Would you fight crime if you had superpowers?

[Cotton]

Ok, here's another revival of an old thread from the old CBR. Would you fight crime if you had superpowers? Or would you abuse your powers and ultimately become a villain? The choice is yours, choose wisely.

[worstblogever]

Depends on the super-powers, I suppose. If you're physically gifted, getting down into the bare-knuckles version, possibly. You risk discovery, and study by others. Because governments of the world wouldn't let a superman go around without trying to duplicate his abilities for financial gain. So doing so is at great risk.

However, psychic powers, that are much easier to conceal? Definitely. Although, settling for "fighting crime" at the street level seems to be underselling what you can do. A strong enough telepath could walk into congress, and add $1 billion in funding towards crime prevention. They could detect the locations of, track, and eliminate the threats of entire human trafficking rings from afar. In that instance, you could start changing the world for the better as an unsung hero. And not advertise the fact and get nabbed by others looking to study you.

[heretic]

I would probably be subtle about the matter, depending on the nature and extent of the abilities in question (bright spandex is out of the question), but wandering about rough neighborhoods and breaking gangs up would be a nice sideline.

[Stony]

Ok, here's another revival of an old thread from the old CBR. Would you fight crime if you had superpowers? Or would you abuse your powers and ultimately become a villain? The choice is yours, choose wisely.

What would you do?

[Shawn Hopkins]

Hell no. Most powers could be used in a much more creative and useful way than beating people up. Even Superman is wasting his time with bank robbers, he could do much more good by devoting himself full time to scientific and humanitarian efforts.

Also, in real life it's not easy to knock people out without killing them, or always know for sure you get the right guy. And in real life stray bullets and ricochets and getaway cars kill people. There would be no way to fight crime in the way you see, say, Spider-Man do without getting an increasing amount of blood on your hands.

There's also the problem that none of your vigilante arrests would ever legally stick, so not only are you making no dent in the crime problem, you're helping people who would be convicted if they were arrested by real law enforcement get away with crimes. And that taking the law into your own hands is going to eventually mean you have to fight the authorities, too, which would be a waste of time.

It's just fantasy, and it's better off that way.

[Cotton]

What would you do?

I will answer in due time Stoney, but first I would like to gauge other posters' responses.

[Mari]

It depends on the power. Some are good for staying out of media and government attention, some are not.

I would want to keep a normal life aside from the power as much as possible. I would fight crime as much as I could without revealing my power and identity.

[chongjasmine]

If I have superpowers, I will be subtle in my use of it.
I will mainly use it to help people, rather than fight crime.

[FLEX HECTIC]

I would place my family in hiding and go thrash bad guys at will!


Whether or not they cooperated would dictate if I went with the Spiderman no kill route or or just go straight Frank Castle on them!


Every other day I believe in the death penalty and other days I am full of forgiveness so if you are a pedophile serial killer you might disappear for good where as a bank robber might just get tied up and left for the cops to sort out!


Of course what powers I had at the time would be a factor in how I beat up bad guys or stashed there body somewhere too far for CSI investigators to track down for evidence in case they went after me for my over the top vigilante behavior!


If I had Superman powers there would be unmarked graves on the dark side of the moon... Just saying!

[Mari]

One question that comes to my mind for those who want to be full time crime fighters, how would you make a living? If you powers don't include creating your own food and house and everything else?

[eye of all]

I doubt that I would. Maybe I'd save distressed animals in my spare time, but for the most part I'd be trying to leverage my powers into obscene amounts money.

[Pinsir]

No I would be a supervillian.

[DrNewGod]

Depends on the super-powers, I suppose. If you're physically gifted, getting down into the bare-knuckles version, possibly. You risk discovery, and study by others. Because governments of the world wouldn't let a superman go around without trying to duplicate his abilities for financial gain. So doing so is at great risk.

However, psychic powers, that are much easier to conceal? Definitely. Although, settling for "fighting crime" at the street level seems to be underselling what you can do. A strong enough telepath could walk into congress, and add $1 billion in funding towards crime prevention. They could detect the locations of, track, and eliminate the threats of entire human trafficking rings from afar. In that instance, you could start changing the world for the better as an unsung hero. And not advertise the fact and get nabbed by others looking to study you.

Thus, you begin your tragic descent into super villainy

[Groo Odyssey]

No I would be a supervillian.

Definitely need to put you in a pen.

[Pinsir]

Definitely need to put you in a pen.

I'd be a good super villain though
> overthrow dictatorships
> defeat the anti-feminists
> conquer England
> defeat the bankers

You know the good stuff