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 Supply of Water in Metropolis

Superman #692 by James Robinson and Fernando Dagnino (2009)

As is the case with most cities in the DCU, things are not going to well in Metropolis. Superman's gone, the city's new protector Mon-El has apparently been killed, and the citizens have lost their faith in superheroes. To top it off, the city's sewer system has been completely destroyed in a recent battle.

Seems like a fairly basic repair job, right? I mean bombs go off in the sewer systems of Gotham and Metropolis all the time (speaking of which, it would seem as though villains tend to love spreading poison through water supplies so you would think the cities would have learned to increase patrol of the sewers). Except, this time the bomb was "laced with encoded nanotechnology [so that] no sooner does a speedster or power ring start fixing the sewers than the nanobytes undo that reconstruction." S.T.A.R. labs, Mr. Terrific and Will Magnus (genius scientist who created the Metal Men) have been unable to do anything.

We've discussed the economic effects of something like this happening before. It's pretty basic. When an external force causes the supply of a good to decrease, price goes up. Take a look at the following detailed chart, which demonstrates this effect:

Indeed, if such destruction did occur then Metropolis would certainly be facing higher prices for water. Although, I think Robinson might be portraying too bleak a picture in this book. Yes, there would be some major hygiene issues and city residents would have to give up on showering for a while...

Yet, it seems to me that despite not having running water throughout the city, drinking water could be shipped in mass quantities from neighboring states. Given the severity of the situation, I think the government could subsidize the costs of transportation. After all, we've seen that DCU governments are not exactly the most frugal. They're willing to dish out loads of cash to fund anti-alien squads when the Justice League is a phone call away. Why not add a line item in the budget for some basic sustenance until this whole mess is straightened out?

Also, what happened to the lucrative bottled water business? I thought that people were drinking that stuff even before Metropolis's sewer system was destroyed. Unless there is only one major bottled water company, it uses "municipal sources" and not springs, and it only has one plant that happens to be located in Metropolis, I think it's a safe bet that there will be plenty of water to drink.

Really, people should not be lumbering down the streets suffering of dehydration. Moreover, Governor Klein should not have to ration the consumption of water. What's worse is that street thugs have now apparently tapped a new black market by selling small quantities at exorbitant rates. I feel like this might be an exaggeration of what would happen in this situation. There would be some discomfort, but as always in Metropolis, everything would work out.

Finally, the price of water has apparently soared to such levels that it now as a street value higher than gold. Granted, I don't know what the "street value" of gold is, but just to give you an idea of what this means, here's a chart on the current market value of gold:

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