Didn’t see a thread for this, sorry if it has already been discussed.
OK this always bugged me about the original film. After the world declared they didn’t need Super Heroes anymore and they decided to have that whole Super Relocation program- why didn’t the villains instantly take over? This seems like the perfect opportunity for them, the super heroes get the bad rep and nobody wants them anymore, so why did they suddenly all give up? To quote Heath Ledger’s Joker “I mean what happened? Did… did your balls drop off?” (sorry for the profanity) Did they get relocated too? How was the government able to accomplish this and why couldn’t they have simply done this before?
That is a very good question. To be honest, I can only theorize. I could imagine them going into retirement because without the challenge of the SUper Heroes to stop them, wrecking havoc on to metroville and all over the world would be too easy. but even with the ban of the Supers, don’t expect the crime rate to drop. I believed that it raised if anything.
Good question. Maybe they went into hiding much like The Incredibles did for fear of litigation (that would be funny, bad guys being scared of lawyers) and never resurfaced?
An alternate theory I have is inspired by the recent movie Megamind. Part of the appeal of being a supervillain is having an equal nemesis to fight against. Once your ‘reason for existence’ is gone, there’s no fun in being a supervillain anymore. Doing crimes is too easy. Again, to quote the Joker like Pixar Builder did, “What would I do without you? You complete me.” A huge part of the superhero dynamics is the dualism between good and evil.
Of course, as TSS has posited, the rate of petty crimes should rise (like Bob witnessed with the mugging from his boss’ office window). It’s the large-scale villains who relish the epic battles against their brethen on the opposite side of the law that have lost the will to fight.
The government oversaw all super heroes, whether they worked for the government or were working as a regular person.
For the Parr family it was evident that Helen wanted a family that would not allow for the dangers of super hero work.
As an alternate, as Syndrome could be killing off the supes, he may have been targeting the villains as well so there was no competition to his own plans.
Either way or both ways, the story line left that open to being handled.
Great theories, tripoli. Yeah, I think they left that to the imagination of the fans, although it would be better if they provided a more substantial explanation.
The thing about the Mega Mind theory for me is that I can only really believe it if I thought the main motivation of all super villains was to simply screw around and have fun torturing the heroes on a daily basis- which is why they would’ve stopped trying to do the “world domination thing” after the super heroes had to go into hiding. While I can think of a few super villains that might have this as an additional motivation, I find it rather unlikely that all villains would’ve instantly “just gotten bored and gave up” once the world placed the heroes in relocation. It just makes them seem way too two-dimensional, to have no further desired needs or accomplishments once the heroes left. And the fact that the crime rate wasn’t shown to have at all differed during these events is remarkably surprising to me still, since it really seemed like Mr. Incredible and the rest of the supes were the only ones “cleaning up the mess”.
I remember reading a WMG on TV Tropes that the “Golden Age of Super Heroes” was actually more or less a Fallen Age of Supers, right before the world didn’t need them anymore. Police and government were becoming way too reliant on Mr Incredible to do their jobs for them (ie even mundane tasks like rescuing a cat from a tree/ stopping a bank robber) and it was really the turning point in the century when they finally had to realize they needed to stop letting them take the law into their own hands. However, this theory still doesn’t explain how the crime rate suddenly decreased.
There’s also an additional theory that the Super Villains actually successfully took over society within political positions. I like that one the best.
I remember asking about this once too. It seems the most plausible explanation is similar to what’s been said, that the villains want the challenge. But like Pixar Builder said, I cant imagine them ALL feeling that way. Nor do I think that was immediate. So I’m thinking it was probably pretty messy there for awhile. Plus, those villains werent getting any younger. Maybe age had a little bit to do with it too.
I like the Megamind theory a lot of you have already mentioned. I’m sure there’s a few that went to foreign countries, and perhaps even a few that the US government arrested or are keeping close eye on due to their track record.
Interesting theory, Pixar Builder. Some of the villains may go into semi-legit businesses operating behind ‘shell companies’. Or go black market like Syndrome has. Either way, they must have gotten smarter and less ‘showy’ than they were back in the days, a kind of true-life reflection of real-world criminals nowadays as well.
I also like EJE’s theory of villains migrating overseas. This also happens in the real world, with criminal kingpins and career criminals hiding out in countries like Israel, Cuba, Indonesia, or Iran which have poor or non-existent extradition treaties. I haven’t watched Lethal Weapon 2, but apparently the villains operate in a similar fashion under the guise of ‘diplomatic immunity.’
My long-gestating Incredibles fanfic in fact, has Bomb Voyage commit a crime and escape to France. The French don’t extradite their own, especially if they face the death penalty. Mr Incredible then has to covertly ‘extract’ him as a N.O.C. operative.
Well, going off the comics, they went underground and started undertaking quieter operations to draw less attention to themselves. Others just retired, but came back from it post-film.
A huge part of the superhero dynamics is the dualism between good and evil.