Superheroes are bad for humanity.
There, I said it. With the election around the corner, I know we are all thinking about who will get elected. But before we even start arguing that a superhero-run government would be better than the alternative, let me just say that someone has already written a series on it. Brandon Sanderson's series "The Reckoners" portrays the super-powered individuals as despotic, vicious dictators because if you’re nearly un-killable, what do you have to worry about?
Perhaps some of you are even planning on writing in names. While I don’t condone voting for Mickey Mouse, it’s still better than voting for Superman, who once literally became king of the world.
OK, fine, it wasn't actually Superman at the end, but the fact that it could happen so easily should warn us about having a Superman around at all.
But seriously, have we even thought about how bad superpowers are for humanity? Because as a political scientist, when you want to joke about the end of democracy, there is no better face than those who presumably are fighting to protect it.
It’s terrible on both sides. If the entire population of the world politely asked Captain America to stop doing something, and he was entirely convinced he was doing the right thing, Captain America could continue to do whatever that totally inane idea was until someone physically stops him (surprise! It won’t be one of the non-super-powered individuals).
Heck, I’m on Team Ironman, and I don’t want Tony Stark in charge either. Hello, Mr. Supposedly-Relatable—except, wait! You made a robot army and paraded it around the world just because you could. Thanks for agreeing to the oversight friend, but seeing as how you can hack whatever you want and also have completely intelligent AI, the world is one singularity away from dystopian robot overlords. I mean, as long as Captain America doesn’t kill us all first.
Of course, I hear the cries and pleas from the superhero apologists who argue that not all super-powered individuals would be corrupted and that some of them would work for the betterment of society!
My simple response is The Ring of Gyges, an allegory that, at the end of the day, says that power corrupts. Which we all know. And what greater power is there than a superpower? Any superhero would constantly be tempted to use their powers for personal gain, and as another byproduct of a super-powered world put it:
But ignoring how generally bad superheroes would be, imagine attempting to arrest a superhero. Superheroes are always depicted as humbly complying to the officers of the law, right? They never flee justice, and they’re never paranoid that the Government is going to attempt to make them do something they don’t want to do.
What if the IRS wanted to collect taxes from Superman? He's literally a space alien. What about the Flash, who can run so fast he can travel through time. What about The Green Lantern? Flies away. In some ways, heroes and the law are just incompatible.
So while it might be fun to imagine a world with superpowers, let’s just try to avoid letting them get elected. Or taking power by force. Or mind controlling us into voting for them. Or invisibly spying on everyone and everything. Or just killing us.
Superheroes are really bad for humanity.
