Spare a thought for Phoenix Jones, who recently donned a skin-tight rubber suit, a bulletproof vest and a mask over a woolly balaclava, and set out to fight crime in his home city under the nom de guerre Guardian of Seattle. Clearly influenced by the movie Kick-Ass, he got his ass kicked, and his nose broken, when he tried to break up a fight involving a gunman. He's one of a group of nine would-be superheroes who give themselves tough names like Catastrophe, Thunder 88, Buster Doe and Penelope (Penelope?) and look hilariously silly in group photographs.
Can I offer them some advice? Guns. The central implausibility of Marvel comics and their offshoots was that superheroes could defeat gun-wielding villains by moving faster than speeding bullets or flinging sticky goo at them. Guys: you can't, unarmed, get the better of chaps with guns. No matter how impressive your Ninja helmet or your plastic six-pack. (The Independent)
Look, I'm not going to say the advice doesn't make sense on some level. Guns would solve lots of fictional superheroes' problems, too. Batman could just shoot people instead of throwing a Batarang. Green Lantern, instead of hitting criminals with a giant green boxing glove, could just make an AK-47 with his power ring and mow down the entire Secret Society of Supervillains. (Well, obviously, the ones who aren't bullet proof.)
But the simple fact is, superheroes don't carry guns. They just don't. I mean, yeah, they carry guns that shoot knock-out gas, knock-out darts, and laser guns that knock people out. And if Phoenix Jones can get his hands on one of those, more power to him. But no mainstream superhero runs around with actual firearms. Sure, some anti-heroes do. You know, the Punisher, Deathstroke, Hitman, etc. But those guys clearly aren't who Seattle's superheroes are patterning themselves after. Maybe Kick-Ass was the actual impetus that made them decide to put on costumes and fight crime. But it's a safe bet that these guys grew up on a steady diet of relatively wholesome superheroes like Spider-Man, Superman, Fantastic Four, etc.
So here are a few suggestions for how he can more effectively fight crime without turning to deadly weapons.
1) Buy a good car
If you think about it, Batman rarely actually needs to exit the Batmobile. If he wanted, he could just pull up on a crime in progress--assuming said crime was occurring somewhere with motor vehicle access--and watch as the bad guys ran off in terror. It's only because he also wants to get them off the street that he has to get out of the car and bust his ass. Since Phoenix Jones hasn't been deputized by the Seattle police department, and is presumably incapable of subduing more than one or two criminals at a time anyway, he shouldn't be worrying about arresting criminals. Just stopping a crime in process is enough. As such, he should invest in a heavily armored car with a spotlight and a loudspeaker. Most criminals, when a bright light is shone on them and a loud, booming voice says something like, "Crime in process! The police have been notified!", will run off. But if they decide to open fire on the Phoenixmobile, no sweat. It's armored. And at that point, any violent action would be considered self-defense and Phoenix could just run them over.
2) Get some muscle
Every superhero team has it. The Justice League has Superman. The X-Men have Colossus. The Fantastic Four have the Thing. Even the Inferior Five were smart enough to have Dumb Bunny. And those who operate on their own, usually don't need it. Batman's set, because he's an Olympic-class athlete who's been studying martial arts since he was a kid. (Incidentally, was there ever a more oft-used phrase in Who's Who than "Olympic-class athlete"? Pretty much every non-powered DC superhero was an "Olympic-class athlete." How many gold medals go un-won by America every year in the DC Universe, because all the Olympic-caliber athletes are wearing spandex and fighting supervillains, as opposed to track and field? But I digress.) I'm guessing the Seattle heroes can't make the same claim. So they need someone with them to do the down and dirty fighting, while they do spin kicks and make quips and other superhero-ish stuff.
Are there any out-of-work boxers or bodybuilders who the heroes could hire as sidekicks? I guess technically, "bodyguards" would probably be a more accurate term, but no real superhero has a bodyguard, so let's go with sidekick. How about mental patients, who have the crazy strength of ten men and don't feel pain, who could be released into the heroes' custody while they go on patrol, and then are returned afterwards? I think we can probably agree that kid sidekicks are out of the question. Unless maybe they're on their high school wrestling team. Then they could be useful.
3) Eschew style for practicallity
Being a comic book nerd, I've occasionally thought about what kind of costume I'd have if I were a superhero. I mean, I haven't gotten past the basic general design or anything, but I know it'd be all black and green and--hey, fuck you, Incredibles--there'd be a cape. It would be functional, yet snazzy. What's the point of fighting crime if you don't look good doing it? Realistically, though, you can only pull off snazzy if you have some serious game. Superhuman powers, or multiple black belts, or some sort of cosmic rod or Adamantium shield. Clearly, I have none of those. Neither do the Seattle guys, it seems. As a result, if I were designing a superhero costume for actual use, I would just cover the outside of it with razor blades, and laugh when some thug tried to punch me and just ended up cutting himself. Also, a Kevlar vest may not be the sexiest look in the world--in comics, superheroes have long known how to make costumes that are bulletproof, yet still skintight, so you're able to see their abs and boobs and what have you, but I suppose the real world is still years away from figuring out how to pull that off--but it'd probably save your life.
4) Develop actual super powers
Admittedly, this one might be a bit difficult. In comics, if you're hit by a bolt of lightning, you're likely to obtain some sort of lightning-based super powers, whereas in real life, you'll probably just die. Similarly, you can't walk five feet in a comic book without stumbling upon an ancient magical artifact or a dying alien who offers you a power ring. In real life, the odds of this succeeding seem slim.
But has anyone really tried? Has anyone held up a bunch of antique hammers to see if they're transformed into a Norse god? Has anyone ever irradiated a spider and let it bite them? Has anyone tried locking themselves in...whatever the hell that chamber was in Watchmen, to see if it makes them an omnipotent naked blue guy? Probably not. So is the reason no one has super powers because they don't exist, or just that no one has ever been bothered to make a real effort to acquire them?
Of course, if Phoenix Jones does decide to get a gun, it seems like it would only be a matter of time until he crosses some sort of ethical line, effectively becoming a villain himself, and his fellow heroes have to hunt him down and bring him to justice. You know, that actually sounds like a pretty exciting story-arc. He could go all grim and gritty, changing his costume--something with skulls, maybe--and his name, because Phoenix Jones is too upbeat. Phoenix Doom? Phoenix Death? Mayhem Jones? Oh, hey, I like that one! Catastrophe, Thunder 88 and Buster Doe, vs. Mayhem Jones...it'd be like a real life comic book crossover event! Crisis in Infinite Seattles!
You know what? Forget what I said earlier, Phoenix. Get a gun. Become a villain. We'll worry about your redemption arc later. Hey, don't worry! If Hal Jordan can go from hero to villain to dead, and then back to hero, so can you.
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