why change the world
Jul. 8th, 2022 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliSuperpowers should change the world. And in most comics -- they don't, and they do.
They don't in that the presence of superpowers doesn't budge known history. 9/11 occurs on schedule, the attack is made by airplane and not by fireball, and the fourth attack is thwarted by the passengers onboard, not by a telepath noticing the hijackers and sending a telekinetic to bring it down. The same people are elected president, the same laws are passed even when other laws (such as registering mutants) are passed.
BUT -- other dimensions, other planets even, frequently see cosmic scale calamities. Superpowers can cause them, can avert them, can restore after them. And they seem to cause a lot less anguish than real world events. Less survivor guilt. Less trauma. Like -- the characters know they aren't real.
For aesthetic reasons alone, it's much more sound to let powers change the world. Having part of the world obviously unreal reduces realism.
They don't in that the presence of superpowers doesn't budge known history. 9/11 occurs on schedule, the attack is made by airplane and not by fireball, and the fourth attack is thwarted by the passengers onboard, not by a telepath noticing the hijackers and sending a telekinetic to bring it down. The same people are elected president, the same laws are passed even when other laws (such as registering mutants) are passed.
BUT -- other dimensions, other planets even, frequently see cosmic scale calamities. Superpowers can cause them, can avert them, can restore after them. And they seem to cause a lot less anguish than real world events. Less survivor guilt. Less trauma. Like -- the characters know they aren't real.
For aesthetic reasons alone, it's much more sound to let powers change the world. Having part of the world obviously unreal reduces realism.