10 Legal Problems Superheroes Don't Like To Talk About
9. Flying Across Borders Could Be A Criminal Offence
A multitude of superpowered characters have travel-based powers - hey, it’s a big old world out there, an even bigger galaxy, and the universe itself contains 100 billion of those galaxies. That’s big. It’ll take more than a mighty leap to get across that.
The Flash, Quicksilver and any number of other speedsters can run faster than the speed of sound, fast enough to run across water. Then there are those that teleport, or that create portals that connect two points in space-time. Finally, and most common, you’ve got the vast numbers of superheroes that are capable of flying really, really fast.
Let’s take the latter for a moment. There are national and international regulations and laws that govern air travel. The Federal Aviation Authority is in charge of regulating America’s access to the sky, including airspeed and altitude restrictions. You have to believe that a flying man is going to be covered by civil aviation legislation and guidelines - especially one who’s capable of flying through things like buildings, monuments and other flying objects and smashing them to pieces.
Planes aren’t supposed to fly low over or through cities - why are people? When you’re a human guided missile, people need to know when you’re fannying about in the wide blue yonder in case a plane hits you - and it’s likely the FAA would insist that you pass the same kind of tests that commercial pilots do, and obtain the same kind of licence to do what you do.
After all, just because you’re physically capable of flight doesn’t mean your eyesight is hot enough, or that you’re even particularly good at flying - and hey, why not think about filing a flight plan before you wing off into the path of a dozen 747s who are all supposed to be there?
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at border control. When Superman flies from Metropolis to, I dunno, Kahndaq or Vlatava or Corto Maltese, he’s flying through airspace owned by those countries, and he’s doing so without their consent. That’s not just illegal, that’s potentially an act of war - and he could easily be considered an extraterrestrial invader, if you want to get technical about it.
Magik, Nightcrawler - hell, Wikipedia has a list of Marvel characters that can teleport that covers ninety-three (93) individuals, and you can be sure that’s not a complete list because it’s Wikipedia. Governments frown on people who can travel anywhere they like without passports, visas or customs checks, and who may be carrying all sorts of weapons and devices that wouldn’t be allowed into the country if they travelled via commercial airline.
Technically, DC’s Raven can teleport anywhere in the world she likes… she really should just make a pitstop with her passport at a border crossing point first.