Alright, I just finished issue #1.
I love these little thought experiments, so I sat and thought about this one for a long time. (Probably longer than I should have.) I don’t know if I’ve come to a dead set conclusion, but here are my thoughts:
All the goals of this legislation sound good, so all you need to ask are 1) are these goals attainable? and 2) will the law, as it is written, have this effect?
The first goal of the registration bill is to end the ‘wild west’ status quo as someone put it. But the first thing that comes to my mind is that in the wild west you had a situation exactly like what they are calling for. You had paid lawmen who were supposedly accountable, but in the end we’re often just as corrupt and brutal as the culture that produced them. Slapping a badge on someone and putting a government seal on their paycheck, didn’t make the west less bloody or violent.
So what effects would I see this having?
Well, the first obvious effect was mentioned by Spider-Man. Namely, it's now open season on every newly-unmasked superhero, his family, and everyone he ever knew. Maybe a glimpse of what would be to come is the revenge killings you see on former Baath party members in Iraq. And then you have tit-for-tat revenge attacks, as we've seen in the southern Shiite provinces. Then you have escalation. Because as you see in past war torn regions like Darfur or Rwanda, for every son killed, you have an angry father, for every dead wife, you have a vengeful husband. They all demand blood for their loss. And now, with this bill, you introduce a destabilizing element into a world populated by superhumans, where revenge doesn't come in the form of a hit squad in the middle of the night. It comes in the form of someone who can take out city blocks. Not the best idea...
Second, so previously you had superhumans who did what they did, knowing they would neither get credit nor glory for their actions. It was a thankless job that no one asked for. But what would happen when you take that away? Are celebrities any better behaved because we know their real names? Are congressmen, who are our public servants? A bad sign of what might follow, could ironically might be the event that spawned this crisis: the New Warriors and their desperate stunt to try and get themselves some publicity and popularity. Now take that, and multiply that by a few thousand. Remember, in the old west, everyone was trying to make a name for themselves.
Third, as Cap alluded to, basically the government now has the control over who can use his powers and who can't. Suddenly the US government pulls the strings for every superhuman residing in the US. Rather than ensure that superhumans will work for the public good, all you have is a situation that will ensure that they work for the good of their government, who they now answer to. Holding them accountable is a nice idea, but when has having a public face ever meant someone was accountable? So where is the check, where is the balance here? Supervillains are now who Bush says they are.
What is meant by ‘training’ isn’t clear, and I think it could be a two-edged sword. You can train someone to be more careful, or you can train someone to be more lethal. What you can’t train someone to do is be more responsible, or more compassionate or selfless, or less corruptible when given new authority.
Whenever someone proposes a change, the burden of proof is on them to show that they offer a better alternative. I’m not seeing it here. I see different problems introduced, not solutions to existing ones.
So, until I’m convinced…
