I remember the Netflix Marvel shows always had weird takes on this where they simultaneously insisted that cops shouldn't ever do anything illegal but also vigilante justice is absolutely necessary to stop crime.
So there's an episode (I think of Luke Cage) where a police detective quits her job, does a bunch of extrajudicial violence, and then gets rehired as a cop the next episode after she's done doing illegal stuff so it doesn't technically depict an active officer of the law being a vigilante.
Yup, rewatched Civil War recently, and was disappointed that it frames Tonys take on how the Avengers need oversight and cant keep being a self governing organization as the misguided side of things. That take really hasn’t aged well.
Sure, Caps counter point of “the people in-charge of oversight can have agendas” isn’t entirely invalid, but rather than try to work out a system of checks and balances, he just goes full “fuck it!” And does his own thing. Geo political hijinks ensue.
(I know its not literally about cops; but the core theme of ‘all that stuff oversight stuff just impedes the good guys from doing their job” was on full display, cranked to 11)
I feel like some context is needed here. Civil War takes place after Wimter Soldier, where Hydra literally infiltrated the most secretive military in the world and then got mere minutes away from killing every last person in America that could stop them.
So in Captain America's mind he is absolutely 100% proven right every time because Hydra exists and he has made it his life mission to kill them. So from Captain America's perspective Stark was basically trying to make SHEILD again and be vulnerable to being infiltrated again and having direct access to the Avengers again, the exact thing that caused the world to almost be ruled by Hydra.
To in all honesty Captain America is right, their world is simply too dangerous to have a government run the crisis management super heros because it concentrated far too much power there and naturally attracted those who wanted to exploit it, just like in real life. Not only that, the more checks and balances you put in the way of a crisis and first responders the more people will die due to wasting time with paperwork. Not only that, regulations would not have stopped civilian casualties from happening like Stark thought it would, there was no amount of peoer work that would save those people. That is just war, it will always happen if there is combat, that is just the reality. If you don't want civilian deaths than you better find a way to end all war. (Ultron)
So yeah, there is an argument to be made that the more you put government agencies to manage somthing the more likely it is going to be corrupted eventually. That's just government. There is not amount of checks and balances that will be able to stop that, because there will always be loopholes, and people will always cheat and do illegal actions to get past it anyway. You cannot red tape away corruption, the American government has proved this time and again as an institution that was made to do exactly that, and it failed.
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u/TheBurningEmu 19h ago
Copaganda shows basically always have some instance of the police breaking the law to get the perp but it's framed as a good thing.