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.

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Why Can't There Be Two Captain Americas?

Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield by Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice & Luke Ross
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Natalia, aka The Black Widow, asks a very good question to Bucky in the one-shot Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? Namely, why can't there be two Captain Americas?

The quick back-story to those unfamiliar is that Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, had been presumed dead for years from Marvel's Civil War. During his absence, his former sidekick, Bucky Barnes, took the mantle of Captain America. Now that Rogers is back, there is the dilemma of who gets to be the hero.

Steve Rogers wants Bucky to continue as Captain America, citing some vague premonition about the dangers of Bucky relinquishing the shield. Bucky feels a sense of guilt over keeping the identity, as it was Steve's to begin with. In fact, he's actually pretty self-deprecating about the whole thing, claiming that Steve was better at the whole superhero thing than he ever was.

First of all, Bucky should know better than to doubt his self-worth. He has proven himself throughout the past few years to not only be a qualified candidate for the position, but for also adopting a style and technique that differs considerably from Steve Rogers'.

For example, Steve Rogers is stronger, faster, better coordinated, more confident, and has better tactical ability for non-lethal means. Bucky is stealthy, subtle, a better shot, and has better tactical ability for lethal and covert means. Clearly, each of them has an absolute advantage over the other in these terms. That is to say, if each devoted all their resources to non-lethal, non-covert operations, Steve would be able to perform better than Bucky. On the other hand, if each devoted all of his resources to a covert operation, Bucky would outperform Steve.

Now, let's assume that Bucky's concerns are true. Namely, lets say that Steve Rogers is better than Bucky at every element of the job. Steve has an absolute advantage over Bucky in being Captain America. Does this mean that Bucky should pack up his gear, assume a new persona, and move to Bludhaven to find a completely different set of criminals to fight?

Not necessarily. You see, Bucky should realize that although Steve can perform better in all of these feats, Bucky nonetheless has a comparative advantage over him.

The gentlemen from Overthinkingit posted before about superheroes and comparative advantage to show why Superman needs the rest of the Justice League at all. We rehash a bit of that next.

Suppose that there are two kinds of criminals that any Captain America would have to face. One type is the class of strong criminals that require pure old, fashioned fist fights to capture. The other is a more cunning and elusive type that requires more stealth/sneakiness to capture. Possessing both of these skills are necessary to being Captain America. Now suppose that if Steve devotes all his energy to fighting, he could stop 24 criminals in a week (of the first type), whereas Bucky could only stop 8. Now suppose that if Steve devoted all his energy to stealth maneuvering, he could stop 12 criminals (of the second type), whereas Bucky could still only stop 8.

Clearly Steve is better at catching both types of criminals than Bucky. However, for Bucky the opportunity cost of fighting 1 criminal is capturing 1 by using stealth techniques. The opportunity cost of fighting 1 criminal for Steve is capturing 1/2 a criminal by sneaking around (lets just say this means getting halfway there). Similarly the opportunity cost for Bucky of capturing 1 criminal through covert means is capturing 1 criminal by fighting. For Steve, however, the opportunity cost of capturing 1 criminal through covert means is capturing 2 criminals by fighting.

What we see here is that Steve has a lower opportunity cost of catching strong criminals by fighting, whereas Bucky has a lower opportunity cost of catching elusive criminals by covert means.

Now let's just say that in a given week, Bucky and Cap split their time evenly between both types. So, the number of criminals they capture in a week looks like this:

	Fighting	Stealth
Bucky	4	4
Rogers	12	6
Total	16	10

Now suppose Bucky decides to "specialize." He spends all his time working on covert tactics, thus sacrificing the criminals he would have had to catch through fighting (4 criminals) to catch those he could by stealth. Rogers then decides to take 4 criminals he would have caught through stealth and devote that same amount of time to fighting. However, we know that Rogers can fight 2 strong criminals in the time that he can catch 1 elusive perp. through stealth. After they specialize, the new chart looks like this:

	Fighting	Stealth
Bucky	0	8
Rogers	20	2
Total	20	10

Lo and behold, we are now better off than we were before. Despite the fact that Steve might be better at catching strong criminals and catching elusive ones, Bucky's concern that he is not needed is simply false.

Natalia obviously realizes this and as such asks a reasonable question: Why can't both continue to be Captain America to fight the different types of Captain America villains?

Well, for one thing there's only one shield. But more importantly, Bucky could simply specialize under a new superhero persona (which it looks like is what he intended to do). He could call himself "Captain Shadow" or something. He and Captain America could team up, each of them specializing in a certain type of criminal, which would increase the overall number of criminals caught.

On the other hand, creating a new identity does have its disadvantages:

1) New costume, new gadgets, new hideout, etc. all have significant start-up costs.
2) Pooling both skills into one identity could have the benefit of making Captain America appear to be invulnerable. This might deter more crime, as opposed to creating a new superhero that no one has ever heard of and that might take a considerable amount of time to develop the same reputation.
3) More superheroes might lead to more supervillains.

Really then, being Captain America all comes down to labels. Whether Bucky becomes Captain Shadow or remains Captain America, the important thing is that he realizes that he has an important role to play by fighting a specific subset of criminals. Once he figures that out, he should be happier.

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The Effect of Superheroes on Local Law Enforcement

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #5 by Brian Bendis and David Lafuente

A loyal reader wrote a comment on a recent post about the abundance of certain antiquated professions in comic books:

I really enjoy that, because so many comic book characters are fairly old (in our world, not in their own, because, as we discussed, they don't age while the world does), they work in jobs that are declining in significance. For instance, no offense to fighter pilots, but the increase in drones and decrease in enemies with air forces means that job isn't the daredevil prestige job, but Green Lantern, the Thing, and others had it.

Aside from the fact that many superheroes still have origins in such jobs, I also find it fascinating that there is still a prevalence of jobs declining in significance outside of the superheroes themselves. In reality, the mere existence of superheroes should have significant economic consequences on other jobs. We have discussed some of these here and here. Another important one is the effect of superheroes on law enforcement.

As shown in the Ultimate Spider-Man panels above, superhero teams, especially the government-sponsored Avengers, are putting traditional law enforcement professionals out of work. Another comic that showcases this fact is Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker's Gotham Central which depicted among other things the Gotham City's Police Department's struggles in maintaining operations under the shadow of the quicker and more efficient Bat-family. One of the negative externalities of having this network of avengers patrolling Gotham City is that demand for traditional police would likely go down. This is an aspect of superheroes not typically observed in comics.

I think Bendis really hits the nail on the head here. It's a supply and demand issue.

Now, the way it should work is as follows: the Avengers should use their comparative advantage in other-worldly matters to deal primarily with metahuman or extraterrestrial incidents, or just crime on a much larger scale. Local law enforcement, given their manpower, experience, and intimate knowledge of the neighborhoods they patrol, should deal with the smaller crimes. So while police would work cases involving robbery, arson, murders, etc., the Avengers would be free to focus all their energy fighting guys like Norman Osborn and Galactus. This is theoretically the best use of each organization's comparative advantage, which would allow them to perform their respective services at a lower opportunity cost.

Of course we know that this isn't exactly how it works. The Avengers actually don't always have a giant, world-ending crisis on their hands (though it seems that way). When they're not gathered in the Tower, um, avenging things, they patrol their own respective cities and deal with crimes of a more mundane nature. Spider-Man, for instance, splits his time fighting morphing aliens trying to take over the planet and beating up ordinary crooks on the street (and hanging out with Aunt May and Mary Jane and Kitty Pride and taking photographs and...damn how does he have time to do anything?). If Spidey saw a mugger on the street, do you think he'd stop and call the police? He would obviously do something about it. After all, great power comes great responsibility.

The problem for the local police is that these Avengers do an extraordinary job with all sorts of crimes. Even a better job than local police. In fact, the superheroes seem to overshadow law enforcement in every respect. They have more technology, more powers, more smarts, and seemingly the time to handle everything! On top of this, we've seen the population of superheroes increase over the past decade or so. Generally, this had had two consequences:

1) A steady (or maybe even increasing number) of supervillains and
2) A decrease in run-of-the-mill criminals.

Supply of criminals goes down. Demand for police goes down. Funding for police goes down.

In the panels above, the officers are complaining that their money is going towards the Avengers. We know in the Marvel Universe, the federal government levies taxes to fund the extremely sophisticated operations of both SHIELD and the Avengers. I'm not exactly sure how it works with state governments, but I'm pretty sure states pay their fair share too, especially in cases where an Avengers is known to frequently police their territories (i.e. Spider-Man in New York, Iron Man in California, etc.).

So, let me poll you guys. Say you're an ordinary taxpayer in New York City and your government is trying to balance its budget. You see the city is plagued constantly by supervillainy, but less so by average criminals. Would you want your dollars to go towards the Avengers (who also are more efficient at dealing with these regular criminals) or the NYPD?

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The Justice League and Comparative Advantage

(Guest Post by John Perich from Overthinking It. As mentioned in a previous post, Overthinking It subjects popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. Hence, we are big fans).


When you think about it, Superman doesn't need the rest of the Justice League.

In conventional wisdom, every member of the Justice League has a particular strength. Green Lantern can handle weird and alien threats. Aquaman can talk to fish. The Flash can handle armies of lightly armed minions in a heartbeat. Wonder Woman usually takes point on mystical threats. And Batman is the World's Greatest Detective.

If we consider each of those types of crime-fighting an output, we see that each member of the Justice League is a uniquely skilled producer of that output. Sure, Batman can beat up henchmen almost as well as the Flash can. But Flash can do it better. If Batman specializes in detective work, and Flash specializes in henchman-stomping, the two of them produce more Justice on net than if one tried to do both.

But what if we bring Superman into the equation?

Superman's slower than Flash (only just), but his super-strength and invulnerability make him better at dispatching minions. He's more capable of dealing with aliens than Green Lantern. And with his X-ray vision and super-hearing, you could make the case that he's a better detective than Batman.

So why does Superman need the rest of the Justice League?

For that, we turn the pages back to 1817 and the principle of comparative advantage, as publicized (though not first documented) by economist David Ricardo. Comparative advantage dictates that, even if one agent can produce two types of goods more efficiently than another agent, it benefits both parties for the efficient agent to specialize and trade for the other.

Ricardo gave the mundane example of a trade between England and Portugal in wine and cloth. Portugal could produce both wine and cloth more cheaply than England could. However, Portugal would benefit more from producing wine and trading with England for cloth, rather than trying at autarky.

Scenario One: Countries Refuse to Trade
	Units of Wine Produced per Year	Units of Cloth Produced per Year
England	80	100
Portugal	140	160
Total	220	260

Scenario Two: Portugal Produces Wine, Trades with England for Cloth
	Units of Wine Produced per Year	Units of Cloth Produced per Year
England	-	200
Portugal	300	80
Total	300	280

In fact, both Portugal and England would benefit more – the “global” production of both wine and cloth increase.

Bringing it back to comics, let's say tomorrow, the Justice League wakes up to two threats on their table:

1) A number of spatial anomalies have cropped up in Earth's orbit; and
2) A number of Sun-Eaters are approaching Earth.

And let's say everyone is out on vacation except Superman and Green Lantern.

It takes Green Lantern 8 hours to dispatch a Sun-Eater and 6 hours to close a spatial anomaly. It takes Superman 4 hours to do either.

Scenario One: Superheroes Refuse to Trade
	Sun-Eaters Dispatched	Spatial Anomalies Closed
Green Lantern	2	1
Superman	3	3
Total	5	4

Scenario Two: Green Lantern Closes Spatial Anomalies and Superman Dispatches Sun-Eaters
	Sun-Eaters Dispatched	Spatial Anomalies Closed
Green Lantern	-	4
Superman	6	-
Total	6	4

It's a slim margin, but the Justice League can dispatch one extra Sun-Eater by letting Superman specialize - even though Supes is objectively better than GL at handling both threats. And since letting even a single Sun-Eater through spells trouble for Earth (it does eat the Sun, after all), it’s a profitable decision.

So maybe Superman is better at everything the Justice League does than any given member. But that doesn't mean he can get by without them. He operates best as a floating agent, filling in where any team needs help and letting the specialists do the rest. This maximizes the output that the Justice League specializes in – Justice.

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