Arkham City Part I

Batman: Arkham City #2 by Paul Dini and Carlos D'Anda

DC Comics (2011)

What a bizarre concept this is. So, the Joker and his pack of ruffians take over Arkham Asylum, riots ensue, and then Batman has to save the day. There were many casualties. So now, Mayor Sharp decides to let these prisoners loose from Arkham Asylum and have their own, heavily policed section of Gotham City, where they can run around and, apparently, rehabilitate.

The benefits of this plan are...let's say dubious. Yes, Mayor Sharp is being controlled by larger forces (which I will not reveal for fear of spoiling), but he still had to convince the City Council--and Gotham citizens--that this plan is not only economically feasible, but that it has any benefits at all.

First of all, how many inmates does Arkham Asylum actually have? A quick count of notable (and other) inmates on Wikipedia suggests about 60 inmates. And these guys aren't ever in Arkham all at once. But still, let's be a little liberal with our estimate, and say that we have about 75 inmates at Arkham at any given time. If anyone knows of a better estimate, feel free to let me know.

Why exactly do these 75 people need half of Gotham City--one of the largest cities in the DC universe--all to themselves? It seems like an excessive waste of resources and space on 75 people. Couldn't he have just walled off a neighborhood? The equivalent of, say, the east village in NYC? And even that's being generous!

While we're talking about space issues, I'm also a bit confused as to how the government acquired this space. If half of Gotham is being declared a war zone and sectioned off exclusively for Arkham prisoners, then what happens to the citizens formerly living in these areas? What about the businesses formerly operating in them? Well, they can't possibly still be there once Arkham opens, right? No one would willingly choose to reside in neighborhoods where the most dangerous villains in the world are free to roam. And, unless your business is selling death rays, no one would choose to continue to go to work in Arkham City.

This means that, most likely, every citizen and business formerly operating in the now Arkham City has to pack up and move to another location. This has major economic implications. First of all, it is very likely that the government needs to subsidize the cost of moving for these guys. So that's an area of half of Gotham City that the city needs to finance. I suppose, alternatively, that Gotham could subsidize people for staying in Arkham City and willingly exposing themselves to danger. But then that would be more or less equivalent to just setting the prisoners free in society.

Here's another thing: moving people from one half of Gotham into another would almost surely cause major congestion and overpopulation problems. Not only that, but I imagine that many citizens and businesses will simply be lost in the transition. Small businesses might close if not fully subsidized and individuals might simply move outside the city limits. Gotham is losing a chunk of its tax base by creating Arkham City.

And that's nothing to say of the enormous amounts of money being spent to maintain this large prison. For one thing, Gotham needs to commission task forces and experts in order to determine the appropriate plans, and estimate the appropriate subsidies. Moreover, the wall needs to be constructed. The private military securing Arkham City's borders need to be paid.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget that the Mayor is also providing health care and essential social services to these former inmates.

It has been clear for many years that politicians and citizens of Gotham City have been prone to panic and mass hysteria. They have been portrayed as corrupt, fickle, and ignorant. But even in the grand scale of Gotham's historical blunders, Arkham City almost surely nears the top. Maybe top five.

Respect Your Assets: Two-Face Doesn't...

Art by Dustin Nguyen from the cover of Streets of Gotham #15, obtained from http://www.dccomics.com/go/?15348

In a recent issue of Batman: Streets of Gotham (issue #15 actually), we see what happens to a crime boss who isn't aware of the resources available to him.

Two-Face has had some trouble maintaining his criminal empire recently. Since Battle for the Cowl, Two-Face has had to face gang wars with both Penguin and Black Mask, as well as the forceful intervention of Batman himself. In Streets of Gotham, Two-Face has also had to deal with the fact that he has an undercover cop in his ranks.

Streets of Gotham #15 shows Two-Face dealing with the ramifications of these events. Most of Two-Faces gang has been murdered or arrested, leaving Two-Face with only two hired thugs supporting him and very little money. This is a dire state of affairs for the crazed crime boss, yet Two-Face refuses to acknowledge the limitations that are placed on him.

When Two-Face continues to expect unreasonable things from his rapidly deteriorating "organization," his last two henchman turn on him. Realizing Two-Face is out of touch with reality, the thugs fill Two-Face with lead rather than continue to risk their own lives for a madman. Naturally, they dump Two-Face into the river and leave him for dead.

Let this be a lesson to all of us. When resources are limited, we need to recognize what we (and the organizations with which we involve ourselves) are capable of. It is important to pay attention to your available assets whether they be property, stock, or murderous henchmen. Don't over-extend yourself (like some recent financial institutions) or you may find yourself floating in a harbor (or bankrupt at the very least).

Food for thought.

The Riddler's Brilliant Crime Fighting Strategy

Gotham City Sirens #10 by Paul Dini and Andres Guinaldo, DC Comics (2010)

Say what you will about the Riddler's constantly wavering loyalties and his psychological obsession with puzzles. The man still proves himself, time and time again, to be a brilliant strategist.

Whereas once he was one of Batman's greatest foes in the long list of rogues, the Riddler is now one of Gotham's more successful (and legitimate) private investigators. This means that whenever Batman is working a pretty rough case, the Riddler usually wiggles himself into it. It's a wonderful plot source, as this tends to drive a wedge into Batman's own detecting process. Is this a permanent change? Hard to say. However, it has been going on for quite some time and the only signs we have of the Riddler's return to villainy are minor.

It looks like he's in it for the long haul. But we have to ask ourselves the following question: how exactly does the Riddler stay successful?

We need a little bit of background first.

You see, Gotham City law enforcement is organized in a strange way. We actually went over this a little bit in our post on signalling and Batman's crime-fighting strategy, and also here in our post on the effect of superheroes on local law enforcement. Basically, we have a city that is a breeding ground for crime. And not ordinary crime. We're talking about a supervillain haven. Gotham City is polluted not only with ordinary muggers, burglars, robbers, murderers, rapists, mobsters, drug dealers, and thieves, but also with the nutjobs you've come to know and love.

This is why we have law enforcement. Unfortunately, the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) is simply ill-equipped to deal with all of these problems. They could barely handle the widespread criminal activity and systemic corruption before the appearance of any supervillains. Now they are completely overwhelmed and this is all coupled with the fact that the Gotham City budget keeps shorting the department. Less equipment. Less manpower.

This means that the GCPD has to prioritize. Obviously, catching The Joker before he sets off a bomb in Gotham Square is more important than patrolling the narrows to prevent ordinary muggings or drug deals. Yet, even with all police resources focused on supervillain threats, we still don't see results. The crime rate stays up, supervillains are still on the loose, and people are murdered every day.

The police are, simply put, not intelligent enough or equipped enough to handle destruction on such a grand scale.

Batman, of course, has the brains and resources to handle these supergeniuses. After all, he is one himself. And he is almost always the one who rounds up these villains and brings them back to Arkham. The police force--especially Commisioner James Gordon--can help, but it strikes me that this help is usually no more than offering minor clues.

If we were to adhere to the principles of comparative advantage here, then it would be clear that the GCPD should then let Batman handle the supervillains by himself (or with his cohort of Bat-friends), while the force exclusively focus on smaller crimes. However, this does not happen. In fact, the police keep going after the big guys alongside Batman. Inevitably, they get frustrated when he steps in on their game. It makes them look like they are incapable of performing their jobs and so department funding gets pulled all the more.

All of this is explored in Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker's wonderful Gotham Central.

Indeed, this is a strange system. One would think if the police department was being constantly overshadowed by Batman and overlooked by city hall, then this would provide more of an incentive to make low-level, easy arrests and build up stats. At the same time, the police department cannot officially support a vigilante doing its high-end work and I suppose it cannot project the appearance that it is weak on supervillainy either.

Where does the Riddler fit in? Well, apparently his success lies in the fact that he mostly takes on smaller cases. The same ones that are beneath Batman's pay grade and the same ones that the police ignore as they attempt to reign in Mr. Freeze.

It's actually a pretty brilliant strategy. It allows the Riddler to simultaneously earn a "fat check" while establishing his reputation in the community as a legitimate problem-solver. Of course, he doesn't want to be stuck with the reputation of being a guy who takes on easy cases. So every so often, he throws in a hard one, wherein he steps on Batman's own detection process. In effect, the Riddler is edging out the GCPD from law enforcement completely (although he claims that his strategy helps him establish credibility--I just don't see it).

Good for the cops? Absolutely not. Good for society? Who knows. Good for the Riddler? Absolutely.

Crime Brokers

Cover to Batman #444 (art by Michael Bair)

Recently, while reading an old issue of Batman I had picked up in a 50 cent bin, I was struck by the story of the Crimesmith. She is a villain who provides other crooks with supposedly "fool-proof" plans to take down scores in exchange for a percentage of the profits from these heists. Unfortunately, fool-proof does not include "Batman-proof" and the Crimesmith's nefarious schemes are thwarted.

Not long ago, I posted a discussion of how many criminals should change careers and use them for more lucrative and less physically injurious means. The Crimesmith is something of an example of that. Rather than place herself in dangerous situations, she merely devises plans and sends them out in exchange for 60% of the loot. This is profitable and reduces the threat to the Crimesmith. Unfortunately, Crimesmith was not discerning in her clientele and sold her plans to some true morons. The morons bumbled the Crimesmith's plans and alerted Batman to her presence. But in general, the Crimesmith's strategies were safe ones. She removed herself directly from criminal activities, dealt only with intermediaries to hide her identity, and in the end got away free (despite the fact her operation was destroyed). In general, the Crimesmith showed that supporting outlandish villainy was more effective than engaging in the villainy itself.

My colleague, the Shadowbanker, wrote about an analogous Batman character, The Broker, who acts as an exotic real-estate agent to all of Gotham's villains. Much like the Crimesmith, rather than being a real villain, the Broker merely supports Gotham's villainous community. This is safer (arguably) and more profitable than being a true Batman rogue.

Art from Batman: Streets of Gotham #4, art by Dustin Nguyen

DC has yet another character, The Calculator, who is the counterpart to the heroic Oracle. Calculator also specializes in information and sells this information to the villain community for large sums. The Calculator's abilities were so valued that they garnered him a place in Lex Luthor's Society of Villains during Infinite Crisis.

Cover to Birds of Prey #126 (art by Stephane Roux)

Clearly these examples show that when it comes to being evil, look to the business world for success. The formula is maximize profit, minimize risk, develop assests, and protect yourself.

Kudos to DC for giving us some villains that we can relate to.

Is Batman's Lifestyle Too Unrealistic?

Art by Jim Lee

OK, so we all know that certain elements of the Batman mythos are pretty hard to swallow. Imagining that one human being can spend his entire life training for the fulfillment of one, sole purpose is hard enough, but doable. Yet Batman also has to balance spending each and every night patrolling the streets of Gotham City as a caped crusader, while spending his days managing a business, training, research, and maintaining a personal life to keep up the appearance of a dimwitted billionaire playboy. Not to mention that Batman must be the luckiest human in the world considering all the stray bullets that conveniently miss his face. This stuff requires some suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader.

However, yesterday the Escapist Magazine published an article entitled "Batmanalyzed," which pointed out some other oddities and inconsistencies of Batman's lifestyle that people don't seem to talk about too much. The ideas raised in the article are interesting (although I don't agree with all of them) and actually have a fair bit of economics to them. They are also very funny. I do want to highlight my views on some of the author's particular points.

1) Projecting the appearance of the "society airhead" actually may require a bit more work than we imagine:

At these parties, Bruce makes empty-headed gossip until he's convinced everyone he's an idiot. How does he come up with this chatter? Obviously, he has to study it. Though we're never shown this, he must have a clipping service prepare dossiers of pop-culture events, which he skims in the limo as Alfred drives him to the party. The Darknight Detective, as part of his holy war against Gotham's underworld, reads all about society debs and Jay Leno and American Idol. His bat-computer tracks Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Batman, sitting in the Batcave, diligently memorizing this month's Playboy Party Jokes - you don't want to picture that, do you?

This is a great example of opportunity costs. If Batman is going to spend a few hours every night working on his social life, then indeed he does have to be kept abreast of the latest in pop culture news. Not only that, but Bruce does not always hang around fashion models and movie stars. He is a billionaire playboy, sure, but he is also something of a "sophisticate." He sometimes spends his nights with prominent political figures and businessmen. This would suggest that he would also need to read up on the latest political and economic news (at least to a superficial extent--enough to make conversation).

As Varney points out, all of this is more difficult than it seems. Staying on top of this requires at least some time spent each day (maybe as little as half an hour to one hour a day) listening to or reading entertainment news. And this is just the minimum. As we know from our lessons in opportunity cost, this is valuable time that Batman could be spending doing other things, be it actually catching street-level criminals or researching a pending case. This time adds up to many foregone criminals put in jail.

Nevertheless, we know that it's important for Batman to keep up appearances. We just never really think of what it costs.

2) Batman's ability to consistently resist satisfying his sexual urges stretches our ability to suspend our disbelief:

Bruce Wayne's social life is a continual exercise in seduction, arousal and dismissal. He charms a sexy woman into going home with him, hugs and caresses her publicly. She's agog, about to spend the night with a handsome billionaire ... then bam! Out on the sidewalk, see you later. This is Bruce's most common interaction with women. Creepy.

[...]

What's creepy is a healthy, athletic heterosexual man who persuades entire job-lots of Gotham City's most desirable women to fall on their back, then walks away, repeatedly, unconsummated. It explains how he sustains the rage to keep beating up muggers.

This seems to me like a strange argument to make. First, it makes the assumption that Bruce Wayne is an ordinary heterosexual man who has ordinary, heterosexual desires. However, we know that Bruce is very far from ordinary. In fact, there are people who describe themselves as being completely nonsexual or having never in their adult lives been sexually attracted to anyone. One study revealed that this happens in about 1% of adults.

Now, I don't actually think this is the case with Batman. We know that Batman has some sexual attractions. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that he is or has been physically attracted to both Catwoman and Talia al Ghul among others. Hell, he has a son with one of them. What seems to be the case is that Bruce, given what we know about his personality and history, is probably just completely unattracted to the shallow personality types that he hangs with while assuming his invented personality. To me, this is a totally reasonable assumption.

But let's say that Bruce is physically attracted to these socialites he sees every night. Is it really so odd to assume that he would be able to resist them? In fact, Bruce spent the majority of his life training to resist these very urges and to focus his mind on his mission. This is something that priests do all the time. One might of course argue priests are not presented with as much temptation as Bruce is, but then you could also argue that Bruce's training far exceeds that of an ordinary priest.

To doubt that Bruce would be able to resist these urges is then to doubt either the legitimacy of his training or his will and determination, which means his entire mythology falls apart. I think if you're going to suspend your disbelief about some aspects of Bruce's life, then you should easily be able to with this one.

3) Batman's criminal focus may be a bit misguided.

The unthinkable thought, though - the damning observation - is his choice of targets. When he's not foiling some super-villain's plot to turn everyone in Gotham bright blue, Batman fights muggers, hit men, drug gangs - minor-league hoods all - and the occasional crimelord. This is small-scale retail crimefighting, penny-ante stuff. Why no Wall Street derivatives traders? Directors of tobacco companies? Corrupt Treasury officials? Fraudulent researchers for Big Pharma or the chemicals industry? These individuals create misery on a scale the Joker has never imagined.

Two things here. One is that I'm not entirely sure this claim is true. Batman has fought corrupt business types before. Although it may not always be as Batman. For example, the Tim Burton film, Batman Returns, shows Bruce Wayne desperately trying to prevent the tycoon, Max Shreck, from building an additional power plant that Bruce, correctly, suspects would actually drain the city's power and make a huge profit for the Shreck business. In Batman Beyond, an elderly Bruce Wayne fights tooth and nail to stop corrupt businessman Derek Powers from using his company to manufacture and sell weapons. In Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, Batman goes after the organized crime families for sure, but he also makes attempts to deter the corrupt businessmen, police and law officials that take kickbacks and (directly or indirectly) support these families.

Of course, we know that Batman doesn't go after these guys all the time. The Escapist is correct in making the observation that when not fighting violent supervillains, Batman spends a majority of his time taking out street thugs and ordinary criminals. Why does he do this instead of spending more time going after all the aforementioned business-type crooks?

The most obvious reason is that catching crooks on the street requires much smaller operating costs and has a considerably higher probability of success. We all know how easy it is for Batman to catch these guys. He swoops in, neutralizes them, bags them, and drops them for Commissioner Gordon to process and try. Crime stopped, lives saved, case closed. To go after major organizations and complicated operations would require much more preparation, more work, and may not even succeed. Batman first has to discover that there's even been a crime committed, which is much harder to do with a Big Pharma company than it is by simply observing a mugger on the street.

The other reason is that Batman is not exactly a utilitarian. The author argues that these business-type crimes cause much more damage to Gotham City than a low-class hood. True. But I don't think that Batman cares about the magnitude of damage as much as the immediacy of it. He sees crime, he knows it's wrong, and he vows to stop it. This goes back to opportunity costs. If Batman spends time researching these corporate crimes, that means that a bunch of people get mugged or killed on the street while he is conducting that research. Batman's moral code just cannot allow for that to happen. Yes, if Batman got wind of the fact that the Joker was about to blow up the entire city, he would attempt to stop it over stopping a mugger. Yes, if Two-Face just got released from Arkham, he would spend a little time eyeballing him. Similarly, if Batman had reason to suspect that some illicit Wall Street act was about to cause the death of many people, you can bet he'd be on it like annoying on Mxyzptlk. But if Batman were a true utilitarian seeking only the maximal rewards for his city, he would have killed the Joker a long time ago thereby saving the city the cost of thousands of lives.

Batman is a complicated man. And no one understands him but his woman writers.

The Libertarian Batman

Via Brad Delong, here is an image from Paul Pope's Elseworlds tale, "The Berlin Batman." Set in 1938, it tells the story of Baruch Wayne, wealthy socialite by day and a masked vigilante by night, who is tasked with recovering an early manuscript of Ludgwig von Mises' Human Action (that had been stolen by the Nazis). Mises was famous for championing laissezs-faire capitalism and influencing the modern libertarian movement.

The Berlin Batman stands as a symbol of hope to free-market thinkers everywhere and an enemy of aggressive government regulators. Incidentally, The Berlin Batman is Ron Paul's favorite superhero.


Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot. They want nothing short of a profligate system of government-run health care. Father, how do I make them afraid?

Yes, father, I shall become a libertarian.

Batman and Branding

I think Grant Morrison has been reading up on his ecocomics. I can't prove it, but I do have this scintilla of evidence:

Batman and Robin #5 by Grant Morrison and Philip Tan (2009)

We've seen plenty of doppelgangers trying to steal the mantle of the Bat before. But this time, it looks like the Red Hood and Scarlet are ready to get serious by using some economics! Here, Hood is seen reading an book by an economics Nobel laureate about branding and marketing. "That's all Batman is now--a brand, a logo, an idea gone past its sell-by-date. We're the competition," he says.

If this notion of superheroes as brands sounds familiar, it might be because we've actually written about it before--particularly in our post on superhero franchising, but also in our posts on Spider-Man's failed advertising attempts, superhero decadence, superhero supermodels, superheroes using twitter, and minimizing superhero externalities.

It's nice to see some of these characters (even if they are villainous) discovering the importance of economics. However, I wonder if the Red Hood's plan will work here. I mean the Batman franchise is one of the longest running in the world in the superhero industry. It is generally known and trusted. It would take some major discrediting for a new brand to dominate the market. Add to that the fact that the Bat-franchise is relatively resistant to shocks due to changes in leadership, which is precisely what Hood is trying to exploit.

Tough market, guys. But I like your hustle. I mean, really, what can go wrong?

Oh yeah, that.

Game Theory, Signaling and Comic Book Crime

by David G. Klein from the New York Times (2009)

Can Batman devise a scientific way to fight/reduce crime?

A recent article by Robert H. Frank in the New York Times described a more cost-effective method of reducing crime in the United States that borrows from game theoretic principles and the effect of signaling. The theory, proposed by Professor Mark Kleiman, basically says that rather than attempting to deter criminals by offering more severe punishments, law enforcement officials should instead attempt to increase the odds by which they are apprehended.

This is based on the premise (and apparently some empirical data) that most criminals are not rational actors in the sense that they would be deterred if the expected punishment was greater than the expected benefit of committing the crime. Instead they are "more like impulsive children, blinded by the temptation of immediate reward and largely untroubled by the possibility of delayed or uncertain punishment."

However, Kleiman argues that if a criminal were to think that the probability of being caught were high enough, then even more modest punishments would likely be enough to make him or her think twice about committing the crime in the first place.

If we were to accept this premise, what then would be an effective method of increasing the probability of criminals being apprehended? Kleiman argues that this could be done by using the effect of signaling--that is making the criminals think that by engaging in a crime, they would likely be caught. One method he suggests is publicizing a criminal priorities list. The game would work as follows:

Suppose that all drug violence in a city is committed by members of one of six hypothetical gangs — the Reds, Whites, Blues, Browns, Blacks and Greens — and that the authorities have enough staffing to arrest and prosecute offenders in only one gang at any one time. Mr. Kleiman proposes that the police publicly announce that their first priority henceforth will be offenders in one specific gang — say, the Reds (perhaps because its members committed the most serious crimes in the past).

This simple step quickly persuades members of that gang that further offenses will result in swift and sure punishment. And that is enough to deter them.

With the Reds out of action, the police can shift their focus to the Whites. They, too, quickly learn that violent offenses result in swift and certain punishment. So they quiet down as well, freeing the police to focus on the Blues, and so on.

But why don’t the Reds, seeing that the police have moved on, start committing violent offenses again? The reason is that they always remain atop the enforcement priority list. If they start offending again, police attention will again quickly focus entirely on them.

It is an interesting proposition to be sure, but would this method work against comic book supervillains? Suppose Batman and Commissioner Gordon read Professor Kleiman's new book and decided to employ these tactics on the Gotham villains. Let's say they take a group of notable supervillains--The Joker, Two-Face, The Penguin, Mr. Zsasz and The Riddler--and make a priorities list, which they intend to signal to them. By severity of past crimes, lets assume the ordering is (you can debate this if you want; I imagine people will argue the fact that I put the Riddler as more severe then Mr. Zsasz, but there should be no arguments that The Penguin is dead last).:

1) The Joker
2) Two-Face
3) The Riddler
4) Mr. Zsasz
5) The Penguin

Here's the problem with this method. Batman is already a signal. Everything he does, from the batsignal to the bat-tracking devices, is meant to deter criminals. He uses fear to thwart them. After all, this is the importance of dressing up like a bat. Otherwise, he would just be some goofball with a fetish.



Yet, this signaling unfortunately had the opposite effect of what Batman had originally intended. He may stand as a symbol of fear and deterrence for ordinary street thugs (which is incidentally what he started out fighting), but his actions have produced an unintended consequence of breeding more insane villains and "freaks." Indeed, this has been explored in numerous books including The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, Batman: Ego, and others.

The idea is that many of these villains have motivations other than the immediate reward of the crime. They like having Batman chase them. They try time and time again to outsmart him. For many of these villains, it has become a game to try and thwart the Batman. His very presence in the city, rather than deterring them, has actually and somewhat counter-intuitively inspired them to commit more clever crimes. And without that game, these villains tend to revert back into catatonia. In one story called "Going Sane," The Joker, after thinking he had killed Batman, actually ends up retiring from crime, changing his name to "Joe Kerr," getting reconstructive plastic surgery, and moves into suburbia to live a quiet and peaceful life. Once he finds out Batman hadn't been killed, he mutilates himself and gears up into action once again.

Given these motivations, it is unlikely that Kleiman's strategy would work against the Batman villains should he order his list as he did above. If Batman publicizes pursuing the Joker above all else, he would not be deterred in the slightest. In fact, I'd bet that other villains, in an attempt to grab Batman's attention, would start committing more crimes.

However, this does not necessarily mean the signaling strategy is hopeless. It might be able to achieve some benefits for Batman if used appropriately. For instance, although many villains see Batman's presence as motivation, there are still supervillains who unequivocally want him gone. Consider our list above. The Penguin and Mr. Zsasz two such villains.

Let's look at The Penguin. During Batman's peak, The Penguin operated primarily from behind the scenes. Rather than being out on the street, he owned and operated a "legitimate" business--a restaurant/night club. Sure the club was a hot spot for villains and sure he laundered lots of money through the business, but The Penguin did not want to be caught. That's why he was Batman's primary source of information regarding the other villains. Yet, when Batman went missing after the events of Batman R.I.P., guess who formed a major crime gang and tried to take control of all of Gotham City? That's right, the Penguin is now one of the major problems that Dick Grayson and the crew have to deal with.

So what would happen if Batman decided to order his list another way? Instead of having the most dangerous villains first, suppose he decided to put The Penguin and Mr. Zsasz as top priorities. Then, those two would probably stop committing as many crimes. With them out of the way, as the argument goes, Batman would now be able to focus his attention on The Joker, Two-Face and the Riddler without expending anything on additional resources or sidekicks. It's a cost-effective way of getting rid of the guys on the sidelines--those that really want Batman dead--and focusing on the truly insane ones. The problem, of course, is unlike the gangs mentioned in the NYTimes example, that these latter villains will not be deterred. However, even a small amount of sideline villains out of the way is a bonus.

The other major problem is that, as mentioned above, we don't know how these latter villains will react. It is entirely possible that the signaling efforts of Batman and Gordon will cause them to commit more crimes that are more clever or dangerous in an attempt to win Batman's attention. It is also possible that with Batman's attention elsewhere, they will simply get bored (until such time that the Penguin and Mr. Zsasz are completely out of commission). We don't really have a great way of knowing.

Given Batman's circumstances, I can't think of a great scientific means of fighting crime effectively. He's a bit trapped--if he continues his war on crime, villains like The Joker are born and remain in play. If he retires, then the city becomes weak and vulnerable to villains that, despite not being The Joker, are just strong enough to resist capture by standard law enforcement.

Can anyone devise a way that Batman should/could be fighting/reducing crime effectively?

Superheroes and Paternity Lawsuits

It has recently occurred to me that superheroes have been discovering long-lost children for quite a while. Batman found that his genes had been used to make a rather irate Damian al Ghul. Wolverine found out the baby he thought had died had become the murderous Daken. Cable was revealed as Scott Summers' time-lost son, Nathan Summers. Nightcrawler was revealed as the child of Azazel (a demon lord of limbo) and Mystique. The Incredible Hulk was recently introduced to Skaar. Hidden familial relationships have been popping up in comics for quite a while. Wolverine even has at least one other child he doesn't know about (does anyone remember the "Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure" special by Simonson and Mignola?).

Further complicating these revelations is that these superhero dads frequently have tumultuous and often negative relationships with their children. Damian tried to murder Robin (Tim Drake) a few hours after being brought into the bat-cave. Daken has slit Wolverine's throat more times than even Daniel Way could count. These are not relationships that are likely to culminate in father-son picnics or games of catch.



In light of the fact that there are so many strained father/child relationships in comic books, it makes me wonder why there aren't many more lawsuits aimed at these unwitting deadbeat dads. After all, in all of these relationships, the father has not contributed to child-rearing. Neither financial nor emotional support was given to these children during their development.

Granted each of these cases is very complex and is not analogous to most paternal situations. Can Scott Summers be expected to pay back child support for a son who was raised in the future? Regardless of moral obligation, I would be hard pressed to find a legal precedent to support any litigation against Cyclops. But though these father/child relations are strange, does that mean that the comic book dads involved are excused from the obligations that are placed upon normal fathers? I'm not sure that's fair. I don't think Scott Summers should be allowed to abandon his clone wife and his son to hang out with X-Factor, only to help kill his clone wife, regain custody of his son, get his baby infected with the T-O virus, and send him into the future. I think we need more accountability than that.

Clearly the lack of paternal interaction has caused some anger issues in these long lost children. Damian al Ghul is quasi psychotic and at the very least has severe anger issues. Nightcrawler became a priest (if that's not rebelling against being sired by a demon, i don't know what is). Daken is a mass murderer with a particular love for cutting pieces off of his father. Cable just shoots lots of things, period. These children act out, in part because of the lack of support provided by their fathers.

But if these children really want retribution against their parents, wouldn't the path of legal recourse be more satisfying (and significantly less likely to result in bodily harm)? And if these wayward children don't take legal recourse against their estranged fathers, does it encourage comic book dads to send their children into the future (or another dimension, continent, etc.) to avoid their financial and parental obligations? Is that the message we want to send? We need to encourage men like Reed Richards (arrogant and emotionally distant though he may be) who stick around and support their children.

It's just the right thing to do.

The Broker and Gotham City Crime

Streets of Gotham #4 by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen (2009)

Earlier, we had written about an interesting character that writer Paul Dini had created. A new, shadowy figure lurking around the streets of Gotham. Someone so sinister and cunning that he easily ranks among the most dangerous of Batman's rogues gallery.

I, of course, am referring to The Broker.

As a refresher, The Broker is an independent real estate agent that caters exclusively to supervillains and criminals. Whenever the Joker needs a new amusement park or abandoned toy store, he calls up The Broker. Whenever Two Face needs a new Double Mint Gum factory, he gives The Broker a ring. Whenever Clayface needs a new...um...where does Clayface take residence anyway? The point is that The Broker is the go-to guy for villain hideouts and lairs.

With the latest issue of Streets of Gotham, Dini and Nguyen develop a rich and elaborate back story for Gotham's new entrepreneur. We learn a good deal about the character's day-to-day operations, his history, and his motivations. And we get a pretty decent sense of the economics of the whole thing as well. Here are a few things that we have learned to expand upon our previous study of The Broker (and crime in Gotham):

First thing is sort of an obvious one: Gotham City has a lot of poor people and the recession isn't exactly helping. More importantly, however, is that in light of all the small businesses suspending operations and families being displaced from their homes, there are lots of abandoned buildings throughout the city. Because of this, it actually seems that The Broker's business is relatively recession-proof. In fact, the economic downturn is actually helping him with his venture. The number of supervillains doesn't exactly drop during a recession--it actually might be increasing. Further, these villains are only going to increase their number of financially-motivated crimes. As such, they're gonna needs hideouts, especially those new villains who need to make names for themselves (i.e. BoneBlaster).

One minor nitpick, however: I don't think "Bruce Wayne" is giving money to keep the "fat cats" happy. We've seen that Hush's deviously charitable plan was to donate funds each month to seeminly poor businesses and organizations that could use the money to stay open, such as the Monarch Card and Novelty Company. Sure, this isn't equivalent to investing money in organizations that help the poor, but I'd hardly call them fat cats.

Second thing we've learned: The Broker is a total badass. This is important since one of my suspicions in the previous entry was that The Broker would have to charge extremely high fees to his clients to compensate for any risks associated with his occupational hazards. That is, the guy is working with major supervillains here and he operates notably outside of the law. He risks being sought out by the police for the illegal trading of abandoned property, he risks being sought out by Batman for information on the villains he sells to (which actually does happen in the issue), and he risks being low-balled and harmed by the very villains with whom he is dealing. As such, he needs to charge a higher price for his time, energy and variable costs. Of course, the problem with that is once you start charging really high prices, it gives the villains even more of an incentive not to pay. The risk factor thus increases.

The good news is that The Broker makes it work in two ways. One is that he seems to have already built a significant reputation, which makes use of the economic concept of signaling. The other, more important quality is being a badass. Look at what happened when The Great White Shark (yep, a real villain) tried to skip out on paying a commission and a finder's fee. The Shark's henchmen get shot in the head by one of The Broker's snipers, forcing the Shark to pay up or...wait for it...sleep with the fishes.

By the way, just to give you an idea of how high these prices are, after the incident above with The Shark, The Broker ended up receiving a finder's fee of $3 million. It is extremely tough to persuade villains to pay you $3 million for simply finding a boat. The Shark actually had to go through the trouble himself to dispose of the yacht's previous owner. All The Broker did, literally, was find him the place. For that, he charges $3 million. The only way this plan could work consistently enough such that he could continue to maintain his business would be if he was an extreme badass. More badass than you or I could imagine, and more badass than is depicted in this comic. By the way, for more on badass, see Mark's post on the effect of bad-assity on the success of comic superheroes.

The third piece of information we learn involves a bit of Gotham City history. Ever wonder just why there are so many abandoned amusement parks throughout the city? I mean, it seems like every day The Joker or The Scarecrow gets a new one to play with. Turns out, there's a reason!

Apparently, right around World War I and then subsequently during the Great Depression, Gotham was a bleak and dark place plagued by rampant crime and depression. Indeed, it doesn't seem all that different now, does it? However, the one form of escapism that proved even more effective than drugs and alcohol was amusement parks. An early string of amusement entrepreneurs started a chain of successful parks, which eventually bred more competition and led to the creation of even more parks for cheaper admissions fees. According to Dini, "By the mid fifties, Gotham boasted no less than three zoos, five amusement parks, and I don't know how many wax museums and reptile farms." People came in droves and used the amusement industry to essentially drown their sorrows. This continued to be the case for the next several decades as the industry continued to expand.

At some point, however, it looks like there was another economic downturn which had led to massive factory closures and unemployment. As a result, people were no longer able to afford coming to amusement parks and began turning more to crime. One by one, these parks closed down.

Dini does not really go into the specifics as to the cause of these factories being closed, so I cannot really elaborate further (unless I missed something). Suffice it to say that this is where the abandoned factories, toy shops, amusement parks, wax museums, and all the other popular villainous hideouts come from. Likewise, this is where the source of The Broker's income also comes from.

So now we know a little more about The Broker and Gotham City history. Although in this context The Broker's operations make more sense, I am still a little bit skeptical on how he manages to sustain them. My intuition is that the villains most likely and most in need of his services would be the low-grade, up-and-coming ones. These are the guys that likely don't know Gotham well enough to find a hideout on their own, need one desperately (especially in times of recession), and don't exactly have time to waste on seeking out abandoned reptile museums. On the other hand, the big-time villains like Joker and Two-Face seem to already have the means to find these lairs easily. They have henchmen who they already pay to do things just like this. They've been around for a while and know both the layout of the city and common police patrol routes. Finally, it is much easier to conduct business with the small guys than the big guys.

At the same time, your smaller villains don't have the means to pay The Broker his extremely high fees. Indeed, if he dealt more with small-time villains, I imagine there would be less risk and his fees would be lower. Still, I doubt he would be making enough money to keep this business going without the big-time villains.

Furthermore, if he is dealing with enough big-timers such that he is able to keep his venture running, I can't imagine that any amount of badass short of being Batman himself would be enough to be able to handle it for so long. As shrewd and keen-witted a businessman as he is, my sense is that The Broker would eventually fall.

Department of Huh? Black Mask and Insurance Fraud

Batman #690 by Judd Winick and Mark Bagley (2009)

I am so puzzled here. Not only does the Black Mask's plan seems like an excessively convoluted one, but I'm wondering whether it is Judd Winick's intent to confuse the reader much like the Black Mask is intentionally trying to confuse Batman.

In the most recent Batman arc, the caped crusader engaged in a long battle with Clayface and Lyle Blanco on the streets of Gotham City, causing mass destruction along the way. Buildings leveled, cars exploded, and people ran.

According to the Black Mask, the city took out private contracts to cover insurance on a certain string of tenement buildings. However, the insurance company was actually a dummy corporation--wait for the twist--for no one! All of this, including the battle itself, was a cunning attempt to throw Batman off course.

Huh?

First, why and how is the city purchasing this insurance? Does the Black Mask have a marketing team under his employ so shrewd as to be able to persuade the city to trust this strange, unknown company? The other alternative is that the city is somehow involved with this villainous scheme.

Second, I'm confused as to what this dummy corporation actually is. To my knowledge, dummies are created as a front for other businesses in order to hide true ownership, avoid taxes, or fudge the numbers in the books. If this corporation is not a front, then is it an actual, functioning business? I think Black Mask probably meant that the city purchased insurance from a firm that does not really exist--possibly one that he fabricated himself.

I know that Gotham City is corrupt and indifferent, but this seems to stretch the extent of its irresponsibility.

Maybe Batman will figure this out, but Black Mask seems to have done a great job of bewildering me. That is why I'd like to ask the readers. Anyone have any ideas here or are you as confused as I am?

The Drug War and Comic Books

Batman and Robin #3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly

The war on drugs in comic books is interesting for a variety of reasons, including that there are actually many differences between the trade in comics and the trade on real-Earth.

One thing I realized while reading Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly's latest issue of Batman and Robin, is that villain motives are usually different. When we think about criminal activity and drugs, we tend to think that dealers, gangs and mobsters are primarily interested in making money. They use the profits earned from drug dealing towards gaining power, prestige, and influence in their respective cities. We reason that these drug dealers commit crimes in addition to the illegal sale of narcotics as an unfortunate externality to the illegality of the business (if you watch The Wire, you know these crimes include but are not limited to extortion, racketeering, several types of fraud, and even murder). Organizations have to "take care of" potential snitches to prevent the authorities from becoming wise to their operations. Mobsters often start phoney businesses and front companies to launder money made through illegal activity, thereby hiding it from the authorities. Police and politicians can often be bribed. All of this seems to exist in order to ensure the continued success of the business and to maximize profits.

Yet, in comic books, most supervillains (I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill drug dealers) in the drug trade have reasons that go far and above making money and gaining prestige. Particularly in Gotham City, it can be argued that these villains are using drugs as a mechanism to fuel their insanity and commit even more crimes! If the Joker were to start selling his laughing gas in the form of a drug (which had happened before), do you think it would be so that he could settle down in a nice home in Nantucket? He would use that money in order to construct elaborate schemes of producing chaos in Gotham and capturing the Batman. If the Scarecrow began selling a low-potent version of his fear gas to gangsters, he would probably just take all that money to develop a substantially more dangerous version of the gas, which he would then unleash upon the city and watch it degenerate into panic. If Two-Face made all the money in the world, his neuroses would not be able to stop him from robbing a Double Mint Gum factory. In the panel above, who even knows why Professor Pyg is selling his drug? Other than him being completely insane.

What we see here is that the sale of narcotics in Gotham City seems closer to a front company for the real crimes. And, as it happens, these supervillains are the ones controlling the trade; most mobsters have been marginalized a long time ago.

So, what would be the effect of decriminalization in these two worlds? Note that I'm not talking about full-blown legalization, including government regulation of narcotics, taxation, and the ability to buy marijuana from your local supermarket. This would simply put most former suppliers out of jobs. I'm referring to decriminalization in the sense that it would allow the drug dealers to continue controlling the supply and sale of the narcotics. This is sort of like what goes on in Amsterdam with marijuana sales. Holland never technically legalized the sale of the drug--the authorities just don't enforce their laws against them. So despite the fact that there are now shops, there is still an illegal market for the drugs.

Now, I confess that I, myself, have never led or even been a part of any drug organization or criminal gang. Yet, I think if legality were no longer a concern and that these dealers were given a free pass by the authorities to continue their operations without hassle (and assuming they could make the same profits), these sorts of extra crimes would diminish. No snitches, no murdering witnesses. And I'm not the first to make the argument that decriminalization could potentially reduce crime. However, in comic books, crimes could potentially increase, since decriminalization would actually be providing supervillains with an even easier means of obtaining funds!

Of course, this need not necessarily be the case. In fact, with the reduction of criminal penalties for selling drugs, this would surely increase competition on real-Earth. New, underground organization would spring up, now unrestrained by the possibility of being incarcerated. This means that the supply of drugs would increase and prices would go down, which could imply that individual dealers would be making less than they were previously. If this is the case, then it is entirely possible that the increased competition would lead to an increase in crime.

However, it is also possible that the market size would increase such that even with the diminished price, dealers would still be selling more quantity and making the same, if not more. Furthermore, the increase in crime generated by the new competition might not be as significant as the reduction in crime from decriminalization. So, there could indeed be a net reduction.

Here's another reason why the sale of drugs is particularly fascinating in comics: there are much harder and much more dangerous drugs on the market. Again, since the major trade is controlled by our most notorious supervillains, many of them happening to be mad scientists or chemical geniuses, there is a constant influx of new, extremely sinister narcotics. One of my favorite examples is from Kevin Smith and Walt Flanagan's Batman: Cacophony miniseries, in which Maxie Zeus obtained some of the Joker's patented laughing gas and combined it with ecstasy to form an extremely potent new drug, called "chuckles." He then proceeded to make a fortune selling this drug on the black market, much to the Joker's anger.

Some of these drugs don't even have a market among the general populace, but rather with gangsters involved in other activities. In the panels depicted above, Professor Pyg had developed a drug/virus that served to actually destroy people's identities. I imagine that even most drug users wouldn't exactly hop on this train. However, gang lords and leaders of prostitution rings who need to poison their enemies/women? There's your market right there.

Even if the sale of drugs was completely legalized in comic books, there would still be a black market for this stuff. I highly doubt that the FDA would approve a drug that erased people's identities. Even still, one of the reasons these drugs are in such abundance and do so well in comics is, again, because they are illegal. Both suppliers and buyers have more of an interest in potent drugs. If the purchase of illegal drugs is such a high-risk endeavor, then it would generally be more worth it to the buyer to get something more substantial. Similarly, it is quite risky for suppliers to transport more low-potency drugs, when they could also transport the harder ones and sell them for a higher price.

Consider the era of Prohibition in the 1920s. As Norman E. Zinberg and Kathleen M. Fraser wrote, "People did not take the trouble to go to a speakeasy, present the password, and pay high prices for very poor quality alcohol simply to have a beer. When people went to speakeasies, they went to get drunk."

In conclusion, drugs in comic books is a more complicated business than i initially considered.

Hush's Charitable Villainy Continues

Remember Thomas Elliot's (Hush) diabolical scheme to donate money to charity? When last we left him, we didn't really have a firm idea of where the Wayne funds would be going, specifically. All we knew was that he had planned to gradually bankrupt Wayne Industries by spending $1 billion a month to repair the Gotham City infrastructure.

Well now we have a bit of a clearer idea of what he's spending the money on. In a particularly cunning move, he seems to be exclusively donating towards the start-up costs of private businesses doomed to fail...

Streets of Gotham #3 by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen (2009)

Ah, of course, the good old Monarch Card and Novelty Company will soon be re-opened for business. Hush's plan becomes a bit more devious now, doesn't it? Not only is he planning on exhausting all of the Wayne family resources, thereby significantly diminishing the ease and effectiveness through which Batman is able to fight crime, but he is also planning on tarnishing his reputation by investing in luxury businesses.

I see some problems with Hush's plan:

1) I know that Hush would be reducing unemployment (however only in the short-term) by investing the money to keep this factory open and that the public is sympathetic to anything that would employ the people of Gotham who have lost their jobs. Yet, it's not as if they're fooled to believing they'll be able to sustain the company. Hush seems only to be offering up the initial start-up money to keep the company open for, say, three months. After that, I can't imagine that the Monarch Card company would expect Elliot to pay for all its continued operation expenses. The media itself even admitted that the business is likely to fail and that there might not be a viable market for novelties and card games in these harsh economic times.

And it doesn't "remain to be seen." The random reporter is right. A recent TIME magazine article reports the results of a Nielson Co. study about businesses in the recession. Sports and novelty cards were down 26.5% demonstrating that people are cutting down on discretionary items.

If Hush were offering up free money for a longer period of time, sure it would be a fine idea. But so long as the company is going to have to continue devoting its resources towards a business that is extremely unlikely to succeed, why not just request that Wayne invest in a more viable company and employ the same people in those factories? Since individuals are going out less, they are buying more frozen foods and supplies to store at home. I bet Gotham could sure use some more canned food manufacturing.

I think Elliot's intent here is to have the company crash and burn, which would demoralize Gotham City even more. There would be an added bonus on having the public blame the Wayne family for investing resources poorly.

Besides, who would buy anything from a company called "Monarch" anyway? Oh wait, looks like lots of people from Maine already do.

2) I still don't understand how Hush has access to Wayne's money. It can't just be that looking like someone allows you to spend their billions of dollars. In fact, another panel in this issue (unpictured) actually shows Hush handing out a check that has no account number on it! Huh?

We'll have to wait for future issues to see the effects of Hush's plan on the Monarch Company as well as the Gotham City economy. Let's hope Dick and Damien can keep his charitable reign in check until then.

Why is Fraud so Easily Committed in Comics?

Spoilers Ahead

Batman R.I.P. by Grant Morrison and Tony Daniel (2008)

Comic books are known for the often convoluted and extreme nature of their villainous machinations. Since the early days when Batman would primarily bring ordinary street thugs to justice, criminals have become increasingly more imaginative in their schemes to either steal money or foil their respective superheroes. Often times, these plots involve years of careful scheming, a collusion with like-minded villains, and a significant amount of expenditures in terms of time, money and physical effort.

The Black Glove recently attempted a psychological attack on Batman which involved luring Bruce Wayne into a nefarious sensory deprivation experiment years in advance, introducing a covert love interest into his life, and fabricating the return of Thomas Wayne. Norman Osborn, through years of work, is now a prominent political figure in the United States. The Red Skull recently attempted infiltrating Captain America's mind through a combination of fake assassination attempts and time travel (which Mark discusses here).

Despite all this meticulous planning and ingenuity, what continually surprises me in comic books is the ease with which villains seem to commit fraud. In fact, I don't know whether the banking system or personal identification infrastructure is just regulated much less than on real-Earth, but villains always seem to get away with crimes such as identity theft and insurance fraud.

Consider the following examples from recent literature.

Exhibit A: The Hunter

Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke (2009)

In Darwyn Cooke's latest adaptation of Richard Stark's novel, the protagonist, Parker, secures a fake driver's license and uses it to score a checkbook associated with a real bank account. He does this by going to the Department of Motor Vehicles and filling out a State of New York driver's license form with the arbitrary name, "Edward Johnson." He then steals a ballpoint pen, coincidentally being of the same color as the DMV's in-house approval stamps, and literally sketches the words "Paid, Nov. 6, 1962" in the space reserved for the state stamp. Finally, he treads from bank to bank, claiming to the teller that he had misplaced his checkbook and forgot his account number, displaying his fake driver's license as certification of his identity.

Granted I'm not an expert in the 1960s regulatory structure, but this seems entirely too easy. He did not actually steal a legitimate personal identification document from someone else, but rather created a false one on his own. This means that he also fabricated a driver's license number. Shouldn't the bank have had this information and have crossed-checked it with the account before handing out a checkbook?

Furthermore, I never knew that in the 1960s, the form that one fills out in the DMV actually also served as the license. Though, again, I am not an expert in the history of personal identification.

Parker's plan seems to have required a bit too much luck. He had to have used a pen, the color of which had to be nearly identical with the state stamp. He had to have been such a meticulous artist that his quick sketch of the stamp had to fool a bank teller, who likely sees driver's licenses many times a day. He had to find a bank that had an existing account for the name "Edward Johnson" and hope that the teller did not recognize the individual. And finally, he had to rely on the gross negligence of the bank to merely accept a name, overlook the stamp and phony driver's license number, and quickly dispense a new checkbook and disseminate the account number.

Exhibit B: Streets of Gotham

Streets of Gotham #2 by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen (2009)

We've detailed Hush's latest plans of attacking the Wayne family here and here. To reiterate, his nefarious plan is to be charitable: he intends to invest $1 billion of Wayne funds a month towards rebuilding the Gotham City infrastructure and to shocking a lethargic economy brought down by the recession. Although devious enough, his plan suffers from a critical flaw: how, exactly, does he have access to Bruce's money?

Thomas Elliot (Hush) presupposes that just by holding a press conference under the guise of Bruce Wayne and announcing his intentions that he would be able to commit these funds. Yet, don't regulations exist against these very abuses? There are conspicuously no documents that Hush needs to sign in order to secure this transfer. There are no PIN numbers, credit card numbers or bank account numbers he needs to divulge in order to gain access to these accounts. There is no proof of identity involved. No nothing! Just by being a skilled plastic surgeon, Hush is able to skirt all individual protection laws and commit identity theft on a massive scale.

Does this imply that anybody could gain access to another individual's life savings just by looking like them? Could identical twins steal each other's money? Could Superboy Prime access Superboy's bank account? Could Zooey Deschanel book a trip to Paris on Katy Perry's tab?

Exhibit C: Incognito
See our post on Zack Overkill's attempt to commit credit card fraud here.

It seems as though the individual protections that exist on real-Earth to guard against the aforementioned infractions are negligible or absent in comic books. Perhaps it would save cities some money, individuals some lives, and superheroes some work if the United States government were to consider implementing such regulations. This is particularly true in a world where shapeshifting supervillainy is rampant. It is irresponsible for the government not to have done so already.

On the other hand, I don't recall Clayface or Mystique committing identity theft before.

Superhero Franchising

Name recognition is a powerful thing. That's the whole reason why franchising is such a successful process. Having the powerful security provided by a popular brand brings with it a built-in customer base and an inherent level of trust in the product you provide.

Even superheroes can be seen involved with franchising. Batman has an entire family of heroes associated with him (Batgirl, Batwoman, Nightwing, Robin, Huntress, the International Club of Heroes, Spoiler, Red Robin, Ace the Bat-Hound, etc.). The same is true for Captain America (U.S. Agent, Bucky, Nomad, Super Patriot, The Spirit of '76), Spider-Man (Spider-Woman, the Steel Spider, The Scarlet Spider), Iron Man (War Machine, Rescue) and Superman (Supergirl, Superboy, Steel, and Krypto the Superdog).

But the difference is that instead of providing tasty burgers as a franchise service (ala Red Robin or Five Guys and to a lesser extent Burger King), hero franchises provide justice and evil thwarting. But the security provided by brand recognition still exists. If you needed to choose a hero for a good thwart, wouldn't you choose Batwoman over The Question if you had no other information besides their names? The boost Batwoman receives through her nominal association with Batman makes her seem like a better choice. And though heroes like Nightwing and Robin don't have the name recognition aspect of superhero franchising, their established connection with an effective and prominent hero makes them more desirable thwarters as well.

For a burgeoning superhero, it seems that aligning yourself with a currently existing hero can only help to build your recognition and your acclaim. But what incentive does the hero whose name is being lent out have? Does Batman gain anything from lending parts of his persona to Batgirl? Does Iron Man benefit by his association with War Machine? In many cases (namely with War Machine) the hero's image can be tarnished by the individuals in his/her franchise. If a violent pretender tries to usurp your role (like the 3 evil Batmen from Grant Morrison's Batman run & Nite-Wing messing with Nightwing), doesn't that damage a hero's perception with the public?

Perhaps that's why superheroes should turn unofficial heroic franchises into official ones. The current system allows pretenders to tack "Bat" or "Spider" onto their names without any official approval from the initial steadfast and popular hero. But if the most popular heroes organize themselves and only allow heroes they approve to use their names, the system could be streamlined and monitored. This means that a young hero seeking to use the name of, oh I don't know, Most Excellent Superbat would need to contact the hero he was franchising the name from and seek approval. Then pending approval, the new crimefighter could buy all his equipment and receive training from the originator of the title. This would ensure a baseline level of quality and uniformity for the new hero's heroic activities.

It just makes good sense.

In some cases...

Charitable Villainy

In Batman: Streets of Gotham #2, released this month, the villainous Hush escapes from his confinement in Wayne Tower and puts into effect a very unique plan.

Warning: SPOILERS Below


In the aftermath of the "Heart of Hush" story in Detective Comics, Hush has altered his physical appearance to resemble Bruce Wayne. This puts the new Batman, Dick Grayson, in an awkward position because the real Bruce is gone. This allows Hush to pretend to be Bruce Wayne and the only way to prove that he is an impostor is to reveal Bruce's secret identity as Batman and his apparent death in the battle against Darkseid.

That simply can't be done. So Hush has free reign over Bruce's assets and wealth. And what devious plan does he enact with all those resources? Does he build a cannon to shatter the Earth's crust? Does he disrupt the Earth's orbit around the sun? Does he consolidate Gotham's drug trade under his control?

No, he donates 1 billion dollars to the city. That's right, Hush diabolically gives the money to charity. And he promises to donate 1 billion more dollars each month until Gotham's criminal activities are under control. This causes Dick, Damian (the new Robin), and Alfred to react like this is the worst possible outcome.

Now let's stop and think about this for a second. This is, no doubt, one of the more unique supervillain plans. By giving away Bruce Wayne's money, Hush is damaging the foundations of his greatest enemy's wealth, thereby blunting his ability to fight crime. If Bruce Wayne (and now Dick Grayson) didn't have an unlimited well of money to draw from there would be no batarangs, no grappling hooks and no Batmobile for Batman to use.

Removing money from Wayne Industries also will likely create unemployment. If $1 billion is removed from the company every month, the infrastructure of Wayne Industries will be irreperrably damaged immediately. Employees will need to be laid off, benefits and wages will be reduced, and valuable public and private services provided by Wayne and its subsidiaries will drop in quality. There are few better ways to cause economic crisis than by throwing Gotham's biggest corporation into chaos.

The sudden influx of money into Gotham City will also breed corruption and squandering of funds. The infrastructure of Gotham City is not set up to deal with an addition billion dollars each month. The money could be used to hire more police officers, improve public services, and at least put up more lights in the historically dark city. But in all likelihood, the additional money flowing into the city will be abused by corrupt political officials and wasted by the politicians who have the best intentions. That much money requires massive restructuring of a city's economic plan. And during the time of that restructuring, Gotham City will not get as much benefit from the money they are receiving.

The problem is (as my colleague ShadowBanker and even Hush himself will admit) this plan is very hard to execute. Bruce Wayne, though majority shareholder in his company, likely does not have access to the amount of liquid capital to continue his plan beyond a few months. The easy way in which Hush donates his first billion to Gotham is rather strange. Though Bruce Wayne does burn through money at a rapid pace, he likely does not have a balance of $6 billion in his bank account that he can easily access without filling out hundreds of forms and getting approval from others in his company.

So, assuming Hush's plan is foiled (these are superhero comics we're talking about, it will be foiled), does Hush's plan do more harm than good? Or is it the other way around? If Hush only donates the first billion dollars to the city, will this help Gotham? I've listed some of reasons Hush's plan is damaging, but if his evil charity is controlled and regulated could Hush be helping the city he holds in such contempt?

Those Tweeting Superheroes!

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #2 by Joe Casey, Andre Coelho and Eduardo Pansica (2009)

In his new book, Create Your Own Economy, Tyler Cowen writes:

The current trend--as it has been running for decades--is that a lot of our culture is coming in shorter and smaller bits. The classic 1960s rock album has given way to the iTunes single. The most popular YouTube videos are usually just for a few minutes long and most of the time the viewer doesn't stay for longer than the first ten seconds.

Indeed, as evidenced by the prevalence of such social networking mediums as Twitter, Facebook, blogging, etc., people are more interconnected than ever, albeit receiving their information in smaller and smaller chunks. And this phenomenon has even permeated into the world of superheroes.

In the old days, there were only very few superheroes. Whenever somebody was being terrorized by alien robots from outer space, or simply had a cat stuck in a tree, Superman would come and save the day. Whenever mobsters would rob a bank or low-life thugs would assault a rich couple in an alleyway, Batman would materialize from the shadows.

And people loved them. Superman, in particular, was the single most exciting thing that human beings had ever witnessed. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound and run faster than a speeding bullet. He stood for truth, justice and the American way. He inspired people. Every word he uttered projected a sense of unfailing hope and strength. People traveled far and took significant risks just to get a glimpse of him. Countless times, people have actually jumped off of rooftops just in the hopes of meeting him. Lois Lane and Lex Luthor alike dedicated their entire lives (and careers) to discovering his secrets and sharing them with the world.

But things have changed since those days. The market has actually become over-saturated with superheroes. There are now multiple heroes in every major city in the United States, as well as pockets of imitators in Europe and Japan. New individuals with new powers and gimmicks are popping up each day and forming new teams to beat the bad guys. There is an entire Wikipedia page just on all of the teams and organizations in the DC Universe. And it's not even a complete list. Just scanning briefly, I noticed it's missing, "Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters."

As a result of this abundance of superheroes, individuals are becoming less interested. Sure people are still grateful when they are saved and are still fascinated by some of the new powers and abilities on display, but in general superheroes have become commonplace and, I would even say, a bit banal. As a result, more new superheroes are embracing this new culture of "small bits" in order to sustain the public interest and maintain relevance. As Cowen writes:

When access is easy, we tend to favor the short, sweet and bitty. When access is difficult, we tend to look for large-scale productions, extravaganzas and masterpieces.

Consider the "Super Young Team" from Japan, recently popularized in the United States after playing an integral role in Darkseid's defeat during Final Crisis. Do you think anybody cared about the Super Young Team prior to a few months ago? Even now that they have literally saved the world (no doubt a large extravaganza), people seem to have returned to their natural state of complacency. This is why the Super Young Team has engaged in all sorts of marketing and branding in order to continually provide the public with news about their exploits and heroics. The Most Excellent Bat even keeps a Twitteratti, which is cleverly used as the narration of Final Crisis: Dance.

Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. On the one hand, in an attempt to appeal to younger crowds, superheroes might be becoming a bit more materialistic, as is the case with some of the Super Young Team. This does somewhat negate the classical concept of a selfless hero. Yet, on other hand, superheroes can now stay interconnected, not just with each other, but also with the public. I bet @mosexbat has millions of followers on Twitteratti. Should some of them choose to reach out to him with a problem, he may very well respond, especially since he seems to be the only one in the team interested in actually being a hero. By staying connected and embracing this technology, if there is danger then the Super Young Team might be in an even greater position to become aware of it. Possibly even more so than the Justice League. They might have a moon base and a satellite that can monitor human beings around the world, but the Super Young Team has Twitter and Facebook.

Oh, and it's not just the new superheroes that are using this new technology to stay connected.

Detective Comics #845 by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen (2008)

That's right. In a semi-recent issue of Detective Comics, Batman actually logs on to detective chat room in the Batcave in order to discuss a tough case with some like-minded sleuths. It turns out that as a result of discussing the facts with who ended up being The Riddler and Detective Chimp, Batman was able to solve the case and stop a crime.

So this new culture might actually have some advantages, both for the superheroes embracing it and for the public.

I open the floor to the readers. What do you think?