(Amazingly, the nipples on Robin's suit weren't the worst thing Batman & Robin did to the character).

1. If a character is actually interesting enough to belong as a sidekick, promote him to partner or superhero.  Calling him a “sidekick” cues readers that he’s probably a distraction from the character that actually matters.  If he’s not interesting enough to be a partner, you’d probably be better off without him altogether.  Alternately, you can have a character play an interesting role far from the spotlight.  For example, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) adds an interesting ideological dispute with Batman in The Dark Knight but he gets extremely little screen-time and never participates in any fights.

2. Give yourself a reason for writing in a partner/sidekick besides adding “relatability” for younger readers.  If you’re mainly including a sidekick for relatability, I think you’ll probably aggravate older readers more than you’ll please younger ones.  For example, watch Robin in Batman and Robin, Scrappy Doo in too many Scooby Doo episodes, or Jar-Jar Binks in Phantom Menace.  Did these characters at any point take the story in a direction that you wanted to go?  Or were they exceedingly unlikable and a distraction from more interesting characters?

3. Here are some better reasons for having a partner than relatability.  

• In Kick-Ass, the relationship between Hit Girl and Big Daddy (her father) was probably the most interesting character dynamic.  It was somehow simultaneously abusive and touching, both of which helped flesh him out as a three-dimensional character rather than just another ersatz Punisher.  Also, having Hit Girl be insanely effective in battle was a delightful subversion that raised the stakes for Kick-Ass.  (If you’re a superhero getting schooled in battle by a 11 year old girl, maybe it’s time to think about hanging up the tights).
• The character is a loner, but his thought processes are interesting enough that his interactions would develop him and/or the story.  For example, one of Watson’s main roles is giving Holmes a way to narrate the mental leaps he’s making to solve the case.  As the “straight man,” he’s also the audience stand-in, which helps create a contrast with the eccentric and unorthodox Holmes.
• You absolutely need someone with a particular skill to make a plot arc work, but for whatever reason, it wouldn’t make sense to give that skill to the main character.

4. Make sure that there’s some substantial element of contrast.  If the two characters are essentially the same, there’s probably no point to having them both.  For example, do they have notable personality differences or background differences?  (A riot cop and a hippie at a protest at a nuclear power plant at exactly the right/wrong time?)  Do the two have substantially different capabilities? If your sidekick is just a lesser version of your Batman in every way, it might be hard to give him a role that Batman couldn’t just do on his own.

4.1. I wouldn’t recommend using adult vs. teen or adult vs. child as the main contrast.  I feel like I’ve read it so many times before that executing it in an exciting way would be very difficult.  However, veteran vs. newbie could be interesting (and obviously age could tie into that).  The characters are less likely to be angsty stereotypes that way, I feel.

5. Please be EXTREMELY careful with these character traits:

• Permanently incompetent.  Readers will mostly give you a pass on this if the issue is that the character starts out inexperienced/clueless but gets better.  However, if the character’s main role throughout the story is to run off into trouble and get captured, I would recommend reevaluating it.
• Whiny.  Red flag:  He complains about other characters 5+ times over the course of a novel or ever uses the word “mean” as an adjective.  (“You’re being mean!”)  By the way, the only adults that may use “mean” as an adjective are statisticians (“mean life expectancy,” e.g.) and bad crime reporters (“mean streets”).
• Less intelligent than the average reader.  Does this character have an IQ lower than 100?  An immediate no is definitely an acceptable answer.  An immediate yes could be acceptable because at least you’re aware of the situation.  If you had any immediate response besides yes or no (“well, for his age…”), I would recommend reevaluating whether this character is idiotic enough to annoy many readers.  As a rule of thumb, the author is usually the last one to know whether a character is insufferably stupid, so please be sparing with it.
• Any other traits or mannerisms likely to aggravate readers.  If your character doesn’t say ”Me sa Ja-Ja Binks!”, you’re already a step ahead of George Lucas.

1. The superhero’s job gives him a very good reason to take up and leave at crucial moments.  For example, Clark Kent has a great reason to run towards disasters–he’s a journalist looking for the biggest story in town.  Matt Murdoch (Daredevil) or another lawyer might have some good reasons to do so–some supervillains have deep pockets and any disaster scene is liable to have tons of victims that will need a great lawyer.  Successfully suing a billionaire villain (or, umm, the police for failing to take reasonable precautions to keep him in jail) could be a huge payday.

2. The superhero secretly prepares some exciting projects for work that he can unveil whenever he needs to get his boss off his back.  For example, it might be a problem that Clark Kent missed a deadline on mortgages in Metropolis, but his editor would probably look past that if Clark Kent pulled a Pulitzer-grade story out of his brief.  “Sorry, chief, I was busy triple-checking the sourcing on this Luthor confession.  We got him on tape!”  A superhero might be able to sit on a huge breakthrough in his work for a long time–for example, a journalist might spend months checking a story because rushing to print with a libelous claim against an extremely wealthy businessman could be disastrous for the company.

2.1. The superhero is valuable enough at work that his bosses and coworkers look past his tendency to miss work and/or come in late and/or incur mysterious injuries/illnesses.  For example, he might be in a white collar job where uncommon bravery is a major advantage but not many people have it.  (I mean, really, how many journalists are there that would be excited to rush to the scene of a superpowered brawl in progress?  How many lawyers would be excited to interview murder suspects in extremely shady parts of town?)  His skills as a superhero might be really useful–for example, he probably has some degree of investigatory prowess, fast reflexes, familiarity with crime/criminals, toughness, an attention to detail, unusual confident, determination and/or well-placed contacts in various industries and positions. For example, someone like Clark Kent is probably careful enough to make a good forensic accountant (although most taxmen would obviously not make very good superheroes).

3. The hero owns the company, works for himself and/or is in a position with very little oversight.  Nobody knows what Hollywood producers or chiefs of staff do, anyway.  How would anybody know if they were acting strangely?  Additionally, #2.1 comes into play here–if someone is valuable enough at his work that their bosses will forgive minor foibles, he’s probably good enough that he doesn’t need to be managed very closely.  Save that for the interns.  (Note: this approach to management can hilariously backfire if the employee has questionable judgment–what’s the frequency, Kenneth?).

4. Somebody at the company is trying to help the superhero keep his strange activities from everybody else.  Maybe the coworker knows that he’s a superhero (like Lucius Fox and Batman), or maybe he has some idea what’s going on but doesn’t know specifically that the character is a superhero.  For example, a coworker might try covering for a partner who’s acting strangely after going through a traumatic incident*, even if he didn’t know about the superhero angle.  Alternately, a coworker might know that something decidedly unnormal is going on, but not know the details.  (For example, if you had a pretty good idea a coworker was secretly a mutant, you might keep your mouth to spare him and his family from tremendous embarrassment and/or to keep your workplace from getting firebombed).

*Such as the murder of the superhero’s wife, parents, kids, dog and/or yoga instructor that convinced him to become a superhero.

5. The character has some sort of long-term excuse that will cover a lot of scrutiny.  For example, a lot of employers will cut an employee slack over something like a traumatic event, a disability or anything else that would generate sympathy.  Firing a blind employee because he was late too often would be absolutely a last resort, particularly if he’s a lawyer that’s handled some civil rights cases.  If the character is working at a police station and has fomented rumors that he’s secretly working for Internal Affairs or is a federal agent rumored to be working some sort of deep counterintelligence angle, it’d make sense if his coworkers gave him a lot of room.

6. The character doesn’t really have a great plan for covering his absences and doesn’t get along very well with his boss/coworkers.  This can be very dramatic.  Just keep in mind that bosses and coworkers have happiness levels between “100% happy” and “you’re fired.”  Depending on the situation, a character might instead face intermediate punishments, such as…

• Getting demoted or assigned to a less desirable role/shift.
• Assigned to a less desirable partner or team.  (In The Taxman Must Die, a mutant commando gets partnered with an IRS agent after threatening to eat a district attorney).
• Given fewer resources and assistance.  For example, a renegade cop might find that it’s taking them weeks to get his cruiser fixed after he tried to play NASCAR.
• Social disapproval, including untoward looks, rude remarks, vandalized workspaces, keyed cars, workplace sabotage, etc.

7. The character amasses IOUs and/or blackmail material to make sure that people at work will cover for his absences.  They may or may not know what’s going on.  If I were a superhero in this situation, I might try to make it look like I was covering something else, like an affair, because 1) it’d explain why I was being so secretive and 2) most people don’t want to get embroiled in personal messes, but they might dig deeper if they suspected shadiness related to work.  Thanks to game developer Gary Dahl for this idea.

8. The company knows that he’s a superhero but isn’t involved with his superheroics.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one before.  It’d probably be an awkward employer-employee relationship–”I don’t want to fire you because you’re running off to save the planet, but could you do that during off-hours?”  There could also be public pressure on the company depending on how popular the hero is and/or if he screws up really badly.  It’d look really bad if Wal-Mart fired Captain Awesome (imagine the crazed headlines newspapers would come up–”WALMART IN LEAGUE WITH DR. SINISTER, SOURCES SAY*”).  Alternately, if a less popular superhero misreads a situation and ends up doing something like pounding an undercover police officer, the public and police would probably pressure the company to fire him, even if the company had previously had a warm relationship with him.

*”Sources say” is the easiest way for journalists to present baseless speculation and wishcasting as “news” items.  Whatever “sources say” or “analysts say” usually actually says more about the opinions and desires of the journalist writing the story than any facts on the ground.

1. The character’s loved ones are mostly superpowered and/or not in harm’s way. For example, if the character is a superpowered alien, chances are his family members are, too, so protecting them from danger is a bit less essential. Alternately, in Booster Gold’s case, his family is hundreds of years in the future, so he doesn’t have to worry about them getting hurt.

2. The character has family/friends to worry about, but a secret identity is not an option. For example, Alicia Masters might be safer if Ben Grimm had a secret identity, but there’s no way for someone that looks as unusual as The Thing to pull off a secret identity. In The Taxman Must Die, one of the main characters is a mutant alligator that wants a secret identity (because anyone badass has enough enemies to need a secret identity, he reasons), but he surlily discovers that Clark Kent-style glasses don’t give a mutant alligator much of a disguise. (He attributes it to his poor acting skills).

2.1. The character’s origin story was caught on tape or otherwise too public to try a secret identity.  Perhaps the New York Times or Daily Bugle had someone covering that new exhibit of genetically modified spiders and happened to notice that one went missing–it’s not TOTALLY implausible that journalists might do something competent, right?*

*Despite CNN’s best efforts to suggest otherwise.  More on Casey Anthony at 9.

3. The character has loved ones, but is so scary that nobody’s brave enough to mess with them.  For example, if a criminal happened to find out the connection between Alfred and Batman, he’d have to be pretty damn nuts to take a shot at Alfred unless he was really looking forward to pain. Bad career move.  If you have a problem with Batman, it’d probably be less suicidal to gun directly for him (so that at least you’re not distracted when he comes for you).

4. The character might be so distant and/or alienated from others (particularly nonpowered civilians) that a secret identity would be besides the point.  For example, is there any civilian in Dr. Manhattan’s life that he’d actually care about losing? Does your superhero even want to protect his pre-superpowered identity or is that something that’s just totally irrelevant to him now? Alternately, Batman might fit in here, too. It’s not clear to me that he cares enough about Alfred or anybody else that threatening Alfred would achieve any desired effect for a criminal.  (Again, unless defenestration-by-Batman is the desired outcome).
 
5. For personal reasons (such as ideology, values, job, personality traits, etc), the character doesn’t use a secret identity even though he might benefit from one. Here are some possibilities that come to mind:

• Someone that had more of an ego might want the attention. So he/she might not want to keep his identity hidden. For example, Tony Stark outs himself at the end of Iron Man.
• Someone that was unusually brave and/or foolhardy might care less about the potential risk of going public.
• Someone that was a real loner might have fewer people to care about.  See #4 above.
• Someone that was lazy and/or careless might not be willing and/or able to keep a secret identity going.
• Government employees might want to be open because they hold themselves accountable to the public and/or have problems with vigilantes that don’t. See Marvel’s Civil War, etc.
• Depending on the antagonists, protecting loved ones might not be an issue.   For example, maybe the hero deals mainly with villains that are not particularly likely to hunt down loved ones (like Godzilla, villains that are greedy but not particularly vicious, Iowans, etc).
• Depending on the character’s job, security for family and maybe friends might be less of an issue.  For example, if the character is a military officer and his wife and kids are stationed on a military base, they’d presumably be in less danger than the average civilian.  Which is not to say it’s all fun and games on military bases.  For example, most of the inhabitants of Parris Island and the outlying areas are man-eating reptiles and sharks, and you can only play a quality round of danger nut at sea.
• Someone that was unusually honest and/or Canadian might not feel comfortable lying to everybody. At the VERY least, maintaining a secret identity would probably involve lying to your coworkers and most of your friends quite often. (“Clark, the Daily Planet’s softball team needs you on Saturday. Wait, you’re busy AGAIN? What are you doing?”) And good luck explaining to your boss why you weren’t able to make the big meeting without getting fired.  Also, Canadians can’t lie, which puts them at a disadvantage in the double-life department.  (Maybe that’s why there are so few Canadian superheroes?)
• For whatever reason(s), other people are unusually supportive of the superhero’s work.  For example, if being a superhero is totally legal and the character’s friends and family don’t have any objections, then there’s somewhat less reason for the superhero to hide his involvement.
• In the comments below, O.R. mentions pride as a possible motivation not to use a secret identity.  For example, a mutant in X-Men might regard it as cowardice and/or kowtowing to non-mutant discrimination to hide with a secret identity.  Alternately, a mutant that COULD take a secret identity might opt not to out of team solidarity if some of the team members could not.

-: Your readers have probably seen secret identities used quite a bit before.  It’s arguably the most cliche, conventional aspect of superhero stories.  If you go down this path, I’d recommend having it play out in unusual ways.  For example, in Kick-Ass, the protagonist’s attempt to protect his superhero identity from his father leads to a touching and darkly comical scene where the father mistakenly infers that the son was a victim of a sexual crime.

+: It’s a fairly easy way to build coherence between the superpowered side of the story (e.g. what Spider-Man is doing) and the non-powered side of the story (what Peter Parker is doing).  Another possibility that’s pretty well-worn is showing how his superpowered side affects his non-powered life.  For example, Spider-Man 2 covered how hard it was to come up with time for both.  Another possibility would be showing how the strains (injuries, stress, other damages) of one affect the other.

-: Especially in stories where only a villain or two uncover the secret identity, secret identities tend to cause side-characters to act atypically dumb.  How many investigative journalists interact with Clark Kent or Peter Parker every day but can’t seem to ask the right questions about how exactly Peter Parker is the only photographer in the world to keep getting phenomenal Spidey shots and how Superman’s face looks awfully familiar.  If you do go with a secret identity, I’d recommend having the secret identity live or die based on whether the main character can successfully thwart the side-characters’ suspicions, rather than just having the side-characters be too dumb to get suspicious in the first place.

+: It adds an element of human-ness to characters that might otherwise be very hard to relate to.  Giving characters a life where people don’t know they’re super tends to give the writer easier opportunities to give them relatable things to do.  I feel Fantastic Four is an example of a team that has so little regular stuff going on that it’s harder to think of them as real people.  (In theory, the superhero team-as-family angle COULD create relatability, but I think it worked a lot better in The Incredibles than in most FF stories).

-: I think secret identities are exceedingly predictable, especially early on.  In the first half of the story, there’s pretty much no chance anyone will accidentally stumble upon the secret identity. Unless you have something unusual in mind to shake things up, I would not count on the secret identity to generate much drama early on.  (It could still be useful in other ways, such as making the character more relatable or enhancing plot coherence).

+: It could be a relatively rough edge for a hero that might otherwise be a bit too purely heroic.  Usually, people concealing their identity are neck-deep in shadiness.  The superhero’s attempt to conceal his/her identity could lead to otherwise sympathetic characters questioning his intentions and/or otherwise conflicting with the hero.  I feel that morally gray conflicts (i.e. conflicts with characters that are at least somewhat sympathetic) tend to be more complex, unpredictable and satisfying.

-: If you’re doing a comic book, be aware that a mask tends to be the goofiest-looking part of the costume.  Masks also tend to make it harder for the character to visually show emotion.  You can limit the damage there by leaving the mouth area exposed (like Batman) and/or using a mask that retracts or is removed outside of combat (like Iron Man).

-: I feel it’s more logistically difficult to work in individual secret identities into a team series than an individual series.  The more superhero characters you have to develop, the harder it is to develop their secret identities, particularly if their secret identities have substantially different side-casts.  I’d use Dynamo Five as a counterexample here.  Its five protagonists do have secret identities with different side-casts in different towns and nevertheless manages to do something interesting things with the secret identities.  That said, it spends very little space on those scenes.  If you’re going with a superhero team, one approach that might be more appealing is developing the characters off-the-job by having them do things together more than with side-characters that don’t have much to do with the other members of the team.

1. Invisible jets will probably be feasible within 50 years.  We already have rudimentary cloaking devices and one researcher suggests that it could eventually be used on submarines.  (I wonder if anyone would bother applying this technology to a jet, though.  Isn’t the ability to see jets irrelevant if the battle is resolved from miles away?)

2. An Iron Man-style powersuit might be viable someday.  We already have rudimentary jet packs, military grade lasers, exoskeletons and a five-pound rocket launcher.  I’m not a scientist, but it strikes me as fairly likely that engineers could figure out how to refine and combine those elements.  Then a few questions remain (how to power it, how to stop concussive forces from killing the pilot, and why you’d bother spending all that money on a shell for a human when you could do more with a remotely-operated suit or a robot).

3. Technopathy might be theoretically possible.  According to Scientific American, “Signals channeled directly from the brain can already control computers and other machines.”  From there, I think it’s relatively easy to suspend disbelief that someone might be so capable at doing it that he can hack into machines with his mind.

4. It’s sort of believable that Batman could be a superb fighter even though he’s probably older than 30.  The average age of the members of Navy SEAL Team Six was 36.  In sports, a few football players have played deep into their 30s and Brett Favre had an elite season in 2009 despite being 40.  Emmitt Smith’s career lasted 4400 carries, and I’m guessing most of them ended with a tackle by at least one 300 pound defender.

LEGAL

5. Prosecutorial discretion gives authors a lot of leeway in how they cover the police’s relationship with superheroes.  American “prosecuting attorneys have nearly absolute and unreviewable power to choose whether or not to bring criminal charges.”  So, even though most acts of superheroics could be construed as felonies, it’s definitely believable that a prosecutor might pass on indicting a superhero, particularly if the hero is effective and/or popular.  (In the United States, district attorneys are either elected directly or appointed by an elected official, so indicting Superman for breaking-and-entering into a supervillain’s Fortress of Terror might be an unsound career move).

6. Some aspects of U.S. jurisprudence are decidedly conducive to hijinks and excitement.  For example, forcible personal jurisdiction.  There’s a scene in The Dark Knight where a criminal flees to China because China won’t extradite him to Gotham.  Batman kidnaps (shanghais?) him from China and turns him over to the Gotham police.  Assuming a prosecutor wants to file charges, a judge will hear the case.  According to Law and the Multiverse, “the Supreme Court has consistently held that ‘the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by the fact that he had been brought within the court’s jurisdiction by reason of a forcible abduction.’”  By the way, I can’t even begin to imagine what circumstances prompted the Supreme Court to address this issue often enough to have a consistent opinion on it.

1. What is the character’s personality like? What are his key traits?

2. What are the character’s goals/motivations like?  How do those tie into the character’s personality and background?  (I guess it’s possible that there’s a not-particularly-bright athlete out there whose burning life goal is to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but trying to make the varsity squad would probably be more intuitive).

3. What sort of unusual decisions does the character make that other superheroes (or superheroes-to-be) wouldn’t?  In particular, why does the character choose to become a superhero?  Is there anything in the character’s personality or background that influences this decision?  (I’d look at that especially hard if the character wasn’t notably brave or violent before getting superpowers).

4.  How is the character different from other superheroes-to-be?  

5.  How is the character different from other characters in the story, particularly other superheroes (if applicable).  

6.  Are there any ways this character’s background, personality and/or skills make him a good (and/or bad) fit for the plot?  Either could create drama.

• Sherlock Holmes is a good fit against a villain like Professor Moriarty because Moriarty is so dangerous that only someone as competent as Holmes could stop him.  That raises the stakes and makes it easier to challenge Holmes.  (Challenging protagonists is key to generating drama–if the protagonist easily outmatches his obstacles, it probably won’t be as interesting as it could be).
• If a character is a bad fit, he’d have to work harder to overcome obstacles.  For example, Chuck, Bad Company and The Taxman Must Die are about relatively normal people thrust into super-dangerous spy jobs.  The characters’ lack of preparation and personalities help create tension/conflict with teammates and helps writers wring drama out of obstacles that might have been mundane/forgettable for a spy with years of experience.
• It’s possible to do both.  For example, Dexter is a serial killer that works as a police crime scene analyst.  On one hand, he’s less likely to get caught because he knows what they’re looking for and can sabotage the investigation.  On the other hand, they’re unusually close to him and have started to ask questions about why he misses so much work.

• assault and battery (preemptively attacking criminals in cases where an immediate threat to the public did not exist).
• reckless endangerment (using superpowers in a way that unintentionally injured bystanders–it’s implausible that most superheroes would be close to 100% accurate with superpowers, particularly if they’ve only recently developed them).
• child endangerment (using children as sidekicks).
• evidence tampering (altering/destroying evidence or convincing witnesses to protect the hero’s secret identity).
• plotting to make and/or possession of weapons of mass destruction (such as a space station with a death ray and probably adamantium claws).

2. A superhero’s ability to collect human intelligence would probably be somewhat limited.  Solving cases more complex than a crime-in-open-view usually requires a lot of time tracking down leads, talking to people and evaluating evidence. In particular, superheroes would probably be at a major disadvantage in convincing reluctant witnesses to come forward because they can’t offer as many incentives for cooperation (like witness protection or legal cooperation in other matters) as the police can.  Also, wearing brightly-colored spandex can make it harder to earn the trust of strangers facing life-or-death situations.  (Fact!)

3. It’s probably implausible that so few superheroes (permanently) die over time.  So many superheroes survive close calls because supervillains that have previously been psychotic and/or brilliant suddenly get really nonviolent and dumb as soon as they defeat the hero.  For example, Dr. Octopus once defeated Spider-Man (who had been ravaged by an illness), unmasked him, and then assumed that Peter Parker was impersonating Spider-Man because the real Spider-Man should have been tougher.  (Why does Dr. Octopus suddenly get uneasy about killing a civilian?  Doesn’t he wonder where Parker got the suit or why it fits perfectly? If he does let Parker go, why not check up later on the possibility that Parker is Spider-Man?)

4. Most people are neither total idiots nor totally blind to incredibly strange things happening around them. For example, if a student in a local high school went from being a weakling to being an Olympic-grade athlete overnight and suddenly does a double backflip or sends someone sprawling 20+ feet with a punch, don’t you think someone watching would start to wonder?

5. DNA evidence would make it pretty hard to keep up a secret identity for long.  It’s hard to imagine that a superhero could get in a lot of fights without leaving at least a bit of blood or a piece of skintight clothing behind.  The police (or perhaps a villain) could search the scene of the fight and recover this DNA evidence.  DNA wouldn’t identify the hero right away (unless he was already in a DNA database, which is unlikely unless he has a criminal background or perhaps a security clearance), but it’d make it easier to winnow out possibilities.  For example, you could get the subject’s race and gender from DNA and his height from any footage of him in action.  With race, height, gender and a pretty good idea that he appears athletic based on how he looks in his suit, that’d give you a pretty good chance of winnowing down a suspect pool if you had some idea where to start.  For example, if Batman responded unusually quickly to a crime at a WayneCorp event, it might help to take a DNA sample of everybody that fits Batman’s physical profile that was at the event.  The police can bring in each suspect for questioning, ostensibly for help identifying the criminals, but really to get a DNA sample.  For example, the police could offer each suspect a can of soda, wait for the suspect to finish the soda and throw away the can, and then extract DNA from the saliva on the lid.  (If the police were unusually certain about a particular suspect, they could get a warrant forcing him to submit to a blood test).

1. Assault and battery, probably aggravated if superpowers are involved.  The superhero will claim that he was acting in self-defense or the defense of others.  That’s fine if he was just responding to a crime in progress.  However, if he initiated the action (like attacking a gang stronghold or hunting down a supervillain), self-defense is probably off the table because the only imminent danger was created by the hero’s actions.  In particular, a self-defense claim is awfully tenuous if the hero was breaking-and-entering.

2. Felony murder, if anybody dies (criminal or bystander).  Assault is a violent felony, and any deaths caused even indirectly by a violent felony are deemed murders even if the superhero didn’t intend to kill anybody.  If a superhero breaks into a hostage situation and a hostage-taker kills a bystander in the crossfire, the superhero will probably get charged with murder unless he was authorized to be there.

3. Reckless endangerment, if any bystanders get hurt.  In severe cases, this could be a felony. Fortunately, superheroes might be able to cover themselves with self-defense here, if the hero acted prudently and in response to an imminent threat.   Likely vehicular manslaughter as well, if Batman happens to hit anyone while driving several hundred miles per hour through Gotham traffic.

4. Obstruction of justice.  For example, breaking into a hostage situation while the police are still trying to negotiate with the hostage-taker would be a felony in some states.  (Note: if nobody gets hurt, the DA might knock this down to a slap on the wrist, particularly if the superhero is extremely popular).

5. Tampering with evidence.  This felony would apply any time a superhero conceals, alters or destroys evidence (or coerces witnesses) that would be used in an eventual case or other official proceeding. One relatively common example is destroying video evidence proving the hero’s secret identity—the DA will claim that the hero is doing so to avoid getting charged with various felonies.

6. Possession and/or plotting to make weapons of mass destruction.  The United States classifies basically everything interesting as a “weapon of mass destruction,” including landmines, “bombs of all sorts,” sawed-off shotguns and assault rifles. Batman’s missile-armed vehicles and everything in the Punisher’s arsenal would count.  Space stations with death-rays, rocket-propelled ninja stars and New York taxis are not specifically listed, but all available evidence points towards “too interesting.”

7. False imprisonment/kidnapping.  If Batman abducts a criminal to interrogate him, that’s a felony.  However, it’s okay if Spider-Man webs up a criminal that was committing a crime.  (Private citizens are allowed to detain criminals until the police arrive).

8. Possibly white-collar crimes.  

• For example, WayneCorp is a publicly-traded company that secretly uses resources to help Batman, so Bruce Wayne is probably falsifying financial information, defrauding shareholders and/or possibly embezzling from the company. (Would-be superheroes: if you own 100% of the company, there’s less oversight and you’re clear on embezzlement).
• Computer hacking.
• Some scientists might also be guilty of crimes particular to their field. I’m not exactly sure what sort of authorizations you would have to get to open up a laboratory with incredibly volatile chemicals and/or Earth-endangering experiments in lower Manhattan, but I’m guessing the Fantastic Four didn’t mention that to the zoning board.  (Hell, if you want to open up a hot dog stand in Manhattan, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has 35 pages summarizing the permit process and relevant regulations).  I can only shudder to imagine what they would come up with for a lab that threatens to blow up the city four times a month.

9. Maybe crimes related to child sidekicks.  These might include contributing to the delinquency of a minor (thanks, Dani!), neglect and maybe even abuse.  For example, All-Star Batman and Robin has quite a lot of both–Batman tries to force Robin to eat rats in #4 and it somehow goes downhill from there.  Notably, the most serious crime related to a child sidekick–Scrappy Doo–is not yet illegal.  I’m sure Congress is working on it.

10. Breaking and entering.  On the plus side, this might be a misdemeanor depending on the particulars of the incident and the criminal history of the superhero.  I suspect that most judges would find it a relatively minor offense to break into the residence of a fugitive.  However, if the superhero is trying to find evidence about a potential villain that looks like an upstanding member of the community, that’d probably go over more poorly.  B&E might also anger police by making their work harder in a few ways.  First, B&E could easily alert the villain and convince him to be more cautious.  Second, it could make the police’s case fall apart if key evidence gets thrown out in court.

11. Torture, rarely.  By definition, torture entails severe abuse with the involvement (or acquiescence) of a public official or someone working in an official capacity.  Commissioner Gordon has passed on opportunities to arrest Batman, so Batman (and maybe even Gordon) might get charged with torture if Batman throws a subdued criminal 10-15 feet on the pavement to make the criminal cooperate.

As always, I am not a lawyer, so please consult a lawyer if you have any weapons of mass destruction or torture charges coming up.

What do superheroes need in their lives? Anything interesting.  Here are some possibilities that come to mind:

• Action that is driven by interesting goals and personality traits.
• Interesting conflicts, preferably some with characters that aren’t purely unsympathetic.  (For example, in X-Men: First Class, Mystique argues with Beast over Beast’s attempts to cure his mutation, and I don’t think that the writers pushed either position over the other).
• Unusual decisions.
• Relationships that influence the plot.
• Maybe some goals and problems that don’t have much/anything to do with being a superhero—romance is one possibility, but you have a lot of options here.  (For example, in The Incredibles, one of the main problems for Dash was fitting in despite being supernaturally gifted).

How many characters can you introduce in a first chapter?  However many you can develop effectively.  Generally, I wouldn’t recommend introducing  more than 10 named characters or more than 5 major characters in the first 30 pages unless you are confident in your ability to develop interesting characters with relatively few lines.  Gradually introducing characters will generally give you a better chance to develop characters without overwhelming readers.

What games do sailors play?  Danger Nut. In terms of raw peril, it makes Navy football look like a ballet recital.

What makes a good superhero team? 

• Interesting character development.  Particularly if you’re writing a novel, please develop your characters beyond the one-dimensional personalities that tend to comprise superhero teams on TV.  Have you done a better job developing your characters beyond the Power Rangers or at least (God help you) the Smurfs?  If not, it would probably help to rethink your character concepts.   PS: If you’re a first-time author, I’d recommend limiting the team size to 2-4 (maybe 5) members to give yourself more space to develop each character.
• Interesting relationships and interactions between members.  For example, do the characters have differing goals, like Magneto-Xavier or Beast-Mystique in X-Men: First Class?  Does working in a team raise interesting problems and challenges for the characters, like in Kickass or Invincible?  Are the conversations between teammates memorable, like in Justice League International, Incredible, Captain Freedom or perhaps later seasons of Teen Titans?  Do the characters have notably different relationships to the team or to society as a whole, like in the Wild Cards novels (where some superheroes are relatively human and others are really freakish) or Bitter Seeds (where some of the characters are superpowered and others are not)?  For a counterexample, I’d recommend watching a Fantastic Four movie or maybe No Ordinary Family—I feel their teams are relentlessly uninteresting because, among other things, the characters don’t get many chances to interact with each other in ways beyond showing off their single personality traits.
• An interesting explanation for how the team came together is a plus.  For example, I really liked how The Incredibles incorporated a superhero ban, a suspected divorce and villainous involvement.

Superhero Films Since 2000

Superhero Hero Films from 1990-1999

Superhero Films Before 1990

1. I would recommend going with versatile abilities/powers rather than more particular ones.  It’s a lot more creative, memorable and often visually interesting to see a character use his powers in a way that the user’s manual never intended. In contrast, if Superman tries to fly, it’s generally a perfectly smooth operation and his success is never in doubt because he has a power that is good for nothing else but flying.  In contrast, if Yomiko (from Read or Die) tries to fly by using her paper-control abilities to rig together a giant paper airplane, that takes real daring and cunning.  ”Do you know how to fly that thing?”  ”Uhh, what about the rain?”  ”Can your plane withstand gunfire?”  The uncertainty helps make the improvised solution more interesting.

1.1.  I’d like to see the characters in some situations where their powers are not obviously useful.  I think the biggest reason some writers give their characters huge amounts of superpowers (5 or more, let’s say) is that they’re scared that their characters might be caught in a situation that can’t be immediately solved with a superpower. First, it’s more interesting/creative if a character can’t just solve a problem by turning his powers on.  (See Superman vs. Yomiko above). Second, superpowers are only one part of the characters’ capabilities, right?*  It’s okay if they have some problems/situations that have to be resolved by other means.  (When was the last time you read about a wizard that solved all of his problems with magic?)  If the superpowers are the only capability that the superhero uses, I would recommend reconsidering whether you’re neglecting the person behind the mask.

*For example, your characters hopefully have skills, practical life experience (from a job or elsewhere), talents besides superpowers, education, personal strengths, resources/assets, etc. Characters may also be able to leverage their reputation, authority and/or standing among different groups (like the police, criminal groups, the public, etc) in certain situations. For example, if your hero’s been framed as a criminal and her bank account’s been frozen, maybe she can march up to Fast Eddie on the corner and demand the perpetrator’s name and a flamethrower on credit.  It would take one hell of a personality and/or reputation to convince a hardened criminal to cough up a flamethrower with threats.  And she might also need to convince him that she’s likely enough to defeat the perpetrator that the perpetrator won’t come back and kill Fast Eddie for snitching.

2.  An overly complex superpower may detract from the development of the rest of the story.  My rule of thumb is that if a character’s superpowers take more than 1-2 sentences to explain, there’s probably too much going on.  For the most part, time spent explaining superpowers is usually not spent on characterization, transitions/coherence, conflict development, motivations, major choices and other elements that publishers actually care about.  (For example, I’ve seen quite a few publishers specify that they’re looking for believable, consistent and interesting characters–like Dark Horse Comics–but I’ve never seen anybody mention superpowers in the submission guidelines.  They’re just a means to an end–an interesting story–not the end itself).  Alternately, if you want to really delve into the superpowers and you feel like they’re such an interesting component of the story that they warrant that space, you could at least incorporate it into characterization, major choices and the like.  For example, in Bitter Seeds, one protagonist’s powers are bestowed by malevolent spirits that demand gruesome sacrifices.  Understandably, some characters do not take well to this, so the cost of the powers creates an obstacle to team cohesion and friendships/partnerships.

3.  I’d recommend using capabilities appropriate to the story’s tone, style and target audience.  If you’re doing an upbeat kid’s story, you might want to leave the machine guns at home.  (We weep for you, children’s writers).  Personally, I’m using mostly agility-based powers for The Taxman Must Die, an action-comedy that I’d like to keep a pretty soft PG-13.

4.  Can the character be challenged?  For more details on this, I’d recommend checking out How to Save Insufficiently Challenged Heroes (especially #4).

2-Week U.S. Gross as a Percentage of Total Budget. (Obviously, international sales are just as important, but I had a really hard time finding reliable international data.  Let me know if you know where I can look).

*-I had trouble finding a reliable estimate for the marketing budgets for Punisher and Thor.  The other statistics came from  The Numbers, Box Office Mojo, Reuters or the New York Times.

Week 2 Declines for First Superhero Movies–When movies drop off steeply from week 1 to week 2, it usually means the movie is getting bad word-of-mouth or ran out of fans relatively quickly.

• Spiderman: -38%
• Batman Begins: -43%
• Thor: -47%
• Iron-Man: -48%
• The Punisher: -55%* (rebooted)
• Ghost Rider: -56% (sequel scheduled for 2012)
• X-Men: -57%
• Fantastic Four: -59%
• Superman Returns: -59% (will be rebooted in 2012)
• Catwoman: -62%* (no sequel)
• Green Lantern: -66%
• Hulk (2003): -70%* (rebooted)

*I bolded the movies that resulted in a reboot or a series cancellation.

Week 2 Declines for Superhero Movies This Year

• Thor: -47%
• X-Men: First Class: -56%
• Green Lantern: -66%

Observations and Predictions

• All of the massively successful multifilm series (Spiderman, Batman, Iron-Man and X-Men) were respectively launched by movies that lost only 38%, 43%, 48% and 57% from the first week to the second.  That’s an average loss of 46%.  I think it bodes poorly for future Green Lantern films that this one fared substantially worse (-67%).

 

• My fearless prediction is that Warner Brothers won’t release another Green Lantern movie this decade.  Right now, Man of Steel is scheduled for a 2012 release, around 6 years after Superman Returns came out.  There are several reasons to think that Warner Brothers will probably be even more skittish about Green Lantern than it has been about Superman.
  1. So far, Green Lantern is doing worse at the box office than Superman Returns did.  In its first 2 weeks in the U.S., Superman Returns’ gross was roughly 54% of its total budget.  Green Lantern’s gross was only 32%.  Of the 13 launch films I looked at, only Catwoman did worse.  WB reportedly spent around $300 million to produce and market Green Lantern.  Breaking even looks like the best-case scenario at this point.
  2. Warner Brothers thought that Superman Returns underperformed by at least $100 million at the box office. SR earned $390 million at the box office against a $270 million production budget and $40 million of advertising. After all the charges (like taxes and the theatres’ cut of ticket sales) and additional revenues like DVD sales ($80 million) were factored in, it probably wasn’t a substantial profit.  Green Lantern is on pace to do substantially worse.
  3. Although Superman Returns did not do so well, the Superman franchise had several blockbusters to its name in the 1970s and 80s.  Green Lantern does not have that level of demonstrated market appeal or name recognition.

Caveats

• Box-office sales and the week-on-week decrease aren’t the only factors determining which movies get sequels, which get rebooted and which get canned.  Otherwise, we’d be up to The Incredibles 3 by now.   (Its box-office gross shrank only 29% from week 1 to week 2 and it ended up grossing $630 million against a production budget of $92 million).  Likewise, a series might get rebooted because the lead actor(s), director and/or lead screenwriter just weren’t interested.
• It’s possible for a movie to lose lots of viewers early but still become a blockbuster.  For example, Dark Knight lost a fairly high 53% from week 1 to week 2, but it was starting from a high base.  It’s obviously too soon to say whether Green Lantern will definitely be a box-office bust, but the evidence available so far is not encouraging.
• I’m only looking at the launch titles.  Sequels tended to lose a larger proportion of their audience from week 1 to week 2.  Also, I only included movies from 2000 and later, but I did not notice major differences between modern superhero movies and older ones here.

1.  Even if you want to resolve the hostage situation with protagonists rushing in, negotiation can play a key role.

• A tactical takedown is more likely to succeed with few casualties if the police have time to prepare.  For example, during the Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Peru, the police prepared by smuggling in communications equipment to hostages (so that they could learn what was going on inside), provided light-colored clothes to the hostages (so they could be easily distinguished), and scheduled their raid at a time when the hostage-takers liked to play soccer and would be away from the hostages.   To practice their strategy, the Peruvian commandos built a scale building of the compound, including the tunnels they had dug to carry out the raid.
• Often, negotiators can convince the criminals to release some hostages and/or surrender.  (It’s harder for hostage-takers to keep control of large groups of hostages and the police may be willing to offer food and water in exchange for releases, so there is some incentive to release some hostages).  Best case scenario: Armed confrontation isn’t necessary.  Worst case scenario: If the protagonists do need to execute a raid, fewer hostages will be at risk.

2.  In some relatively minor cases, a barricaded gunman might get off with a surprisingly light prison sentence. In the NYT article, one gunwoman received a four year sentence after surrendering herself to police, which is less than some white collar criminals get.  One gunman considering suicide-by-cop surrendered and was not charged.  (I can’t even drive 30 miles per hour in a 25 MPH zone without getting a ticket).  If the criminals think that they’re looking at a short prison sentence, it’s easier to convince them that there’s a future for them if they turn themselves in.

3.  Some hostage-takers have resolved themselves to death (i.e. are suicidal or just don’t care), but most have not, especially the ones that take hostages in the heat of the moment.  For example, if the police inadvertently trigger a hostage crisis by trying to arrest an armed fugitive within arm’s length of a civilian, the criminal is probably not looking to die and the chances for a clean resolution are relatively favorable.

2.  Will you be able to easily challenge this character in a variety of scenes?  (If the character is invulnerable, the answer is probably no, unless you’ve set up challenges besides trying to kill the character.  Source Code was an effective example of that).

3.  Will readers understand what this character can do, or is it just like the author’s making it up as he goes along?  (If the character’s powers have “reality” in the name, it’s probably the latter).

4.  Are the character’s powers versatile?  (If your main character is a superstrong tank or a flying brick, it may help to give him a more exotic side-power to help keep his fights from getting repetitive).

5.  If you’re writing a comic, will this character’s powers give you interesting visuals? (If you’re writing a novel, this isn’t nearly as important).