Just a thought...

[Vella_Malachite]

What would happen if we introduced Spiderman or Batman to a person they would define as a criminal (say, a woman whose house burned down and was forced to do something many people would prefer didn't exist to feed her children...and pinched a few items from purses to meet the needs of her starving family) but had no choice and was genuinely hard done by?

I mean, they are so darn black and white in their morals! If we introduced them to someone like that, how would they deal with it? Their standard reaction (AHHH!!! CRIMINAL!!! ARREST!!!!) clearly would not be appropriate in the circumstances. I would personally go for:

Spiderman:
"Oh...awkward...Let me attempt to help you with my superior morals and sense of civic responsibility"

Batman:
"Non-criminal criminals?"
*twitch, twitch*
*head explodes*:smallamused: :smalltongue:

What do other people think?

[Rare Pink Leech]

This probably belongs in the Comics forum.

Anyway, most superheroes aren't anal-retentive sociopaths who beat the living crap out of anyone who breaks the law. They're not going to deal with a prostitute, no matter why she's in the situation she is in. When they deal with "regular crime" (i.e., regular Joes who break the law, not some super-powered bad guy who wants to take over/destroy the city/country/world/whatever), it tends to be crime that hurts others: robbery, muggings/assaults, organized crime, attempted murders, etc.

Now the Punisher, on the other hand ....

[Hawriel]

Both have a history of helping peaple who commit crimes because of desperation. Honestly I cant recal Parker doing it, mostly because his writers put him in the middle of some big family drama or epic univers changing event. Batman has taken both men and wemon who have commited crime and taken them to halfway houses, set them up with jobs, and or they some how where found by a charity that helped them move to a better naborhood. All usualy funded in some way by Wayne Tech or some some other Wayne company.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah, I'm not overly familiar with Batman, but Animated Series Batman, at least, would probably put a fair amount of effort into helping the schmuck out, and be pleasantly surprised at not having to deal with yet another monomaniacal sociopath this week. Batman's perfectly willing to punch the hell out of the professional criminal, but crimes of desperation get, at worst, one beatdown followed by Wayne-financed rehabilitation. Skip the beatdown if they explain things to Bats instead of trying to fight.

Assuming they didn't go nuts from the verbal abuse and lame puns while he was tying them up, Spider-Man would probably make a one-issue storyline out of helping the crook get back on their feet legally. He can't throw money at them like Batman can, but he's got that heroic tenacity going for him.

[Icewalker]

Well, I can't speak of anything out of the comics, but from what I know of Spiderman's background, that isn't the kind of thing he would really deal with. (Assuming the movie is accurate) the reason he got into fighting crime was because when he let somebody steal stuff, the dude got away and killed someone he cared about, so he's trying to stop things like that from happening again, and probably wouldn't mess with more simple crimes like that.