Why is it that a superhero can't be a homeless person or someone from a impoverished third world country?

Question

...other than media/merchandise sales.

oh I just thought of a hero who is an aimless traveller who lives on the road. THE HULK! Not sure if he would be considered a superhero or just a guy that is in the "wrong place at the wrong time"...where people bully him for no apparent reason.

Answer 1

Skin from New Mutants belonged to an LA street gang, Prince Namor was a homeless person for many years, Peter Parker was a drifter when he was replaced by a clone and he assumed the Ben O'Reilly persona. Jarvis the Avengers' butler sponsered a young central american girl thru one of those "sally struthers" type organizations. The whole Guthrie clan comes from freaking Kentucky.. which i put forward is a 3rd world country... and i deny anyone to prove me wrong. Storm from the x-men was a homeless street kid in Ciaro, Egypt before she grew up and went walkabout down into central africa and was adopted as a goddess by a plains tribe. One of the Aborigional folk from down in Austrailia, Gateway, is a hero. I could go on...

there are plenty of heroes from around the world. location of birth matters little on who is a hero. Its all about character and your lvl of personal responsibility and what you do with your powers.

As for why not many of the core franchise heroes arent more diverse... you gotta remember that most of those comics are over 40yrs old... some are much older. You just don't mess with a successful character and his/her supporting cast without changing too much about the core story becoming mixed up with whatever way the current social/political wind is blowing today.

Whenever super new and controvertial issues are discussed or are a central theme it is much easier to create a brand new comic character and do it right from scratch instead of trying to shoehorn that issue into an existing comic with an already established fanbase.

Answer 2

theres an interesting question.

Well the way i understand comic book heros is this way.
Since you dont see any superheros per say (superman-batman,ext.) as homeless is that the creators either never thought of those as explainable or usefull backdrops for their characters, and since a superhero is all about working hard to save the other guy, it makes little sense that someone as hard working and reliable as that would make it a specific choise to live in the street.

On another note though, there ARE some superheros that have lived on the street and sometimes take refuge there from time to time (wolverine escapes on the open road living from place to place, rouge has been known to do the same thing).

Also, there are some superheros from impovershed countries, there just not that common, storm from the X-men comics came from a small village in africa if i remember correctly.

Sorry its been about 15 years since i picked up a comic :) , point being, a superhero can come from any walk of life you can think of, the vast majority of them though exist through constant strife and hardship with their hero work and as i stated before, its very unlikely that a superhero would not have the ability or determination to fight supervillans but not have the same ability and determination to find a stable place to reside.

Part of that is through their superhero mentality and the other part is simply the image that the superhero wants to maintain as an upstanding citizen, either through a simple life in a one room apartment, or a 300 room mansion.

Either way if you look hard enough there are those seldom few who arent born at the top, but ended up there through their characters effort for the morals that they attempt to instill in others.

<- true believer :)

Answer 3

There is no real reason why this couldn't be the case.
Characters like Shamrock (Ireland, which has a low National economy), La Bandera (from a 3rd World South American country), Storm (who spent much of her childhood in poverty), and others (let's not forget such street-level heroes as Falcon, Luke Cage, and Daredevil) all are examples.
Sub-Mariner spent a decade in amnesia, living in the Bowery.
Peter Parker routinely lived from paycheck-to-paycheck.
Iron Man (Tony Stark) lost his fortune nad lived on the street while battling alcoholism.
Gateway was an Australian Aborigine who lived in the Outback.
Denny O'Neil used to address issues of poverty in the fictional corrupt Hub City in his acclaimed The Question series. Greean Lantern/Green Arrow also covered a lot of these points.

The backdrop of poverty has been used as a plotline in comics often, although never for the full duration of a super-hero title.
Perhaps this is because super-hero comics tend to focus on more epic scale conflicts, and on the more ethereal concept of Good-vs-Evil rather than on more 'realistic' issues.
From a writers' standpoint, it has always been difficult to portray super-heroes as able to wipe out World Hunger, Poverty, Homelessness, etc, unless the stories were short-lived. Societal overhauls would be needed to address these issues by super-heroes, and then you get into stories about changing society and not about living in poverty. So, the story dynamics play a role as well.
After all, how do you blend in a story element like homelessness and child hunger into a Wolverine vs Sabertooth story?
When the FF visit the Kree homeworld, are any Kree homeless?
It's a matter of making all the story elements relevant to the adventure-based plot.

I think most writers write about places they know, and use characters based on personalities from their real lives. Jack Kirby was a fine example of this.
So the question becomes, How many comic book writers come from Third World countries?

Answer 4

In Kurt Busiek's Astro City, the trade paperback entitled "Confessions" shows heroes fromall over the world fighting off an alien invasion. In one panel, we see a group of heroes from India called The Unclean. The name isn't meant as an insult; it is just an acknowledgement of the leprosy problem that once plagued that nation.

Answer 5

Although it was quite some time ago, the 70's perhaps. Johnny Storm found Prince Namor, the Submariner, in a homeless shelter with amnesia. Also, Peter parker has fallen on hard times on occassion.

Answer 6

I don't think there is any rules on who qualifies as a Superhero. It sounds like you may have hit upon a good idea here. If you got the artistic talent maybe you should develop one. Good Luck

Answer 7

theres no rule saying it cant be a homeless person its just nobody has thought of using a homless person\ froma third world country to become a super hero.

Answer 8

Because people in this country dont care about the homeless. And who would buy a comic called Raja the raghead.

Answer 9

well......I think Green Lantern from JLA was just a poor soldier who got his powers ?!?

And have you seen Peter Parker aka spiderman 's home in the movie....sheeesh

Answer 10

There is no real reason of why not, except that it might affect sales