst is the realization that [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|his desire to be a hero]] is also paradoxically a desire for a villain to exist so that people will be in danger so he can rescue them.

 

{{quote|'''Brandon:''' It's kind of hard to explain. It's the irony of a hero who ''attracts'' danger. ... ''Take [[Superman]]!'' Before Supes came to town, the worst crime Metropolis had was wifebeaters, thugs, and the occasional mob bosses. Nowadays, Metropolis gets a weekly visit from some overbeast with [[Big Ol' Unibrow|a unibrow]] and [[Compensating for Something|a tiny dick]], thrashing the city just to stand toe-to-toe with the Man of Steel. Indirectly, ''all'' of Metropolis' major disasters have been caused by Supes. In the end, Metropolis was probably better off ''without'' a crime fighter.}}

 

== Western Animation ==

* Most incarnations of ''[[Transformers]]'' have this to an extent, since the Decepticons are usually depicted as following the Autobots to Earth. The series ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' is the most blatant example, since in this one the Autobots are pretty much seen by Detroit as superheroes. They're also frequently shown rebuilding the city after Decepticon attacks out of guilt for being the partial cause.

** Also they ''are'' construction workers/engineers, so it's also a [[Justified Trope]].

** On the other hand, ''JLU'' actually ''did'' allow the heroes to have genuine, long-term victories. In the final season, Gorilla Grodd points out that the good guys, working together in the League, are so good at fighting crime that the supervillains ''[[Legion of Doom|can't operate individually anymore]]''. And considering how the [[Grand Finale]] leaves over half the villains dead or [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence|ascended to a higher plane]], it's not much of a stretch to say that the remaining villains' days are numbered. But there's a new batch of bad guys by the time of ''[[Batman Beyond]]''...

* ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' averts this mainly. Terry spends most of his time fighting villains with well-established operations (like [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Derek Powers]], [[Psycho for Hire|Inque]], [[Badass Family|The Royal]] [[Legacy Character|Flush Gang]] and [[Murder, Inc.|Curare]]), and some that have seemed to have sprung up ''precisely because of'' Batman's absence (like The Jokerz).

*** Terry freely acknowledges that he created Blight (or at least that he caused his transformation, Powers was a [[Complete Monster]] already)-and he's perfectly okay with that, as Blight [[You Killed My Father|ordered his father's death]].

**** Terry is fairly okay with having created Blight because his powers are more destructive to himself than anyone else.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]