Hey, everybody!
I thnk I need some feedback on an aspect of my heroes' activities, that of their relationships to the govornments of the cities and towns they operate in. The hero I'm mainly dealing with this is in a title that is a sort-of throwback to the 1940s. He's not exactly courting their support, but he is offering to help in a crisis. The police have been taking the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' approach and accepting his help, but I see other parts of the govornment (such as the DA's office) objecting to his actions. Any thoughts?
Replies
Gentlemen: Thank you both for your input. To answer Mr. Lintz' question, it could go either way. My hero is in part inspired by the pulps, so he could find himself facing more gothic horror or 'things man was not meant to know', which is beyond the average policeman's purview. He is also in part inspired by the golden age of comic books and the old hard-boiled private eye novels, so his dealings with the police and the local govornment would be a bit more important. Mr. Sparling, I actually have several ideas for the sort of character you have suggested, in not only the DA's office (a hard-nosed antagonistic DA who shares his views and actually goes to church to him in his secret identity), a crooked judge, a policeman who is his ally, a cynical policeman who is still willing to do the job, a crooked cop and a cop who is part of the conspiracy my hero is fighting, as well as their analogues in the DA's office, on the bench as well as in the media.
Your description of the city's law enforcement containing several points of view is both plausible and interesting. Just remember that readers, and even more so comic fans, connect more strongly to people rather than governments or philosophies. Design a dynamic character in the DA's office to represent the DA-viewpoint and another captivating character in the precinct-office to represent the more practical cop-viewpoint. Representing viewpoints as colorful attitudes is much more interesting.
Is your hero's relationship going to be a large part of his/her character and the storylines?
It could go either way, of course (sometimes Batman is fighting villains and sometimes he is dodging the police) but how central is the hero/government relationship going to be to your story?