Superhero Trials?

[Lorendiac]

Brian Cronin recently suggested, in effect, that some of my wide-ranging posts, ones that relate to the peculiarities of superhero comics -- without being tightly focused upon the nitpicking "continuity details" of a single character or larger universe -- might fit in well over on this forum.

(That may not be exactly how he phrased it, but that was the general idea, in context.)

I'm afraid I hadn't really paid much attention to this forum before, but I'm willing to post a query I came up with tonight, and see what happens! (The responses I get to my query, here and on other sites, may someday inspire a much longer and more thoughtful post on my part, but I'm not making any campaign promises! :))



I recently found myself wondering just how often superheroes have found themselves on trial for their alleged crimes. I decided to make it an open question to my fellow fans. Please mention any “superhero trial” stories you can think of!

A Few Ground Rules

1. The trial must have happened in a story that was “in continuity” when it was published. I will accept such examples even if it later got erased from continuity. For instance, if the Silver Age Superman ever got put on trial in a real court of law, then I’ll count that, even though any such story should have been wiped out by his Post-Crisis Reboot twenty years ago. On the other hand, I’m not interested in trials that only happened in a DC Elseworlds, or an old issue of one of Marvel’s “What If?” titles, or anything like that.

2. The trial could have happened anywhere, in a courtroom on Earth or on some other world entirely, but it must have been a “real” and “legal” trial by the standards of the established government that had jurisdiction in that time and place. Suppose a supervillain captures a hero and says mockingly, “I’m putting you on trial before I execute you!” (I believe this has been known to happen.) Unless the villain actually had “lawful authority” to conduct such a trial – as might be the case if Doctor Doom conducted a trial in Latveria while serving as its official Chief of State, for instance – then it doesn’t count for my purposes.

3. Just being publicly accused of a crime doesn’t count. Just being arrested doesn’t count. Even a civil lawsuit doesn't count. Likewise, a Congressional Hearing (or any type of “hearing”) is not the same thing as a "criminal trial." So please don’t remind me of the miniseries “America Vs. The Justice Society” from the mid-1980s. That case never went to trial!

4. Stories from any superhero universe, published by any company, are acceptable.

5. The hero could be on trial in his superhero identity or his civilian identity. Either way is fine, even if the judge had no idea the defendant was a superhero!

P.S. If you’re going to mention a trial, please tell us how it ended. Was the hero found guilty, or acquitted, or did the whole thing get interrupted in the middle and was never properly finished as far as we know, or what?

I'll just mention one example, to start the ball rolling. In the four-issue story arc of Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Dark Age, Book 1, we learned that, back in the early 1970s, the Silver Agent was charged with murder, arrested, pilloried in the media as I recall, tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and executed. All perfectly legal. Later it turned out he wasn't guilty after all, and everybody felt just awful about it.

[dancj]

I'll get a couple of obvious ones out of the way....


***** SPOILERS (obviously) ******
Barry Allen was put on trial for (I believe) killing Professor Zoom.

Matt Murdoch prosecuted Daredevil (ie: himself) in Bob Gale's run (which annoyingly never got collected in a trade).

I'm not sure how either trial turned out.

Also Superman was put on trial by aliens for some crime one of his ancestors might have committed in The Trial of Superman. I can't remember how that turned out either.

It's not quite a Superhero, but Abigale Cable was charged (though I'm not sure if the trial actually started) for bestiality with Swamp Thing. Batman convinced them to drop the charges unless they wanted to go after every other girlfriend of a non-human superhero - such as whatsisface - that guy in Metropolis.

Ambush Bug went on trial for something (can't remember what) and wound up being banished from the DC Universe

[suedenim]

Barry Allen was put on trial for (I believe) killing Professor Zoom.


Yes. And while it's pretty good as drama, the legal aspects of the story are abominable. It'd actually be hard to imagine a more clear-cut case of self-defense.

Which is an interesting legal side issue, by the way. As far as I know, as currently defined, the self-defense privilege (which includes defense of others) would actually give superheroes carte blanche to kill many criminals, because the key is the amount of force used by the perpetrator. You're not allowed to use deadly force in response to non-deadly force against an innocent. E.g., if a crook is throwing a punch at an innocent, you can't shoot the crook, but you can punch him. If a crook is shooting an innocent, deadly force is permitted in return.

With supers, the interesting wrinkle is that it doesn't matter whether the deadly force could hurt *him*. Under the law as it currently stands, if the Joker tries to shoot Jimmy Olsen, Superman could just incinerate him with his heat vision, and it'd be perfectly legal!

The law presumably might change in a world that actually has supers, but maybe not! Perhaps that explains all the wacky, but fairly non-violent, crimes crooks tried to pull in the Silver Age!

[founder81]

She-Hulk was put on trial for messing with the time stream in the recent Dan Slott series.

( I can't remember details and I just read it less then 2 weeks ago )

[Matthew E]

All-Star Squadron had a story where Robotman went to trial so the judge could determine whether he was legally human or not. As best I can remember it, anyway; I think there was more to it than that.

[Loren]

Now this is up my alley.

The Ultimates #3 (http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2005/03/ultimates-3-trial-of-incredible-hulk.html) had the trial of Bruce Banner.

JSA #76 (http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2005/09/jsa-76-trial-of-atom-smasher.html) had Atom Smasher pleading guilty to criminal charges. The issue erroneously presented this as a trial.

Loeb and Sale's Challs mini-series (http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2006/01/challengers-of-unknown-2-trial-of.html) put the Challs on trial. This rivals the trial of the Flash for worst depiction of a superhero trial.

Wonder Woman had some kind of trial in the Hague for killing Max Lord, and is about to be prosecuted again in the pages of "Manhunter."

Are you interested in super-villain trials too?

[Lorendiac]

Loeb and Sale's Challs mini-series (http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2006/01/challengers-of-unknown-2-trial-of.html) put the Challs on trial. This rivals the trial of the Flash for worst depiction of a superhero trial.

Sometime earlier this year (I think) I bought a copy of that TPB and read it for the first time. There were at least one or two things that nagged at me in the trial sequence toward the start, such as my severe doubts about whether Superman's "testimony" was actually material and relevant to the case at hand . . .


Wonder Woman had some kind of trial in the Hague for killing Max Lord, and is about to be prosecuted again in the pages of "Manhunter."

I haven't read the Hague trial yet, but I suppose I ought to before I try to post, say, any sort of "Master List of Superhero Trials" or whatever I end up doing with this data.


Are you interested in super-villain trials too?

Not unless the supervillain had previously served as a superhero for awhile. (For instance, I'm not interested in Magneto's trial back around "Uncanny X-Men #200," because at that time he was not and never had been considered a superhero, regardless of the phase he went through after that trial!)

[Gordon Smith]

Would a superhero on trial in his civilian identity be eligible? I seem to recall that Peter Parker once went on trial as an accused serial killer during the wretched Clone Saga debacle.

And Namor's trial from the John Byrne era?

I alsso distinctly recall that the Hulk was captured, put on trial and defended by Matt Murdock in a story from the 1970's. What about him?

[Lorendiac]

Would a superhero on trial in his civilian identity be eligible? I seem to recall that Peter Parker once went on trial as an accused serial killer during the wretched Clone Saga debacle.

And Namor's trial from the John Byrne era?

I alsso distinctly recall that the Hulk was captured, put on trial and defended by Matt Murdock in a story from the 1970's. What about him?

Those all sound fine for my purposes. I think I own a full run of Byrne's work on Namor, but somehow I'm blanking out on any "trial story" in that period. I'll have to dig into my collection and refresh my memory of the details.

But yeah, if the defendant is (or used to be) a superhero, then any story that has him on trial is fair game, whether or not the people prosecuting him know that he is a superhero. What is important is that we fans know, for the shock value! :)

[Tommy]

In Fantastic Four #261 Reed Richards is put on trial by the entire Universe with Lilandra of the Shi'ar acting as judge. He was on trial for the mass murder of seven or eight billion Skurlls who had been killed when Galactus ate their planet after Reed saved his life. It ended with Reed being declared not guilty since the Watcher, Odin, Eternity, and Galactus himself showed up in Reed's defense. Basically Galactus was an important aspect of the universe and was necessary.

[suedenim]

I vaguely remember a running subplot in some '80s Spider-Man comics where Peter Parker got into trouble for "vigilante justice" or somesuch due to stopping some criminal while in his Peter Parker identity. My memory's hazy on the details, I'm thinking it probably never actually went to trial, and was more a Daily Bugle subplot (i.e., the paper's anti-vigilanteism stand vs. the actions of its freelance photographer.) The whole setup was kinda lame, too, as I recall, but it might be worth checking out for legal ramifications.

[founder81]

Vance Astrovick (Justice of the New Warriors) was triad for murdering his father. The story was centered around just how much control he had over his powers. It was decided that he could have stopped his father without lethal force and was sent to prison. New Warriors 20ish - 25. When he got out of prison is when he adopted the name Justice. He got out I believe around ish 35 or so.

[brundlefly]

Would a superhero on trial in his civilian identity be eligible? I seem to recall that Peter Parker once went on trial as an accused serial killer during the wretched Clone Saga debacle.



I seem to recall him also getting sprung from prison by Judas Traveller and then put on trial as Spider-Man, with Traveller acting as the judge and the inmates of Ravencroft as the jury. Between the two of those, one of them's got to count.

[Johnny Triangles]

Sometime earlier this year (I think) I bought a copy of that TPB and read it for the first time. There were at least one or two things that nagged at me in the trial sequence toward the start, such as my severe doubts about whether Superman's "testimony" was actually material and relevant to the case at hand . . .


Only one or two things? I read that trade last week, the whole trial from beginning to end was utterly wretched. First off, the prosecution never even makes a case! Plus, the defense starts the trial and puts on its own witnesses first. Nobody actually talks about the underlying event they're being tried for, which is the explosion, and instead focuses on whether the Challs, and superheroes in general, are good people. That's a ridiculous focus, they could be the biggest scumbags on earth, but that doesn't mean they're responsible for that specific explosion they're being tried for. None of the testimony is relevant to whether they caused the explosion. And the Superman testimony was just a cheesy attempt by Loeb to recreate the final scene from A Time To Kill, except instead of the killer last line being "Now imagine she was white," the line is "After all, you believe a man can fly."

Horrible.

[icctrombone]

The Avengers were put on trial for aiding and abetting the escape of Captain Marvell in the prelude to the Kree Skrull war. Issue #92 V.1.

[Lorendiac]

Only one or two things? I read that trade last week, the whole trial from beginning to end was utterly wretched. First off, the prosecution never even makes a case! Plus, the defense starts the trial and puts on its own witnesses first. Nobody actually talks about the underlying event they're being tried for, which is the explosion, and instead focuses on whether the Challs, and superheroes in general, are good people. That's a ridiculous focus, they could be the biggest scumbags on earth, but that doesn't mean they're responsible for that specific explosion they're being tried for. None of the testimony is relevant to whether they caused the explosion. And the Superman testimony was just a cheesy attempt by Loeb to recreate the final scene from A Time To Kill, except instead of the killer last line being "Now imagine she was white," the line is "After all, you believe a man can fly."

Horrible.

Well, your memory of it is obviously a lot fresher than mine. I don't really remember much about that trial except the Superman sequence where he walks in, admits he doesn't really know the Challengers, makes it clear he doesn't claim to have been watching what happened right before the explosion, and then rambles on about heroism, etc., anyway, as if his ramblings had anything to do with judging guilt or innocence in this case.

I may have assumed, at the time I read it, that the prosecution's case was simply being skipped over between one page and the next. I used to watch the TV show "The Practice," so I've gotten used to only seeing a few minutes of "the highlights" of a complicated court case that presumably dragged on for days. I may have thought the others were "character witnesses" meant to throw doubt on the idea that the Challengers would have deliberately risked the lives of the entire community. I don't know much about the rules relating to "character witnesses," but it did occur to me at the time that Superman didn't even have that excuse.

As to "A Time to Kill," I've never read the book and never seen the movie (and I don't think the movie came out until well after the Challengers miniseries anyway), so I can't comment on any possible parallels.

[Sean Whitmore]

The White Tiger was put on trial in the pages of Bendis' Daredevil. He was stopping an electronics store robbery where the robbers had killed a cop, and was caught by the police with a television in his hands (which had been thrown at him, I think). He was found guilty, freaked out, and tried to escape the courtroom, only to be shot down.


SEAN

[icctrombone]

Don't remember if it was mentioned but I think that the Hulk was on trial during the Trimpe run. Also , it's almost cheating to mention the daredevil book because he's a trial lawyer.