I like to think that supervillainy can’t be measured in merely financial terms. I mean, take, say, Martin Shkreli. The guy’s rich, or he was. He’s clearly a villain. But is he a supervillain? I think not. So wealth doesn’t automatically guarantee you an entry to the supervillain pantheon. And I suggest that even the humblest among us could still aspire to supervillainy.
To be a supervillain, you need to be ambitious, to have big, horrible dreams. And you need to be effective enough to give the superheroes some trouble. Effectiveness is obviously easier if you have unlimited financial resources, but if you can just stumble on, I don’t know, the death-mask of an Aztec sorcerer-king or a cache of kryptonite suppositories, supervillainy can still be within your reach.
I believe that in this great country, any boy (or girl, or non-binary child, or mutant warthog) could one day grow up to be a supervillain. It’s the American dream, baby.
This whole article is making the comics continuity nerd within me tear my hair out. I mean, Nelson and Murdock has mostly been portrayed in the comics as a struggling law firm. Why don’t these guys pick on Wayne and Stark and leave frequently-broke Daredevil and Spider-Man out of this?
Pre-Batman, The Shadow used the identity of rich playboy Lamont Cranston. Although technically Cranston was a separate person, he was often abroad, and thus The Shadow could easily spoof him and use his influence and status. I assume he had a fair bit of money has he had a network of people and things like an Autogyro and nice cars. He had other alternate identities like Fritz, who was janitor at the police station.
The new laws work either well or with negligible impact for people in Spider-man’s income range (I say this as a tax prep professional). Even the hypothetical the article did for Aunt May saw her with a $6,900 benefit over the previous year’s laws.
Weeeell, depending on which era of comics you read…
Peter Parker owned a massive business empire that dwarfed Stark then suddenly came crashing down. He’d be using that as a tax write off forever.
Aunt May ran an international aid organisation
Deadpool became the head of a successful business that bankrolled the avengers for some time - but I’m not actually sure whether Wade Wilson ever naturalised (he was born in Canada except when he wasn’t)
Odinsin Thor is probably an undocumented immigrant (or did he get a Visa when he beat the shit out of Stark?)
I think Hawkeye owns some brownstone apartments
Murdoch was working for the DA in new York last I read, though I’m a bit out of date. Which is going to get interesting given how he feels about overweight criminal real-estate moguls with mafia ties.
Captain America… We’ll now I’m not going to spoil but with all the weird reality warping in Secret Empire I suspect non-hydra cap is not a resident for tax purposes and possibly not legally a person. But if he is he’d certainly be eligible for some kind of seniors benefits.
i dunno. his movie version is white privilege to a fault. he can be all that he can be without actually having to hold down a job or worry too much about the consequences of his actions.
sometimes his friends will get angry with him for his american dream ways - but it’ll be okay in the end. because reasons.
that house is the perfect example. yeah, im humble cause i dont live in a mansion. i also haven’t paid rent in 70 years. this place is probably what 5000 a month? how much is that anyway these days? 20 bucks?
