Maintaining your secret identity

[jian]

Last year I saw a documentary on the largest gold heist in modern history. They claimed most of it will never be recovered because being an element, gold is notoriously impossible to trace. And lots of stolen gold circulates through official channels multiple times over.

Yes, I'd imagine that was the Brinks Mat robbery, which was 40 years ago, and selling the gold was only possible because the criminals undertook a pretty major operation (involving metal dealers, lawyers, several banks, estate agents, etc.) to melt the gold down, adulterate it to make it less pure, fake a ton of paperwork for where they got tons of new gold (including a fake mine in Sierra Leone), sell it, and then launder the resulting money through property and other assets. Pretty much none of that would be possible now, due to changes in regulations and legislation, not least because an actual major London bank went under as a result of their complicity and resulting investigations. Even then, it involved trusting dozens of people who were in on the conspiracy.

A different version probably would be possible now, almost certainly (especially in London, kleptocrat theme park of the world), but it would still involve trusting lots of people (who are by definition untrustworthy criminals) with some version of your secret in order to launder your inexplicable gold and gems.

 

[MoonSong]

Everything is an element!

A typical gem is an structure of many different minerals. Even Diamonds are worth because of their form. Due to the characteristics of the gem, it can be identified and traced. To remove that traceability, you'd need to completely destroy the gem and remake it. Which kills all of the value of the gem.

Gold is valuable because it is gold. There is nothing you can add to it to make it traceable that can't be removed when it is molten.

 

[gnarlygninja]

I'd make friends first. Save lives, help in catastrophes. Then I'd use my public platform to to start making enemies. I'd be calling out all sorts of <redacted> behaviour. Seriously, I'd struggle not to go all out The Authority.

I'm on the same page. In comic books, I'm perfectly happy to ignore the fact that super heroes spend all their time catching bank robbers or w/e while ignoring much bigger problems, but if I suddenly found myself with Superman's powers in the real world I don't think I would be happy to just enforce an imperfect status quo.

 

[Morrus]

I'm on the same page. In comic books, I'm perfectly happy to ignore the fact that super heroes spend all their time catching bank robbers or w/e while ignoring much bigger problems, but if I suddenly found myself with Superman's powers in the real world I don't think I would be happy to just enforce an imperfect status quo.

In fact last year’s Superman film dealt with exactly that when he stopped a war, and people turned against him for it.

 

[jian]

In fact last year’s Superman film dealt with exactly that when he stopped a war, and people turned against him for it.

Yeah, as we discussed at the time, stopping a war (or at least stopping a military assault) is well within Superman’s capabilities but is probably more calculated to annoy and frighten people than almost anything else he could do.

Even in a fairly straightforward situation (country A invades country B to conquer it with absolutely no justification) people would be upset because it would show that Superman can and will involve himself in human politics. The social media and agitprop capabilities of country A will now be focused on making Superman a pariah, and they’re likely to succeed in making him a polarising and divisive figure.

There is plenty for Superman to do in dealing with natural disasters and other problems not directly related to human politics. But then there’s the risk of him speaking out on what he’s been dealing with. If Superman says anything like “climate change is real and I’m starting to get tired of cleaning up your mess”, well, we’re back to him being a pariah and divisive figure.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, as we discussed at the time, stopping a war (or at least stopping a military assault) is well within Superman’s capabilities but is probably more calculated to annoy and frighten people than almost anything else he could do.

Even in a fairly straightforward situation (country A invades country B to conquer it with absolutely no justification) people would be upset because it would show that Superman can and will involve himself in human politics. The social media and agitprop capabilities of country A will now be focused on making Superman a pariah, and they’re likely to succeed in making him a polarising and divisive figure.

Yup. That’s basically the plot of the film!

 

[gnarlygninja]

In fact last year’s Superman film dealt with exactly that when he stopped a war, and people turned against him for it.

Mhmm, the fact that James Gunn decided to deal with it was something I liked about the movie. He's a comic book fan, and is probably familiar with the criticisms people like Alan Moore have about super heroes. And once you decide to address the issue instead of ignoring it I'm not sure there's any other way for Superman to act than how he does in the film.

 

[jian]

Yup. That’s basically the plot of the film!

With a side order of "evil Elon Musk who's actually a genius set up the war so that Superman would do this and so that he could humiliate him on the world stage by beating him up with a Street Fighter clone version before having him arrested and locking him up in an extradimensional gulag which he happened to have handy."

Honestly, I think running for POTUS would have had fewer steps.

 

[gnarlygninja]

Honestly, I think running for POTUS would have had fewer steps.

Probably a little too on the nose at the moment.

 

[jian]

Mhmm, the fact that James Gunn decided to deal with it was something I liked about the movie. He's a comic book fan, and is probably familiar with the criticisms people like Alan Moore have about super heroes. And once you decide to address the issue instead of ignoring it I'm not sure there's any other way for Superman to act than how he does in the film.

This reminds me of listening to the Superheroes episode of the Origin Story podcast, where they pointed out something I hadn't really seen that way before. They point out that Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns came out in the same year (1986) and they're both deconstructions in almost exactly mirrored ways - Moore basically says "uncomplicated moral superheroes can't work in a complicated morally grey world" and Miller basically says "yes they can, by being violent authoritarians, and it's effing awesome."

In this, the two comics are basically that one scene in Watchmen where Nite-Owl and the Comedian are putting down a riot (paraphrased):

Nite-Owl: Why are we doing this? Whatever happened to the American Dream?

Comedian: Nothing happened to it, you're godd*mn looking at it, and it's amazing.

I think it's fair to say that Gunn's Superman has no truck with either of these takes on the superhero myth, but has to pretty carefully thread the needle between them, and the film is the better for it.