Should Superheroes Break The Law To Save The World?
If you’ve ever watched Iron Man accidentally destroy public property and blow up buildings as he battles the bad guys, have you ever asked yourself what, exactly, are the legal ramifications of Tony Stark’s actions? And should superheroes break the law to save the world?
It’s a curious question, but the exact legal consequences of being a caped crusader were first studied way back in 2010 by two legal eagles who happened to be comic book fans, and what’s more, they’ve since dedicated a website to pondering a theoretical question that positively reeks of geek: Should superheroes and super villains be legally bound by the laws of the land? And where do caped and masked types stand in the eyes of the law?
Law and the Mulitiverse sounds like the sort of thing that would give Einstein a headache, but as such websites go, it can actually make for pretty entertaining reading.
The site is the brainchild of American attorneys James Daily and Ryan Davidson and seeks to ask such eternal questions as “Are mutants a protected class?” “Who foots the bill when a hero damages property while fighting a villain?” and “How can the Gotham D.A. convict criminals captured by Batman?” And one that I’ve certainly lost sleep over in the past, “What happens legally when a character comes back from the dead?”
Of course, the law and superheroes have always had a special relationship. Marvel’s Daredevil is renowned for battling villains and injustice at night, but when the sun rises, you can find him plying his trade in a court of law as blind lawyer Matt Murdock. And we all know what Harvey Dent did before he became Two Face.
In theory, superheroes exist in a gloriously technicolour, fantastical, and morally simplistic world that shouldn’t have any truck with the grey mundanities and petty bureaucracies of the law, but as Law and the Multiverse proudly states in their “About” section, “If there’s one thing comic book nerds like doing it’s over-thinking the smallest details. Here we turn our attention to the hypothetical legal ramifications of comic book tropes, characters, and powers.”
So if you’ve ever wandered lonely as a cloud and asked yourself in the cold and forgiving light of some mute and hostile dawn, “Should superpowers fall under the Second Amendment to the US Constitution – the right to bear arms,” or wondered furiously whilst bingeing on a bucket of popcorn, what archaic planning laws could possibly enable Tony Stark to build an arc reactor?” then the dynamic legal eagles over at Law and the Multiverse are the dudes you need to visit.
Towards the end of 2012, the pair also published a book called The Law of Superheroes, which has received glowing reviews from no less than the Wall Street Journal, who called it, “A highly readable survey of basic legal theory and an entertaining exploration of the comic book canon.”
So, in future Marvel movies, will Wolverine ask himself before he goes to town on a bad guy, “Am I infringing on this villain’s human rights?” And if a superhero is eventually put on trial, will a judge put an order in place keeping his true identity a secret?
We can only wonder, but in the world of superheroes and super villains, anything is possible.
[Photo by Ben Margot/AP]
