Transcript
A hero and sidekick sit in a coffee shop. The sidekick has a laptop.
Hero: We need a way to make money. Maybe I could use my X-ray vision to help hospitals.
Sidekick: What if I wrote stories about your exploits and put them online? Then we could sell T-shirts.
The sidekick has turned their laptop around to show the hero a bar graph with a steep exponential curve.
Hero: I appreciate the thought, but even with good source material, it would take years of learning, hundreds of hours of work, and then lots of marketing before –
Sidekick: Already done it. And look, we’ve gone viral!
The hero looks skeptical. The sidekick is standing to go, pulling the hero after them.
Hero: How could we possibly go viral?! We’re not that unique or sensational.
Sidekick: Come on! If we hurry, we can make it to our convention in time to be mistaken for cosplayers.
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That’s the sidekick’s superpower: super-marketing.
LOL … that sidekick has some serious skills!
Good one again, Bunny and Chris!
When I was a kid, I read a lot of the Phantom comic books (really popular in Sweden!), which also featured Mandrake the magician. Mandrake had the ability to make people see perfectly convincing hallucinations for a few minutes or so, and his buddy Lothar had mild super strength. Nowhere near the power levels sported by typical DC or Marvel heroes, but Mandrake and Lothar lived in a world where superpowers were few and far between, so they still had really cool powers by the standards of that world.
Anyway, they totally used their powers for fame and money! They had this big entertainment show which they constantly toured with. Then they’d ALSO use their powers to fight crime and help people in trouble, which is what the comics focused on.
Come to think of it, they were kind of the polar opposite of oppressed mages! Rich and famous mages, rather.
That’s much closer to how it works in real life. Bad wizards would use their power to get their way, and they don’t care what toes they have to step on to get it.
Well, that escalated quickly.
With great power comes great responsability!
Last time Spiderman tried to earn money with his powers, his uncle died, so one must be careful.