Marvel vs DC vs the accountants

Why a Performance-based Pay Scheme Should Be Introduced For Super Heroes

Too many smoko’s and not enough arresto’s

Performance based pay is all the rage. It’s been commonplace in professional sports contracts and the corporate world for decades. Recently, the NSW Premier Dom Perrottet flagged using it to ‘fix’ the public education system.

I say why stop there?

Surely everyone should have the same opportunities to be ripped off, exploited, and driven to working 20 hour days. I propose this scheme be enacted for our so-called ‘super heroes,’ who I suspect spend more time bludging then bludgeoning villains. Let’s see how they stack up.

Batman

Ok, so he has a shit ton of enemies that he has defeated. But Batman has been around since 1939, and he’s getting a little sloppy in his old age. The Joker’s recidivism rate is downright ridiculous. Why has Bruce Wayne Kerr failed to kill or capture him for good? I’m not sure if he’s lazy or just incompetent.

And it’s not just the Joker who gets the upper hand on ol’ Batty cakes. Check out this list of 15(!) villains who have beaten the Dark Shite to a pomegranate pulp. Deacon Blackfire was just a Charles Manson wannabe, but he managed to get the upper hand on Bat-Boyz2Men and even made him murder a dude. According to legitimate research (a university actually spent 7 years on this when they could have been solving world hunger) Batman is the weakest of all superheroes and may even die from leaping off a small fence.

It’s lucky for the Caped Persuader he’s one of the richest superheroes who ever lived. Cos I wouldn’t pay him a cent.

Spider-Man

The debate over who is better will rage on forever, much like Federer vs Nadal, or Pornhub vs Redtube. No matter which side of the fence you fall on, you have to agree Spider-Man has more natural abilities. And why the hell does he get a hyphen in his name? Is he the result of a marriage between a new-age man and an actual Spider? Batman is just a beefcake human with a few gadgets. Arachnosapien can do all the things regular humans do plus most of the shit spiders do. He can freaking stick to walls and shoot webs out of his hands. He has no excuse not to wipe criminality off the face of the earth forever.

With the new performance-based pay system, Peter Sharter would actually end up in debt for $14.34 million dollars.

Superman

What, you thought I forgot the most famous man to wear his underpants on the outside? Imagine if I had. The comic book nerds would have self-combusted much like the All-American poster boy can do himself when he senses nuclear war is the only option. Pooperman has even more powers than Spider Hyphen, so why the hell has some dweeb named Lex outsmarted him more times than Shart Bent can count up to? It’s like when the rich kid rocks up to the maths test with the fanciest calculator out of anyone, but is still too dumb to figure out how to open his pencil case.

All in all, the Man of Steel should be on the same pay scale as the Can of Aluminium is in Australia — 10 cents. It’s a one off payment.

Wonder Woman

Were you wondering when we would a arrive at a superhero without a cock? It could have taken a lot longer, considering only 12% of mainstream superhero comics have female protagonists.

Battling against these odds, Wonder Woman has forged a career over 75 years long, fought the Nazis, restored the multiverse and even transformed the world into a feminist utopia. That’s even more than Donald Trump managed as President, and he had the combined powers of the FBI, CIA and his wang on the job.

Fruit Boy

What, you never heard of fruit boy? This mean-arse banana bruiser had the terrifying power of causing fruit to ripen slightly quicker than normal. Turns out he got rejected from joining the big boy league but has made a serviceable career in the café scene ever since smashed avo became the national dish of hipsteralia.

Mantis

Mantis, according to Marvel, has ‘complete control over her body. This gives her peak human agility, the ability to accelerate healing through force of will, and an empathic nature enabling her to communicate telepathically with the Cotati and sense the emotions of others as psychic vibrations.’

Not being a huge comic book/superhero movie watcher (not sure if you could tell yet), I don’t know exactly who the ‘Cotati’ are, but I’m pretty sure this Tarot reader called Psychic Cylene I met at the travelling circus told me the exact same thing. She also told me their lion Landon was so drugged out he tried to fuck the seal and near drowned. Psychic Cylene seemed happy enough when I gave her $2.80 and my phone number, so it’s only fair that’s what Mantis should be paid too.

The rest of em? Every bloated company needs a restructure once in a while. Considering the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made a worldwide box office revenue of $22.9 billion, I think they can afford some decent severance packages.

Writing this article has taken hours upon hours of dedicated research. In return, I expect to receive at least 25 cents and a bunch of HATE MAIL. The last superhero movie I watched was ‘Daredevil,’ and I was so young at the time I genuinely believed Ben Affleck was a talented actor. I have since come to my senses (although ‘The Town’ did give me hope), but have yet to develop the faintest interest in watching one of the 18 superhero movies that are showing concurrently at every single cinema. I’m not sure exactly what it is about them that annoys me so much.

It could be that cartoon superheroes have as much chance as a fart in a gale of saving the world from the raging shitstorm of corrupt politicians and ravenous corporations bending the 99% over a Wall Street bench and ramming us full of iPhone updates.

Or maybe it’s just because I wish I wrote them.

Here’s a beautiful poem I did write:

Just remember kids and apes,

not all heroes wear colourful capes.

Those who wear capes

look young and free,

but most will stay virgins

til’ 43.

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