Thursday, June 18, 2015

what's your damage, superhero?

"hey, jake from state farm? what's my insurance coverage for... uh... superhero collateral damage?"

i can't be the only one who thinks about this.


i am a huge marvel fan. i saw the avengers five times in theatres. the amazing spiderman? four times. (that one is my favourite.) i finally saw the incredible hulk this year. both captain americas. all three iron mans. iron men? x-men, even though that's like... a different universe and the timeline is all screwed up.

of course, as you read in my last post, i'm really into daredevil.

i really like superheroes and superhero movies.


but there are sooo many things that i think about when i watch superhero movies.

the two most important things are these:

1. nobody knows how to take care of injuries?! I'M LOOKING AT YOU, MAGNETO.
2. WHAT ABOUT ALL THE DAMAGE?

the first marvel movie that i really thought about this, the damage part, was iron man. obadiah in his big-ass suit picks up an entire car and is prepared to throw it with a woman and children inside. as he does so, he says, "collateral damage, tony!"

iron man saves them, which is cool, but a hell of a lot of cars get smashed up and a bus gets flipped over.

then stark industries blows up.

now, there's the amazing spiderman. not much happens for a while, but then there's cars? hanging off a bridge? held on my spiderman's web shooting stuff? not to mention the cars that the lizard throws around.

"hey, this is emily and i was wondering exactly how i'm going to get my car down from hanging off this bridge. i didn't put it there. like... if i let it fall in the river do i get a new one?" -- me to my insurance agent.

when i got in my car accident last year, i hit a guard rail and cracked my bumper pretty badly. i also lost a tire. i asked my dad if i needed to make an insurance claim and he said no, i don't have collision insurance because my van is too old and past the point of needing outside repairs.

i don't know much about insurance, but i know that i don't have collision insurance.

so what on earth would happen if a giant mutant lizard threw my van off a bridge? who's gonna pay for that?

and that's just like, me personally. what about intense damage like at the end of the movie?

oscorp tower is a big, tall, expensive building.

spiderman and dr. connors COMPLETELY WRECK IT AND ALL THE BUILDINGS AROUND IT.

not even thinking about the billions of dollars that's going to take to fix, there were people in there.

i can't be the only person who thinks about this.

what about the avengers? good LORD the damage that's done in those movies is absolutely ludicrous, starting right at the beginning where an entire military base is LEVELLED.

then, at the end, with the attack on new york? billions of dollars of damage. clint crashes a small helicarrier into a bank. that giant sea slug fish thing? that thing probably flattens at least fifty buildings.

don't even get me started on the chitari raining from the sky and blowing shit up.

and the hulk? get that under control, bruce.

in age of ultron he wrecks a few buildings in brazil, if i remember correctly. he's also notorious for "breaking harlem".

daredevil actually uses the MCU (marvel comics universe) to its advantage as it discusses hell's kitchen, where matt murdock lives. it was essentially flattened in the battle of new york in the avengers and it's on the rebound after the catastrophic damage.

nice move, marvel.

last week, adam and i watched captain america: the winter soldier . adam hadn't seen it yet.

its most impressive feature is all of the amazing car scenes.

what is it with superheroes flinging cars around?

in winter soldier, nobody's flinging cars around, but people are blowing them up and running into them. nick fury, in his pimped out yukon (there is so much chevy product placement in that movie) bulldozes over at least a dozen cars. there's a myriad of car accidents that is SURE to leave about fifty people dead in that scene alone.

then there's the whole highway montage with the winter soldier. cars are flung into buses, cars get blown up, cars fly off bridges.

these aren't just cars, people. they aren't just on the road minding their own business.

there are PEOPLE in these cars. people that are now dead.

adam and i snuggled and began a little game of watching all of the damage and saying, "whoomp, he dead" every time damage was done that would've killed someone.

it eventually got to the point where it way too much and we had to stop.

you could turn that into a drinking game if you want to end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.

"drink every time a person you never see driving a vehicle dies in captain america! beware of hangover."

on top of the probably hundreds of people that died in that movie, what about the three helicarriers exploding into each other? they also like... destroyed SHIELD, which was one of the most expensive buildings in the world.

superheroes gotta tone it down, man.

the one movie that i've seen this addressed is in the disney movie the incredibles.



yes, the incredibles. the most underrated disney movie of all time, besides the hunchback of notre dame.

at the beginning of the incredibles, bob and helen (coincidentally, those are my grandparents on my dad's side) as mr. incredible and elastigirl are off saving the day and doing their thing. but superheroes are driven into hiding and anonymity as taxpayers begin to complain about raising taxes for all the shit that superheroes cause.

"our taxes went up because mr. incredible threw some cars and levelled a building. i won't stand for it anymore!"

that was some real shit right there. unhappy taxpayers.

i mean, i don't ever think i'll find myself in my van while it hangs off a bridge. i don't think a giant mutant lizard will toss it off a bridge and spiderman will save it and attach it to the bridge and i'll just be like, chillin' there. i doubt that will happen.

but what if we did live in a world with superheroes and the avengers and captain america accidentally killing people to escape from the winter soldier? what if bruce banner actually did level buildings when he got angry? what if you happened to be cashing your pay cheque when hawkeye just freakin' rammed a helicarrier into your bank?

we might want to live in a world with superheroes, but i don't know man, it seems risky.

and i don't want adam to get jealous that i'm talking to jake from state farm trying to figure out what to do when iron man blows up my van.

"hey, jake from state farm? yeah. i have another claim... no this time it was the hulk. my van? oh, it's stuck in the side of a building."


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