Black Hat Brigade: Episode 31
Mar. 24th, 2016 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastEstablishing Shot: Hall of Justice: Superfriends version.
Inside, at the meeting table, characters better animated than their surroundings sit.
Flash squirms in his seat.
Batman gives Flash a look.
Flash: These chairs are just so poorly animated. I can't get comfortable.
Batman: Nobody can get comfortable. It's not a well fleshed out iteration.
Flash keeps squirming: It's not just me, then.
Wonder Woman: We have guests.
Flash: We are guests. This is supposed to be neutral ground. Besides, the bad guys aren't even here, yet.
Superman: Not just the bad guys, Wally. *points across the table*
Live Action Iron Man: Don't worry. I get it. It's the advantage of a tech-suit, perfect back support everywhere I sit.
Flash: Yeah, I hear that works for some people. Never works out for me.
Dare Devil: It's far more expensive than it's worth, too. All you really need is good training.
Batman: Too much operations tech will always run into your tropes of the bad guys taking over the tech. A good computer for the tech, perhaps some non-computerized tools and a utility belt.
Dare Devil: Depends on how big you're going.
Punisher: I think the only thing you really need is the motivation, to know what happens if you don't get it done.
Batman looks at Punisher: Or what happens if you become what you hate?
Punisher: Don't you give me that. I get enough of that from Red. *motions to Dare Devil*
Susan Pevensie opens the door and walks through. She wears a form-fitting black suit that is tightly fitted enough to be mistaken for a super-suit.
Susan: Please, do forgive my tardiness. I thought I'd accounted for traffic, yet the frequent stops of the entire populace to look at some new wonder or potential threat... Let's just say it surprised me.
Superman: You learn to factor that into your commute in this version.
Following Susan through are a sizable gentleman in an ill-fitting pinstripe suit and a well-animated version of Lex Luthor.
Susan: I believe you all know Mr. Luthor, by reputation if not in person.
Flash: Know him, I was him for a few hours.
Lex Luthor: Don't remind me.
Susan: Also accompanying me is Bruno, who will be representing various groups of stereotypical and otherwise nameless thugs.
Bruno: Yes, we have a few concerns.
Punisher: Yeah, yeah. I could make you have no concerns ever again.
Bruno: I bet you would. I mean, it would be, perhaps, the dumbest crime response possible, but you would.
Punisher: What did you just call me?
Lex Luthor: At least let us take a seat, first.
Lex Luthor takes a seat. Bruno pulls out a seat for Susan who nods and takes her seat.
Susan: I believe Bruno is referring to the extreme prejudice with which you carry out a death penalty.
Punisher: It gets the job done. A dead scumbag can't kill.
Bruno: You do know you're not omnipotent, don't you?
Punisher: Of course not. But, I don't kill people who don't deserve it.
Bruno: Yeah, yeah, you're a fantasy of never killing the wrong person. I tell you that's one of the most unbelievable super-powers.
Punisher: I'm not super-powered.
Bruno rolls his eyes: Oh please. Even with advanced military training, bullshit. But, let's go ahead and accept that you never shoot the undeserving, that there's never somebody who's innocent of the allegations, that there's never an innocent in the crossfire. Let's go ahead and pretend that's not a harder disbelief to suspend than this guy getting to fly because of his species hasn't encountered a yellow sun's radiation before.
Superman: Oh, pick on the alien from the Golden Age.
Bruno waves that off.
Bruno: Punisher, why do you think people get into crime?
Punisher: Don't know, don't care. They're scumbags who need to be put down.
Bruno: Actually, they're people, growing up in certain conditions, sometimes conditions wherein safety and cultural legitimacy aren't to be found in legal options. A man may want to just own a bar. But, he can't refuse to serve the Irish Mafia, for instance. And, if they have a job for him, even one that involves killing someone, he still can't say no. Survival's on the line. And, if an old lady, the icon of "innocent victim", is a witness, survival's still on the line.
Punisher: You want to make me feel sorry for some murderer?
Bruno: I want you to see him as a person. I want you all to see him as a person, even before he's a criminal.
Lex Luthor: You see, the idea that I, or a Kingpin, am an honest representation of criminality is just as divorced from reality as the idea that Mr. Castle can engage his murderous crusade without being more of a threat to society than all the criminals he kills combined.
Lex Luthor: Myself, the Joker, the Riddler, the revolving doors of prisons or Asylems such as Arkham, none of these are reasonable representations of humanity in crime. We're all well-designed antagonists for the purpose of having extended arcs of continuing antagonism. We're designed to be criminal first, even criminal mastermind first, and person second.
Bruno: But, if you want any realistic way to a crime-fighting narrative, you have to have people first, criminal second. And, figuring that, Punisher, if someone's committed a crime, paid their time, come out, what are they?
Punisher: They're scumbags who need to be put down in a society too weak to do it.
Bruno: And that's exactly the attitude that keeps them locked in criminal enterprises. In a world where nobody hires ex-cons, an ex-con doesn't have much legitimate employment options. In a world where Frank Castle will kill you, even with a perfect record on never killing the innocent or the wrongly convicted, basic survival means you go where the guns are. Keeping your nose clean and down won't protect you.
Superman: He's saying that you, personally, do more to empower and entrench organized crime than the crime syndicates themselves.
Lex Luthor: Not that any of the rest of you are doing much better.
Superman: We foil enough of your schemes.
Susan: Remember how unrealistic Lex Luthor is. Someone who is both enormously wealthy, with legitimate income from stock-trading as well as long-term investments in numerous companies with the kind of power and technological capacity it would take to, in one iteration, biologically engineer several sentient organisms. Quite frankly, going into the kind of crime that would even be a blip on your radar would be, itself, criminally stupid.
Lex Luthor: I wouldn't say that.
Susan: You don't have to, I just did. Criminally stupid. I'm not saying that he wouldn't commit any crimes, but we'd be talking matters like insider trading, maybe cocaine use because excess is a part of the culture. But, bank robbery? Taking over the world? Really? This kind of idiot thinks he already rules the world.
Lex Luthor: Really. I take offense at that.
Susan: I would, too.
Bruno: The fact of the matter is that none of you can really impact what needs to be impacted. At best (Punisher, you are far from best) you can be a band-aid, a secondary, short-term effort, not the primary long-term necessity. You take your routes and people like Lex Luthor become necessary for the story.
Susan: It does a disservice to everybody and delivers a message that crime can be handled, as a societal problem, with all harsh sentences and not a slight amount of compassion. That is far more of a crime than any that you foil
Batman: I take it you have some other idea.
Susan: Indeed I do.
Susan produces, from her briefcase, several comic books that she hands out. The Comic Books are titled "Clark Kent" "Bruce Wayne" "Diana Prince" "Tony Stark" "Matt Murdock" and "Frank Castle".
Susan: Take a moment, consider the concept. Stories told in which your identities as super heroes are kept firmly in the background, or don't happen at all in the case of Mr. Castle. Instead, the identities that most of the world consider more banal take the forefront and you do far more valuable jobs.
Susan: Please don't bother me about giving away secret identities, this is metafiction. Within Canon, you'll all play your parts.
Susan: Mr. Kent, an investigative reporter can do a much better job on handling the underlying causes of crime, namely the plutocratic economic philosophies that reduce options. A fast-food chain being caught out and having the laundry aired out that they have been engaging in wage-theft practices will make the streets much safer than you flying around in red and blue spandex.
Susan: On that same level, Mr. Wayne and Mr. Stark, you can engage in business standards that sacrifice profit-margin for pay-ethic-jobs. If Cost-co can do that in the real world, you can simultaneously move money to where it better flows in an economy and put pressure on other employers to do likewise.
Susan: Ms. Prince, now you have different situations in different iterations. One point where I will applaud you is your focus on compassion and your example of women in positions of strength. But, depending on iteration, I still see quite a lot of potential for Diana Prince.
Susan: Mr. Murdock, I enjoy that your Netflix series shows you doing a lot of social service cases, but that stays firmly in the background in favor of running around and breaking people. That really should be reversed.
Susan: And, Mr. Castle-
Punisher: A damned neighborhood watch?!?
Bruno: A neighborhood watch is a subtle way to make crime more difficult. It actually makes you a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
Punisher: The only problem is people like you!
Susan: No, the problem is your attitude. You're a revenge fantasy, and that's it. An anti-hero in a world where the only argument people make is that criminals deserve a chance at redemption or that only God or the state can decide who dies. Well, there's a far more reasonable argument in that you make recidivism the only survivable option.
Susan: All of you, by sacrificing your normal lives for these superhero lives, do the same. Punisher, here, is just the most blatant.
Susan: The Golden Age and the Silver Age started out with a fundamental misunderstanding, a world too clean. The Dark Age gave it a fantasy of grime that did not appear anything like the real thing. It's time for an age of realism, where the world is dirty, but bloody just for the sake of it.
Susan: It's a challenge. Are you up to it?
Inside, at the meeting table, characters better animated than their surroundings sit.
Flash squirms in his seat.
Batman gives Flash a look.
Flash: These chairs are just so poorly animated. I can't get comfortable.
Batman: Nobody can get comfortable. It's not a well fleshed out iteration.
Flash keeps squirming: It's not just me, then.
Wonder Woman: We have guests.
Flash: We are guests. This is supposed to be neutral ground. Besides, the bad guys aren't even here, yet.
Superman: Not just the bad guys, Wally. *points across the table*
Live Action Iron Man: Don't worry. I get it. It's the advantage of a tech-suit, perfect back support everywhere I sit.
Flash: Yeah, I hear that works for some people. Never works out for me.
Dare Devil: It's far more expensive than it's worth, too. All you really need is good training.
Batman: Too much operations tech will always run into your tropes of the bad guys taking over the tech. A good computer for the tech, perhaps some non-computerized tools and a utility belt.
Dare Devil: Depends on how big you're going.
Punisher: I think the only thing you really need is the motivation, to know what happens if you don't get it done.
Batman looks at Punisher: Or what happens if you become what you hate?
Punisher: Don't you give me that. I get enough of that from Red. *motions to Dare Devil*
Susan Pevensie opens the door and walks through. She wears a form-fitting black suit that is tightly fitted enough to be mistaken for a super-suit.
Susan: Please, do forgive my tardiness. I thought I'd accounted for traffic, yet the frequent stops of the entire populace to look at some new wonder or potential threat... Let's just say it surprised me.
Superman: You learn to factor that into your commute in this version.
Following Susan through are a sizable gentleman in an ill-fitting pinstripe suit and a well-animated version of Lex Luthor.
Susan: I believe you all know Mr. Luthor, by reputation if not in person.
Flash: Know him, I was him for a few hours.
Lex Luthor: Don't remind me.
Susan: Also accompanying me is Bruno, who will be representing various groups of stereotypical and otherwise nameless thugs.
Bruno: Yes, we have a few concerns.
Punisher: Yeah, yeah. I could make you have no concerns ever again.
Bruno: I bet you would. I mean, it would be, perhaps, the dumbest crime response possible, but you would.
Punisher: What did you just call me?
Lex Luthor: At least let us take a seat, first.
Lex Luthor takes a seat. Bruno pulls out a seat for Susan who nods and takes her seat.
Susan: I believe Bruno is referring to the extreme prejudice with which you carry out a death penalty.
Punisher: It gets the job done. A dead scumbag can't kill.
Bruno: You do know you're not omnipotent, don't you?
Punisher: Of course not. But, I don't kill people who don't deserve it.
Bruno: Yeah, yeah, you're a fantasy of never killing the wrong person. I tell you that's one of the most unbelievable super-powers.
Punisher: I'm not super-powered.
Bruno rolls his eyes: Oh please. Even with advanced military training, bullshit. But, let's go ahead and accept that you never shoot the undeserving, that there's never somebody who's innocent of the allegations, that there's never an innocent in the crossfire. Let's go ahead and pretend that's not a harder disbelief to suspend than this guy getting to fly because of his species hasn't encountered a yellow sun's radiation before.
Superman: Oh, pick on the alien from the Golden Age.
Bruno waves that off.
Bruno: Punisher, why do you think people get into crime?
Punisher: Don't know, don't care. They're scumbags who need to be put down.
Bruno: Actually, they're people, growing up in certain conditions, sometimes conditions wherein safety and cultural legitimacy aren't to be found in legal options. A man may want to just own a bar. But, he can't refuse to serve the Irish Mafia, for instance. And, if they have a job for him, even one that involves killing someone, he still can't say no. Survival's on the line. And, if an old lady, the icon of "innocent victim", is a witness, survival's still on the line.
Punisher: You want to make me feel sorry for some murderer?
Bruno: I want you to see him as a person. I want you all to see him as a person, even before he's a criminal.
Lex Luthor: You see, the idea that I, or a Kingpin, am an honest representation of criminality is just as divorced from reality as the idea that Mr. Castle can engage his murderous crusade without being more of a threat to society than all the criminals he kills combined.
Lex Luthor: Myself, the Joker, the Riddler, the revolving doors of prisons or Asylems such as Arkham, none of these are reasonable representations of humanity in crime. We're all well-designed antagonists for the purpose of having extended arcs of continuing antagonism. We're designed to be criminal first, even criminal mastermind first, and person second.
Bruno: But, if you want any realistic way to a crime-fighting narrative, you have to have people first, criminal second. And, figuring that, Punisher, if someone's committed a crime, paid their time, come out, what are they?
Punisher: They're scumbags who need to be put down in a society too weak to do it.
Bruno: And that's exactly the attitude that keeps them locked in criminal enterprises. In a world where nobody hires ex-cons, an ex-con doesn't have much legitimate employment options. In a world where Frank Castle will kill you, even with a perfect record on never killing the innocent or the wrongly convicted, basic survival means you go where the guns are. Keeping your nose clean and down won't protect you.
Superman: He's saying that you, personally, do more to empower and entrench organized crime than the crime syndicates themselves.
Lex Luthor: Not that any of the rest of you are doing much better.
Superman: We foil enough of your schemes.
Susan: Remember how unrealistic Lex Luthor is. Someone who is both enormously wealthy, with legitimate income from stock-trading as well as long-term investments in numerous companies with the kind of power and technological capacity it would take to, in one iteration, biologically engineer several sentient organisms. Quite frankly, going into the kind of crime that would even be a blip on your radar would be, itself, criminally stupid.
Lex Luthor: I wouldn't say that.
Susan: You don't have to, I just did. Criminally stupid. I'm not saying that he wouldn't commit any crimes, but we'd be talking matters like insider trading, maybe cocaine use because excess is a part of the culture. But, bank robbery? Taking over the world? Really? This kind of idiot thinks he already rules the world.
Lex Luthor: Really. I take offense at that.
Susan: I would, too.
Bruno: The fact of the matter is that none of you can really impact what needs to be impacted. At best (Punisher, you are far from best) you can be a band-aid, a secondary, short-term effort, not the primary long-term necessity. You take your routes and people like Lex Luthor become necessary for the story.
Susan: It does a disservice to everybody and delivers a message that crime can be handled, as a societal problem, with all harsh sentences and not a slight amount of compassion. That is far more of a crime than any that you foil
Batman: I take it you have some other idea.
Susan: Indeed I do.
Susan produces, from her briefcase, several comic books that she hands out. The Comic Books are titled "Clark Kent" "Bruce Wayne" "Diana Prince" "Tony Stark" "Matt Murdock" and "Frank Castle".
Susan: Take a moment, consider the concept. Stories told in which your identities as super heroes are kept firmly in the background, or don't happen at all in the case of Mr. Castle. Instead, the identities that most of the world consider more banal take the forefront and you do far more valuable jobs.
Susan: Please don't bother me about giving away secret identities, this is metafiction. Within Canon, you'll all play your parts.
Susan: Mr. Kent, an investigative reporter can do a much better job on handling the underlying causes of crime, namely the plutocratic economic philosophies that reduce options. A fast-food chain being caught out and having the laundry aired out that they have been engaging in wage-theft practices will make the streets much safer than you flying around in red and blue spandex.
Susan: On that same level, Mr. Wayne and Mr. Stark, you can engage in business standards that sacrifice profit-margin for pay-ethic-jobs. If Cost-co can do that in the real world, you can simultaneously move money to where it better flows in an economy and put pressure on other employers to do likewise.
Susan: Ms. Prince, now you have different situations in different iterations. One point where I will applaud you is your focus on compassion and your example of women in positions of strength. But, depending on iteration, I still see quite a lot of potential for Diana Prince.
Susan: Mr. Murdock, I enjoy that your Netflix series shows you doing a lot of social service cases, but that stays firmly in the background in favor of running around and breaking people. That really should be reversed.
Susan: And, Mr. Castle-
Punisher: A damned neighborhood watch?!?
Bruno: A neighborhood watch is a subtle way to make crime more difficult. It actually makes you a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
Punisher: The only problem is people like you!
Susan: No, the problem is your attitude. You're a revenge fantasy, and that's it. An anti-hero in a world where the only argument people make is that criminals deserve a chance at redemption or that only God or the state can decide who dies. Well, there's a far more reasonable argument in that you make recidivism the only survivable option.
Susan: All of you, by sacrificing your normal lives for these superhero lives, do the same. Punisher, here, is just the most blatant.
Susan: The Golden Age and the Silver Age started out with a fundamental misunderstanding, a world too clean. The Dark Age gave it a fantasy of grime that did not appear anything like the real thing. It's time for an age of realism, where the world is dirty, but bloody just for the sake of it.
Susan: It's a challenge. Are you up to it?
