Heroes for Hire?

Innocent Donut: I want to continue by picking up a thread I think we left hanging last week. Why do you think costumed vigilantes tend towards insularity, looking within the community for lawyers and prison guards, people with experience rather than looking outside?

Superman: I think experience may be the operative word, but some of it has to do with trust issues- which, as you can imagine, are more prickly among people who use a separate identity- and some of it just has to do with general skepticism. We’ve seen “normal” police and “normal” corrections officers try to handle superhumans, and, frankly, they’re woefully ill-equipped, sometimes fatally so.

ID: Okay; well what's stopping you from using your expertise to train the regular prison staff?

S: Most of us who do this, and I think it’s become clear I’m reluctant to use the word “hero” because it’s a term I’ve never been comfortable self-applying, but we don’t do this for a living. With a few exceptions, most of us don’t receive a paycheck, or a government stipend- anything. This is a calling, to be sure, but when people are already donating their time on things of life and death importance, it’s hard to further impose upon their lives for what amounts to, at the end of the day, administrative work- for nothing.

Constructing the Super Max cost Bruce nearly a billion dollars, that’s with a b. I love that Bruce has willingly put up vast amounts of cash, not just for Super Max but for everything, and we even talked about it, when we started the League back up, about paying a salary. In the end we decided against it. The problem is, that creates a change in the mentality of what we do- it stops being about helping people, and being an example, and starts being about money. It would cheapen what we do, cheapen the very real sacrifices people have made and will make, and tarnish what the League needs to represent if we’re going to remain a beacon to the world.

I remember we got so far as to bring it up for a vote. I think, from the discussion we were having, that we were pretty divided, but it was Plastic Man who stood up and gave the speech that I think cemented the issue for us. It was odd, because he often affects a materialistic, even greedy demeanor, but he said he was voting against it, that he wouldn’t want to see the greatest people he’d ever known reduced to mercenaries, he wouldn’t want to live in a world where our slogan became the same as the legal profession: “the best justice money can buy.”

What’s that they always say about the wisdom of a fool? Sometimes the least among us, and he often strives to live up to that title, but sometimes the least among us really understand us the best. But I may be too close to it; you’ve been pretty good about affecting the layman- what do you think?

ID: I don’t know. I think I’ve been on both sides of that fence, as a salaried writer and a freelancer- and the money does change, fundamentally, the paradigm. But at the same time, I think a lack of money also changes it, too. I guess what I’d say is if professional politicians can take home a paycheck, I don’t see why the Justice League shouldn’t.

S: But politicians, for a variety of reasons, end up beholden to special interests; even when a politician is able to separate his campaign from his work and legislates without bias, that perception of impropriety still weighs on them. It’s imperative that when members of the League intervene that there never be a question as to what interests they’re serving. We’re here to help. I worry bringing money into the equation would dilute that.

ID: But you’ve already admitted that Bruce Wayne donates billions of dollars to the League for operations. Doesn’t that represent a potential conflict?

S: It could. I think, if Bruce were any other billionaire, it might. But you have to remember that up until a few months ago, Bruce was donating that money anonymously- and there has never been a moment where I felt Bruce’s mind was on business rather than on saving lives.

ID: Okay, I'm curious, given everything you've said, how you feel about heroes who do offer their services for pay. And I'll preface your answer by saying this is nothing new; off-duty policemen work as bodyguards, special forces often leave the military to work for security companies.

S: I'm not going to badmouth anyone who has ever done this work. Frankly, anyone who donates any time whatsoever should be commended- and we all have expenses, a mortgage, car loans, some of us have kids with tuition. Personally, selling my abilities, it just wouldn't feel right- but by and large I'd trust the people I've worked with to make the right decisions about how they conduct themselves. We all have to live- I just hope they're making choices they can live with.

ID: Um, I have heard that the League does, and always has, offered an exceptional benefits package- medical, dental, even a scholarship program.

S: That’s true, as well as an, and I always cringe bringing it up- it seems like bad luck, but a life insurance policy. And for those who aren’t in the League, there’s a pretty cost-effective buy-in program, like what SAG and the Writer’s Guild have.

ID: Speaking of that, I seem to remember a rumbling a few years back of a superhero strike.

S: There were some people agitating for that, actually. Most of us in the community have day jobs. We work a nine to five, although I think Oracle actually did a kind of a census, a few years back, and there were far more blue-collar workers with strange schedules than there were people working strictly nine to five. But we quashed that. Basically, it came down to a few of the, I’ve heard them called “street-level” heroes, wanting a strike. We said, “No,” that it was going to hurt innocent people, and there was really no guarantee state and local authorities wanted us enough to pay us anyway. I really would strongly encourage the government, state, local, whomever, to consider it- some of these people are making the choices between eating dinner and fighting crime- and they already give so much it’s not right to ask them to make that choice.

ID: How did turning down the pay resolution affect the League members who'd been pushing for a strike?

S: It was actually fascinating to see how it divided people. I think the strike, fundamentally, was an attempt to find a socially acceptable place for them- not quite within the classic police force, but in a complementary system to it. And really, if I thought there was a stronger likelihood of pushing it through, I'd have at least been willing to advocate for it politically, because it's an idea I can get behind. But the pay measure was different. Deep as Bruce's pockets are, none of us want him to have to foot the bill; there are some of us, like Ollie, who are reluctant to give him any more influence than he already has, which I personally think is a little paranoid. There are some, like myself, who simply think he does enough already. We may operate in an imperfect system, but it wouldn't be right to ask Bruce to buy us a better one- and it'd be harder to live up to the name on the door if we did.

We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.