Microtrends: Real-life superheroes

Orignially posted: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3652004.ece

Worried that the world is going to hell? Why not slip on a pair of tights and a mask and do something about it?

By Michael Moran
April 5, 2008

Many of us bemoan the weakening of social cohesion that has led to an explosion of petty crime on our streets. Very few complainants, though, are inspired to don a superhero costume and patrol our cities to combat the burgeoning unpleasantness.

However, that might be about to change, with the advent of the real-life superheroes. Citizen Prime (above) is the most convincing of the bunch, patrolling the streets of Phoenix, Arizona, in his impressive custom-made armour. Further down the budgetary scale come Terrifica, who offers safe-sex advice to tipsy female clubgoers in New York, and the Big O, from Tunbridge Wells, who stops hooligans vandalising hanging baskets or defacing tea-shop frontages.

Hundreds of costumed crime fighters are listed on The World Heroics Database and the World Superhero Registry – but their biggest problem is that not one of them currently has an arch-enemy listed on their profile.

Sadly, without a stock of supervillains, real-life superheroes are little more than a particularly flamboyant Neighbourhood Watch